Giving movies limited theatrical runs alongside a day-and-date Video On Demand release is becoming more and more popular in our current landscape of digital media. We’ve never seen a big movie that has high hopes of pulling in huge box office dollars take the risk, but it seems like a strategy that’s been working out well for smaller budget arthouse and genre films. The latest movie to make such a deal is probably the one with the most star power to ever take the VOD plunge. Deadline Peekskill is reporting that Mel Gibson’s upcoming Get the Gringo (formerly known as How I Spent My Summer Vacation), a Mexico-set action film that he both stars in and financed through his Icon Productions, has signed a deal with 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and DirecTV for its release and promotion. This deal is unique in that the movie will be available exclusively on DirecTV for a period, with wider VOD options coming later in the year. The film is set to hit DirecTV customers on May 1, the same day that it will be screening in at least 10 markets alongside a Gibson Q&A taking place in an Austin theater.

If the fictional character of Walter Mitty were to regale us with his exploits in Hollywood, he might tell us about the time he both starred in and directed a big feature film. Seeing as Walter Mitty is a liar, it would have been a bunch of bullpucky, but for multi-talented Renaissance man Ben Stiller, it’s a reality baby. Stiller is no stranger to the director’s chair. We’ve seen him step behind the camera before for films like the highly underrated The Cable Guy, and the much lauded Tropic Thunder, And now it looks like his next directorial gig will be for a film that we’ve already heard he was looking to star in, Fox’s long in development “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” adaptation.

Last week, as I watched Quentin Dupieux’s Rubber, I noticed that the trailers on the rental Blu-Ray were all of titles sharing space at the top of my queue: titles like Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins, Kim Ji-woon’s I Saw the Devil, and Jason Eisener’s Hobo with a Shotgun. All, I quickly realized, had been released by the same studio, Magnet Releasing, whose label I recalled first noticing in front of Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson. After some quick Internet searching, I quickly realized what I should have known initially, that Magnet was a subsidiary of indie distributor Magnolia Pictures. The practices of “indie” subsidiaries of studios has become commonplace. That majors like Universal and 20th Century Fox carry specialty labels Focus Features and Fox Searchlight which market to discerning audiences irrespective of whether or not the individual titles released are independently financed or studio-produced has become a defining practice for limited release titles and has, perhaps more than any other factor, obscured the meaning of the term “independent film” (Sony Pictures Classics, which only distributes existing films, is perhaps the only subsidiary arm of a major studio whose releases are actually independent of the system itself). This fact is simply one that has been accepted for quite some time in the narrative of small-scale American (or imported) filmmaking. Especially in the case of Fox Searchlight, whose opening banner distinguishes itself from the major in variation on name only, subsidiaries of the majors can hardly even be argued as “tricking” audiences into [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

This week, studios have Robert Fure all riled up – but probably not in the way you think.

Today’s crazy rumor: Fox is looking to reboot the Fantastic Four franchise, again again. This time they are looking to make it more like Iron Man. As in, it will actually be a good movie that makes a lot of money.

As if Watchmen isn’t getting enough press lately, the Web was flooded with reports this morning that the movie’s screenwriter, David Hayter, made some waves during the Watchmen press day in L.A. yesterday.

Fox’s legal battle with Warner Bros. over Watchmen is starting to have the feel of a Red Sox vs. Yankees slugfest, but David Poland feels that all is fair in love and contract infringements.

Despite the fact that Fox announced this week that intends to delay the release of Watchmen, Warner Bros. continues to release new video. It’s enough to make any fanboy cry…

Santa left an early present in Warner Bros. stocking on Wednesday… a lump of coal in the form of an early ruling in 20th Century Fox’s Watchmen copyright lawsuit against them.

F. Scott Fitzgerald will hit the big screen again soon, and we’re hoping there are no musical medlies.

Producer Lauren Shuler Donner teases the world with a little bit of Wolverine talk — she is also hopeful that a Deadpool spin-off will be possible.

They just can’t leave well enough alone, can they? According to a report form Robert over at IESB yesterday, 20th Century Fox co-chairman Tom Rothman is still eyeing a reboot of the Daredevil franchise.

The last time we saw Daredevil on screen, he was being played by Ben Affleck in Mark Steven Johnson’s 2003 adaptation. But now it appears that he might get another go. So the question is, what do you think about this?

Max Payne has been hit with an ‘R’ rating by the Motion Picture Association of America, and director John Moore is more than a little irked.

Our brothers from another mother over at Coming Soon have uncovered word that 20th Century Fox intends to run the first trailer for next Spring’s manga adaptation Dragonball on October 17th in front of the video game adaptation Max Payne.

Matthieu Kassovitz is an unhappy Frenchman. He is unhappy because, as he explains, his upcoming film Babylon A.D. starring Vin Diesel is a big pile of crap, thanks to some bad handling by 20th Century Fox.

Turns out, there may be some trouble going down on the set of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. It also somehow reminds Mister Hand of his drug problems of the 80s.

It’s not about who will be watching the Watchmen now, its about who will be suing the Watchmen.

If you’ve been too busy hitting the clubs, flashing your privates and carrying around your miniature teacup chi-poodle to notice, the newest hot trend is suing the pants off someone.

Fox says that they own the rights to a “Watchmen” movie adaptation, so what does this mean for Zack Snyder’s production?