Ron Howard and Brian Grazer‘s Imagine Entertainment, as well as Barry Levine and Radical Pictures are joining forces to develop a new movie based on the graphic novel Legends: The Enchanted.

The Radical Publishing comic (read our review here!) is created, written, and drawn by Nick Percival. Legends tells a dark and sometimes gruesome fairy tale story, using many of the familiar characters we’ve known all of our lives. Just to give you an idea, some of these characters you’ll find include Red Riding Hood (known here as simply Red Hood), a dangerous wolf-hunter; Jack, a slayer of giants; a deadly mercenary called Goldilocks; and even two psychic exterminators known as Hansel and Gretel.

The comic is still brand new itself, but the content has clearly made enough of an impact to inspire this new cinematic re-invention. The concept of popular fairly tales given very mature and dark makeovers is so appealing because it opens up great new creative doors. The list of projects like this seems to grow longer each and every day with Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and other projects in development.

We all know about the swarm of movies being made based on toys and board games, including one about the limber Stretch Armstrong starring The Twilight Saga‘s Taylor Lautner (Read: 3D “˜Stretch Armstrong’ Grabs “˜The Twilight Saga’ Star Taylor Lautner; “˜Battleship’ Now Set To Strike On Memorial Day ).

The script for the movie was originally put together by Evan Almighty writer Steve Oedekerk, but now Universal has decided to bring in a new writer to join their equally-new director.

The studio has chosen Rob Letterman to direct their Stretch movie, and has also brought in Nicholas Stoller to rewrite the existing script. Letterman has mostly animated film experience, having directed Shark Tale and Monsters vs. Aliens for DreamWorks, while Stoller has written Fun With Dick and Jane, Yes Man, as well as Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek, both of which he also directed. The two gentlemen recently collaborated on the upcoming Jack Black flick Gulliver’s Travels, which Stoller wrote and Letterman is directing.

Universal Pictures is making some big moves with two upcoming titles based on toys by Hasbro: Stretch Armstrong and Battleship.

The biggest announcement comes in the form of Taylor Lautner, star of The Twilight Saga, who has yet again been cast as a superhero of sorts with incredible abilities: Stretch Armstrong. Just in the past few months, we’ve discovered that Lautner was being cast in the title role of teen hero flick, Max Steel, and also that he might be showing up in the not-so-superhero-based remake of 1985’s Vision Quest.

Aside from this casting announcement and the shocking reveal that the movie will be in 3D, not much has been said of the Stretch Armstrong movie. It, like so many other toy-based movie projects, was simply announced and then ventured off to do whatever it has been doing. All we do know is that Steve Oedekerk (Bruce Almighty, Kung-Pow) has written the screenplay, and that mega-producer Brian Grazer is one of the names behind the production.

Columbia Pictures is ready to roll the dice on The Da Vinci Code franchise one more time, announcing that it is officially moving forward with The Lost Symbol, which is based on author Dan Brown‘s book of the same name.

When The Da Vinci Code first came out, it was a mass hit and was everywhere you looked and listened. This popularity obviously carried over when director Ron Howard and star Tom Hanks teamed up for the movie adaptation, and though it wasn’t as well-received, the movie still made $758 million in its box office run. A sequel was always expected considering there were more books in the series, but for some reason it never felt quite right. Angels & Demons was even less-liked than the original, and it went on to make $486 million — not a bad take, but surely not up to the hopes of the studio.

Despite the lackluster performance of Angels & Demons, this news comes as no real shock. Yes the original made a lot more money, but it also made a profit of of over $300 million. You don’t need to have the best business sense in the world to think that another film could deliver similar numbers, even if it ultimately doesn’t fare well.

Back in September we discovered that Jon Favreau may be working with his Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. again soon when he became a candidate to direct a movie based on the Scott Mitchell Rosenberg graphic novel, Cowboys & Aliens. Since then, Favreau has officially become the director, but unfortunately, Downey Jr. actually had to drop out of the project this past Monday.

Now comes word via a scoop by Collider that Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace‘s James Bond, Daniel Craig, is now in negotiations to take on the role of Zeke Jackson that Downey Jr. vacated.

Cowboys & Aliens isn’t the most recognizable title in the world of graphic novels, but its premise sounds to be highly entertaining. It takes place in Silver City, Arizona sometime in the 1800s where the Cowboys and Indians are fighting it out as we all know they did, but this particular location is about to have a bit of a twist.