Nicolas Cage will help Werner Herzog with his remake of the 1992 cult hit ‘Bad Lieutenant.’ Originally played by Harvey Keitel, he will play a corrupt cop who spends most of his time doing drugs and having sex. Doesn’t sound too bad right?

Pressman Film Corp. will produce the new picture for financier Nu Image / Millennium Films, with production starting in July. Producer Avi Lerner also wants to note they will put in ‘as much filth as the original.’

In this day and age I’d say it wouldn’t be that hard to beat a movie from 1992 in filth, but I can’t say, since I didn’t have the honor to see the original.

As if our friend Steve Mason heard our call for some early ‘Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ tracking numbers, here are the first numbers 9 days before its box office release.

Un-Aided Awareness: 15%
Definite Interest: 63%
First Choice: 28%

Now let’s compare them to the ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ tracking numbers from yesterday — keep in mind this movie is releasing this week and should relatively track higher.

Un-Aided Awareness: 11% (-4)
Definite Interest: 42% (-21)
First Choice: 14% (-14)

As you can see, tracking numbers for ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ are high overall. It will likely be the biggest opening this year thus far. I’m not sure about it having a $160+ million weekend, but it’s certainly pushing the movie into the $150 million direction. A number that will presumably make Steven Spielberg a very happy man.

We didn’t expect the box office record breaking ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′ to take this long to get a sequel. Actually, Weinstein Co., the original production company, made the announcement at the end of 2004, but nothing came out of it. Now Overture Films and Paramount Vantage have picked up the rights to what is currently called ‘Fahrenheit 9/11 1/2.’

The original $6 million ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′ was wildly popular for a documentary, making over $220 million worldwide. But the sequel won’t be a sequel in the traditional sense. “This is going to tackle what’s going on in the world, and America’s place in it,” Vantage chief Nick Meyer said. “Fahrenheit 9/11 was really about one event — what led up it and what the consequences were. This is much broader,” Danny Rosett of Overture Films said.

Michael Moore’s new movie is expected to hit theaters in the second half of 2009.

More ‘The Incredible Hulk’ pics have made it onto the web. I wonder if the $125 million superhero can make the impact ‘Iron Man’ had. We know how they tried to shake off the ‘Hulk’ failure image of 2003, but I’m not sure everybody has forgotten. Not to mention the amount of competition, when it launches June 13.

Poor Steven Spielberg. He was totally bummed out when all the ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ spoilers started filling the internet, scared it wouldn’t make the $400 million it needs to make him some money — the man is worth an estimated $2.7 billion. Luckily George Lucas was there to assure him people would still want to see the movie for Spielberg’s interpretation.

It seems like in every other interview with Spielberg and Lucas, there are some words about how irritated Spielberg was about the spoilers. I still have no idea why he cares this much about some people reading some spoilers on the net. I’m sure not even 1% of his audience read it, let alone withhold them from seeing the movie. Or is it because there’s just not much else to talk about?

Here are some new ‘War, Inc.’ shots, the $10 million anti war movie with John Cusack. The ‘politically incorrect feature’ was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this month and will see a limited release May 23.

“I know they always do big billboards in L.A., but let’s do them all over,” Steven Spielberg said. In their quest to seek the ultimate buzz for ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,’ Paramount is placing 2,000 billboards all over the nation, with their focus on L.A. Places like Sunset and Vine have buildings with ads plastered on all four sides of the building.

“L.A. in many cases is 10 percent of our boxoffice, so it’s a great market for billboards,” executive vice president advertising and marketing Steve Siskind said. They are going for total domination, with the message spreading over two billboards if possible. “I guess it’s kind of a trains, planes and automobiles strategy,” he said.

With a little over a week to go, the buzz should be here. I have the feeling the internet is lightly indifferent about the movie. Some early reviews have been quite tame, although not overly negative. I’m hoping for some early tracking numbers this week.

These photos are (probably secretly) taken on the set of the game adaptation ‘Max Payne.’ While most movies based on video games aren’t worth it (Uwe Boll anyone?), the involvement of Mark Wahlberg, ‘The Shield’ creator ‘Shawn Ryan’ and some promising source material makes this one to keep an eye on.

‘Max Payne’ will be released October 17 this year.

Cory Edwards, who is currently working on ‘Hoodwinked 2: Hood vs. Evil,’ will be directing a ‘Fraggle Rock’ musical feature for TWC. Weinstein Co. has been pushing TWC to make more family orientated movies. “One of our main priorities when we first launched the Weinstein Company was to feature a broad range of family-friendly franchises like Fraggle Rock,” Weinstein said. The picture will again focus on the main characters’ interaction with humans, who they think are all aliens.

Director Cory Edwards debuted strongly with ‘Hoodwinked!’ in 2006. The animation not nearly had the high standards of a studio like Pixar or DreamWorks, but it made over $50 million in the US with a budget of just $15 million. For the sequel ‘Hoodwinked 2: Hood vs. Evil,’ Harvey Weinstein said to have doubled the budget to $30 million, still fairly low compared to its competition.