It's a strange thing about Hollywood that the people who should be given carte blanche to make any damn film they darn well please always seem to have trouble getting things off the ground, while the people who one could quite happily never hear from again have their every cheese-fuelled dream committed to celluloid. So it is with a heavy heart that we report that David Fincher's Heavy Metal has gone into turnaround at Paramount and is being shopped to other studios, putting its future at risk.

Heavy Metal, for those of you not au fait with 1970s magazines specialising in sci-fi, fantasy and erotica, was a 1970s magazine specialising in, well, see above. But this was no trashy exploitation rag (well, only a bit) - it had writers like Steve Niles and Joe Haldeman writing the stories, and covers by, among others, HR Giger.

Fincher's plan is to use eight to ten short stories and make a portmanteau film with other directors (he would take one segment himself though, natch), in what's described as an "edgy remake" of the 1981 animated movie inspired by the magazine (although we don't think this one would be all-animated). But Paramount were worried that the material was somewhat too risque and pulled the plug. Still, the word is that Fincher and co. plan to keep on looking for a studio, so let's all hope that someone gives this man a soundstage and a blank cheque sometime soon.