Like Garth Ennis’s Preacher, it’s hard to imagine a series like The Boys having an easy time making it to the big screen. It’s dark, unconventional, brutal, and funny in ways most people wouldn’t deem “commercial.” It’s a great series with a lot of potential, potential that director Adam McKay definitely sees. The project had been at Columbia Pictures for sometime, but they just recently dropped it.

I reached out to McKay for an update, who responded the project’s still very much alive.”It’s not dead. Two studios very interested. Love Sony but they made a mistake,” said McKay. As for whether they’ll continue to try to make an R-rated version of The Boys, the answer is no. But that doesn’t mean we are going to get a neutered down adaptation of Ennis’s world, according to McKay, “It’s now PG-13. But I found cool ways to keep it edgy. Nolan does so much with that rating. I want this movie to have the conceptual floor of MIB: the police for the superheroes, with the bad ass action groove of The Matrix or Oldboy.”

A mixture of Men in Black, The Matrix, and Oldboy is definitely a film I’d want to see, especially coming from McKay. [THR]

X-Men: First Class

With Vaughn recently announced to helm the sequel to his poppy origin story, hopefully he’ll continue to build a new X-Men film universe. Who wouldn’t want to see characters like Gambit and Angel all finally given justice, and in the 1970s nonetheless? I would. Whether or not that’ll happen is still up in the air, but it seems plausible.

Although Jane Goldman isn’t officially attatched to pen the sequel and she’s got plenty of other projects on her schedule, I couldn’t help but to discuss the potential of a sequel, as well as her plans for Nate Simpson‘s Nonyplayer:

You’re working on a lot of projects and I’m not sure if you’re attatched to write the sequel, but, if you do, would you ever consider bringing back, say, Cyclops or Jean Grey?

You know, I can always make suggestions, and I did last time. Ultimately, those decisions come down to someone other than me. Would I, personally? Well, it’s really tricky. I think the route we had gone down with First Class — it’s sort of a question of where to go next, and I think those two characters were very strong, especially having [Michael] Fassbender and [James] McAvoy play them so brilliantly. In a comic sense, I still think there’s room for an X-Men [film] with the original X-Men [Laughs]. In terms of how they fit in this new universe that First Class kicked off, I don’t know. I mean, yes, I think there’s room for that. All sorts of ideas have been talked about and Matthew has some particular ideas, and, in this case, all of those decisions will be done through Matthew.

I think the style of the film really set it up apart from the other X-Men films, where it felt like a new universe.

I definitely think so, and I think that was Matthew’s intention. I think there were moments where there was continuity with the other X-Men movie universe, and there were moments it was apart from that. I think it was the right way to go, for Matthew to make it a separate entity.

I know this was just recently announced and I’m not sure if you’ve started writing it yet, but how’s the process been on Nonplayer so far, in creating a whole world on the page?

It’s been fascinating and has new challenges, which is great. The first issue is absolutely brilliant, and I just fell in love with it the minute I saw it. The rest of the arc that they have right now is absolutely genius, and it has so many ideas in it. The first one you don’t really get a sense of how much is going to be in the story and how many weird, cool technology ideas are in there. Actually, it’s kind of wrestling with things like — it’s not just introducing the idea that there’s one particular game people play, but it’s about six completely new and different technologies I have not seen invented in a film before, at all. My gosh, how do you introduce all of those elements? In fact, a lot of them are just very, very cool background elements. It’s a challenge of introducing something, and making it feel natural. It’s not like you have an outsider coming in from another place or another time, where you can go, “Yeah, this is a so-and-so, and it does this!” You have to find a natural place within the story to introduce these perfectly cool futuristic concepts. I’m really, really excited by it. I’m looking forward to getting back to that one.

Make sure to check back in the next few days for our full interview with Jane Goldman.

Over the years — going on six as of next week, if you can believe that — Film School Rejects has attempted to provide many great services to our expansive international readership. We’ve brought you movie news, as many a movie blog does. We bring you some of the most comprehensive weekly review coverage around. We deliver film festival notes that rival much of what you’d see from any other independent outlet, assuming we actually make it to the festival. We’ve even handed out prizes, performed public service announcements and once or twice we’ve even handed out some FSR pins and t-shirts. We want you to be clothed, feel rewarded and be informed. Today we are taking it one step further… into your love life.

Fact: We can help you find a movie date. No, really.

We’re taking on a new quest — to get you all a date. Why? Because movie nerds need love, too. And because we’ve found a great partner in the folks over at HowAboutWe, a dating service that is the exact opposite of every other online dating service. It’s not lame. So in keeping with this month’s focus on love, and with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, we’ve launched FSR Dating, a site powered by HowAboutWe that will allow you to find a movie date. All you do is post an idea for a date and interested parties will click “I’m intrigued.” By focusing on the date rather than a bunch of silly personality questions, you can get past the back-and-forth of online dating and get to the part that matters: actually dating. Who knows, if we can get enough movie lovers to sign up, we may even someday have an FSR match that ends up getting married. All we ask is that you invite us. We’ll live-tweet it and promise to keep Robert Fure away from the spiked punch bowl (though we can’t promise that we won’t be the ones spiking the punch bowl — also, if you have a punch bowl at your wedding, you rule.)

Check out our FSR Dating site and find a movie date. We’re reasonably sure you’ll find it to be simple, sort of neat and perhaps even useful. Because if your ideal date is to go eat a 3lb hamburger while sitting through a Troma mini-marathon, don’t you deserve to find someone who wants to do that, too?

Fact: We are not kidding. This sounds silly, but it could work.

We can back up the previous fact with data collected by many intern hours logged testing out the HowAboutWe system. Only one of the interns went missing after scheduling a date, but we’re pretty sure they simply quit out of pure happiness with their match. Because when you find love, you don’t need a job. Right?

Seriously, it’s worth a shot. What have you got to lose?

What is Movie News After Dark? Tonight it’s the column I’m filling in on as Neil Miller journeys to the mystical, frozen land of Chicago. It’s also a list of links to movie or entertainment related things that I either found interesting, noteworthy, or that involved super famous young girls from the Disney channel.

Tonight we begin by getting a glimpse at the second season of HBO’s Game of Thrones. WinterisComing.net has a whole host of pictures from the second season that have reminded me of how much I like the show and reinforced the three reasons why I’m looking forward to new episodes so much: boobs, blood, and Brienne. Hopefully we’ll be getting a lot of each.

Mike Ryan over at Moviefone has written a running diary of what it was like seeing The Phantom Menace 3D at midnight last night. This is a useful service because who in their right mind would ever be willing to go see The Phantom Menace at midnight? I mean, in 2012. Now we can all stop wondering if it was worth the effort. It wasn’t

io9 is usually a good source for fun lists, and today was no exception. Behold, their list of the ten science fiction bars that they would most like to visit. I could definitely see myself getting loaded on whiskey and annoying the patrons in each of these bars by filling the juke box up with Tom Waits. That’s how I roll.

Good news, people who like to be tortured by inane nonsense! The guy in charge of Lionsgate, the company that now owns the rights to the Twilight franchise, has told the L.A. Times that he’s rrrreally hoping that they can make more Twilight stuff; even if it means making a TV show or begging Stephenie Meyer to write another book. Get ready for a few more years of teenage girls telling the rest of the Internet that they just don’t “get it.”

Neil usually likes to break up the middle of this column with some images, so I did some poking around and stumbled across these fan made concept images for an imaginary sequel to The Incredibles that Movies.com posted. They’re fun, but the fact that I had to write the word “imaginary” before sequel kind of bums me out.

The AV Club staff have revealed which fictional characters they have dirty, shameful crushes on. I have to say, they did a great job of coming up with fake people who I would totally boink. I was a little disappointed that nobody mentioned my number one pick, the Chicken Lady from The Kids in the Hall, though.

What? I like sluts.

E! Online has a pretty big scoop about Adam Sandler’s upcoming movie monster cartoon Hotel Transylvania. It turns out Miley Cyrus is out as the voice of Dracula’s daughter and fellow Disney Channel alum Selena Gomez is in. I don’t know how you feel, but my years of watching Disney shows for creepy, inappropriate reasons leads me to believe that this is a serious upgrade.

Lists, they’re the bread and butter of the Internet, and /Film has posted one of the better ones I’ve seen in a while. This time they’re looking at the Best WWII movies that you’ve never seen.  If they’re half as good at predicting what I’ll like as they are at predicting what I haven’t seen, then I’m super excited to check some of these out. My queues have been updated.

Variety says that Disney’s upcoming entry into the Snow White War, The Order of the Seven, has cast its lead. But the more I hear about this movie the less it seems like it has anything to do with Snow White and the more it just sounds like it’s just about a girl teaming up with seven warriors. I gotta say, I’m okay with that. And I’m super-okay with the fact that this movie now stars Saoirse Ronan.

An essay on Movies.com asks the question of whether or not this will be the last good year for comic book movies, and if after this we will experience the downfall. I’m not so sure myself, but I could definitely stand to take a break from spandex and origin stories. Me and Superman are totally dunzo.

Finally, as per tradition, we end the column with a video. This one is really good because it involves butts, and butts are funny. Check out Tom Hardy and McG dropping trou and getting shot in their asses with close range paintball fire. It’s funny because they’re famous.

Alex Proyas might want to look into getting some budgeting software or something, because this “over budget” thing is becoming bizarrely familiar. Let’s rehash! Just this week, Proyas’ Paradise Lost adaptation was shut down by Legendary due to a wicked combo of too much funds and too little technology, and now another project that Proyas lost out on because of a bloated budget is back in the news – but for a very different reason. Universal Pictures is apparently bringing Dracula: Year Zero back from the dead, complete with a new director and likely a new cast.

Don’t remember this one? Neither did I, so let’s dig back into the FSR Crypt! Back in 2008, Proyas was set to direct the flick, a supposed “medieval epic” that would serve as origin story for the toothy one. The project languished until 2010, when Sam Worthington of all people was set to star as Dracula himself (Vlad the Impaler, should we be sticking to history). And then the blood ran dry and the budget was too high, and as Deadline Kendal so amusingly puts it, Universal “close[d] the coffin.” But that coffin is now open again, and in a big (wide?) way.

Universal is reportedly negotiating with Gary Shore to direct the film, complete with a new draft of the screenplay from its originators, screenwriters Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless. The film would mark Shore’s feature debut, as his resume currently only includes one short (The Draft) and a mess of commercial direction. However, Shore is a notorious go-getter who was on the shortlist to direct The Wolverine (thanks to a spec trailer he crafted for the character) and who nabbed a deal with Universal and Working Title Pictures for his still-unmade feature The Cup of Tears after he made a similar spec trailer for that film. What I’m saying is, the guy is due.

Sazama and Sharpless have a similar resume – no features yet, but lots of hustle. The pair have been tapped to pen both a new Flash Gordon and the new Clue, and they sold a “futuristic pitch” to Chernin Entertainment back in September. They first sold their Dracula script to Universal back in 2006. Again, these dudes are due.

Yet, with all that new blood coming in, it looks like Worthington won’t be coming back, as “studio sources” report that he’s no longer involved.

Looks like we’re going to have to adjust our list of The 52 Most Anticipated Movies of 2012, knocking the number down to a significantly less exciting 51. Summit Entertainment has just announced that they are pushing the release of Warm Bodies from August 10 of this year allllllll the way to February 1 of next year. When I touted the film as part of our most anticipated list of plenty, I explained it as such:

Jonathan Levine follows up his critical cancer comedy hit, 50/50, with an en vogue type of affair – a zombie love story based on a YA novel. But Isaac Marion’s source material shares considerably more with Romeo and Juliet than it does with The Walking Dead and that, along with its up-and-coming cast (Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Analeigh Tipton, Dave Franco, Rob Corddry, and no less than John Malkovich) recommend this original look at love at the end of the world.

And that’s all still true, but now we have to wait six more months to catch it. I feel like a zombie just took a bite out of my heart. While I’m not the biggest fan of Marion’s novel, I think it’s a fun basis for a film, and I believe in both Levine and the solid cast he’s assembled for this outing.

So why the move? Deadline Arlington believes it’s to get “it out of the way of tentpoles The Bourne Legacy and Total Recall,” both of which are releasing the week before the film’s original release date, which seems like a fair assumption. The film’s new release date does give it a bit more wiggle room – January has a few releases already on the docket, including Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, Broken City, The Last Stand, the 3D re-release of Monsters, Inc., Summit’s own Now You See Me, and Planet B-Boy (in 3D!), none of which seem poised to impact a monster-y YA love story like Warm Bodies, and yet… While not much else looks like the film in February, there is Lionsgate’s own I, Frankenstein, which reads a bit like a more grown-up take on the film. Hey, double feature!

Everybody knows that the world is going to be ending sooner rather than later. Heck, the end of days is getting so close that we’ve been counting down our must-see apocalypse films. But until I watched the trailer for the upcoming comedy Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, it didn’t occur to me how much fun those last few days we all spend on Earth are going to be. I mean, other than when faced with impending asteroid-related doom, when else is a guy like Steve Carell going to get a chance at a girl like Keira Knightley?

Stress-induced romantic hook-ups aren’t the only perks of the world ending, either. There’s slacking off at work, taking part in some cathartic looting, and who knows how many other base pleasures to partake in. Heck, this movie sees Patton Oswalt turning into some sort of hedonistic little Satyr, Gillian Jacobs kissing everyone on the mouth, and Connie Britton hosting dinner parties for her single friends. Not only are these all great ideas for how to spend your last days, they’re also glimpses at a movie that seems to have a stellar supporting cast. Check out how the end times might look with the first trailer for Seeking a Friend for the End of the World after the break.

The thing that I think has me most intrigued to give this film a longer look is how much dark humor they’re able to pack into one little trailer. I mean, this thing’s look at what the end of the world is going to be like is pitch black satire. That line at the beginning about “all your classic rock favorites” killed me. I’m not too familiar with the work of write and first-time director Lorene Scafaria yet, but this trailer has convinced me that I need to be.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World opens on June 22nd. [Yahoo! Movies]

Christophe Gans, who first turned heads in the U.S. by making Brotherhood of the Wolf and last gave us Silent Hill back in 2006, finally has another project on the horizon – and it’s a doozy. The French director, perhaps best known for his moody yet kinetic visual style, will be taking a crack at playing around with the classic Beauty and the Beast story, starting this October. Gans told THR, “Although I will keep to a form of storytelling of this timeless fairy tale that is in keeping with the same pace and characters as the original, I will surprise the audience by creating a completely new visual universe never experienced before and produce images of an unparalleled quality,” then added, “Every single one of my movies has presented me with a challenge but this one is, by far, the most exciting and rewarding.”

Though I’ve yet to be rewarded by Gans’ new endeavor, I’m certainly already excited about it. But, honestly, it’s not necessarily because of Gans’ involvement, and it’s not even for any particular love of the Beauty and the Beast story. No, the reason my blood is pumping is the quality of the cast that is being assembled.

First off, Gans has cast one of the true heavyweights of the acting world, Vincent Cassel, in the role of the beast. From his work in Gaspar Noé’s films, to his starring role in the Mesrine movies, to his role as the ballet instructor in Black Swan, Cassel has proven to be one of those powerful actors who just commands your attention and manipulates your reactions every second that he’s on screen, and I always love to see him pop up in things. A big, meaty, starring role where he gets to really work out some issues surrounding anger and disfigurement sounds great to me.

Cassel isn’t the only name already attached to this one, though. We’ve got a beast, so there also needs to be a beauty. To that end Gans has procured the services of Léa Seydoux. She’s an actor I’m less familiar with than I am Cassel, but I have to say she’s really impressed me in the last year. She went from playing the sweet, pretty shop girl that Owen Wilson has a flirtation with in Midnight in Paris to playing the dangerous, sexy assassin that Paula Patton has a problem with in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, losing herself so well in two completely different roles that I didn’t even realize she was the same actress at first. Needless to say, I’ve got a big crush on her now and will be watching everything she does in the future.

So heck, I’m sold. You can tell me that Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman did the definitive version of these characters all you want (please don’t), I say bring on more Beauty and the Beast.

Sold. No, really. I’m sold on this project already. Deadline Tucson reports Ridley Scott is now officially signed on to direct The Counselor, from Cormac McCarthy‘s latest spec script (a probable move we reported on last week). But as if the prospect of Scott (who recently seems bent on getting back to his former glory) directing a fresh McCarthy script wasn’t enough to get you excited, word is now out that Scott is looking at his Prometheus star, Michael Fassbender, to lead the film. Again – sold.

The Counselor has been described, quite tantalizingly, as “No Country For Old Men on steroids.” The film is a modern tale that takes place in the American Southwest and will reportedly center on “a respected lawyer who thinks he can dip a toe in to the drug business without getting sucked down. It is a bad decision and he tries his best to survive it and get out of a desperate situation.” Hmm, dangerous business, bad choices that consume characters, seedy lifestyles? Sound a bit like Shame, meaning it’s something that Fassbender can do, and handily.

Producer Steve Schwartz’s quote on the project has been reported for a couple of weeks now, but it’s a fine one that gives some insight into what we can expect from The Counselor. He said, “since McCarthy himself wrote the script, we get his own muscular prose directly, with its sexual obsessions. It’s a masculine world into which, unusually, two women intrude to play leading roles. McCarthy’s wit and humor in the dialogue make the nightmare even scarier. This may be one of McCarthy’s most disturbing and powerful works.”

While McCarthy’s novel have spawned such films as No Country for Old Men, The Road, and All The Pretty Horses, this marks his first foray into straight screenwriting.

A long time ago in little place called Hollywood four films vied for the top honors, the #1 spot in the charts, the chance to say for one weekend they were biggest thing out there. One of these films is familiar to making that claim. This weekend sees the return of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace to movie theaters, and it’s bringing its good friend 3D along for the adventure. Other combatants going up against the George Lucas cash cow feature Denzel Washington playing training day with Ryan Reynolds, the Rock flexing his chest muscles, and Rachel McAdams forgetting who Channing Tatum is. Can you blame her?

There’s plenty in the way of counter-programming out there, so you might be inclined to say it’s anyone’s prize to win. Our good friend Jar Jar might have something to say to yousa.

BIG HITTERS

It’s a little movie called Star Wars. You might have heard of it. You might have also heard these 3D re-releases are all the rage these days. The Phantom Menace pulled in $431m domestic during its initial release in 1999, $924.3m worldwide, but that doesn’t seem to be enough for George Lucas. Despite the rage people have for Lucas and what he’s done with his films in recent years, this 3D re-release of The Phantom Menace will be pulling in its own chunk of change. Even some of those who are irate with the man will gladly lay down $10-15 to see a Star Wars movie, any Star Wars movie, on the big screen again, added 3D bonus or not. The re-releases of the original trilogy in 1997 proved diminishing returns with each release, A New Hope opening to $46.4m in January that year, The Empire Strikes Back with $27m in February, and Return of the Jedi with $19.9m in March. Nonetheless, the 12-year gap since Phantom Menace‘s original release and the 3D ticket prices will be enough to get it somewhere past $30m this weekend. Who knows? Lucas might even feel so good about it that he re-releases the original trilogy just how they were before his edits. Don’t hold your breath, though.

It’s the Yoda dance. It’s dub step. Don’t question it. Just enjoy it:

Denzel Washington can’t seem to do any wrong with these R-rated actioners. Nearly every one of them has opened to a $20+m weekend. Safe House looks to be no different. Its advertisements make it seem like yet another pairing of Washington and director Tony Scott, but that’s just what they want you to think. Safe House was directed by Daniel Espinosa, and he chose a nice, financial combination for his first American feature film. Washington and Ryan Reynolds in a movie where lots of bullets fly and lots of cars blow up? We’re looking at a $20m weekend for sure, and it could be closer to $25m. Expect somewhere in that range to keep the Washington streak alive.

Did you know Denzel didn’t know he was running a daycare center? Well, now you do. Here’s a little impression of what you might expect from Safe House. Hahaha, alright:

Channing Tatum is back, and this time he’s bringing his Kleenex with him. You can’t blame the guy for wanting to throw in a movie like The Vow every now and then between The Eagles and GI Joes of his career. Dear John pulled in $30.4m in its opening weekend back in 2010. That film came out the weekend before Valentine’s Day, too. Still, with Rachel McAdams as the co-star, an actress who isn’t exactly box office gold, and with another romance movie hitting next week in This Means War, the date nights might be skipping The Vow for something more entertaining and less heartbreaking. Who really wants to see a movie that puts them in a somber mood, especially when you’re out with your significant other. Look for The Vow to drop in somewhere around the $15-16m range. Expect GI Joe: Retaliation to do much better.

Speaking of GI Joe, another star from Retaliation has a movie hitting this weekend. You know Dwayne Johnson loves these kids movies like Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, a title that sounds like something Prince came up with. If he isn’t blowing stuff up or punching Vin Diesel in his big head, Johnson’s films tend to come in a little quieter at the box office, as well. Gridiron Gang opened to $14.4m in 2006 while Tooth Fairy pulled $14m even in its opening weekend in 2010. Journey 2 could fend slightly better than that with 3-D ticket prices involved, but don’t expect too much better. Mid $15m range is the best estimate for this sequel, which may have actually benefited from bringing back Brendan Fraser. I almost got through that without cracking myself up.

LITTLE OPENERS

Opening in limited release are Chico & Rita opening in select cities, Death of the Virgin opening in select cities, Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu opening in select cities, In Darkness opening in New York and L.A., Kung Fu Joe opening in select cities, the Oscar Nominated Short Films both live action and animated playing this weekend in select cities, Rampart opening in New York and L.A., and The Turin Horse opening in New York City.

Here’s how the weekend is shaping up:

1. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace in 3D – $31.2m NEW
2. Safe House – $23.5m NEW
3. The Vow -$16.4m NEW
4. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island – $15.5m NEW
5. Chronicle -$12.8m (-41.8%)
6. The Woman in Black – $11.9m (-44.5%)
7. The Grey – $4.5m (-50.6%)
8. Big Miracle – $4.3m (-43%)
9. One For the Money – $2.6m (-49.8%)
10. Underworld Awakening – $2.4m (-55.2%)

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie and entertainment news column that brings you all the stuff you should be reading that hasn’t already been published on Film School Rejects. We admit that we’re honored to be an inspiration to every person, writer and sentient being mentioned in the links below, and would like to pay them back with a link. Also, it’s a column whose author is going on vacation for a week starting tomorrow, so you’ll be seeing some fresh faces pinch-hitting over the next week. It’s likely that they will do a much better job, but lets not tell them that. We’re already having problems with their egos, as it is.

We begin this evening with an image Tweeted by Chris Hardwick, king of the Nerdist empire. It’s a preview from his appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, in which he will assuredly be pimping his new book, hitting on Zooey Deschanel (because who wouldn’t) and talking about nerdy things with another nerdy famous person. If Questlove plays the drums with lightsabers, I’m in.

Fox has announced that the current and eighth season of House will be the show’s last. It’s a sad thing, sure. But eight seasons is a good run and as a statement from the studio shows, the timing is right: “The producers have always imagined House as an enigmatic creature; he should never be the last one to leave the party. How much better to disappear before the music stops, while there is still some promise and mystique in the air.”

We Love Cult has a great interview with Kevin Smith about his show Comic Book Men on AMC. The filmmaker turned multi-platform magnate does give good interview, I’ll tell you that, Steve Dave.

Speaking of places where both Chris Hardwick and Kevin Smith will be found, this year’s San Diego Comic-Con will open with a 136-mile Olympics-style lightsaber relay. This is a terrible idea, if only that it increases the Con’s population of large, sweaty, heaving bearded men. That’s a stereotype we should be moving away from. How about opening with a couch-sitting relay?

Vulture wants you to be prepared for the March 25th return of Mad Men. To aid you, they’ve published a step-by-step guide to catching up on Mad Men that can be completed between now and then. If you started yesterday, that is.

We focus our art-loving eyes this evening on the first poster for The Bourne Legacy, featuring Jeremy Renner about to do something very intense with a gun. It wasn’t until the recently released trailer that I realized that the cast for the Tony Gilroy directed franchise extension is incredible. Ed Norton and Rachel Weisz along with an ass-kicking Renner? Screw the traditional stigma that goes along with fourth films, this one is going to be awesome.

The folks at Popular Mechanics have published a brilliant list of 12 Ways the World Could (Really) End in 2012. Does this have anything to do with movies? Yes. It shows you how close, yet also how far off Hollywood’s interpretation of the apocalypse has been in recent years. Unless Roland Emmerich is working on a movie about Geomagnetic Reversal.

The ever-brilliant Grantland blog has an essay by Robery Mays about his Excellent Dumpuary Adventure, in which he sat in a theater for 48 hours watching everything that a Hollywood multiplex had to offer. From One for the Money to Chipwrecked to Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, it’s quite a fun read.

Rick Marshall at IFC provides us a list of five Hammer Films-produced horror movies everyone should see. Not just people who like horror movies. Not just the kind of people who like Hammer’s very distinct brand of horror movies. Not just chubby dudes in graphic tees and beards. Everyone. That includes you.

In a week, I will be talking to director Andrew Stanton about John Carter. My first question: Who’s decision was it to make 2012 the year of Taylor Kitsch? Not that it’s a bad thing. It’s just definitely a thing.

IFC’s Matt Singer — a guest on this past week’s episode of Reject Radio — writes about the rise of the film critic filmmaker. Those precious few who dare to write about film, then jump in and make films. Bless them, for they live hard lives on both sides of the tracks.

In today’s most deliciously nerdy article on the movie blogosphere, io9 gets composer Bear McCreary to reveal the physics behind your favorite science fiction theme tunes. It’s super engrossing. Dangerously so.

Marc Webb explains the work behind The Lizard in The Amazing Spider-Man: “We spent a lot of time thinking about the biology of a lizard, and how his muscles work, and there’s an entire staff of people dedicated to making him look lifelike. It is an extraordinary task, and very, very difficult. It takes a lot of time, which a lot of people in this room can attest to.”

Flavorwire presents a list of essential Tumblrs for film fans. Sadly, mine is not on there. How dare they!

Over at StarTrek.com, freelancer extraordinaire Jordan Hoffman has a wonderful essay about the doctors of Star Trek and their many idiosyncrasies. That Leonard McCoy will always be the greatest of them.

We close tonight with a trailer from the lineup of SXSW 2012. Our good friend Peter Hall at Movies.com has assembled what he believes to be the Ultimate 2012 South by Southwest Film Festival Trailers Page, bringing together every trailer currently available online. It’s quite the project, and one that I will reward with a link. Also, please indulge me in watching the trailer for Somebody Up There Likes Me, a SXSW premiere that features the acting talents of Nick Offerman, who isn’t quite Ron Swanson-esque, but he still appears to be bringing his bacon-infused A-game.

Let us take this time to bemoan Hollywood’s love affair with unnecessary remakes. DreamWorks and Working Title Films are reportedly set on remaking Alfred Hitchcock‘s Academy Award-winning Rebecca because, oh, who the hell knows why?

Hitchcock’s 1940 film garnered him his sole Best Picture Oscar and remains one of his finest and most beloved films. The original starred no less than Laurence Olivier as the rich Maxim de Winter, who marries the innocent Joan Fontaine, and takes her back to his mansion, where she slowly discovers the weird hold the deceased Mrs. de Winter (that’s Rebecca to you) has over the entire household. That’s just the very tip of the iceberg of Rebecca, which is twisty and twisted and smart and evocative and really a story about love.

Which is why the guy who wrote Eastern Promises (and a pair of other internationally-tinged thrillers) is going to pen a new version for the screen. Of course.

Okay, now I’ll lay off Steven Knight because there may be one interesting piece to this news. According to Variety, this new film “will go back to the original book by Daphne DuMaurier” for its plotting. Cool, right? Except Hitchcock’s version only differs from the book in one essential way (spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen Rebecca, and why haven’t you seen Rebecca?) – thanks to the demands of the Hollywood Production Code, Maxim doesn’t outright kill Rebecca in the film, she accidentally bumps her big, crazy, slutty head and dies. In the book, Maxim shoots her dead, which might potentially add a different layer of feeling to this new film. Possibly. We’ll see. Maybe.

Knight is making his feature directorial debut with Hummingbird, starring Jason Statham, which will open sometime next year.

Phil Morrison, the director of June Bug, has another project in the works, and it’s worth noting because it’s going to be starring my two favorite Pauls currently working in Hollywood. Lucky Dog is a comedy about a couple of French-Canadian con men who go in together on a Christmas tree selling scam, despite the fact that their friendship has recently been on the outs. The previously mentioned Pauls are Paul Giamatti and Paul Rudd, both accomplished comedic actors who also bring some dramatic chops to the table. So, the directions this one could go in are myriad.

Adding to the intrigue is the news that Sally Hawkins, an actress who has recently been impressing me in movies like Never Let Me Go and Submarine, has also signed on to join the cast. There isn’t any word on what kind of character she will be playing, but is it safe to assume that there might be some sort of love triangle going on among the former friends? Good luck with that one, Giamatti. Rudd is, like, cut. From marble. He’s gorgeous. He’s like this beautiful face and this incredible body, and I genuinely don’t care that he’s kinda lame. And I don’t even care that he cheats on me.

Wait…what was I saying? Anyway, Lucky Dog was written by Melissa James Gibson and it’s set to start filming next month in New York. [Deadline Camp Firewood]

Thérèse Raquin, the period drama that Elizabeth Olsen and Glenn Close are teaming up for, has got some new casting news. In case you don’t remember, Thérèse Raquin is an adaptation of an Émile Zola story penned and set to be directed by Charlie Stratton. It tells the story of a Parisian girl in 1867 who is forced into a loveless marriage with her sniveling, weakling cousin at the behest of her domineering aunt. Eventually the girl, Thérèse, becomes enamored of one of her husband’s friends, and then murder and infidelity ensue. Olsen, of course, it set to play the young girl, and Close the aunt. But what of the two male characters?

Originally I tried to spread the false rumor that Giovanni Ribisi would be playing the sickly husband, but thankfully nobody pays attention to what I say and the rumor didn’t spread. Now the role actually is in the process of being cast and the good news is that the actor who’s negotiating is probably the only person who has just as much experience at being sniveling and weird as Ribisi. Who better to play a sickly, annoying little turd than Draco Malfoy? That’s right, Daniel Radcliffe’s sneering nemesis from the last decade or so, Tom Felton, is looking likely to join the cast.

Now that the role of the husband has been filled, our eyes naturally turn to the role of the new boyfriend and murder co-conspirator. Who will work well playing a nemesis of Felton? Originally I theorized that we’d be seeing one of the kids getting ready to star in The Hunger Games, but now that Felton is in the husband role I’m going to change my guess to…nah, too easy. Let’s say John Hawkes playing his cult leader character again. [Deadline West Horsley]

Listen, everybody knows that eventually a world-beating threat is going to come out of its hiding place on the dark side of the moon and try to take over Earth. That’s just obvious. What the upcoming SXSW midnight movie Iron Sky does is present our eventual moon-birthed doom with an interesting twist. It asks the question, what if the hulking space armada that eventually threatens the well-being of free folk everywhere is actually the Nazis regrouped and back for a second go-around at world domination? Crap, why didn’t I think of this before? Of course this is what the Nazis have been up to!

Energia Productions have been teasing this movie for quite a while now, but now that it’s ready to hit the festival circuit, they’ve hit us with a full-length trailer that, more than any thing else, proves how far you can stretch a $10m budget if you’re absolutely, batshit crazy. This movie seems to have all sorts of spaceship stuff, all sorts of battle sequences, myriad cities being destroyed; and it’s all presented alongside that patented, iconic production design that only the Nazis can pull off.

Give the new Iron Sky trailer a look to see just how warped in the head our Nazi overlords are, and what sort of over-the-top tech they’ll be using to blow us all to smithereens. It doesn’t hurt to be prepared, right?

I mean really, is there anybody who has ever made evil look as good as the Nazis? Their soldiers are all shiny black leather and death. Their giant moon base is in the shape of a swastika. That’s attention to detail that even Steve Jobs would have been impressed by. You know, if Steve Jobs was a mass murderer instead of a guy who made gadgets.

Iron Sky will have its North American premiere at next month’s SXSW Film Festival.

Never let it be said that director Alex Proyas didn’t have a tremendous vision for his big screen adaptation of John Milton’s epic poem of the same name, but that same ambition appears to be what has sunk Paradise Lost for good. Reports are now coming in from various outlets that the project, with a huge budget that already exceeded $120m and a vision that included technology that, as Variety’s Jeff Sneider puts it, “wasn’t there,” has been killed by Legendary Pictures.

Proyas was hired for the gig back in September of 2010 and, since then, had gathered an impressive and up-and-coming cast for the epic tale of angelic battles, including Bradley Cooper, Benjamin Walker, Casey Affleck, Djimon Hounsou, Diego González Boneta, and Camilla Belle. The film’s shooting schedule was already moved from January to early this summer, but that’s all moot now that the film has been scrapped entirely.

Legendary was reportedly trying to get the film’s huge budget down to the $120m range, after already spending somewhere in the “low eight figures” on the production already. But budget woes, coupled with Proyas’ technologically ambitious plan to use post-production CG to augment much of the film, including at least three giant-scale battle scenes across Heaven, Earth, and Hell, have ultimately killed the production for now. Deadline Hell reports that “this was all about visual effects, unfortunately.” [Deadline Hell and Variety, via /Film]

It looks like Naomi Watts is slowly turning into the go-to girl to play tragic female figures with sunshiny locks. Watts has long been attached to play Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik’s adaptation of author Joyce Carol Oates’ fictional take on the star in Blonde, though that project has been chattered about for so long with no firm details on shooting or production that it’s not shocking that Watts has now padded her schedule with another biopic.

This one is titled Caught in Flight, and it will chronicle the last two years of Princess Diana’s life. Jessica Chastain was first attached to play the role of Diana, during that mad rush to sign the up-and-comer to just about every film that would have her, but she’s now out (possibly due to, shock of all shocks, a too-full schedule), and Watts is in.

The film will be directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall) and comes from a screenplay by Stephen Jeffreys (an award-winning playwright whose only film credit includes his adaptation of his own play, The Libertine, back in 2004). The film will focus “on the last two years of the Princess’ life and charts how finding true personal happiness for the first time allowed her to evolve into a major international campaigner and humanitarian.”

While Chastain is a very talented actress, she did seem a bit too young and green for the role, while Watts suits the role much better, both appearance and experience-wise. [Variety, via HeyUGuys]

One of 2010′s most wicked independent horror films is getting an American remake, thanks to a pair of up-and-coming filmmakers. Director Jim Mickle and his screenwriter partner Nick Damici are now set to remake Jorge Michel Grau‘s We Are What We Are, the best little Mexican horror flick about a family of cannibals you’ve likely never seen. As our pal Peter S. Hall points out, with Mickle signed on for the remake, that means that a film from 2010′s Fantastic Fest is getting remade by a director who also had a film at that same FF. Synergy!

Mickle and Damici’s Stake Land played at FF, as well as at Toronto as part of their Midnight Madness sidebar (where it won the People’s Choice Award). The film followed a set of survivors attempting to scrape by in a post-apocalyptic wasteland ruled by vampires. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of the film, Mickle and Damici infused their characters with believable and likable qualities, and then set them against an appropriately gritty and terrifying background. And Grau seems to agree, saying “I feel fortunate to have someone with the vision and talent Jim has to re-interpret my work. It is extraordinary to have a team of filmmakers so respectful of the spirit of a film and take such good care of its essence. I’m so proud to know We Are What We Are will be reworked under that kind of intelligent frame of mind. Very happy that Jim will construct a new universe over the bases of mine.”

But it’s precisely that “new universe” that turns me off from this project. I am a big fan of Grau’s original film (in fact, it was my 31 Days of Horror entry this past October), and though I am excited that his story will now reach a wider audience (in a fashion), Mickle and Damici’s reworking seems poised to take away one of the very best and most effective parts of Grau’s film – the location

Mickle and Damici’s new film will reportedly take place in “a poor part of the Catskills region in New York State,” a very different location than the film’s original setting – bustling Mexico City. Though I’ve never attempted to raise a cannibalistic family, I’m willing to bet it’s a whole hell of a lot easier to hunt, kill, and eat people in a more rural area like the Catskills (weird point of reference: Dirty Dancing was meant to take place in the Catskills) than it is in a huge city like Mexico City.

One of the best parts about We Are What We Are is the implication that anyone could be a cannibal – including your next door neighbors. Weirdly enough, the city setting allowed a greater distance between people, one that seems almost too obvious and easy in a locale like the Catskills. It’s a change that I bristle at, but I certainly hope that Mickle and Damici pull it off and bring a wider audience to Grau’s vision and film. [Screen Daily, via Fangoria]

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly collection of things that serious movie lovers will find interesting, useful, or both.

We begin this evening with an image from the website of the LA Times, who are featuring great reader photos chronicling Southern California moments. This one, by a gentleman named Chris Jackson, is of a street performer dressed as Spock on Hollywood Boulevard. Awesome costume. No, I don’t want a photo. No, I will not tip you. No, stop touching my girlfriend’s thigh. Live long and prosper, now get away from me.

Peter Jackson has added one last famous face to the cast of The Hobbit. Billy Connolly will play Dain Ironfoot, a Dwarf warrior. He will undoubtedly be a total badass leather-wearing dwarf who has no less than 35 guns on his person at one time. He will also have two sons, one of which will grow up to be a chubby version of Sean Patrick Flannery.

Ridley Scott is all over the place about the Blade Runner revival: ”We’re still in discussions about whether it should be a prequel or sequel. It’s an interesting conversation. I’m meeting with writers and I’ve also gone back to [original Blade Runner screenwriter] Hampton Fancher and he still speaks the speak. He’s right there. I spoke with him this week. But we don’t even have a script yet.”

Users of Windows who have a great deal of movies on their harddrives — all of which were downloaded legally, I’m sure — can download this nifty free application called Movie Explorer, which allows you to put together all the details about the movies you’ve archived. It’s like entering all the information by hand, except that you can have a cookie and let this app do the work for you. And who doesn’t love cookie time?

Paste has published a list of The 100 Best Movie Posters of the Past 100 Years. Among the list is the following gem for Dr. Strangelove, a personal favorite of yours truly:

Flavorwire presents an odd grouping of Movies Banned in Foreign Countries for Weird Reasons. In fairness, the Chinese have a point about time travel movies and Sex and the City 2 should have been banned everywhere, not just the UAE.

You guys have heard of ActionFest, right? It’s the annual celebration of the action genre held in Asheville, N.C. every year. If you’re not intimately familiar just yet, ActionFest.com Editor-in-Chief Ed Travis has taken to Movies.com to explain what the heck ActionFest is and why you should buy your plane ticket right now.

Another fine interview with Gary Oldman, another reason why I’ll be sad if he doesn’t walk away with gold on Oscar night. That man is a living legend, people.

Jon Favreau has signed on to direct the pilot for Revolution, a project set up at NBC by J.J. Abrams and Supernatural creator Eric Kripke. That’s basically a talent stew, there. Hopefully the adventure drama turns out to be a winner.

We close tonight with claymation animationator Lee Hardcastle’s Robo with a Shotgun, which is exactly what you hope it is:

Have you been following the development of this baseball drama Trouble With the Curve? It started out as just a glimmer, a hope. It was maybe the project that would bring Clint Eastwood out of acting retirement. A story about an aging baseball scout who is losing his vision and who is embarking on one last recruitment trip in the company of his adult daughter sounded perfect for an old grizzly bear like Eastwood, and since those first days of maybes the project has developed quite nicely.

First it became official, and got a release date of September 28, 2012. Then it started filling out its supporting cast with exciting names. Amy Adams came on to play the role of Eastwood’s daughter, and Justin Timberlake got picked up to play her love interest. This thing was looking like an all-star lineup already.

But with news that they’re bringing one of the most underutilized players in Hollywood on board, I think this one might go all the way. According to Variety, John Goodman has just signed on to play a baseball scout and longtime friend of the Eastwood character’s named Pete Klein. That’s right, The Babe himself is returning to the world of onscreen baseball.

Not to go off on a rant here, but Goodman has been doing great work his entire career. And, at least, since The Big Lebowski, you would think that he would be one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood. I mean, he’s doing fine, but where are all the starring roles? If you were a filmmaker, wouldn’t your number one goal be to keep coming up with awesome characters for John Goodman to play? I fully feel that we need to do everything we can to get this guy up to the level of, say, a Philip Seymour Hoffman or a Paul Giamatti.

Trouble With the Curve is a good start, but let’s begin a campaign to make 2012 the year of Goodman. I’ll go start a petition somewhere.