Our weekly look at what’s weird in theaters, on hot-off-the-presses DVDs, and on more distant horizons…

Trailers of new release movies are generally available on the official site links.

It’s the holidays in Hollywood, and there are only a few meager releases left to be dumped in 2014, either theatrically or on home video. None of them are particularly weird. We did scrape up a couple of news items that we’ve been sitting for a while, along with one late gift idea for the weirdo on your shopping list.

IN DEVELOPMENT:

Empires of the Deep (probably completed): This Chinese mermaid fantasy, which cost a reported $130 million dollars and was promoted as China’s answer to Avatar, was made with a cast of European and American actors headlined by Olga Kurylenko. Based on the trailer, the plot involves mermaids fighting giant evil lobsters (the SyFy channel would call them “Mega Lobsters”). At least four directors (including the guy who handled Halle Berry’s Catwoman disaster—who was their first choice!) either quit or were fired while working on this one. Empires is so bad it seems to have been shelved—but is it so-bad-it’s-weird? Once the Chinese figure out capitalism, greed will bring it to light. Read more at i09.

Untitled Stephen Sondheim project: This news is a little late, but now that Sondheim’s revisionist fairy tale musical Into the Woods is in theaters, it’s arguably timely. Sondheim, who’s rapidly approaching last-man-standing status in the Broadway musical business, has announced that his project will be deliciously noncommercial, a song-and-dance extravaganza based on two classics by Surrealist master Luis Buñuel: The Exterminating Angel and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. (For those not in the know, one of these movies concerns friends who find that they can never meet for dinner, while the other is about a group of people trapped at a dinner party they can’t leave). Suggested lyrics: “these canapés are tasty/But our exit must be hasty/Oh no, we… can’t… leave!” Our main questions are, how long will this take to make it from stage to screen, and will it suck as badly as that Fellini musical catastrophe? Read more at The New York Times.

NEW ON BLU-RAY:

Skidoo (1968): Read the Certified Weird entry! Just a few years ago, we thought we might never get to see the long-buried flop comedy where Jackie Gleason drops acid and Groucho Marx plays “God”; now, here it is on Blu-ray. Buy Skidoo [Blu-ray].

What are you looking forward to? If you have any weird movie leads that I have overlooked, feel free to leave them in the COMMENTS section.