EXCLUSIVE: BCDF Pictures has picked up the rights to Raymond E. Feist's blockbuster fantasy book franchise The Riftwar Saga with Atomic Blonde screenwriter Kurt Johnstad aboard to adapt the first novel Magician for television. Claude Dal Farra, Brice Dal Farra, Brian Keady, and Feist are executive producing. Fiction…

EXCLUSIVE: Screenwriter Kurt Johnstad has covered both ancient warfare co-writing 300 and its sequel 300: Rise Of An Empire, and contemporary conflict with Act Of Valor. Now, he’s tackling a collision of completely different warriors in The Lost Legion, an epic action film he’ll write, with Dan Lin producing for Warner…

EXCLUSIVE: Jamie Blackley has landed the co-lead in the 300 sequel that Noam Murro will direct for Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures. In the Kurt Johnstad-scripted film, Blackley will play Calisto, a teen whose desire to become the heroic man/soldier his father was leads the 16-year-old to become a leader of a small…

EXCLUSIVE: The producers of the 300 spinoff known as Xerxes have retitled their film 300: Battle of Artemisia, and they have also narrowed their focus of potential directors to two: Noam Murro and Jaume Collet-Serra. The film, a spinoff to 300, is one that the film’s original director Zack Snyder was going to direct…

When Deadline broke the story that Relativity Media had won an auction for Act of Valor by paying a $13 million minimum guarantee and $30 million P&A commitment for a Navy SEAL mission movie, we told you the film would open President’s Day. Relativity has just made the date official. Here’s the release: (Beverly…

UPDATE: Relativity Media has closed its deal for Act of Valor, as Deadline revealed earlier today. Press release is below our original break on the deal. Relativity has dated the film for 2012, so I suspect it will be Presidents’ Day weekend in late February. EARLIER EXCLUSIVE, 1:27 PM: In what will shape up as…

EXCLUSIVE: Sean Penn is circling The Last Photograph, and I’m told he plans to join Christian Bale in the Kurt Johnstad-scripted drama that will be directed by Niels Arden Oplev, director of the Swedish The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The film is moving from Warner Bros, and is in negotiations to move to Dark Castle…