BBC - Movies -news article - High Noon

		Marshall Rules Forgetting Sarah Marshall has made a lasting impression at the UK box office. It opened at No.1 with a whopping $4.1m (£2.1m), which is the biggest British debut for any Judd Apatow comedy. Perhaps it was the curiosity value of seeing Russell Brand in a Hawaiian shirt which stole the show from Jessica Alba. Her quivering jelly bit in The Eye only took $2m (£1m). Across the pond, people have mostly been watching oestrogen-fuelled comedy Baby Mama. That took $18.3m (£9.1m) keeping Harold & Kumar: Escape From Guantanamo Bay in second place with $14.6m (£7.3m). Oh well. Fingers crossed for the Afghan release!

		McKellen & Serkis Hop To Hobbit Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis will return to Middle Earth for The Hobbit. Days after it was announced that Guillermo del Toro would direct the two-part epic, the garrulous director has been chatting to The One Ring about the casting process. "I had the most charming meeting with Sir Ian," he says, "and all bureaucracy pending, he's on board, as is Andy Serkis…It is our intention that we will not lose any of the key elements [of LOTR]." Of course McKellen will reprise the role of wise wizard Gandalf and Serkis will slip back into that hi-tech body-stocking to play Gollum. So much for the classical training, eh?

		Bateman Into Extract Mike Judge, the man behind Beavis & Butthead (snigger), will direct Jason Bateman in Extract. He also wrote the comedy following the boss of a company that produces a type of flower extract. It's a slice-of-life tale where the hapless honcho deals with various 'workplace issues' and a stream of bad luck, including his wife's affair with a gigolo. Judge previously explored this comic territory with his 1999 feature Office Space i.e. 'Ricky, who..?' Bateman, recently seen in Juno, is also rumoured to be reprising the role of beleaguered CEO Michael Bluth in a movie version of Arrested Development.

		Resurrection: The Beginning Universal has snapped up the rights to Resurrection. That's a comicbook series written by Eli Stone which begins where most alien attack movies end. It centres on a group of survivors who, after an apocalyptic invasion, band together and attempt to take back control of the planet. The studio execs have been very quick to pounce on this one; the comic was first published in October and the third issue in the series has only just been released. No doubt Will Smith will be getting the call very shortly.