Lee Caplin, a representative of the William Faulkner Literary Estate and producer of 1989’s vampire opus ‘To Die For’ and its 1991 sequel ‘Son Of Darkness’ has unearthed Faulkner’s only unproduced, feature-length screenplay, a vampire saga set in an anonymous Eastern European location in the possession of Jill Faulkner Summers, the novelist's daughter, who found a manuscript some seven years ago in the piles of material her father left behind.

Caplin plans to move the location from a European setting to the Deep South, and is planning high-end computer-graphics to create modern effects.

Given Faulkner’s filmic résumé and the noir treatment he gave to Ernest Hemingway’s ‘To Have Or Have Not’ and to Raymond Chandler’s ‘The Big Sleep’ (Yes, the one with Bogart and Bacall) let’s hope that they leave the source material as it is and don’t try to ‘modernise’ it.

The script is by Tyger Torrez and Rector who also stars as a businessman who, after being seduced by a beautiful female vampire named Lilith (Oh, how original.), finds himself at odds with not only his now-changed lifestyle, but also a vampire gang called the Bleeders (What?) and a paramilitary force called S.T.A.K.E. (That’s terrible) dedicated to eradicating them.

It stars Reggie ‘Phantasm’ Bannister, R.A. ‘Leatherface’ Mihailoff, Billy Drago Fred Williamson, Christa Campbell, Carel Struycken, Vernon Wells, Sam Jones, Anne Lockhart, Jason Carter, Mickey Jones and, Martin Kove, many of which will be familiar to genre fans.

Sounds like a bit of a mishmash to me but HBO can usually be relied on to put out entertaining stuff. They’re happy enough that a sequel is already being discussed.

‘Preacher’ is about a Texan, erm, preacher who becomes possessed of the spawn of an angel and a demon who sets out to extract revenge from God. He is accompanied by his girlfriend and a drunken pal who happens to be a vampire.

I once reported that this project was to be a feature adaptation starring James Marsden but that will obviously not be happening and, perhaps, an ongoing TV series would be a better place to explore this character in depth anyway. Ennis and Dillon will Co~Produce. There are no cast details available.

The novel has similarities to George A. Romero’s ‘Land Of The Dead’ and the John Milius’ ‘Red Dawn’ in that it’s set in future where the Earth’s natural resources have been totally depleted and the planet has been ravaged by world war.

The movie, which is the vein (no pun intended) of Western ‘The Searchers’ and based upon the graphic novel by Min-Woo Hyung, is expected to star Gerard Butler in a script from Cory Goodman that sees the titular character joined in his hunt by a sheriff and a priestess with the action taking place, and being filmed, in Mexico.

Paquin plays Sookie Stackhouse, a small town Louisiana waitress with telepathic abilities, who falls in love with a vampire much to the annoyance of her brother, Sam, played by Kwanten.

The story is set in an alternative Victorian world where vampires, elves and all manner of nonhuman creatures live side by side with, but subservient to, human kind. A private detective has to solve the serial murders of fairy prostitutes for which he has become prime suspect. I’m betting there’s a Jack the Ripper link there somewhere.