Talk about cinematic whiplash. Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinksi‘s next project has already gone through myriad incarnations, and the project doesn’t even have an official name yet. Count that as one of the incarnations, I guess, because it’s already had two names and is currently title-less, despite the fact that it’s an adaptation of a graphic novel that Kosinski himself has supposedly written that, you guessed it, has a title. Kosinksi conceived of and wrote the graphic novel, known as “Oblivion,” with Arvid Nelson for Radical Publishing, and the book was the primed for a film adaptation before it even hit the page. The story is set in a future where the Earth has been irradiated to the point that humanity can no longer inhabit it, and follows a man who lives “above the clouds, safe from the brutal alien Scavengers that stalk the ruins. But when surface drone repairman Jak discovers a mysterious woman in a crash-landed pod, it sets off an unstoppable chain of events that will force him to question everything he knows.” Tom Cruise has long been attached to play Jak, but the film’s two female roles (Jak’s wife back at home and the lady he finds) have been the subject of speculation for months. Jessica Chastain was attached to the wife role back in September, but had to leave the project, thanks to her now-crammed schedule. Other ladies that tested for the role, including Olga Kurylenko, Brit Marling, Noomi Rapace, and Olivia Wilde, might have been called back, because [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]

 Get ready to hear the name “Jessica Chastain” much more in the coming months (a little bird tells me that you can even expect to see a couple of reviews for a Chastain film on this very site within the next few days). The actress is set for the big leagues, thanks to being plucked from relative obscurity by Terrence Malick to star in his The Tree of Life that finally opened earlier this year, followed by roles in Take Shelter, The Debt, Texas Killing Fields, and the upcoming star-fest that is The Wettest County. Now Chastain has landed a prime leading lady position opposite Tom Cruise in Joseph Kosinski’s sci-f film that is…well, apparently without a title as of now. But you may know it as Oblivion or Horizons. Let’s call it Obli-zons and be done with it. Tron: Legacy director Kosinski is helming the film is based on an upcoming graphic novel that he himself conceived of and wrote (with Arvid Nelson) for Radical Publishing. The script for the film has been adapted by William Monahan, with a rewrite by Karl Gajdusek and a polish by Michael Arndt. The story centers on the character that Cruise will play, a repairman named Jak. But Jak’s life is just a smidge different than that of any other sort of repairman, because he lives in a future where an alien invasion has irradiated the Earth so severely that it is no longer inhabitable. The population of the planet now lives in the [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]

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly column about movie news. It will not try to sew your face to someone else’s butt. It will, however, make your hind quarters sore. So give yourself over to it — it will be gentle, at first. Fox’s upcoming Planet of the Apes prequel, previously titled Rise of the Apes, has been retitled to give it that ole’ familiar ring. It will now be called Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which should hold until they can figure out a less concise way to title it. Either way, it’s got James Franco, so I’m seeing it.

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this stuff late at night, what do you expect?

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr enters the grid (which is what he likes to call his local IMAX theater) to try and find an old and hairy Jeff Bridges amidst a bunch of young-looking sexy-time people in tight body suits. Afterwards, he has a pic-i-nic at Jellystone Park and faces a bear attack. It’s a good thing he had his hunting rifle with him… but he still wonders why that grizzly he shot was wearing a hat and tie. Finally, he hands out some grades on two limited release award flicks that really don’t jazz him as much as a big, dumb IMAX 3D movie.

In 1982, Steven Lisberger gave Tron to the world. It was an ambitious project with visual effects that were unlike anything ever attempted before. The result was a film made for $17 million dollars, a lot at the time, that flopped to a $33 million dollar box office take. For all intents and purposes, that was the end of the road. But here we are, 28 years later with a new Tron that Disney has spent north of $200 million dollars on. Lisberger has handed off the reigns to producer Sean Bailey and a young commercial director named Joseph Kosinski, leaving them with the task of bringing back Tron in a high-resolution way for a new generation of users. When we caught up with the three men at the recent TRON: Legacy press junket for a roundtable discussion, they were eager to talk about the journey of Tron, the technology of Legacy and why the world of cinema has been flooded recently with so many sequels and remakes.

Tron: Legacy is a thing of beauty. This is what everyone seems to be ignoring this week as Disney’s latest titan of budget and marketing roars into theaters, hell bent on whipping the masses into a consumerist frenzy just before ‘Oh holy night.’ But it’s true: Tron: Legacy, born of concept footage from young director Joseph Kosinski and a Comic-Con crowd who, at the time, had zero expectations for such a project, is a beautiful experience. It may be remembered as a beautiful disaster, but it’s beautiful nonetheless. The great problem is that after several years, three Comic-Cons and millions of dollars in marketing later, it’s hard for heavily invested fans to accept that a concept so cool could yield a film so mediocre. That’s a hard notion to swallow. What we saw on that fateful July day at Comic-Con in 2008 was The Grid, fully realized in a new and exciting way. It was bold and sleek, fast-moving and exciting. It also included Jeff Bridges, our own champion du nostalgia. This final version has all of those things. It’s what’s been added that becomes problematic.

You may have noticed that around here, we’re starting to develop “a thing” for Joseph Kosinski’s hyper-modern reboot (get it, that’s a computer term) of the Tron franchise. It has something to do with the fact that Tron Legacy once again showed up to rock Comic-Con, as we saw in the new trailer released that same weekend. The film looks like and off-the-charts visual spectacle and is perhaps one of the few 3D movies worth looking forward to between now and the end of the year. Save for Drive Angry, of course. To keep you in the mood and keep you locked into the cool blues and electric yellows of the Tron universe, a company called LE Studios X has released a series of desktop wallpapers and iPad wallpapers celebrating Disney’s return to the inside of a computer. They appear to be based on the advertising banners that were previously released, but they’ve been cleaned up to fit perfectly on your desktops. We’ve selected a few favorites and posted them after the jump for your viewing pleasure.

“In a future where the Earth’s surface has been irradiated beyond recognition, the remnants of humanity live above the clouds, safe from the brutal alien Scavengers that stalk the ruins. But when surface drone repairman Jak discovers a mysterious woman in a crash-landed pod, it sets off an unstoppable chain of events that will force him to question everything he knows.” Nothing like an awesome premise combined with an impressive director (Tron: Legacy‘s young gun Joseph Kosinski) to brighten up a rather bland Thursday afternoon. Details after the jump.

You know how “they” say sometimes that a movie will “blow your mind”? That’s one of those over-used cliches here in the movie blogosphere. Because in fact, it would be — as far as I and science know — impossible for a film watching experience to cause your brain to spontaneously combust. In a literal sense, this is impossible. However, I’m willing to delve into the realm of figurative for Joseph Kosinski’s Tron: Legacy, as this brand new trailer — which debuted earlier today at Comic-Con in San Diego — shows a cinematic experience that could be, in all honesty, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. So hit that full screen button, crank that Daft Punk score to 11, sit back and let Tron of the future blow your damned mind.

Even though his feature debut Tron Legacy won’t be in theaters until late 2010, director Joseph Kosinski is already plotting out his next venture.

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s panel in Hall H at Comic-Con in San Diego, Disney has released the long-awaited Tron Legacy footage onto the web for all to see.

Walt Disney Studios has sent over the title treatment for their upcoming Tron sequel, the newly retitled Tron Legacy. Also, we’ve got some concept art directly from Hall H.

This little slow news day item should go down as a gem, as it involves two things that we are anxiously looking forward to: TRON 2.0 and sex.

Anyone who was at or around last year’s San Diego Comic-Con knows that the test footage of Tron 2 that was shown was the talk of the town. And it appears as if Disney intends to do something similar this coming year.

It is likely that even director Joseph Kosinski hasn’t much more of a clue than we do about what is happening with Tr2n, the mysteriously trailered film that had all of Comic-Con wishing they hadn’t skipped the Race to Witch Mountain presentation.