John Daly, the British-born producer who presided over back-to-back best picture Oscar wins as the executive producer of 1986's "Platoon" and 1987's "The Last Emperor," died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after struggling with cancer. He was 71.

Since 2003, Daly had been chairman of Film and Music Entertainment Inc. He also had begun to establish himself as a director, producing, co-writing and directing 2004's "The Aryan Couple," starring Martin Landau.

Daly entered the entertainment business in 1967 by joining forces with actor David Hemmings to form Hemdale, a company that managed such rock bands as Yes and Black Sabbath.

Hemdale later became a leading independent film producer and distributor in the U.K. with movies like "Tommy," according to a biography issued by Film and Music Entertainment. Under Daly's stewardship, Hemdale produced more than 100 films that grossed more than $1.5 billion.

Daly hit his stride as a film producer in the '80s, working with such directors as Oliver Stone ("Salvador"), James Cameron ("The Terminator") and John Schlesinger ("The Falcon and the Snowman"). He was involved in films that scored 21 Academy Awards nominations and 13 wins.

Daly recently concluded postproduction on "The Box Collector," a suspense film that he directed.

He is survived by three sons, Michael, Julian and Timothy; and his daughter Jenny.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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Variety is reporting that Sam Mendes will direct a bigscreen adaptation of the supernatural graphic novel PREACHER for Columbia Pictures.

Created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon, the graphic novel focuses on the preacher of a Texas town, who is struggling to get by and is driven only by his strong moral sense. When the city is decimated by an otherworldly force, he embarks on a journey across the country to take on the evil.

The supernatural project is a departure for Mendes, who is best known for tackling suburban angst in such films as "American Beauty" and the upcoming Leonardo DiCaprio-Kate Winslet starrer "Revolutionary Road."

But Mendes isn’t new to the world of comicbooks: His drama "Road to Perdition" was also adapted from a graphic novel.

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It's been on and off more often than a lightswitch, but it looks like Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson's TINTIN is a go project once again, as the pair are in talks with Paramount and Sony to partner on a deal to make two films (and perhaps a third).

Spielberg would direct the first Tintin film and Jackson the second in a proposed trilogy, although no director has been hired for the third and a script has not yet been written for that one. They would be released jointly bt the studios, with Paramount covering the US and some other English-speaking territories and Sony the rest of the world (it's not clear which category we fall into in the UK).

Spielberg had hoped to start shooting in the autumn, but he delays over financing have led to the chosen lead, Thomas Sangster, becoming engaged elsewhere. The 3-D motion-capture extravaganza should still be ready for a 2010 release, however.

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