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[pANDAS Radio]

MGM now stands for Mary's Greenlighting Movies.

Mary Parent, that is, who has rapidly been rebuilding the production capabilities of the iconic studio since she grabbed the foreman's hat in March. On Tuesday, the Worldwide Motion Picture Group chairman gave her first greenlight to a spec script from sci-fi mavericks Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard titled "The Cabin in the Woods." Goddard, who most recently scripted the $168 million grossing (worldwide) Paramount monster movie "Cloverfield," will make the film his directorial debut. Whedon will produce as well.

Parent also is pushing forward MGM's "Red Dawn" remake. The studio has just hired screenwriter Carl Ellsworth to recraft the ultimate homeland invasion story for a new generation of besieged high schoolers. Dan Bradley, a second unit director and/or stunt coordinator on "The Bourne Ultimatum," "Spider-Man 3" and the forthcoming "Quantum of Solace," is moving into the director's chair on the update. Beau Flynn and Tripp Vinson of Contrafilm, whose "Journey to the Center of the Earth" opens Friday, will produce.

Parent and MGM chairman and CEO Harry Sloan announced the "Red Dawn" remake -- along with a big-budget rebuild of "RoboCop," which director Darren Aronofsky among others has recently been in to discuss -- in May at the Festival de Cannes. As the studio regroups, its executives have realized that they also can exploit the numerous classic and cult properties in the strong MGM library for a new audience. (Parent seems equally willing to take risks on such freshman directors as Goddard and Bradley.)

The original "Dawn" was the Cold War brainchild of writer-director John Milius, who devised a World War III invasion of America by the Soviets and Cubans.

"The tone is going to be very intense, very much keeping in mind the post-9/11 world that we're in," Ellsworth said. "As 'Red Dawn' scared the heck out of people in 1984, we feel that the world is kind of already filled with a lot of paranoia and unease, so why not scare the hell out of people again?"

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...f5c48c0666d28e