SHIA: SPIELBERG :: STEWART: HITCHCOCK

Noted CHUD reader and Dodgers enthusiast Shia LaBeouf was dropping all kinds of hints at the Transformers junket about a project he was developing Steven Spielberg (or that Spielberg was developing for him whether he liked it or not – which would be kinda creepy and awesome if it were, like, a small-scale remake of Women in Love with Spielberg in the Oliver Reed role), and, while many of us wondered if this meant the burgeoning movie star had found his way onto Lincoln or Interstellar, it turns out that the prospective film was another one o’ them youth-skewing Hitchcock homages (pronounced "ho-mah-gees"). That’s fine, I guess. I mean, it amuses me to no end that Disturbia got a pass for reworking Hitchcock with no visual flair while De Pal– oh, what’s the use!

What’s important to Spielberg is that Shia in the innocent man role propelled the $20 million production to an $80 million domestic gross. He’d be a fool to not go the Hitchcock Jr. route one more time; ergo, The Beard has cooked up a suspense yarn that will reunite Shia with his Disturbia director, D.J. Caruso. It’s called Eagle Eye, and it’s the tale of a young man who finds himself a suspected terrorist when his twin brother dies unexpectedly. This pisser of a complication forces the kid on the run with an also-implicated single mother in tow as he tries to clear his name (but not her name because that would be a colossal pain in the ass). As for which national monument will host the thrilling finale, I’m rooting for Busch Gardens.

Dan McDermott, who lost his writing credit on The Omen remake to David Seltzer because so little changed from the original, banged out the first draft of Eagle Eye. He’s currently being rewritten by Hillary Seitz, who actually got to keep her credit on the remake of Insomnia. The film will begin principal photography in the fall after Shia’s done with that weird movie about the archaeologist and the bullwhip.