Although Fast Five won’t be released for another week Universal are expecting good things, and have already started working on the sequel, Fast Six (or Fast and the Furious 6).

The news comes from THR who heard Chris Morgan, the writer behind Wanted, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast and Furious and Fast Five, has signed a two-year deal with Universal and will soon begin writing the script for a sequel (which they call Fast Six).

Fast and Furious made $353 million worldwide in 2009 and Fast Five, which will hit screens on April 29, is expected to do equally as well, if not more as it is the first big summer blockbuster. In the film Dominic (Vin Diesel) and Brian (Paul Walker) find themselves on the wrong side of the law once again as they try to switch lanes between a ruthless drug lord and a relentless federal agent (Dwayne Johnson). No word yet on if they will return for Fast Six, but i’m sure they will be asked about it soon once the numbers for Fast Five roll in.

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In 2009 Santa Barbara hedge fund Pacificor won the rights to the Terminator franchise at auction after beating the likes of Lionsgate and Sony. As Pacificor had no experience with making movies they began talks with both Sony and Lionsgate to see if they could continue the franchise. Eventually those talks fell apart, and Pacificor began looking elsewhere.

Things have been pretty quiet since then, but now according to Deadline Universal is interested in making another Terminator movie, and their plan is to pair Fast Five director Justin Lin and screenwriter Chris Morgan on the project.

Nothing is official yet, but it’s interesting that this news comes after the recent announcement from Arnold Schwarzenegger that he is finally returning to acting after a number of years in politics. There’s no guarantee Schwarzenegger would return to the franchise, but I suppose it’d make it more watchable if he did.

Before the Terminator rights went to auction Terminator Salvation director McG had plans for its sequel to follow John Connor (Christian Bale) battling machines in a modern day 2011. Those plans evaporated when the rights changed hands, but then William Wisher, James Cameron’s writing partner on the first two films, scripted a detailed 24-page treatment for Terminator 5 and a 4-page concept outline for Terminator 6 which “continued the post-apocalyptic battleground scenario from Terminator Salvation, but added in the element of time travel.”

It is unknown whether this will happen now, but I can’t see where Justin Lin and Chris Morgan could go with the franchise. James Cameron thinks the franchise has ‘run its course’ and I have to agree with him. The Fast and Furious franchise is fun mindless action, but this franchise needs a Nolan-style reboot/sequel/re-imagining more than anything (not that Nolan should direct, but someone with talent and vision should).

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Fans of the Gears of War video game who were looking forward to seeing a big screen adaptation have had a lot of waiting to do over recent years, and it doesn’t look like the waiting will end any time soon.

Since Underworld director Len Wiseman was hired to direct back in 2008 the film has been in development hell for two years. Wanted writer Chris Morgan was hired to work on the script and last year he said the scope of the movie is “huge”, saying “look at the game and the scenario — the fact that the world is being taken over by the Locust, it has to be huge.” Len Wiseman was also thinking big, saying he planned on making a trilogy that would be “a harder edged Lord of the Rings”.

You would have thought that New Line, who produced The Lord of the Rings trilogy, would jump at the chance to create another epic franchise. However times have changed (New Line are now owned by Warner Bros. for one) and it seems they are less willing to take big financial risks.

From The L.A Times:

The studio has now cut the budget, going from a film that would have cost more than $100 million to one that will cost a good chunk less than that. It’s also reined in the story, turning it into a more simple, straight-ahead invasion story instead of a sprawling epic. Producers are looking for a new writer to handle all this, but haven’t found one yet. And Wiseman, while technically still attached, will likely not be a part of it when all is said and done.

It looks like they are back to square one. After finding a writer they’ll probably have to find another director, and then if New Line are happy with the budget the Gears of War movie may finally move beyond the scripting stage, albeit cheaper and less epic.

Any Gear of War fans have an opinion on this? Would you have preferred a $100+ million epic version, or would you be happy with a simpler, straight-ahead invasion story?

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A few weeks ago Evan Spiliotopoulos was hired to write the script for Wanted 2, which presented us with 2 questions. Firstly, Chris Morgan was already on-board as writer, so where did he go? And secondly, Evan’s previous credits include Pooh’s Heffalump Movie, how the hell did he land this gig? Thankfully both questions have now been answered with Wanted creator Mark Millar revealing Evan wrote a great un-produced action script, hence the hiring, and now Chris Morgan has explained his Wanted 2 situation to MTV.

We knew we wanted to do ‘Wanted 2,’ so we started developing a take and came up with a story that’s pretty good and develops the characters,” said Morgan. “But in the process of developing it, I also had commitments to ‘Gears of War’ and the samurai movie I’m doing at Universal.”

According to Morgan, Spiliotopoulos will provide the script for the story initially envisioned during the “Wanted 2? planning process, and Morgan will return later to consult and provide any rewrites that might be necessary.

“Evan is going to go ahead and write the story that we came up with and I’m probably going to come on later,” said Morgan. “So, I’m still part of the process, but I didn’t want to hold up the ‘Wanted’ production schedule.”

MTV then asked Morgan for an update on Gear of War:

“A draft went in and we’re talking about it now and we’re budgeting it out,” Morgan told MTV. “It’s looking incredibly good.”

“I think the gamer side is going to be thrilled with it,” said Morgan. “All the stuff you want to see, we put that in there and then we blow it out a little more, even. Now it’s just a matter of honing in on all of the character arcs and determining production types of things.”

For the uninitiated, “Gears of War” centers on the members of Delta Squad, an elite squadron that consists of rough-and-tough, chew-your-guts-out types of soldiers. Players assume the roles of Marcus Fenix, an ex-convict, and Dominic Santiago, a hardened soldier, as the squadron wages war against an insurgent alien race called the Locust Horde — a deadly collective that’s already promised to surface heavily in the film.

“It’s huge,” Morgan declared of the project’s scope. “One of the things they’re really talking about now is the budget of the film and how big of a spectacle this is going to be. My argument is, look at the underlying material. Look at the game and the scenario — the fact that the world is being taken over by the Locust, it has to be huge.”

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