MY MOVIE WEEKwith Mike Shaw

» Back in 2000, Nicolas Cage’s house was burgled, and among the things taken was the first issue of Action Comics – the publication in which Superman made his debut in 1938. The comic was only recovered last year, but Cage didn’t get it back and it was left in an LAPD storage unit until it was eventually sold at auction for $2.16m.

It’s an interesting story, and one that has clearly has value to Hollywood, as Lionsgate have just agreed to produce Action No.1, a heist-comedy loosely based on the theft of Cage’s prized comic book.

The film even includes a role written specifically for Cage. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the man himself is going to take the part, which is a great shame. Who better to play Nic Cage than Nic Cage? Especially as he’ll end up doing something insane and going method by dressing as a private detective and following himself to prepare for the role.

There’s no start-date or potential cast yet, but I will have my beady eye on this one. If you’ve never seen his costume test for Tim Burton’s abandoned 1990s version of Superman, be thankful that this is the closest Cage is ever going to get to the Man of Steel.

» In other comic-related news, New Line is having one more go at turning Brian Vaughn and Pia Guerra’s excellent series Y: The Last Man into a blockbuster movie. In a bold move, the company is ditching all prior work and getting writers Matthew Federman and Stephen Scaia to start fresh. The duo are pretty new to the movie world but this is the second studio job in five months after bagging the new Zorro movie and they have loads of TV experience including Charlie’s Angels, Warehouse 13 and Jericho.

The comic focuses on Yorick, an escape artist who is the last survivor of a plague that has killed every male mammal in the world. With his pet capuchin, Ampersand, Yorick tries to figure out what happened to all the men, and to track down his girlfriend Beth, who had been on the other side of the world. It’s not easy though, especially when half the women on earth want him dead.

Y has been in development hell for a few years now, but it’s excellent source material and with the right star attached (someone who isn’t Shia LaBeouf) it could be a huge hit. The only other thing needed is a director not afraid to take risks and with the ability to handle a sprawling story. Francis Lawrence did a great job with I Am Legend and would be a safe pair of hands, but I would love to see someone like Darren Aronofsky give it a go.

» Remember earlier this year when Chuck Norris made himself about as popular as Joseph Kony by insisting that The Expendables 2 be family friendly? Well, Sylvester Stallone has finally had enough of us all bitching about it, so has reversed the decision. That’s right, all the blood and guts and explosions and screaming we wanted is back!

Brilliantly named website StalloneZone say they have been told by Sly himself that, “After taking in all the odd rumors and hearsay, Expendables II is an R”.

Despite the fact that the “odd rumours and hearsay” appeared to stem from Stallone himself directly telling movie site Ain’t It Cool that “the PG-13 rumour is true”, this is good news.

Or, at least, it should be. Given that the film has already finished shooting and that this adult rating is a last minute change, surely there wasn’t all that much gore caught on camera? I’m slightly concerned that this means all the intestinal splattering will be added using CGI. I guess we’ll see in August when the film is released.

» I’ve been talking about the attempts to bring Dark Tower to screens for aaaaages now. Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Akiva Goldsman had been working on bringing Stephen King’s epic series to both cinema and TV screens, but last summer Universal decided to pass on the idea and it sounded like the project was dead with no hope of ever coming back, but...

Warner Bros have bought Goldsman’s script for the first movie and Howard is still on board to direct.

It seems a little odd that Howard and co would agree to just one film, but it might just come down to Warners offering the best shot to get it made at all. Howard has never handled a saga or trilogy of any kind... could he finally get his chance?