By Adam Dawtrey

{Variety} - James Purefoy ("Rome") has been cast as the eponymous hero in "Solomon Kane," a movie based on the classic comic book by Robert E. Howard ("Conan the Barbarian") about a 16th century Puritan swordsman.

The movie, written and to be directed by Michael J. Bassett, is being produced by Samuel Hadida of Paris-based Davis Films and Paul Berrow of Prague-based Wandering Star. It will start shooting later this year. 

By Gunnar Rehlin

{Variety} - Swedish sales agent NonStop Sales has inked international distribution and sales rights for animated pic "Gnomes and Trolls," exec produced by "Toy Story" scribes Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow for Swedish production company White Shark.

Pic, helmed by Robert Rhodin, follows the adventures of teenage gnome Junior and Sneaky, his paranoid neurotic crow. 

By Tatiana Siegel

{Variety} - Fox Atomic has tapped vidgame scribe JT Petty to write and direct "Goth," which is based on a best-selling Japanese novel.

Described as a gothic love story, the project revolves around two high school teens from opposite sides of the tracks who are forced to come together to take down a serial killer in their hometown. 

By Tatiana Siegel and Diane Garrett

Based on the graphic novel by Stephano Raffaele, story kicks off after an airborne virus has reduced much of the Earth's population to feral zombies. A recently undead soldier then teams with a female zombie and a human teenager, racing against time to find a cure before being hunted down by the soldier's former military unit.

Jeff Dixon adapted the screenplay of the Humanoids-published graphic novel as a spec.

John Baldecchi, Justin Connolly, Pierre Spengler and Fabrice Giger are producing. Keith Dinielli is co-producer.

By Borys Kit 

{Hollywood Reporter} - Damian Shannon and Mark Swift have been tapped to write "Friday the 13th," the remake of the horror classic being produced by Platinum Dunes for New Line.

Paramount released the original "Friday" in 1980, making Jason -- the unstoppable hockey mask-wearing killer -- a horror icon, though the serial killer made only a brief appearance in the final frames of the first movie and never killed anyone. Jason didn't even don the famous mask until the third movie.

By Borys Kit

{Hollywood Reporter} -  Scribe Ehren Kruger and the writing team of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are in negotiations to team to write the screenplay for DreamWorks/Paramount's "Transformers 2."

Director Michael Bay, star Shia LaBeouf and producers Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Don Murphy are back in their respective chairs, as is exec producer Steven Spielberg.

By Saul Symonds

{Hollywood Reporter} - For Danish-born animator Jakob Jensen, to animate Japan's classic manga "Astro Boy" at Hong Kong's Imagi Animation Studio seems like a difficult challenge, despite his background at DreamWorks.

After all, Astro Boy is virtually a national treasure of Japan, but far less well known in the rest of the world. But Jensen has confidence that he can make "Astro Boy" fly.