Today in movie gruel: Ashley Greene to star in "ultra-modern" take on Oliver Twist

Once more pickpocketing from the easy mark that is the public domain, producer Michael De Luca is developing a new version of Oliver Twist, a story that has gone nearly six years now without another movie adaptation, and was thus in danger of being consigned to history’s dustbin. Now only the novel’s actual, boring text will suffer that fate, as De Luca—who’s certainly having a busy, proactive day today—plans to give Charles Dickens’ 19th-century social critique a gender-reversed, “ultra-modern” makeover with far more guns as Olivia Twisted, which will star Twilight’s Ashley Greene as a 19-year-old girl who falls in with a group of “highly-trained, orphaned street urchins,” despite the fact that 19 is plenty old enough to be living on her own and becoming a responsible member of society, rather than consorting with urchins, trained or otherwise. Regardless, she does, and after a “kidnapping job” gone awry, she and her urchin friends soon find themselves in the middle of a gang war. According to Variety, the film will boast a “unique gothic backdrop” and “classic Dickensian elements,” such as the fact that it will have poor people, and it will make you long to move far, far away to the countryside.