Darren Aronofsky and Brad Pitt to go 'Tiger Hunting' with the writer of 'Babel'?

So it seems, according to The Hollywood Reporter:

Guillermo Arriaga, the writer behind Brad Pitt's fractured drama "Babel" as well as indie darling "Amores perros," is reteaming with Pitt for "The Tiger," a drama that Darren Aronofsky is developing as a potential Pitt vehicle. The project will be a co-production between Focus Features and Random House's film division.

The story, based on an upcoming nonfiction book by John Vaillant, centers on an animal activist who must protect the small Siberian town he is in when a tiger begins attacking its inhabitants.

Pitt and Aronofsky, who has not yet committed to directing "Hunting," have been developing the project under the radar since last year.

UTA-repped Arriaga's other credits include dramas "21 Grams" as well as "The Burning Plain," which he also directed.

Aronofsky is producing with his Protozoa partners Mark Heyman and Ari Handel. Pitt is producing via his Plan B shingle along with the company's Jeremy Kleiner and Dede Gardner.

-This is definitely another film to keep track of...thoughts?

Brad Bird's 'Mission: Impossible IV' and a 'Planet of the Apes' prequel get release dates!

Here are both stories, starting with the M:I4 one from Collider:

Paramount Pictures has set December 16, 2011 as the release date for Mission: Impossible IV. No director has been announced, but when we last reported on the film, it appeared that the studio was hammering out the final details with Oscar-winner Brad Bird (The Incredibles). There are no story details on the fourth film, but Tom Cruise will return as Agent Ethan Hunt. J.J. Abrams, who directed the third film, will return as a producer. Screenwriters Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec are attached to write the script, from an original idea by Cruise and Abrams.

There are three films currently slated to open in December 2011 other than Mission Impossible 4: Martin Scorsese’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret on December 9th, Alvin and the Chipmunks 3D on December 16th, and The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn on December 23rd. Of these four films, Mission: Impossible IV is the only one that isn’t set to be in 3D. Of course, I wouldn’t be shocked if M:I-4 was infected by the 3D plague somewhere down the line.

Tom Cruise just today confirmed that it's apparently Bird in the director's chair.

-Here's the Apes story from Variety:

Twentieth Century Fox will release prequel "Rise of the Apes" on June 24, 2011, with Rupert Wyatt confirmed to direct.

Title is tentative.

Studio is partnering with Peter Jackson's visual effects company WETA Digital on the film, which relaunches the "Planet of the Apes" franchise.

Chernin Entertainment is producing.

Wyatt will direct from a script by Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa, who also are producing with Chernin Entertainment's Peter Chernin and Dylan Clark.

"Rise of the Apes" is an origins story set in present-day San Francisco. The film is a reality-based cautionary tale, where man's own experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy.

WETA will render, for the first time ever in the film series, photo-realistic apes rather than costumed actors.

-Thoughts?