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Kids of the 1990s know Jonathan Taylor Thomas quite well. The actor began his professional career at age eight, playing the title puppy in the animated series "The Adventures of Spot." He first appeared on-screen playing Kevin Brady in a failed "Brady Bunch" spinoff called "The Bradys" in 1990. The following year, he was cast as the ultra-cool and super-precocious Randy on the hit sitcom "Home Improvement." That series was a massive success, and made Thomas a household name. Thomas appeared in 178 of the show's 204 episodes, and he became a teenybopper icon, regularly gracing the cover of oversaturated tweener mags like Bop and Tiger Beat. 

During his time on "Home Improvement," Thomas also stepped away to appear in multiple high-profile feature films, perhaps most notably playing the voice of the young Simba in 1994's "The Lion King." He was a take-charge youth in "Man of the House," and also played Tom...

Exclusive: Mainstay Entertainment has signed Rachael Leigh Cook for representation in all areas.

Cook can currently be seen in Hallmark’s family holiday feature film Rescuing Christmas. The project was developed and produced under Cook’s development deal with Marvista. In addition, Cook also stars and produces the Netflix film A Tourist’s Guide to Love. Prior that, Cook was seen in the film Spirit Halloween, opposite Christopher Lloyd. In 2021, Cook starred in Netflix’s He’s All That, a gender-swapped remake of her 1999 hit romantic comedy, that she starred in. In 2020, Cook pitched, produced, and starred in the Netflix film Love Guaranteed opposite Damon Wayans Jr. and Heather Graham. The film premiered on the streaming platform at #1.

She most recently inked a wide-ranging development and talent deal with Fox’s Marvista Entertainment. The pact will see Cook star and produce a number of projects including There She Goes, (w/t), a...

The three-time Tony nominee and wife of actor Danny Burstein Rebecca Luker dies at 59 after battling Als (Atrophic Laeral Serosis) a nervous system disease that weakens muscles and impacts physical function.

Rebecca Luker, the Broadway actor who earned Tony nominations for “Mary Poppins,” “The Music Man” and “Show Boat,” died on Wednesday at a hospital in Manhattan, just 10 months after revealing to the public that she was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. She was 59.

Rebecca Luker had posted in her official website "Hello friends. I have some tough news. Late last year I was diagnosed with Als. I have the best medical care in the world and the greatest support. My dear husband Danny has been an angel. I will get well. In the meantime, we fight and go forward. Keep us in your thoughts."

Recently Rebecca Luker and Sally Wilfert in an ode to female friendship release All the Girls Album.

All through the weekend, tributes and memorials poured in for Rush drummer Neil Peart, who died last week of cancer at 67. The band’s progressive and distinctive yet ever-changing sound made a lasting impact on music fans during their 40-plus-year career, and it also affected pop culture, by tapping the minds of creative types who went on to reference the band in countless films, TV shows, novels, comics and more. The list of Rush name-drops runs the gamut from “Sctv” and “Gilmore Girls” to films like “High Fidelity,” “School of Rock” and Rob Zombie’s 2007 “Halloween” remake, which used “Tom Sawyer” in a climactic scene. There are plenty more — and true to their self-deprecating senses of humor — the members of Rush have never had any problem making fun of themselves — the band often played along. Below five of the best and funniest times Rush made an indelible mark on pop culture.

It’s been nearly a decade since the tragic death of former child actor Brad Renfro. During his too-short career he made over 20 movies, the last one being 2008’s The Informers, where he starred alongside Billy Bob Thornton and Winona Ryder. The Apt Pupil star was a gifted actor who battled several off-screen demons, which ultimately ended the life of the 25-year-old.

A Star on the Rise

The Knoxville, Tennessee native was only 10-years-old when he was discovered by director Joel Schumacher to play Mark Sway, a young witness in a Mafia case, in his 1994 movie The Client. In the film,...

Actor Blake Heron, best known for his role as Marty Preston in the 1996 film Shiloh, has died. He was 35. The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner confirmed that Heron died Friday. He was found by a friend at his L.A.-area home and pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. The Sherman Oaks, CA, native made his film debut at age 13 in Disney’s Tom and Huck and TV series Reality Check. He went on to star in TV movie Trilogy of Terror II and also had a…...

Actor Blake Heron, best known for his role as Marty Preston in the 1996 film Shiloh, has died. He was 35. The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner confirmed that Heron died Friday. He was found by a friend at his L.A.-area home and pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. The Sherman Oaks, CA, native made his film debut at age 13 in Disney’s Tom and Huck and TV series Reality Check. He went on to star in TV movie Trilogy of Terror II and also had a…...

Every so often, we take a second to reflect on our celebrity crushes of yore, from boy band members to cute TV actors, and wonder: what the hell happened to them? An adorable heartthrob named Jonathan Taylor Thomas (affectionately known as Jtt) had a heyday in the '90s, taking over the covers of teenybopper magazines and making us swoon each week as Randy Taylor on the ABC sitcom Home Improvement. Between 1991 and 1999, Jtt's cute little face and floppy middle-parted hair was also featured in big-screen classics like Man of the House, Tom and Huck, Wild America, and I'll Be Home For Christmas, and he also lent his voice to Disney's The Lion King as young Simba. After a smooth run of success, Jonathan Taylor Thomas seemingly disappeared. Poof! In 2013, Jonathan opened up about his decision to leave the spotlight, telling People that he had "been going nonstop since I was 8 years old,...

Band Of Robbers screens Monday, November 9th at 7pm at The Tivoli Theatre as part of The St. Louis International Film Festival. Ticket information can be found Here. The film’s co-directors Adam and Aaron Nee will be in attendance. This screening is sponsored by Tenacious Eats

A modern-day retelling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huck Finn, the comedy Band Of Robbers re-imagines the characters as adults, now grown from juvenile delinquents into small-time crooks. When Huck Finn (Kyle Gallner) is released from prison, he hopes to leave his criminal life behind, but lifelong friend and corrupt cop Tom Sawyer (co-director Adam Nee) has other plans. Not ready to give up on his childhood fantasies, Tom forms the Band of Robbers, recruiting Huck and their misfit friends Joe Harper (Matthew Gray Gubler) and Ben Rogers (Hannibal Buress) to join an elaborate scheme...

I’ve got a trailer here you need to watch for a film called Band of Robbers, an intriguing take on Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. The story reimagines the characters as if they had grown up in modern times and is set in present day with Tom and Huck as grown up adults living as criminals.

The movie screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival and I’ve read great things about it. It looks like a great crime comedy that audiences will enjoy. It seems to have a Wes Anderson kind of feel to it, which is a good thing. If you’re a fan of Anderson’s work, that is.

Mark Twain’s young heroes Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn spring vividly back to life, this time as modern-day grown men. When Huck is released from prison he hopes to leave his criminal past behind.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas first hit the Hollywood scene in the early '90s, and he quickly became the king of magazine pinups as one of the most popular teen heartthrobs. He famously voiced young Simba in The Lion King, and in Disney movies like Man of the House and Tom and Huck, Jtt showed off his sweet charm. Along with his popular role on Home Improvement, he later had fans swooning with appearances on TV shows like Smallville and 8 Simple Rules. To celebrate Jtt fandom in all its '90s glory, take a look at reasons the 33-year-old actor was - and always will be - one of the best teen heartthrobs.

Cozy down on your couch and wait for it: A Supergirl series coming soon – well, in the fall – to a television set near you. And a new superhero on The Flash and what looks like some supering up of already existing character or characters on Arrow and and and…

I’ll bet the corridors of the media giants in Hollywood and New York (and Chicago? London?) are absolutely buzz with plans and proposals for more stories about that congregation who wear peculiar costumes and bash. I think they call it extending the franchise, and it is nothing new. My current favorite example from antiquity is the King Arthur saga which was kind of inspired by rales of a fifth or sixth century British ruler who fought Saxon invaders. (Did he really exist? Was he compounded of several rulers? Let us shrug and get on with it.)

Anyway, it wasn’t...

Classic literature endures the changing taste trends because of its timeless ideas and characters that are strongly grounded on human nature’s eternal flaws. These traits make them very desirable properties to put onto the screen. Among these there exists an even more exclusive group of works that have not only been adapted into films, but which have been removed from their original context to be placed and infused with the singular concerns of an entirely different time period

Shakespeare is a favorite for this type of treatment: Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” and scores of films that attempt to reimagine “Hamlet,” are proof of this fascination. Hits and misses that pursue a symbiotic blend between the themes in the original material and their modern settings.

Finding this cohesive marriage of ideas to a great degree, "Band of Robbers," by co-directors and siblings Aaron and Adam Nee, is a new retelling of Mark Twain's most iconic characters that brings them into 21st century California with comedic spunk. His famous scoundrels, Tom Sawyer (Adam Nee) and Huckleberry Finn (Kyle Gallner), are still great friends looking for an ancient treasure in this modern iteration, but the obstacles to get it are very much of our time.

Segmented into cleverly titled chapters to further its literary quality, the film opens as young Huck and Tom, whose home life is less than ideal, come across Injun Joe (Stephen Lang), a rough-looking villain who is willing to kill in order to get the riches he's been chasing down for years. Caught up in middle of the crime, Huck goes to prison for most of his teenage years, while Tom gets to walk away. But in spite of the abrupt separation no loyalty is lost between them - they are, indeed, each other’s only family.

Cut to about a decade later, Tom has become a police officer and Huck has just been released. Reunited, the ex-con wants to go straight, while the boy in blue is still obsessed with finding Murrel’s legendary treasure - even if their original search is what landed Huck behind bars. Tom has obtained new intel on its whereabouts and he is putting together a gang of misfits to finally put his hands on it.

Besides our two main bandits, a shabby Joe Harper (Matthew Gray Gubler) and the easygoing Ben Rogers (Hannibal Buress) join their ranks in hopes of a quick buck Robin-Hood-style. With an elaborate plan, the band will is ready to rob a pawnshop – where the treasure is supposed to be hidden – but clearly these inept boy-scouts-turned-thieves will find it much more challenging in practice.

Adam Nee's Tom is a charmer - just like in Twain's writing - who longs to become a hero and leave a legacy behind. There is contrived idealism in his persuasive speeches that aim to inspire others to follow his lead even when he is not certain of the outcome himself. Prompted by underlying insecurities derived from living under his detective brother’s shadow, Tom tries to overcompensate with flaky confidence and reckless acts often resulting in humorous mishaps. Nee gets the tone right both when dealing with Sawyer’s heroic exploits and his constant failures.

Though the film is narrated by Gallner’s Huck, his is a much smaller role, almost like and observer who initially trusts Tom blindly. But as Sawyer’s relentless quest for glory becomes more detached with their reality, Huck begins to notice the cracks in his best pal’s personality. While not consciously aware of it or too proud to admit, they have become the villains of their legend by hurting innocent bystanders like rookie officer Becky Thatcher ( played by Melissa Benoist and who is Tom’s partner in this interpretation) or Jorge (Daniel Edward Mora), a hardworking Mexican man who risks deportation after being tricked into helping the robbers.

Huck carries himself with a hint of melancholy, which is Gallner’s best tool to transfer the lonesome vagabond to a new era and render him relevant for current audiences, many of which will have their first encounter with Twain’s world through this film. Not a bad introduction at all.

Since “Band of Robbers” approaches the material with intelligent humor and takes broad liberties with it, there is not an actual need to familiar with these characters to enjoy it. Still, the curious intersection it inhabits - somewhere between millennial bromance and elegant saga – makes the film accessible, yet embellished with sophisticated touches.

The mystery at the center of the plot is clearly not the focus as it unfolds with excessively circumstantial twists that hardly allow for any real tension. However, the film’s strength is the mythical atmosphere that’s able to generate while not being overly solemn. Particularly in the sequences when the misguided heroes confront or hide from Injun Joe, the film sports Scooby-Doo-like undertones, which add a playful mood to the narrative.

The Nee Brother’s “Band of Robbers” has the production value of major studio project and the spirit of an unconventional indie showing off compelling cinematic skills. It's like a thinking man’s “Superbad” with an ethereal quality that’s sort of murky, but delivers in laugh-out-loud moments and thoughtful realizations about young manhood.

In a scene during the first half of the film Tom and Huck wearing modern-day clothing sit in what looks like a candlelit room to discuss their future, the production design is straight from the 1800s but their worries are ageless. At that moment neither them nor us know the time and place they are supposed to be in, but we are completely aware that their emotional distress and uncertainty transcend. Hoping to become something greater never goes out of style.

World rights are being handled by Agency for the Performing Arts, U.S. rights are still available.

It's been more than a decade since the 1990s ended, yet the Internet can't seem to go a day without a reminder of the neon slap bracelets that may have been banned from your school.

Yes, we get it. Times are tough and there's comfort in reflection, but enough is enough.

Below, a final goodbye to the 90s to end the nostalgia once and for all. (We're not kidding. There are 1990 items below.)

1. Scrunchies

2. "The Wild Thornberries"

3. Dawson and Joey

4. "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys"

5. Mr. Feeny

7. MTV playing music videos

8. Snick

9. The premiere of "Freaks and Geeks"

10. Levar Burton

11. "Daria"

12. "Arthur"

13. "The Powerpuff Girls"

14. "Smart Guy"

15. Comedy Central globe logo with buildings

16. "The X-Files"

17. Rosie O'Donnell

18. Bill Nye

19. "Dawson's Creek"

20. The Mighty Ducks"

21. "Are You Afraid of the Dark"

22. Cornholio

23. Rachel Green

24. Tim Allen

25. "All That"

26. "Beverly Hills 90210"

27. "Step by Step"

28. "The Ren & Stimpy Show"

29. "The Famous Jett Jackson"

30. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer...

To say that Katherine McNamara is an aspiring actress would be the understatement of the year. As a regular on Disney Xd's Kickin It (TV), this bright, young talent has traversed through television, film, and yes...even Broadway. At the age of 13, she debuted as Fredrika Armfeldt in "A Little Night Music," starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury. She's starring in a new Disney Channel Movie of the Week titled Girl vs Monster which premiers on October 12th, and has landed the highly coveted role of Becky Thatcher in next year's film Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (2013). If that's not enough, she's also appearing in The Contest (also due out next year), which addresses the issue of bullying. It's a hot topic with Katherine, who reveals that she was once herself a victim of it's devistating effects. In addition to an already impressive list of acting credits, Katherine is a singer,...

Lots of kids are inspired to make their own version of a movie when they're on a high walking out of a blockbuster on a hot summer day – but Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala and took their obsession much, much further after seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981. The pair set out to remake the entire Steven Spielberg classic shot-for-shot, and while making the bargain-basement film almost destroyed their friendship, the incredibly impressive final cut has reached cult status and even caught the attention of Spielberg himself.

Watch the first 10 minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation Here.

"It's really something to meet your boyhood hero and find that you've chosen your heroes well, " Eric tells Et exclusively about their meeting with the Hollywood legend, describing Spielberg as "warm and paternal" and detailing how they spent 45 minutes talking about "life and movies" before he treated them to some never-before-seen Raiders outtakes. "It was a real...

Written for Word & Film by Christine Spines:

Can your television set be trusted with two American literature’s most iconic kids? We’d argue that it’s a tough call when the man who created them is not around to protect their integrity. We’re talking about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, who will soon undergo a radical metamorphosis from pre-teen river rats to twentysomething Big Easy detectives (and presumably barflies). Today’s news that producers Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen (“The Twilight Saga”) were developing a new network series re-imagining Twain’s two favorite sons as wise-cracking sleuths in steampunk New Orleans set off alarm bells reserved for literary emergencies like this one, when very bad ideas threaten very good books.

This is particularly true when it comes to literary adaptations on the small screen. We’re not talking about the damaged denizens of genre fiction. Mystery, crime,...

While re-imagining well-known fairy tales such as Snow White are all the rage in Hollywood, you can now add Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn to the list of classic characters getting a makeover. While the storyline is being kept under wraps, Paramount has picked up a script from Bedtime Stories scribe Andy Burg titled Huck. The film revolves around the characters created by Mark Twain in his 1876 novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and three additional books. The project is being described as a re-imagining in the vein of Snow White and the Huntsman, focusing on Tom and Huck as adults. There's also supernatural elements in the script, though what exactly is unknown.   No director has been attached yet, but the project does have the support of Rise of the Planet of the Apes...

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I remember reading Mark Twain in high school. I believe one of those books was a Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn adventure. I don’t remember what book that was, since I rarely remember too much from books that are assigned reading. When you force me to do something, my response is to do it, but I ain’t rememberin’ it. It’s a good thing Paramount is around to help me remember these things. The studio plans on “re-imagining” Twain’s two teenage creations as adult men. But that’s not all! The studio has picked up a spec script by Andy Burg called “Huck” that will re-imagine the two heroes as adventurin’ adults, including supernatural shenanigans in the plot. Curious they’re calling it “Huck”, though. Why not “Tom and Huck”? Or, my personal favorite, “Huck This!”. (Exclamation point included, of course.) This wouldn’t exactly be the...

One thing’s for sure; if you want to bring a classic story back to the screen, you’ve got to change the name. “Mirror Mirror,” “Tangled,” “Frozen,” “Elementary” -- the trend certainly points toward giving established properties cooler titles, ones that hint at the source material being adapted from. Hell, even Batman and Superman are now going by their nicknames rather than their more recognizable monikers. So it goes then, that “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” will be known simply as “Huck” when the story next finds its way to theaters.

Paramount has picked up a spec script from newcomer Andy Burg, which is based on Mark Twain’s classic stories featuring the characters of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. They‘re familiar tales and have been adapted more times than we could even attempt to document here. In fact, there’s already an adaptation that’s currently in...

Paramount Pictures has picked up a script by Andy Burg (Bedtime Stories, The Sorcerer's Apprentice) titled "Huck," which revolves around the characters created by author Mark Twain, appearing in his 1876 novel "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" and three additional books. The storyline is being kept under wraps, but the project is described as a re-imagining in the vein of "Snow White and the Huntsman," focusing on Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as adults. There also are supernatural elements in the script. Twain's book have had several film and TV adaptation, from 1918's "Huck and Tom" to Disney's 1995 version "Tom and Huck," starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Brad Renfro. The new movie is produced by Peter Chernin and Dylan Clark (Rise of the Planet of the Apes).

Paramount Pictures has acquired a spec script from Andrew Burg (Bedtime Stories, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) called Huck and Finn. The studio is planning to take Mark Twain's two classic literary characters, and give them a 21st century modern day makeover, which seems ridiculous, but could end up being cool. You never know with these kinds of films.

The only information we have to go off of is that it's a reimagining of these classic characters in the vein of Snow White and the Huntsman, and it will focus on the pair as adults. THR also says that there are supernatural elements in the story as well.

I love these 19th century characters that were created by Twain. Growing up I would read those books over and over again. It was amazing fun reading about the adventures that they lived in these novels. I related more to Huck Finn than I did Tom Sawyer,...

Over time, Mark Twain’s characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have proven to be two of the most enduring in the entire history of American literature. And by enduring, I mean that they keep getting dug back up for new adaptations and interpretations. Though it was largely agreed by all that Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Brad Renfro had finally given us the quintessential versions of the rapscallions with Disney’s 1995 film, Tom and Huck, Paramount has decided that it isn’t too late for them to get into the game themselves. To that end they’ve picked up a spec script written by Andrew Burg that goes by the name of…Huck and Tom. There isn’t much creativity going on out there with these Mark Twain adaptations is there? Snarkiness aside, Paramount’s new vision of the trouble-making duo does sound like it’s going to be taking the traditional Huck and Tom story in...

Mark Twain may have published "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" eight years before "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," but don't tell that to Paramount.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the studio plans on adapting the famous Mark Twain novels into a film called "Huck and Tom."

But! There's a catch: The story will feature Sawyer and Finn as grown-ups, and include "supernatural elements." (Initiate mass groan from literature aficionados.)

"Huck and Tom" is the latest in a long line of Sawyer-Finn film adaptations, and is not to be confused with "Tom and Huck," the 1995 film with Jonathan Taylor Thomas, nor "Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn," the upcoming flick starring Joel Courtney ("Super 8") that Variety reported on last year.

"Huck and Tom" currently has no release date.

[via THR]...

Mark Twain may have published "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" eight years before "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," but don't tell that to Paramount. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the studio plans on adapting the famous Mark Twain novels into a film called "Huck and Tom." But! There's a catch: The story will feature Sawyer and Finn as grown-ups, and include "supernatural elements." (Initiate mass groan from literature aficionados.) "Huck and Tom" is the latest in a long line of Sawyer-Finn film adaptations, and is not to be confused with "Tom and Huck," the 1995 film with Jonathan Taylor Thomas, nor "Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn," the upcoming flick starring Joel Courtney ("Super 8") that Variety reported on last year. "Huck and Tom" currently has no release date. [via THR]...

What could be more exciting than a new show that involves an actress from one of the most legendary musical films of all time? How about a new show involving the actress who plays the most awesome character from that film? Yes I am talking about the one and only Grease, and the one and only-est Stockard Channing! The famed Rizzo has been cast on an ABC pilot where she will play mother to none other than the teen pop icon turned actress, Mandy Moore. I am almost equally thrilled at Mandy's participation in this pilot because I have been a fan of hers since her big acting debut in A Walk to Remember. Her portrayal of Jamie Sullivan is one of the reasons I believe in true love to this day. Clearly both actresses are musically gifted so the producers on this pilot might as well stop kidding...

"Anyone who caught writer-director Todd Rohal's The Guatemalan Handshake (2006) knows that he likes to lace his indie realism with generous helpings of lysergic weirdness," writes David Fear in Time Out New York. "So it's no surprise that what starts out as a beer-soaked cringe comedy about stunted masculinity ends up deep in the woods with noise-loving Japanese tourists and exploding craniums — or that such detours into psychotronic oddity for its own sake can make even a 75-minute running time feel like an eternity. Still, kudos for the oh-so-clever title."

"Produced by Eastbound & Down masterminds David Gordon Green, Jody Hill, and Danny McBride, and starring that show's standout weirdo Steve Little, writer/director Todd Rohal's farce follows incompetent Father Billy (Little) as he tries to rediscover his faith through a sabbatical canoeing trip with his sister's high school ex-boyfriend Robbie (Robert Longstreet)," explains Nick Schager in the Voice. "Little's...

The Circle of Life has reached a major milestone for Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

It seems like it wasn't all that long ago that the wise Rafiki presented him to the sky as a newborn cub (this part may or may not have been fictional), but it is today, September 8th, 2011, that Jonathan Taylor Thomas, the vision of mid-90s tween dreams, turns 30 years old.

Rising to fame at 10 years old with his role as Randy Taylor on the ABC sitcom "Home Improvement," Jtt, as he would come to be known, saw his face plastered across every teen magazine imaginable. The boy who would be king took on a number of iconic roles in his early days; in 1994, he voiced Simba in "The Lion King," and in the two subsequent years, he played Tom Sawyer in "Tom and Huck," and the title marionette/boy in "Pinnochio."

He largely left show business...

As any woman in her mid-to-late twenties can attest, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, or Jtt as he was known around the Teen Bop/Bop/Tiger Beat/Tiger Bop/Tiger Teens Beep Bop Ba Doop community, was a big deal growing up. You were either so entirely obsessed with the Home Improvement dreamboat that it was hard to tell where the Jtt posters hanging in your bedroom ended and your actual wall paper began, or you had a best friend who did. (I was of the latter category. And as a true testament to how much I love my best friend, I...

There was one very attractive reason I watched Home Improvement every week as a child. Say it with me: Jonathan Taylor Thomas. The Justin Bieber of the ’90s, Jtt was talented, well-coiffed, and completely non-threatening, even though parents would be petrified knowing what pre-teens daydreamed about the young actor. When Home Improvement hit its stride in the mid-’90s, I hit the age in which boys were suddenly attractive, but still verboten enough to make any crush extremely embarrassing. So I used to admire Jtt secretly. When no one was looking, I’d pick up the teen magazine at our...

[1] Scarlett Johansson may seem like an unlikely lead for a Judd Apatow film, but in this context her casting actually makes a lot of sense. Johansson has signed on to star in Can a Song Save Your Life?, which will be written and directed by John Carney (Once) and produced by Apatow. The film follows “a washed-up A&R man who forms a passionate bond with a young singer-songwriter (Johansson) from out of town.” The project calls for Johansson to sing, which shouldn't be a problem for the actress. Johansson is in fact a professional singer, having released an album of Tom Waits covers titled Anywhere I Lay My Head back in 2008 and a collaboration with Pete Yorn called Break Up in 2009. Though the male lead has yet to be cast, Mark Ruffalo and Jim Carrey have been rumored as possibilities. (Fwiw, I vote Ruffalo.) Shooting on the film will...

Just last week we learned that breakout Super 8 star Joel Courtney would follow his star-making turn in J.J. Abrams sci-fi flick with a journey into the past for an adaptation of Mark Twain's classic adventures of Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn. Courtney is playing Sawyer and now Variety reports "Wizards of Waverly Place" and Hotel for Dogs star Jake T. Austin is closing a deal to play Huckleberry Finn. Though the two leads have been cast, and we know Jo Kastner is directing the film, we're still not sure exactly what kind of mischief the infamous protagonists will find themselves in this time around. Read on! The last time Tom and Huck got together it was in the aptly named Disney feature Tom and Huck with Jonathan Taylor Thomas and the late Brad Renfro playing the two troublemakers respectively. In that film, the two witness a graveyard murder and...

After stunning nearly everyone who saw Super 8 with his naturalistic and immediately winning performance, 15-year-old Joel Courtney moved on to play one of American literature's most iconic characters, signing on to star in a new movie adaptation of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, this one called Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn. And though Courtney's inexperienced naturalism-- he'd never been in a film before this summer-- was one of the selling points of his performance in Super 8, he'll be joined in the new film by a veteran of the trade. Variety reports that Jake T. Austin, star of Disney's Wizards of Waverly Place, has signed on to play Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer's best friend and, you may remember, an iconic literary character all his own. At 15 and 16 Austin and Courtney are both a little older than Tom and Huck are as described in Twain's book, but both...

In what is surely another sign of the End of Days, reality television kingpin Mark Burnett has partnered with AOL to produce a series of digital comedy shorts based on CliffsNotes Literature Study Guides.

According to Deadline, CliffsNotes publisher John Wiley & Sons and Burnett, creator of that paragon of sophistication known as Survivor, will be taking classic works of the literary canon and creating funny, "irreverent" animated shorts to be aired on AOL.com. Authors involved include Shakespeare, Dickens and Twain.

Just what we need, right? And they're not even using the novels as source material. They're using the CliffsNotes! But it's okay because they're still presenting "the plots, characters, and themes." Whew! I was worried they'd leave out the plots and characters. Not to mention the shame of taking the most talented, influential authors the world has produced and entwining them with AOL. Stop the madness, I say.

I...

Here's a look back at Christmas weekend through the years: 5 Years Ago - 2005 Eight movies entered nationwide release, but King Kong and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe still packed a one-two punch. Kong's second weekend showed some relative weakness by beating Narnia's third weekend by $1.5 million: Kong made $21.3 million (down 58 percent), while Narnia generated $19.8 million (off 38 percent). Fun with Dick and Jane was the biggest new release with $14.4 million, followed by Cheaper by the Dozen 2 at $9.3 million. Memoirs of a Geisha expanded unmemorably to $6.8 million, The Ringer plopped down with $5.2 million, and Munich was unspectacular with $4.2 million (at 532 venues). Three movies had only one day of nationwide play, due to opening on Sunday, Christmas day, and all three were modest: Rumor Has It at $3.5 million, Wolf Creek at $2.8 million and The Producers at $1.6 million. * Weekend Report: 'King Kong' Clings to Christmas...

On September 3, 1981, Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas brought Bernard Sabath's The Boys of Autumn for a trial run to Marines Memorial Theatre, San Francisco. A "what-if" tale about the reunion of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn 50 years after their infamous adventures on the Mississippi, Lancaster played Henry Finnegan (Huck, of course) and Douglas his old friend Thomas Gray (Sawyer). Having retired from vaudeville, Tom Sawyer--who has been using the stage name of Thomas Gray--returns to his home in the South searching for his boyhood friend Huckleberry Finn. The play was directed by Tom Moore and ran for four weeks (some sources say six) and reunited Lancaster and Douglas for their seventh collaboration after previously starring together in six films: I Walk Alone (1948), Gunfight at the Ok Corral (1957), The Devil's Disciple (1959), The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), Seven Days in May (1964), and the made-for-tv Victory at Entebbe (1976). They would work together...

Lakeview Terrace screenwriter David Loughery has sold his latest film pitch, a supernatural thriller called Mourning After. THR describes the project as set in San Francisco and involves a man who falls in love with a woman who harbors a secret. Hey, vampires are in right now; d'you think Loughery's mysterious lady is a bloodsucker? I'm taking odds, place yer bets, place yer bets...

The companies that purchased the pitch are Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, A Bigger Boat and GreeneStreet Films. All three firms will develop Loughery's idea -- which as it turns out originally came from Charles Segars and Steve Ireland and then Loughery pitched it -- as it becomes a screenplay.

Loughery's feature writing career started in 1984 with Dreamscape, a thriller with sci-fi overtones that starred Dennis Quaid and Kate Capshaw. He then wrote Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Passenger 57, the 1993 version of The Three Musketeers, a...

Actor Brad Renfro, who became a child star at 14 in The Client but in recent years was plagued by numerous drug problems and arrests, was found dead at his Los Angeles home Tuesday morning; he was 25. While the Los Angeles County coroner confirmed to Access Hollywood that Renfro had died, a cause of death was not named. The Tennessee-born actor snagged an amazingly high-profile part for his first role, that of a young boy sought by the mafia in the 1994 adaptation of the John Grisham novel The Client, opposite established stars Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones. His impressive performance in the box office hit made him a high-profile young actor, and roles in such films as Tom and Huck, Sleepers and Telling Lies in America followed; he also appeared opposite Ian McKellen in Bryan Singer's controversial Apt Pupil, about a young student who blackmails his elderly neighbor, whom he believes is a Nazi war criminal. Despite a string of successful roles, including solid performances in Bully and Ghost World, Renfro reportedly found adapting to Hollywood difficult, and was arrested on a number of drug and theft charges. In 2000, he was arrested in Florida on grand theft charges for allegedly trying to steal a 45-foot yacht, and while on probation for the crime was jailed for underage drinking. Other arrests followed, and last year he was found in violation of his probation for failing to enroll in a drug treatment program. Most recently, Renfro had appeared in The Jacket as well as an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He had just wrapped filming on The Informers opposite Winona Ryder, Mickey Rourke, Billy Bob Thornton and Kim Basinger.