It’s been eight years since the first "Harry Potter" film hit the big screen, and in that time the franchise has gone through half as many directors. With Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Newell and now David Yates putting their skills to work on bringing J.K. Rowling's works to life, the various novels have been interpreted in a variety of ways.

“Sorcerer’s Stone” and “Chamber of Secrets” director Chris Columbus had the tough job of being the first to adapt the biggest children’s novel series of all time. He was further challenged with having to commit those books to film before Harry Potter’s story had even been finished; only the first four novels had been released when “Sorcerer’s Stone” and “Chamber of Secrets” hit theaters. Read more...

Chris Columbus may have left the "Harry Potter" series far behind, but he's clearly still hungry for a sprawling fantasy franchise. He's set to start filming "Percy Jackson", a big screen adaptation of Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series, and while he's lined up Logan Lerman to play the title role, he needs some Olympians.

The chance to play a god has attracted some appealing names, because Variety , reports that Uma Thurman, Pierce Brosnan, and Sean Bean have joined the cast as Greek gods. Read more...

"Ripley's Believe It or Not" is a gruesome childhood staple -- chances are you've visited one of the chain museums, or caught one of its television incarnations sometime in your past.

So it's no wonder that Hollywood has wanted to put a movie about its origins on the big screen. Paramount has been trying to get a biopic about its founder, Robert Ripley, for years with no success. Names like Michel Gondry were floated around, and it was once set to be directed by Tim Burton, with Jim Carrey attached to star. But rumors of budget problems and script rewrites dogged the project, and Burton left in favor of making more movies with Johnny Depp (who can blame him?) Read more...