Continuing his obsessive quest to take the finest slasher films the 1970s and 80s had to offer and update them for an ADD-addled teen audience eager to see the stars of their favorite The CW melodramas eviscerated in a budget-conscious fashion on their local multiplex's big screen, leading Hollywood re-envisionary Michael Bay has convinced New Line to allow him to run the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise through his Platinum Dunes dream-despoiling factory.

Proving once again that his finger is firmly on the pulse of what is hot in other countries, in the decades before his network slid into fourth place, or at the multiplex three months ago, NBC's perfect TV executive storm Ben Silverman has made yet another bold programming move that should shame his overly cautious, Idol-dependent, Cavemen-greenlighting rivals: according to Variety, his Peacock is bringing back Knight Rider, preparing a two-hour backdoor pilot that will reintroduce audiences to an updated series about the love between a man and his sassy, wisecracking supercar.

· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Unoriginality Is Easy As 1-2-3 Edition: Denzel Washington will star in director Tony Scott's sure-to-be incomprehensible remake of The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3, assuming a role originally played by Walter Matthau and not-so-memorably reprised by Edward James Olmos in a 1998 made-for-TV version. [Variety]
· NBC throws money at big-name screenwriters for its Heroes: Origins spinoff, signing up X2/Superman Returns co-writer Michael Dougherty and Hostel's Eli Roth to script episodes tackling the backstory issues of the hit series' characters, such as why Ali Larter's evil reflection is so angry all the time. [THR]
· Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac will star in the Dimension comedy Soul Men, a project that regrettably is in no way related to the classic, similarly titled C. Thomas Howell/Rae Dawn Chong self-tanning farce of 1986. [Variety]
· The Family Guy's Very Special Star Wars-Themed Episode posts a "strong" performance in its ultimately doomed Nielsen attack against NBC's Sunday Night Football. [THR]
· Kevin Spacey will return to TV (well, sort of) after a 16-year hiatus, starring in HBO's Recount as the Gore campaign chief of staff who challenged the disputed balloting in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. [Variety]

· Because that weekend-house mortgage isn't going to pay itself, Don Cheadle signs on for the Emma Roberts vehicle Hotel for Dogs (plot more or less self-explanatory). [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Recycling Lightcycles Edition: Newly assigned Logan's Run director Joseph Kosinski is in "final negotiations to develop and direct" a new Tron movie from a top-secret idea by two Lost writers, a cutting-edge take rumored to involve Tron Guy's efforts to escape the YouTubes after being digitized into the viral video world by the evil Master Control Program. [THR]
· Fear of the looming labor apocalypse leads Roman Polanski to withdraw from his megabudgeted Pompeii project. [Variety]
· Cinea discontinues production of the magical, privacy-preventing DVD player that could play enchanted Oscar screeners issued by the MPAA's copyright-respecting wizards. [THR]
· Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson's Dreamgirls catfighting experience should come in handy on the set of the Sex and the City movie, where she'll play Carrie Bradshaw's assistant. [Variety]

The above-referenced alternative programming "zag," as you may already have figured out by watching the embedded clip, is NBC's just-announced plan to resurrect early 90s reality competition American Gladiators to caulk one of the inevitable cracks in its midseason schedule.

· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Five Lions, Zero Ideas Edition: With Transformers breaking so many nonsequel box office records this summer, it was only a matter of time before someone put Voltron, the other 80s cartoon/toy series about robots that do cool, transforming-related stuff (no offense to Gobots)—into the adaptation pipeline.[Variety]
· In a tear-soaked promotion ceremony that begins with some lucky trainees tossing coffee in the faces of a new crop of mailroom clerks and ends with the official awarding of their golden shark fins, ICM elevates four staffers to agent status. Oh, happy day! [THR]
· Stardust director Matthew Vaughn will do the feature adaptation of Marvel comic book Thor, the musclebound deity with the nicest hair in all of Norse mythology. [Variety]
· NBC Universal might be trying to buy Oxygen, but Oprah and her group of investors might be turning up their nose at anything less than the $3 billion of "BET money" Viacom paid for that network. [THR]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Diddling Bruce Lee Edition: Warner Independent plans a noirish remake of Enter the Dragon. [Variety]

The recent announcement that Warner Bros. would be resurrecting He-Man for yet another big-screen adaptation stirred little in us, other than a vague feeling that our childhood had once again been diddled by a studio desperate for ideas and mild disappointment that they hadn't chosen the relatively underexploited, vastly superior Thundercats for their 80s cartoon revival project. Imagine, then, the mixture of delight and fear we experienced upon reading in today's Var that Warners has optioned a script that could one day result in Lion-O, Panthro, Cheetara (inevitably to be played by Brandon Routh, Michael Clark Duncan, and Elisha Cuthbert) and their mutant-feline clan battling Mumm-Ra (Kevin Spacey, cashing an easy paycheck) at your local multiplex. But as Dolph Lundren's beloved Masters movie has set the creative bar dauntingly high for the new He-Man project, the successful development of Thundercats faces its own challenge, as the cartoon has already received a live-action treatment that arguably obviates the need for further updates. A clip of this visionary masterwork follows after the jump:

It's been 20 years since Hollywood pooped out Dolph Lungren vehicle Masters of the Universe, the big-screen version of the moderately beloved (let's be honest here: it was no Thundercats) 1980s after-school toy infomercial, so in keeping with the industry's loosely observed Two Decade Rule for the re-adaptation of previously exploited material, superproducer Joel Silver and Warner Bros. now feel enough time has passed to do another He-Man movie. The early plans already sound as if the creative team isn't going to sidestep the Gay He-Man Question, as recent queer-cinema blockbuster 300 is cited as an inspiration for their vision; once the deal is finalized and the script finished, production should begin on a cavernous Warner Bros. soundstage, where the prodigiously muscled, well-oiled actors playing He-Man, Ram-Man, and Fisto will gather in front of a green screen to battle the six-packed legions of darkness led by a liberally pierced Skeletor and equally terrifying, orally fixated henchman Trap-Jaw.

· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Special 80s Possession-Comedy Edition: Queen Latifah will star in a remake of Lily Tomlin/Steve Martin farce All of Me for New Line, though it's unclear from the story if their reimagination of the material will call for Latifah to play the possessing spirit or the showier role of host body. Either way, we hope they keep the bit where the guru flushes a toilet each time the telephone rings. That really cracked us up when we were ten. [Variety]
· Last night's two-hour Idol Gives Back special eradicates world poverty, network competition. [THR]
· The FCC declares War on TV Violence, threatening that if networks don't clean up their acts, the government will do it for them. [Variety]
· A puff of pink smoke rises from a chimney atop Lifetime's headquarters, indicating that the company has chosen a new spiritual leader to preside over its housewife-narcotizing slate of eating-disorder-related MOWs. [THR]
· The highly successful, industry-wide Agent Literacy Program continues to pay impresive dividends, as Gersh joins Endeavor in starting a new book division. [Variety]