Because it’s just not good enough to make films about the E*Trade Baby or Battleship, Columbia Pictures is now taking it back to the 1980s with a remake of the Val Kilmer sci-fi comedy Real Genius.

That’s right. Not many people remember it, but before he was Batman, Jim Morrison, Dieter Von Cunth, Iceman, and the voice of K.I.T.T., Kilmer got his start in a little teen sci-fi comedy from 1985. In it, Kilmer plays Chris Knight, an incredibly bright university student that has to use his intellect to get back at a nefarious professor who steals his newest project for military purposes.

The super producer team of Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, who were the driving force behind such projects as The Davinci Code, 24, Angels & Demons, Arrested Development and many more, will be taking the lead on this one, so expect to see a few big names to drop by.

No word on a production schedule just yet, but since Columbia and the two producers are already on board, expect to see movement on this remake in the next few months.

The only thing now is to propose a remake of other great science fiction comedies of the 1980s such as Zapped! and Mac and Me.

Holy high expectations, Batman! With most studios planning sequels to their major releases on the weekend of the film’s release, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Disney is already planning the sequel to Tron: Legacy, a whopping 8 months before the film hits theaters.

With Avatar bringing in more money than practically any movie ever made, Disney seems to think that fans will flock to their upcoming film as well. From Heat Vision:

Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, the “Lost” writers/executive producers who worked on “Legacy,” have begun writing a sequel to the studio’s sci-fi tentpole.

No details have been released because it is so early in the process. Notwithstanding the question of whether the movie will be a hit, other topics to ponder are whether the sequel will focus on spinoff characters or center on a new adventure set in the “Tron” world. Insiders have suggested that Kitsis and Horowitz are working on a way to round the story into a trilogy.

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While Steve Carell is doing his tour of major talk shows and appearances in preparation for this weekend’s release of Date Night, the first trailer for his next big comedy has just hit the web: Dinner For Schmucks.

The film also stars Paul Rudd, who’s been on a hot streak with comedies as well such as I Love You, Man, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Role Models. The screenplay comes from about a dozen different writers, including the creator of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Andy Borowitz. Here’s the official synopsis.

Tim (Rudd) is a guy on the verge of having it all. The only thing standing between him and total career success is finding the perfect guest to bring to his boss’ annual Dinner for Extraordinary People, an event where the winner of the evening brings the most eccentric character as his guest. Enter Barry (Carell), a guy with a passion for dressing mice up in tiny outfits to recreate great works of art.

Jay Roach is stepping in as director, who we know as the director for all of the Austin Powers and Meet The Parents films. Check out the trailer after the jump, and be sure to catch Dinner For Schmucks in theaters July 23rd.

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This week sees the release of several new movies and TV shows, some for the first time ever on Blu-ray. Of the ones coming out this week, we’re excited for a few of them in particular. These esteemed examples of entertainment include The Natural, Dreamscape, the debut of the quirky ABC show The Unusuals, the second season of Simon & Simon, Cocoon and the Blu-ray premiere of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (pictured above with Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellan and John Rhys-Davies). Yes, we realize it’s not the director’s cut of the trilogy but still, having these great films on Blu-ray in any form is cause for excitement.

Check them out:

Movies

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans ~ Fairuza Balk, Nicolas Cage, Vondie Curtis-Hall (Blu-ray and DVD)

Cocoon ~ Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn (Blu-ray)

Dolan’s Cadillac ~ Christian Slater, Wes Bentley, and Emmanuelle Vaugier (Blu-ray and DVD)

Dreamscape ~ Dennis Quaid, Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer (Blu-ray)

Flight of the Intruder~ Rosanna Arquette, Adam Biesk, Reb Brown (Blu-ray)

Jade ~ David Caruso, Linda Fiorentino, Cazz Palmintieri (Blu-ray)

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Even experienced tech analysts can be wrong, especially if they may have been caught up in some of the recent iPad pre-release hype. Hey, we’re not saying we weren’t excited for the iPad too, just that our predictions may have not been quite so optimistic. What am I talking about? Read on.

Before launch, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster first predicted Apple would sell between 200K and 300K iPads on its first day. But later, after doing some more research and perhaps feeling a bit more optimistic, he bumped up those first day sales estimate to between 600K and 700K. That’s a lot of iPads.

Well, it didn’t do quite that good but still, you can’t argue the thing is a success right out of the gate. Yesterday, Apple announced that “over 300,000″ iPads sold on the first day, which confirmed Munster’s original estimate. Should have stuck to that one I guess. Apple also announced software sales related to the iPad launch, which were 1 million apps in the iTunes App Store and 250,000 e-books in the iBookstore.

“It feels great to have the iPad launched into the world — it’s going to be a game changer,” Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO said in a statement to the media. “iPad users, on average, downloaded more than three apps and close to one book within hours of unpacking their new iPad.”

Yes Steve, people seem to like the iPad. No surprise there.

While Harrison Ford is still sitting back in his chair, maniacally laughing at what he did to millions of Indiana Jones fans with the last film (I’m only assuming it was done with nefarious intentions), he has been pretty laid back on the “getting a job” front.

After a few bombs like Extraordinary Measures, Firewall, and Hollywood Homicide, one would think that the actor would make Oscar-worthy career moves like his peers Bill Murray or Jack Nicholson. Instead, it seems he’s possibly taking the more popular route, and signing to do a comic book film.

In a recent article from Latino Review, they threw out the statement that Ford is about to join a “huge comic book movie to be directed by a director coming off a soon to be released huge comic book movie.”

With hard-hitting journalism like this, we’re led to believe that Ford is either going to be cast in Christopher Nolan’s Superman, or Jon Favreau’s upcoming Cowboys and Aliens.

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We know you love ghosts and the truth so in that spirit we’ve got a couple previews for you from this week’s episodes of Destination Truth and Ghost Hunters, courtesy of our friends at Syfy. First up is Destination Truth.

In this clip, Warehouse 13‘s Allison Scagliotti helps the team solve a mystery in a Chilean mining town. But if it were that simple, they wouldn’t need a team to solve it. Count on some surprises and when the truth is finally revealed, it won’t be what you think it is.

Next up on Ghost Hunters, paranormals in a notorious reform school where a former student is still causing trouble teach TAPS a lesson they won’t forget. That’s the thing about lessons taught by ghosts, you definately don’t forget them, mostly because you’re way too scared to.

Check out both previews after the jump. The fun begins Wednesday at 9/8C with Ghost Hunters followed by Destination Truth at 10/9c on Syfy.

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With some casting already handled, AMC has finally found an actor to play Rick Grimes, the reluctant hero of its The Walking Dead series adapted from the Image comic by Robert Kirkman. According to THR, that man is Brit Andrew Lincoln, who is probably best known for romancing Kiera Knightley in the film Love Actually.

In case you’re not familiar with the comic or the series, it revolves around a group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse and their struggles with said zombies and within their group as well. The group is led by Rick Grimes, a former cop who also struggles with his own demons, both external and internal.

According to the trade, Kirkman couldnt be more pleased with the selection of Lincoln. “Andrew Lincoln, wow–what an amazing find this guy is,” said Robert Kirkman, who wrote the comic book series upon which the series is based. “Writing Rick Grimes month after month in the comic series, I had no idea he was an actual living breathing human being and yet here he is. I couldn’t be more thrilled with how this show is coming together.”

Jon Bernthal, currently seen in HBO’s The Pacific, has already been cast in the series as Grime’s former police partner Shane. The Walking Dead, which is being adapted, produced and directed by Frank Darabont, starts shooting in June in Atlanta.

With Grimes cast, now what  I’m wondering who’s going to play the Samurai sword wielding Michonne?

Many months ago, I was strolling past the movie theater on one particularly beautiful morning in downtown Burbank when I happened upon one of those annoying movie ticket barkers.  I was about to ignore him when I saw the following letters in big, black type: KICK-ASS. Exuberant, I ran over and as he started to explain what the movie was about, I told him I’d take 6 flyers.

That night at the plushy and sometimes snooty Hollywood Arclight I sat with a few of my very geeky friends in the front row and watched a test print of the most Kick-Ass film of the year.  Below is my review….from a gal’s pov of course.

TO ANYONE WHO HASN’T READ THE COMIC, SPOILERS FOLLOW:

The film begins with a shot of who you think is the lead character.  He is dressed in superhero tights and leaps from a tall building to his death.  The voice-over then aptly tells the audience that this is the real world and crazy men in tights don’t have super powers.

The next opening scenes are extremely reminiscent of the very first Spider-man film. Here’s the thing. I get how in any new comic book movie there is usually a very long and very slow opening arc where some normal guy has something horrible or great happen and he gets turned into a superhero– but it’s been done.  I hear it’s even going to be re-done again in a new Spider-man flick.

I know how Spider-man gets his powers, my mom even knows how Spidey gets his powers, his name implies that maybe a spider was involved.  I don’t need an hour of exposition to get to the good part.

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This Sunday at 8PM EST on ABC, Brie Bella, along with her sister Nikki, WWE Superstars R-Truth and the Big Show, and Nascar legend Jeff Gordon will be appearing on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. On the episode, these five stars teamed up to help out Amanda and Derrick Suggs, a couple with two children of their own who also adopted Amanda’s younger siblings to prevent them from being placed into foster care.

We recently got to chat with Brie, one half of the WWE’s hottest twins (no offense, Earl and Dave Hebner). Take a look below at what Brie has to tell us about this unique experience as well as her time in WWE and being the local girl at this year’s WrestleMania 26.

The Flickcast: For those who aren’t familiar with you and your sister can you just give a quick little intro on how you got on TV?

Brie Bella: Well we are the Bella twins, Nikki and Brie Bella and I actually debuted on SmackDown first. I started wrestling against Victoria and Nikki and I had our little tricks up our sleeve with some twin switches and then in November (of 2008), the twins debuted together. So since then we’ve been a strong tag team and been on SmackDown, ECW and Raw. Now we are the guest host assistants on Monday Night Raw.

TFC: Well speaking of tag teams, the reason we are talking with you today are because you and your sister are appearing on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and you had some interesting partners pairing up with you. You had R-Truth and the Big Show, both WWE Superstars, as well as Jeff Gordon. Would you like to tell us about working with them?

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During the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time press conference at WonderCon this weekend, it was evident that all major players delighted in each other’s company and thoroughly enjoyed bringing the swashbuckling action adventure to life (especially Jake Gyllenhaal, who appears to have developed a fondness for stuntwork). During the course of the interviews, Jerry Bruckheimer (Producer), Mike Newell (Director), Jordan Mechner (Writer / Creator, POP Franchise) and Jake Gyllenhaal (Prince Dastan) all talked about the challenges and joys of bringing the popular gaming franchise to the big screen, and whether or not Prince of Persia will become a franchise.

In preparation for his role as Prince Dastan, Gyllanhaal revealed that he stepped outside his “normal” process for getting into character. “I’ve never done research playing video games. I’ve never played video games as research before. Sometimes I’ve read books, or I’ve hung out with Marines, but you know, playing video games is great fun.” Gyllanhaal also related that he has been a fan of the game since it was first released in 1989, when sidescrolling play was a prominent feature.

“I played the original when I was a kid, and then I only started playing the game pretty intensely when we were doing research, particularly for stunts. I’d be in the middle of shooting and  I’d see a move and then I’d call the stunt guys and say ‘check out this move, can we try that?!’ I continue to play it to this day.”

Although the gaming franchise provided a jumping off point (literally) for the live-action flick, Newell was quick to point out that they weren’t interested in retelling and rehashing what has already been visualized in the game, or elsewhere in movie lore.

“What we wanted to do was based on a storyline, but we wanted to make it emotionally real,” Newell explains.  “We did a huge amount of work at the script stage and at the rehearsal stage to make it absolutely real. Even the fights have an emotional reality. The big pressure was to take it to an area where a game couldn’t go, while not destroying the game side of it. I believe that we went very carefully back to 6th Century Persia. We looked at the style, we looked at the behavior, how cities were made and so on, and I hope that we were faithful to it and didn’t come in and jump all over it without a certain sensitivity.”

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The whole geek world is still wiping the drool from their collective chins over the first trailer for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World last week. But don’t worry, there is still quite some time for us to be excited, as Universal is bringing us more and more Scott Pilgrim in the months leading up to the film’s August release.

We were lucky enough to get our hands on a few great new images from the film, showing off some intense action sequences, and most importantly, Michael Cera emoting for what could be the first time in his film career.

Check out all of the glorious images after the jump, and be sure to catch Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, starring Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick, Alison Pill, Brandon Routh, and Jason Schwartzman in theaters on August 13th.

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