I’m a fan of TV shows with action, suspense, good acting, fast cars and well-written episodes. Sometimes many of those elements come together to form great television programs such as The X-Files, The Wire, Dollhouse or Fringe. NBC ‘s got a program that debuts next Winter, in the post-Heroes timeslot, called The Philanthropist and it looks like, at least based on the promo and info, it may end up being another one of those shows that just works.

The show, in case you’re not familiar, concerns billionaire Teddy Rist who, according to NBC’s info about the show, “loves women, money and power. After the tragic death of his only child, Teddy has an awakening and becomes the world’s first vigilante philanthropist — a renegade billionaire who uses his wealth, connections and power to help people in need.” Sounds interesting.

Even better is that the show is produced by by Universal Media Studios, Original Media and the Levinson/Fontana Company. Tom Fontana (Homicide: Life on the Street), Barry Levinson and Charlie Corwin (L.A. Ink) are the executive producers. Not a bad bunch of folks to be involved with your show. In addition to the producing team, the show has also assembled a pretty decent cast as well including James Purefoy (Rome), Jesse L. Martin (Law & Order) and Neve Campbell (Scream).

Check out the promo for The Philanthropist below and see what you think.

Here at The Flickcast we hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend.  Given the holiday, we want to make sure you realize that comics hit stands this Thursday, May 28, rather than Wednesday because of the holiday schedule.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wandered into the store on a Wednesday after a holiday and there were no new books. Sometimes even I forget. Feel free to have a hearty laugh at my expense in the comments, I’d laugh at me too. I just want you to be able to benefit from my experience.

My first recommendation this week is the absolutely stellar “Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk #6.”  Lost co-creator and Star Trek producer Damon Lindelof has been blowing me away with this series. To be honest, I’ve enjoyed this book more than Lindelof’s big screen work.  How can you not be blown away by a Leinil Yu book where the second page of the first issue has Hulk tearing Wolverine in half?

My second recommendation is “The Last Days of Animal Man #1.”  Anyone who has read the seminal Grant Morrison series should file this in the “t0 try” pile.  Written by Law & Order producer Gerry Conway, this book chronicles, well, the last days of Buddy Baker.

My final recommendation is going to be “Moon Knight: The Death of Marc Spector.” Written by Entourage producer Mike Benson, its likely the most troubling and violent comic being done at Marvel Comics and is also the most interesting. With the Thunderbolts on his trail, Marc Spector runs for his life alone and friendless on Christmas. Some really entertaining stuff here.

One of my personal favorite comic book stores in New York City, Forbidden Planet, provides a great listing of everything released this Thursday.  As always please let us know what you picked up.

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Be sure to check out Dave’s previous Weekly Comic Recommendations here, here, and here.

Recently over at CHUD, they posted an excerpt from a video interview with Spider-Man and Drag Me to Hell director, and all-around cool, guy Sam Raimi. The interview was primarily to promote his upcoming return to the horror genre with Drag Me to Hell — which looks awesome, btw.

However, during the interview, they also manged to sneak in a few questions about Raimi’s next project, a movie you might have heard something about: Spider-Man 4. In fact, we even talked a bit about it here at The Flickcast. Among the things discussed in the interview was a rather big bombshell that we might be seeing Spider-Man fight vampires in the next film.

Of course, if that’s true, that means the villain (at least one of them) will have to be Morbius — in addition to, or instead of, The Lizard, which Marvel’s Avi Arad has been hinting would be the next Spidey villain. So, will we really see Spider-Man battling vampires in the next film? Check out Raimi’s response to the question in the video over at CHUD. It’s pretty interesting.

Spider-Man 4 hits theaters May 6, 2011.

The date, May 25th, 1977. The movie: Star Wars. The result: A phenomenom was born that has spawned 5 sequels and prequels, toys, games, endless speculation and billions of dollars in ticket and merchandise sales. The movie also inspired generations of aspiring filmmakers who’s only desire from that day forward was to make movies. One such aspiring filmmaker was young Patrick Read Johnson.

His story, however, is rather unique in that not only was he one of the first people to know about Star Wars, he spent quite a bit of time on the set and can be regarded, at least in some circles, as Star Wars’ first fan. And now Johnson has made a film chronocling his days as a teenager in love with Star Wars, which was originally called 5-25-77, but has now been retitled as 77.

Over at Starlog, they’ve posted an interview with Johnson which gives a bit more insight into his history with Star Wars and how this film came to be. They’ve also included a trailer for the film, which is still in post-production, and we’ve got it right here for you to watch.

[Via Sci-Fi Wire]

I’m still not sure how I feel about the Land of the Lost feature film. Sure, I’ve always wanted to see a big screen treatment for one of my favorite shows about Marshall, Will and Holly on a routine expedition who encountered a great earthquake and were plunged a thousand feet below to The Land of the Lost. But in my mind I guess I always assumed (I know, never assume) that the movie would be an action piece and not a comedy.

Oh well, I guess I was wrong because instead of action drama, we’ve got Will Farrell in a comedy — which isn’t necessareily a bad thing. He is, after all, pretty darn funny. As for the movie? I guess we’ll see when it opens later this year. Until then, here’s the latest clip from the film to hit the Interwebs, courtesy of the folks over at MTV’s Movies blog.

For some reason it seems Hollywood has gone a bit farther into the deep end of lameness in the last couple days than it normally does. First, we brought you news of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie being made without Joss Whedon or any of the original characters. Now comes word, via The Hollywood Reporter, that Disney is planning a remake of one of the best coming of age stories involving a young boy who learns to fly a spaceship. I’m talking about, of course, Flight of the Navigator.

In case you’re not familiar (and my description didn’t jog your memory) the original 1986 film concerned a 12-year-old who is abducted by an alien spacecraft in 1978 and reappears eight years later, still the same age but with no memory of what happened. NASA scientists discover a connection between the boy and a crashed spacecraft and, in true evil scientist fashion, try to exploit him. Fortunately, the boy ultimately escapes with the ship and attempts to reunite with his family.

Brad Copeland is writing the remake, which is being produced by Mandeville partners David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman — who have a few films coming up including The Proposal, with Ryan reynolds and Sandra Bullock and The Surrogates with Bruce Willis and Radha Mitchell. They’re also in pre-production on The Fighter, a boxing film directed by David O. Russell and starring Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg.

Mmmm, Christian Bale and David O. Russell. That should be an interesting set. No word yet on a script, cast or a release date for the Flight of the Navigator remake. But when there is, we’ll bring it to you — even if we don’t like the idea of a remake.

File this in the “WTF?” file but it looks like, at least according to the Hollywood Reporter, that there’s going to be a brand new Buffy the Vampire Slayer feature film. Good news, right? Well, let me get to the “WTF?” part so you know what I’m talking about. This new film will reportedly not involve Joss Whedon. . . at all. Yes, you read that right. The man behind Buffy who wrote the original feature film and guided the tv series to seven successful seasons will not be involved with the new film.

Instead, we’ll get original film director Fran Rubel Kazui, who’s last film was actually the original Buffy and who has not directed anything sense — at least nothing I’m aware of. Sounds like a great idea, right? At least the new film seems to have a couple of producers with something on the ball, having produced some decent and even good films over the years including The Ring, The Departed and, um, well that’s about it for the good ones.

The Producers and Kazui, who’s actually owned the rights to Buffy since discovering the then-unknown Joss Whedon’s script many years ago, are not calling this a sequel. Instead, they refer to it as a remake or relaunch. Of course they do. I bet they thought Kristy Swanson was a good idea too.

At the moment, the film is only in the “talking” stages with no studio involved, cast or script. But rest assured, we’ll be following this one very closely as things develop.

Even with the holiday weekend there’s always time for a little Rob Zombie news. Even though I’m a much bigger fan of his music than his films he still manages to bring something relatively interesting and often unique to the table whenever he sits in the director’s chair.

This time around he’s returning to Halloween territory and working on a sequel to his own Halloween reboot from last year. And now, courtesy of MTV, we can bring you the first clip from Zombie’s sequel , which hits theaters on August 28th.

The clip isn’t particularly long or, for that matter, particularly exciting. That said, it is nice to see Michael Myers (played by Tyler Mane in the film) back where he belongs and doing what he does best.

Sometimes, when studios don’t seem to be cooperating or making the films you want with the people you want in them or perhaps life isn’t going your way, you just gotta take matters into your own hands. Case in point is this cool new fan-made trailer for a Green Lantern film. Not wanting to wait and see who gets cast in the film (Bradley Cooper, Sam Worthington or?), this fan made his own trailer starring his pick of choice: Firefly’s Nathan Fillion.

Considering all the other choices out there, I think Fillion is an inspired choice for Hal Jordan. He’s got the fan cred after his roles in Firefly, Buffy and Serenity, he’s good looking enough and has the “square-jawed hero” thing going for him, he can do action and he’s a pretty darn good actor as well. Maybe user jaronpitts over at YouTube knows something DC and company don’t know?

Memorial weekend is a time primarily held for big budget films that will pave the way for the summer blockbuster season usually lasting until late August. This weekend has been held by such movies as Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, X-Men: Last Stand, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, each grossing over $100 million for the weekend. The last time the box office did less than $100 million that weekend was 2005 with the animated Madagascar.

This past weekend, two relatively large films opened up: the follow up to 2006′s Night at the Museum, and the fourth film in the Terminator franchise, Terminator: Salvation. ‘Night’ ended up taking the weekend with an estimated $70 million over ‘Salvation’s $53 million. Though Terminator opened on Thursday and technically took in $67 million for the four days, the weekend itself was won by the Ben Stiller vehicle. Though, Terminator losing wasn’t much of a surprise if you read our review here on the site.

No word on what this could mean for the box office and the rest of the summer, seeing as how there are plenty of big budget films on the way, and the highest grossing weekend this year goes to Wolverine at $85 million. Does this mean we could see a weak financial year for studios? Have people run out of money after seeing Dark Knight 36 times in the theater? Only time will tell.

We hope you’re enjoying some great activities this weekend. This could mean going to the movies, having a BBQ, going to the beach or just hanging out with friends. You may also be playing some cool video games either alone or agaist friends or family. At The Flickcast we tend to prefer the FPS kind of games, so you can imagine how excited we are to get our hands on Modern Warfare 2.

This game, brought to you by the folks at Infinity Ward and Activision, has lost the Call of Duty moniker but takes up where the first game left off several years later with Sergeant “Soap” MacTavish as an NPC who will lead an elite, multinational commando unit, Task Force 141, to counter the resurgent Russian Ultranationalist organization. Of course, lots of gunfire, explosions, car chases, helicopters and basic mayhem ensure. We can’t wait.

And now, we’ve got the extended trailer for the game to show you. The trailer is mature so by clicking on the ‘play’ button below you certify you are eighteen years of age or older. Enjoy.

Forget choosing the next American Idol, the most talented chef or snarky supermodel, the biggest choice in history, ok, comic history, is about to be made this August — at least according to an article over at Today. Archie Andrews is getting hitched! That’s right, the Rick Astley doppelganger is finally choosing between sweet, blonde Betty and spoiled brunette Veronica Lodge. Don’t worry single ladies, it only took him 68 years to pop the question, so there’s still hope for you too.

According to Archie Comics’ official blog, the carrot topped Casanova has graduated college and may even be employed. Perhaps he’s even got a son-in-law office at The Lodge Building? Of course, with a story that takes place 5 years post Riverdale High, anything is possible and readers can’t wait to find out what Archie, Betty, Veronica, Reggie and Jughead will be up to. Issue 600 of the comic will kickoff the six-part “marriage” story and will be available in stores on September 8. Movie producer Michael Usian and veteran Archie artist Stan Goldberg will collaborate on the issues

Who will he pick? Well, that depends on the criteria he’s using, but Miss Ronnie probably comes with a sizeable dowry and Papa Lodge will likely spring for some nice digs in a swanky Riverdale neighborhood. Betty, on the other hand, will do the laundry, knows how to cook, and will be a great Mom. Both are super hotties with Barbiesque measurements and gravitationally immune breasts. So who will he choose? We’ll just have to wait until September to find out.