Promotional posters for the Michael Jackson movie promise fans will see Jackson, “Like you’ve never seen him before.” But the King of Pop’s family says, in places, it’s not even him.

M.J.’s family members are accusing ‘This Is It’ filmmakers of using body doubles. Patriarch, Joe, says those behind the concert film are fooling his late son’s fans and he only needed to see twelve minutes of footage to decide, “This movie features body doubles, no doubt about it.”

News of the World reports that a British Michael Jackson impersonator, Navi Parasram claims to have turned down an invite to appear.  He claimed, “They asked me to do long shots, visuals, placements.” Sony declined to comment.

Sister Latoya’s business partner, Jeffre Phillips, also told News of the World, “I see all these great movements in the trailers but I don’t believe most of those shots were Michael. He wasn’t well enough. I’ve seen clips where I even thought, ‘That’s not Michael’s voice.’”

Meanwhile, Latoya reportedly has “no plans” to watch the documentary, which focuses on rehearsals for the 50 shows at the O2 Arena where Jackson was scheduled to perform before his sudden death in June. She is said to be devastated by the possibility that the last recorded performances of her brother are not genuine.

Joe Jackson anticipates that ‘This Is It,’ scheduled for release October 28, will come under fire.  “I think people will tear this movie apart,” he said.

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Kenny Ortega has ditched his ‘Footloose’ directing duties, temporarily leaving the remake with no one at the helm. The studio is reportedly searching for a new director to meet the goal of beginning production in March.

Paramount and Ortega confirmed the split. A statement issued by Ortega’s camp said, “Coming off the extraordinary project, Michael Jackson’s ‘This is It,’ director Kenny Ortega has decided it is premature for him to commit to his next film and will not be moving forward with ‘Footloose’ as previously reported.”

But, according to Variety, there’s more to the story — the ‘Dirty Dancing’ choreographer and the studio fell out over disagreements on tone and budget. The trade magazine says Ortega, who directed three ‘High School Musical’ movies, had plans for a large scale production with a focus on elaborately staged musical numbers. His vision would have required a budget of around $30 million. Paramount’s Adam Goodman, however, had a slightly smaller scale project in mind, thinking of spending a maximum of $25 million. He also wanted an edgier drama with less emphasis on the musical numbers.

The 1984 original ‘Footloose’ starred Kevin Bacon as big city bad-boy, Ren McCormack who moves to a small town where dancing is prohibited, and Lori Singer as Ariel Moore, the preacher’s daughter, ripe for corruption. The remake features Chace Crawford and Julianne Hough.

Meanwhile, Ortega probably isn’t wasting too much time dwelling on the decision. With the Michael Jackson concert film, ‘This Is It’ opening this week, Variety muses that he is likely expecting the biggest directorial opener of his career.

Columbia Pictures has given the film only a two-week run around the world, but insiders suggest that will expand if the movie becomes a hit, as is expected.

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Keira Knightley is now officially attached to the role of Eliza Doolittle in the new film adaptation of the Lerner and Lowe stage musical ‘My Fair Lady.’

The Daily Telegraph’s Mandrake column reports that the 24-year-old British actress has beaten American competitor Scarlett Johansson to the part. Other sources are reporting that she is taking singing lessons and working on her cockney accent. Joe Wright is attached to direct and Daniel Craig has been mentioned as a potential Henry Higgins.

The remake talk began a couple of years ago with Daniel Day Lewis tipped for Higgins and Danny Boyle said to be considering taking the director’s chair.

Boyle didn’t work out and Higgins is still not formally cast. But director Joe Wright has the time now that he has been forced to abandon nine months work on ‘Indian Summer,’ the Cate Blanchett starrer about the last days of colonial rule in India. Budget concerns combined with pressure from the Indian government to play down the alleged affair between the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the countess Edna Mountbatten finally did the project in. Wright directed Keira Knightley in ‘Pride and Prejudice.’

Knightley was always attached to ‘My Fair Lady’ but then, in August of this year, Mandrake reported that she would have to compete with Johansson for the role. Now it seems that has all been settled.

Emma Thompson, who adapted Jane Austen’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’ for the screen, will write the script. 

Knightley will apparently sing in the role, unlike Audrey Hepburn, who famously portrayed the Cockney flower seller in the 1964 classic ‘My Fair Lady,’ alongside Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins. Hepburn’s voice was substituted with that of Marni Nixon. As this was widely reported by the press, many consider it the reason Hepburn was overlooked that year at the Academy Awards, while the film was nominated for 12 and won eight.

There was a battle for the role of Eliza even back then. Julie Andrews, who had played the part on Broadway, with Harrison as Higgins, was the choice of screenwriter Alan Jay Lerner but Jack Warner of Warner Brothers insisted on having box office-star Hepburn, as Andrews was an unknown quantity on screen. Andrews went on to star in ‘Mary Poppins,’ also in 1964, naturally doing her own singing, and won an Academy Award for the part. Elizabeth Taylor is also rumoured to have fought for the role of Eliza.

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Universal’s bid to cash in on the vampire craze, ‘Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant,’ based on the first in the hit series of books by Darren Shan, opened this week. The film, about a couple of boys, a circus of freaks and an old vampire, is directed by Paul Weitz, brother of ‘Twilight Saga: New Moon’ director Chris Weitz. Hutcherson, 17, plays one of the teenaged boys. It also features John C. Reilly and Salma Hayek.

Hutchison was confident when speaking to MTV last week, boasting, “We don’t have typical vampires; we have the Vampires and the Vampaneze.” He then added, “We’re a whole different thing. We’ll kill ‘Twilight.’ We’ll eat those guys alive. We’re a lot cooler than them!”

Hutcherson, however, quickly reneged saying, “No, Robert [Pattinson] is still much better-looking than all of us combined. So maybe they win.”

It’s probably a good thing he thought better of his statement. ‘Cirque du Freak,’ a $40 million production, tanked at the box office this weekend, taking in a mere $6.3 million.

The dismal showing may dash Hutcherson’s hopes for sequels in the franchise. The actor told MTV he is most eager to shoot a sequence that would likely occur in the second or third sequel. “Steve is my character,” he said (Steve is one teenaged boy. Chris Massoglia plays the other). “Later on in the story, he becomes the prince of the Vampaneze army, and that’s pretty epic. So I’m dying to get into that.”

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Gerard Butler is about to up his game as a thespian. The ‘300′ star, who is known for putting the “butt” in Butler and showing his bare behind in virtually every project he undertakes, is taking a role in William Shakespeare’s ‘Coriolanus.’ The pic also features Ralph Fiennes, William Hurt, Vanessa Redgrave, and Jessica Chastain. Cinematical.com says Fiennes will be playing the lead as well as helming the adaptation in his directorial debut.

Butler, who once played the title role of Coriolanus in a stage production, revealed the information on a Baltimore radio show, describing the movie as “a passion project” for both himself and Fiennes. He didn’t specify which role he would be playing this time around.

The 1608 Shakespearian tragedy is based on the life of 5^th century BC Roman general Gaius Martius Coriolanus, a story that is largely considered to be legendary by modern scholars.

Butler featured in Guy Ritchie’s ‘RocknRolla,’ is currently starring in the thriller ‘Law Abiding Citizen,’ alongside Jamie Foxx and is shooting the romantic comedy ‘The Bounty Hunter,’  with Jennifer Aniston. This year, he also starred with Katherine Heigl in another romantic comedy, ‘The Ugly Truth.’

Ralph Fiennes’ film career includes ‘Schindler’s List,’ ‘The English Patient’ and ‘The Duchess.’

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Nothing is signed, sealed or delivered but, according to E! Online, Oscar winning actress, Charlize Theron, is director George Miller’s first choice to play the lead female role in the upcoming Mad Max 4.

And, with Mel Gibson out, relative newcomer Tom Hardy is reportedly being considered to step behind the wheel of whatever crazy car the vehicle-centric franchise will see Max driving in the new millennium. British actor Hardy made his feature film debut in Ridley Scott’s 2001 war thriller ‘Black Hawk Down.’ He also plays US Army Private John Janovec in the award-winning HBO and BBC miniseries ‘Band of Brothers.’  

When Miller announced back in 2007 that he was about to revive the long dormant series and begin work on the fourth instalment, sometimes referred to as ‘Mad Max: Fury Road,’ he said Gibson was too old for the role of Max Rockatansky, adding “I don’t think he would be interested in being involved at all.”

It has been 24 years since the last movie. The first ‘Mad Max,’ set in a post apocalyptic world and starring a then little-known Gibson, was released in 1979, followed by ‘Mad Max 2′ in 1981 and ‘Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985.’

As for any further information on the coming pic, Miller is reportedly being extremely secretive. Auditioning actors have only been given a letter for their character’s name.

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It’s a story that must be told. A story of struggle and triumph, of imaginary licks and riffs and of fake shredding. It’s the Air Guitar World Championships.

‘Tropic Thunder’ writer, Justin Theroux, has signed on to produce the feature film ‘Air Guitar,’ a fictional behind the scenes look at the ironically competitive hobby of the same name. 

The Hollywood Reporter’s Risky Business blog says the pic will be “set in the world of air-guitar competitions and featuring the colorful characters who participate in them.”

The movie is based on the 2006 documentary ‘Air Guitar Nation’ as well as the book ‘To Air is Human: One Man’s Quest to Become the World’s Greatest Air Guitarist,’ by Bjorn Turoque (pronounced “be-yorn to-rock”), who vied unsuccessfully for the 2003 World Champ title in Oulu, Finland. (Turoque’s other identity is real-life musician and New York Times writer, Dan Crane)

One can only imagine that the fictional take will be along the lines of rock-themed pics like ‘Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny,’ and ‘The Rocker,’ blended with the spoof aspect of such Ben Stiller/Will Ferrell fare as ‘Zoolander,’ ‘Dodgeball,’ and ‘Blades of Glory.’ One might also imagine that Ferrell and Stiller will be somehow involved with the film, though there are no reports of this at the present time.  There are also no reports on projected plans to handle the satirical black hole that could be potentially created by the  irony piled on top of irony. 
 
‘Enchanted’ producer Barry Josephson will join Theroux in producing. Theroux, who is also a writer, actor and director — he is writing the script for ‘Iron Man 2′ — is reportedly not considering acting in or directing the movie.

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The Wall Street Journal reports that Walt Disney Co. is close to unveiling technology, code-named Keychest, that could contribute to a shift in what it means for a consumer to own a movie or a TV show, by redefining ownership as access rights rather than physical possession.

With Keychest, says Disney, consumers will increasingly rely on computers, cell phones and anything else with a screen, in place of DVD players and TVs.  People will pay a single price for permanent access to a movie or TV show across multiple digital platforms and devices. It involves the “cloud computing” logic used in Web-based applications, permitting users to store files and photographs on remote Internet servers and access them from anywhere.

WSJ says Disney plans to unveil the technology next month and has been quietly demonstrating Keychest for other movie studios and technology companies in a bid to get them to sign on. Though the paper points out that some other movie studios may be understandably hesitant to put a competitor in charge of access to their content.

Keychest may wind up being in direct competition with another development with similar goals, the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, or DECE, the development of which is being spearheaded by Mitch Singer, chief technology officer of Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures Entertainment. DECE was announced just over a year ago.

Of course, there is speculation that this development will spell the end of DVD and Blue Ray.

May the best technology win.

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 The Hollywood Reporter says that, citing extreme violence, the Spanish Culture Ministry’s Film Institute has given ‘Saw VI’ an X rating, relegating it to the eight theatres in Spain that feature pornography.

A wide release had been scheduled but the X rating prevents this, since such films cannot be screened in commercial theaters. Distributor, Buena Vista, was reportedly surprised – it had been expecting the same “not under 18″ the previous installments of the franchise had received — and has appealed the decision, but a resolution in time for today’s release was said to be unlikely.

This is the first time the Spanish ratings commission has slapped a flick with an X because of violence. Film Institute director Ignasi Guardans apparently could have overruled the rating, but didn’t.

“I have followed, as usual, the proposal of the Cinematographic Film Ratings Commission,” Guardans told THR. “I could have acted differently, but I haven’t found any reason to do so. Indeed, the money invested cannot be the reason to decide the rating of a film.”

Guardans will also oversee the appeal but said, “Without new elements for consideration it is not probable that a different evaluation will be made.”

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