• FremantleMedia Enterprise has signed a first-look deal with Liquid Comics -- formerly Virgin Comics -- designed to bring the publisher's properties to other media.

The first two projects in the agreement are based on comics set to be released later this year: Animax, about a boy who can who can absorb the abilities and characteristics of any animals he touches, will be developed as an animated series. The second, First Family, will be turned into a drama about the teen children of a newly elected president who have to grapple with high school.

• Len Wiseman (Underworld, Live Free or Die Hard) will develop and direct the big-screen adaptation of Shrapnel for Radical Pictures.

The comic, from Radical's publishing division, is set in a future where humans have colonized the solar system, leaving Venus as the last rebellious holdout. A self-exiled former Marine teaches the colonists how to fight back against the Solar Alliance.

• Comic artist Kaare Andrews will direct the action film The Hunted, based on his own screenplay. The movie centers on assassin who's hired to kill a young girl but refuses to fulfill the contract.

• The oft-discussed sequel to 300 appears to be slowly making progress. The Hollywood Reporter's Risky Business Blog has word that Frank Miller recently finished a draft of the graphic novel on which the movie will be based.

• Black Beauty, the gadget-filled car from The Green Hornet movie, was revealed during Preview Night by Seth Rogan, writing partner Evan Goldberg and director Michel Gondry.

• ShockTillYouDrop.com has a photo of the Comic-Con banner for Warner Bros.' Jonah Hex movie.

• /Film rolls out a gallery of images from Preview Night, with a focus on movie and TV booths and props.

• Nikki Finke claims Comic-Con opened with "a whimper," at least from a Hollywood perspective. Her correspondent in San Diego is unimpressed with the studio presence at the event.