Last week, Relativity Media announced big news on The Crow – which just found a new director and writer in F. Javier Gutierrez and Jesse Wigutow – and Timeless, an action-drama starring Liam Hemsworth and directed by Phillip Noyce.  Now, the distributor has kicked off a new week with big news.  Relativity is teaming up with Hasbro to create a Stretch Armstrong feature film based on the squishy elastic action figure first produced in 1976.

Thanks to largely to the copious toplessness and facial symmetry he has displayed as Jacob Black in all the Twilight films but most notably in New Moon, Taylor Lautner went from a child actor with a bunch of television credits and roles in Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3D to a crazy-famous movie star.  Gus Van Sant is the indie-minded and often wildly experimental director behind films such as Gerry, Milk, Good Will Hunting, My Own Private Idaho, Last Days, Paranoid Park, Elephant, and that shot-for-shot Psycho remake.  Like Vaseline on toast, these two tastes are coming together for reasons seemingly beyond comprehension, as Lautner is set to star in and produce an independent drama directed by Van Sant.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon made more than a billion dollars globally over the summer, and given that its two predecessors raked in about a billion and a half with their grosses combined, it doesn't take an elaborate formula to conclude that the Transformers franchise will continue, and will likely do so sooner rather than later.  Hasbro, the toy company that owns the extraterrestrial robots and a plethora of other recognizable properties being developed as features, is evidently in active discussions with Paramount, Steven Spielberg, and Michael Bay to get Transformers 4 up and running.  That's according to company CEO Brian Goldner, who also provided updates on several other Hasbro movie hopefuls, including Ouija and Monopoly.

Less than a year ago, the cinematic takeover of board games seemed all but inevitable, with Universal's Battleship leading the way in the summer of 2012.  Now, though, Hasbro's domination at the multiplexes appears less certain.  In a development that has caused untold numbers of entertainment writers to break out the board game-based wordplay, Universal Pictures has passed on making Ouija, a tent-pole blockbuster hopeful from director McG.