Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with some... interesting news. Hollywood Reporter says SMALLVILLE's Tom Welling and LOST's Maggie "I'm damn hot in a Dominique Swain kinda way" Grace is cast in SHITMATA... erm, I mean STIGMATA director Rupert Wainwright's attempt at topping John Carpenter's awesome 1980 film, THE FOG.

I don't have much faith in this adaptation. Although I don't particularly care for SMALLVILLE personally, I don't have any problem with Tom Welling and I love LOST and want to see any of the cast move on to do something cool... however, it seems that casting for this film is going the traditional "pull young hot people from TV" route that I really dislike, especially since the original had a predominantly older cast. I mean, Jamie Lee Curtis was the young face in the older crowd in the original.

I just have a feeling that this film will totally abandon the slow creep and the atmosphere for a clone of I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. I hope I'm wrong. I didn't think the ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 remake was going to be anything but a turd and I was proven wrong there, so who knows? But I can say that they didn't cast ASSAULT off of the WB...

Anyway, here's what the Hollywood Reporter article (which you can read here) has to say:

Tom Welling and Maggie Grace will star in the remake of John Carpenter's classic horror thriller "The Fog" for Revolution Studios. Rupert Wainwright is directing and Debra Hill, David Foster and Carpenter are producing the film, which Cooper Layne is penning from the screenplay written by Hill and Carpenter for the original 1980 film. "Fog" is set in a Northern California town where, about 100 years ago, a ship sank under mysterious circumstances in a thick, eerie fog. The ghosts of the deceased mariners return from their watery graves to seek their revenge. Welling will play a local boat owner who never left the town, and Grace will portray a college girl who is back in her hometown for the summer. CAA-repped Welling is the star of the WB Network hit "Smallville." He also appeared in the feature "Cheaper By the Dozen." Grace, repped by Innovative Artists, is best known for the ABC hit "Lost." (Borys Kit)