The film would follow Houdini as he tries to reveal a spiritual woman as a fraud, only to get sucked in by her mystique, eventually falling for her charms and possibly getting conned. Frank has cut his teeth on Minority Report and Out of Sight earlier, so he’s proven adept at adapting, if not creating original work. Again, the script hasn’t been written yet, but Frank’s previous work includes Marley & Me, so let’s not hold our breaths for a happy ending. (THR)

Water for Elephants has great production value. It’s a period piece that takes you back to Depression era circus road shows like old time Hollywood productions. It’s also just like all the other historical epic romances. Coming of age, forbidden romance, oppressive older generation and present day bookends because nobody thinks they can just start the story in the past.

Jacob Jankowsky (Hal Hobrook and then Robert Pattinson) wanders up to a closed circus in present day and starts telling the story of how he remembered the great Benzini Bros. tragedy of 1931. Back in ’31, Jacob (Pattinson now) had everything going for him, about to graduate Cornell veterinary school, until his parents die in an automobile accident.

The banker is blatantly insensitive, criticizing Jacob’s generous father for helping people without pay. That’ll teach him to put a lien on his business for his son’s tuition. Jacob hops a train that happens to be the Benzini Brothers’. August (Christoph Waltz) gives Jacob a Training Day about the circus, only it’s over the course of the movie so it’s not really a Day.

August’s wife Marlena (Reese Witherspoon) is the star performer, an acrobat who works with the horse Silver Star. Jacob’s first act as circus vet is to put Silver Star down, so he bonds with Marlena over that heartbreak. Marlena already hates her husband, and rightfully so because he’s abusive, but it’s just artificially constructing a “forbidden” love. Except for a mutual affection for animals, Marlena and Jacob don’t have any real connection. They’re just there to be the romance.

Every theme in the movie is spelled out for you. The college boy has no real world experience. The boss works people and animals to death, literally. Did you forget the bookend with old Jacob? There’s a tragedy coming too.

To replace Silver Star, August buys Rosie the elephant. Rosie does some amazing stunts in one take, some with Witherspoon doing acrobatics herself. It’s just dressing up a domestic abuse story. August gets violent with Rosie and then cries apologetically. Jacob tries to save Marlena like she’s Rose in Titanic. Still, when Jacob threatens August’s life, I never for a moment believed he was going to go there.

By the time we see the tragic circus disaster, it’s revealed already in progress which is an interesting way to present it. Water for Elephants actually has the ending I wanted Titanic to have, but no, I never wanted it as saccharin as the final bookend makes it.

Director: Francis Lawrence

Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, Christopher Waltz, Hal Holbrook

Synopsis: A veterinary student abandons his studies after his parents are killed and joins a traveling circus as their vet.

Release Date: April 22, 2011

This time, LaGravenese will pen the film version of Laura Hillenbrand‘s Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption for Universal. Boring title, great sounding true story.

Unbroken is about Olympic athlete / Air Force pilot Louis Zamperini. (It’s hard to think of two cooler occupations to top a resume.) He was on the 1936 U.S. Olympic track team, and proved to be an amazing survivor. When his plane was shot down into the ocean, he spent 47 days in the water before getting picked up by the Japanese Navy. Then Zamperini did time in a Japanese POW camp, where he was brutally tortured. After he was freed, then he suffered through a long bout with post-traumatic stress disorder, but managed to survive that with help from evangelist Billy Graham and his wife.

And I complain when they don’t have the right kind of nacho cheese at Ralph’s. (Hollywood Reporter)

Francis Lawrence is at the helm of a period biopic about the late wizard for Sony. Wait. He’s not a superhero and he doesn’t have a wise-cracking buddy? Booooooring.

I will say that all of these projects could be good news for Robin Williams. Look at that newspaper illustration. Dude, is straight up Mork! Of course, should they not consider Williams for the role that would be a pretty big insult. If he gets sad and climbs up into that tree house that the Jack production designer let him keep, it may be weeks before we get him to come down. (Variety)

Here’s another trailer for the Robert Pattinson / Reese Witherspoon romantic period drama Water For Elephants. In the trailer, we see that Pattinson’s parents both die suddenly, so naturally my first reaction was, “does he become a Batman?” Sadly, no. The would-be doctor joins the circus, makes the wife of the circus boss (Witherspoon) a Team Edward die-hard and trouble ensues. Director Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend) helmed the adaptation of author Sara Gruen’s book.

Water For Elephants drives its clown car into theaters April 22nd. Will Twilight fans in theaters scream “Bella” every time Pattinson kisses Witherspoon? It’s a risk I’m not interested in taking.

If you’ve ever thought, “it’d be fun to beat the shit out of Robert Pattinson,” you’ll be jealous of a few lucky actors cast in Water For Elephants. Directed by Francis Lawrence’s (I Am Legend), co-starring Reese Witherspoon, Pattinson tells an Entertainment Tonight reporter (ugh) that he’s gonna get his sparkly vampire butt kicked in the film.

Anytime there’s any sort of love scene or anything, I always end up getting beaten up… Our most romantic moment [in the movie] is me getting beaten up by about ten guys.

If you can withstand the full-on “glitz” of ET – I literally cringed all the way through – you can see the whole interview above.

If you’d rather see Legally Blonde get into a cat fight, that may or may not happen to Pattinson’s new love interest in the movie. However, in real life, hundreds of crazy Team Edward tweens are probably waiting for Witherspoon to let her guard down in a parking lot, where they will mercilessly pounce on her, attempt to suck her blood, then get tazed by her bodyguard, who was just in the Starbucks for, like, a second.

Below is the synopsis for Water For Elephants, stampeding over Pattinson and into theaters soon. (Collider)

Veterinary school student Jacob (Pattinson) meets and falls in love with Marlena (Witherspoon), a star performer in a circus of a bygone era. They discover beauty amidst the world of the Big Top, and come together through their compassion for a special elephant. Against all odds – including the wrath of Marlena’s charismatic but dangerous husband, August (Christopher Waltz) – Jacob and Marlena find lifelong love.