Is Amanda Seyfried Hardwicke's GIRL WITH THE RED RIDING HOOD?

Warner Bros. is setting its sights on Amanda Seyfried (Dear John, Jennifer's Body, Mean Girls) to star in director Catherine Hardwicke's The Girl With the Red Riding Hood.

The gothic-styled modern-day retelling of the classic Brothers Grimm story Little Red Riding Hood, scripted by Orphan screenwriter David Leslie Johnson, is Appian Way's answer to the Twilight franchise. Luring in Hardwick, who directed the first Twilight only to be booted-off the franchise, is no coincidence. The few story elements that we do know of their take on Red Riding Hood, sounds outrageously similar to vampire tale (just minus the vampires): a gothic style werewolf film with a teenage love triangle. Check, check and double check.

Seyfried tops the list of one of the few names producers are looking to cast. If Seyfried is cast, this would be a leg up on the first Twilight film as Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner or Robert Pattinson were still relative unknowns then -- obviously no longer the case after the success of the film and its sequel. Of course Stephanie Meyer's best-selling books had a devout built in audience, but the tale of Little Red Riding Hood has 100x more name recognition than the toys that studios are paying big bucks to adapt for the big-screen.

But apparently there's some serious buzz surrounding Johnson's script, getting "high marks from power players around town, who describe it as elevated genre material a la this weekend's Shutter Island." Wow! A film aimed toward Twilight's  tween audience, that has a good script? That would be interesting. Of course, with a PG-13 rating, and Hardwicke at the helm, does it stand a chance?