New: Jack the Giant Killer

Variety reports that J.D Caruso (Disturbia) is filming a version of the folktale Jack and the Beanstalk (last lensed in 1962 by Nathan Juran, with Jim Danforth's stop-motion animation), as Jack the Giant Killer, for New Line.

It tells the well-known tale:

When a princess is kidnapped, a long-standing peace between men and giants becomes threatened, and a young farmer is given an opportunity to lead a dangerous expedition to the giant kingdom to rescue her. (Variety)

Reportedly, it will take an "adult" view of the story, whatever that means. Variety reports Darren Lemke (a Lost writer) and Mark Bomback as scripters, with Neal Moritz and David Dobkin as producers. No date is given.

This appears to be a different project to one reported by German site Zelluloid, which suggests a modernised version of the same tale:

This action adventure centers around a man, who journeys from modern New York into a more primitive country, in order to protect a village and a princess there from evil and fantastical creatures. (Roughly translated from zelluloid.de)

This site lists Sam Raimi and Joshua Donen as producers, from a script by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. This corresponds to an entry in IMDb, which names Buckaroo Entertainment as the company concerned and describes the film as an action/comedy/fantasy. A release date of 2009 is given on this one.

IMDb also has a Jack the Giant Killer project listed for 2011, though no details are available. Presumably, this is the same one as reported by Variety.

So that's two versions of the same story coming our way. Interesting.