Chris Pine is back for "Star Trek" sequel while the Jack Ryan franchise is stalled

Striking blue-eyed actor Chris Pine is reportedly will reprise his portrayal as legendary Captain James T. Kirk on the untitled "Star Trek" sequel. It is still unclear whether J.J. Abrams will return as the director, but Paramount Pictures is making sure that the leading actor won't go anywhere.

This decision is apparently made since an untitled Jack Ryan project, in which Pine will play the new action character, is currently stalled because of a slow script writing process. Pine was officially selected to portray Jack Ryan, an iconic character appeared in most of Tom Clancy novels, which was previously portrayed by Ben Affleck in "Sum of all Fears", Harrison Ford in "Clear and Present Danger", "Patriot Games", "The Secret World of Spying", and Alec Baldwin in "The Hunt for Red October".

Chris Pine made a huge move in his movie career by starring in action flicks, which mostly successful: Tony Scott's "Unstoppable" and Darwin Tremor's "Smokin Aces", after starring in numerous chick-comedy-flick "Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement" and "Just My Luck". He is currently in talks to many movie productions, including the adaptation of "Akira" and Doug Liman's next project "Moon". Well I personally love to see him in any genre though, he seems so gritty when it comes to the character. I'm hoping to see more Chris Pine this year!

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Andrew Garfield, James McAvoy, Robert Pattinson, Garrett Hedlund, Chris Pine, Michael Fassbender -- all wanted for "Akira"

After adapting "Book of Eli" to the big screen, Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures are currently developing to make movie version of Katsuhiro Otomo's 6 volume graphic novel "Akira". Albert Hughes has been appointed to direct it, while Steve Kloves (who wrote ALL of "Harry Potter" movie franchise and currently "The Amazing Spider-Man") writes the screenplay. Now thanks to Deadline, the list of actors that are 'wanted' to star in the movie version is revealed.

There are two main characters based on the graphic novel: Tetsuo and Kaneda. For the Tetsuo role, studio has given the script to the British talents Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield, and James McAvoy; while for Kaneda, the script has been sent to Garret Hedlund, Michael Fassbender, Chris Pine, Justin Timberlake, and Joaquin Phoenix. The story takes place in New Manhattan where a leader of a biker gang saves his friend from a medical experiment. Seems like the two leading characters will be likely played by an actor from each group. Hmmm, it's interesting!

So, since I haven't even read the graphic novel, I think I'm a bit biased on this. Of course I'm going to support Garfield or McAvoy for Tetsuo, and Hedlund or Pine for Kaneda. Steve Kloves has been working with Garfield for "The Amazing Spider-Man", so I think his involvement is somewhat beneficial for Garfield. But if the studio had to choose based on each actor's fame to 'blow up' the buzz of this adaptation, then maybe they'll take Pattinson and Timberlake more for consideration.

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Shia LaBeouf is up for two new projects: "Horns" and "Preacher"

Shia LaBeouf might be one of the brightest young actors in Hollywood, despite being labeled as a 'bad boy' recently (he was involved in a bar brawl a couple of times and then car crash, and then another brawl this year). Well apart from me being a fan of him, I think it won't affect anything to his career as long as he keeps himself professional. The prove is here: LaBeouf is currently filming for Jon Hillcoat-directed movie "The Wettest County In The World", adapted from a novel with the same title, and then linked to three more prestigious projects: Oliver Stone's upcoming Vietnam War-themed "Pinkville", a drama comedy "College Republicans" which the script was listed in 2010 Black List (list of 'bloody good' scripts but in undeveloped projects), and finally "The Associate", in which he'll star as leading role Kyle McAvoy based on John Grisham's best selling novel.

And now he did it again. While he's now in Atlanta filming "The Wettest County", there are some news buzz reporting that LaBeouf is signed to star in "Horns" and "Preacher". "Horn" is adapted from Joe Hill's best-selling novel with the same name, tells about a 26 years old Ignatius Perrish who finds himself having horns growing from his head after getting drunk on the anniversary of Merrin Williams', his girlfriend, death. It is shocking to Ig himself, but as his horns grow bigger he sets out investigate the unsolved murder of his girlfriend and the case's connection to his cursed fate.

The latter, "Preacher", is based on a comic book series created by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, imprinted by DC Comics. Mainly tells about Jesse Custer, a Texas preacher who is possessed by a demon named Genesis and destroyed his entire congregation and flattened his church. Custer merely becomes the most powerful human being in the universe by possessing Genesis' power, which is an unnatural coupling of angel and demon. While discovering and developing his power, Custer travels all through United States to literally find God, who abandoned Heaven the moment Genesis was born. During the journey, Custer meets a lot of men in unusual form, who are likely to be a bit 'satanic'. "Disturbia", "Eagle Eye", and "I Am Number Four" director DJ Caruso officially announced to helm this project after Darren Aronofsky was out, and Caruso said in a press conference, "Shia LaBeouf loves Arseface. He wants to play Arseface. So we're kind of working that out,".

If it happens then LaBeouf will enter a whole new level in his acting career. After doing some quick research, Arseface is apparently described as a hopeless man who grows up in an abusive household. He idolizes Kurt Cobain and try to emulate his suicide attempt. He wasn't succeed to shoot himself, however, and severely deforms his face instead of killing him. In the conference, Caruso also stated that he'd love to have "Star Trek" actor Chris Pine to become Jesse Custor, and his "I Am Number Four" star Alex Pettyfer to play Saint of Killers. "Preacher" is written by John August who previously wrote "Corpse Bride", "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", and "Minority Report".

As a LaBeouf fan I am truly excited to hear this news! Catch Shia LaBeouf this year on "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" out in theatres July 1, 2011 in 3D.

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