It has been confirmed that Rodrigo Santoro will reprise his role as Xerxes in 300: Battle of Artemisia. Santoro will join Eva Green (Casino Royale) as Artemisia, Sullivan Stapleton (Darkness Falls) as Themistocles, and Jamie Blackley (Snow White and The Huntsman) as Calisto.

The story is rumored to be a sort-of-sequel which will follow Xerxes (Santoro) is pushed into the bloody battle with the Greeks by the gold-covered maven goddess Artemisia (Green). Artemisia utilizes her knowledge of how much Xerxes’ father King Darius’s death has affected him, persuades Xerxes to go into battle against those responsible. Artemisia also searches for  group of men to join Xerxes in the battle against the Greeks.

She manages to use her feminine wiles to convince Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton) to side with her and Xerxes, even though the Persians took her family and he was firmly on the side of the Greeks. Ultimately, she convinces him that his life will be better off if he swaps sides. Themistocles’ skills as a fighter are only rivaled by his ability for deception and lies.

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Director Martin Scorsese (Gangs of New York, The Departed) and Leonardo DiCaprio (Shutter Island, The Aviator) have both committed to an adaptation of The Wolf of Wall Street. This film will be the fifth time the duo will be working together.

The film is based on the memoir of the same name by Jordan Belfort. It chronicles his rise and fall as a Wall Street stock broker in the 80′s and 90′s.  The script for the film is written by Terrence Winter, who is currently the executive producer of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.

In the 1990s Jordan Belfort, former kingpin of the notorious investment firm Stratton Oakmont, became one of the most infamous names in American finance. Reputedly the prototype for the film Boiler Room, Stratton Oakmont turned microcap investing into a wickedly lucrative game as Belfort’s hyped-up, coked-out brokers browbeat clients into stock buys that were guaranteed to earn obscene profits, just not for the clients.

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Olivia Wilde, Jason Sudeikis, Brie Larson and Fred Armisen will star in a relationship comedy that marks the directorial debut of writer Christopher Storer, Relanxious.

Other than being a fairly obnoxious combination of words, Relanxious follows Barrett, played by Wilde, an anxiety-ridden woman who meets and is smitten with George, played by Sudeikis. George is agoraphobic and so their courtship is limited to phone conversations in which they discuss the dates they would go on if their phobias didn’t stand in the way. As the fantasies develop, the two must decide if they can put aside their fears in order to find real-life romance. Larsen plays Barrett’s sister, and Armisen plays George’s friend and only contact with the outside world.

Wilde recently wrapped her work Steve Carell – Jim Carrey comedy Burt Wonderstone. Sudeikis is still appearing on Saturday Night Live and last appeared on the big screen in Horrible Bosses. Larsen will be seen in this month’s 21 Jump Street remake and Sudeikis’ fellow SNL castmember Armisen has been working on his IFC series Portlandia, which just got picked up for a third season.

The film will be produced by Daniel Dubiecki, who recently launched The Allegiance Theater, and Lorene Scafaria, writer/director of the upcoming Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. Relanxious will shoot this summer in Chicago.

The fan community is certainly one of the strongest forces in the entertainment industry since the rise of the internet. Long gone is the idea of an old-timey press room where the barrier between the readers and the writers held strong. Now fanboys like Harry Knowles hold power purely because of the geek credibility that he currently weilds.

With a rule like that, fans are the true final word as to whether a film gets a sequel, if not a multi-film franchise, so why wouldn’t they be the ones who decide what movie ideas get made?

A few years ago, a fan put together a little photoshopped poster where Sam Jackson takes on a ridiculous plot like poisonous snakes being let loose on a plane mid-flight. 32 million dollars in production and $62 million in ticket sales later, Snakes on a Plane was considered somewhat of a win by New Line.

Now, fans are at it again with a (far superior) photoshop job showcasing a possible Walt Disney biopic starring the lovable Ryan Gosling, simply titled Walt. You can thank French artist Pascal Witaszek for being the brains (and eye) behind this one.

Take a look at the image after the jump, and help share this so we can get a seemingly awesome film like this made by a talented team.

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There are few actors these days that can play just about any part in most geek-driven properties these days. Neal McDonough has gone from playing Bruce Banner in the animated Hulk series, to having a part in Star Trek: First Contact, M. Bison for some reason in Street Fighter, and even playing the fan favorite Dum Dum Dougan in last year’s Captain America: The First Avenger.

Now, McDonough is taking the center stage again with Frank Darabont’s upcoming TNT series based on the video game L.A. Noir. Deadline reports.

LA Noir tells the true story of a decades-long conflict between the LAPD, under the determined leadership of Police Chief Parker (McDonough), and ruthless criminal elements led by mobster Mickey Cohen, a one-time boxer who rose to the top of LA’s criminal world.

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Woody Allen is a talented writer, director and actor. He is generally very funny, and often provides a very unique perspective that feels familiar but is undeniably his own. Now he will finally achieve the final peg for total life victory, he will play John Turturro’s pimp.

Turturro’s next project as a writer and director is Fading Gigolo, and he has been able to pull in a very impressive cast.

Variety is reporting Allen will co-star in the film with Turturro with Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara likely to sign on in supporting roles.

Turturro and Allen [play] cash-strapped best friends who decide to go into the gigolo business together and subsequently attract the suspicion of the Hasidic Jewish community in which they live. Duo take on the pseudonyms Virgil and Bongo, with Allen pimping out Turturro’s character until he falls for a Jewish widow.

The movie sounds incredibly interesting, and pulling in Woody Allen just as an actor likely speaks volumes about script.

This will be Allen’s first project since winning this year’s Academy Award for best screenplay, for his film Midnight in Paris. Turturro has recently been seen fighting giant robots in a certain loud and explodey trilogy, so this next picture is an interesting change of pace for the both of them.

As we previously reported, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson was in the running to helm Brett Ratner’s Hercules. Now Johnson has officially signed on for the titular role of Ratner’s Hercules film and has also signed on to do an adaptation of the graphic novel Ciudad.

Many fans are excited about the change in career choices that Dwayne Johnson has been making as The Rock is choosing more action films rather than Tooth Fairy 2. With Faster and Fast Five under his belt, as well as the upcoming G.I. Joe:Retaliation and Pain and Gain, Johnson is going back to his action roots for these 2 films.

Ciudad is an action-thriller adaptation of the upcoming Oni Press graphic novel of the same name.

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Robocop is finally getting an upgrade. After months of rumors,  it looks like MGM has finally found their leading man for the upcoming Robocop remake. With potential stars ranging from Michael Fassbender to Russell Crowe, they finally decided on Swedish actor Joel Kinnaman to play the cyborg police officer.

According to Deadline.com, MGM has made an official offer to Kinnaman, who is best known for his roles in AMC’s The Killing and in the Denzel Washington/Ryan Reynolds thriller Safe House.

In the ultra-violent 1987 original, Peter Weller played officer Alex J. Murphy, who is brutally gunned down in the line of duty. In this futuristic version of Detroit, crime has gotten out of control and the normal police can’t stop the criminals. After the privatized police department resurrects him as a half-man, half-machine cop, Murphy is haunted by his human memories while facing both a sadistic criminal syndicate, as well as a corrupt corporate board.

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The casting has not come particularly quick or easy for the Spike Lee directed remake of the Korean thriller Oldboy.

Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men, Men In Black III) locked in as the lead character quite early in the process but the quest for a villain so far has involved names ranging from Christian Bale to  Clive Owen, with even Colin Firth being in the mix. All have passed for various reasons and the search continues.

Filling the role of Brolin’s love interest, Marie, has been an equally difficult task. Both Rooney Mara and Mia Wasikowska have been offered and rejected the part of the female lead role. It is now being reported that the role of Marie has been offered to Elizabeth Olsen.

The film follows an average man who is kidnapped and imprisoned in a shabby cell for 15 years without explanation. He then is released, equipped with money, a cellphone and expensive clothes. As he strives to explain his imprisonment and get his revenge, he soon finds out that his kidnapper has a greater plan for him and is set onto a path of pain and suffering in an attempt to uncover the motive of his mysterious tormentor.

The lesser known Olsen sister, Elizabeth seemingly sprang out of nowhere at Sundance 2011 to become one of America’s most sought after young actresses thanks to parts in the soon to be released Silent House and the under the radar film Martha Marcy May Marlene. With three other projects listed to start in 2013, she’s not going away anytime soon. She’s also got a sizable gap in her schedule before those projects are due to start, which makes this a very plausible option.

Dan Aykroyd has been trying to get Ghostbusters 3 off the ground for a long time now, but it seems he has hit a speed bump. After generating interest from the original crew, including Harold Ramis and director Ivan Reitman, the studio, and fans all around the world, but he can’t seem to get his good friend Bill Murray on board.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Aykroyd said that the film is currently in “suspended animation”. At this rate he doesn’t believe the film will ever get made.

“The studio, the director Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis feel there must be a way to do it, but Bill Murray will not do the movie. He doesn’t want to be involved. He’s got six kids, houses all over America. He golfs in these tournaments where they pay him to turn up and have a laugh. He’s into this life and living it,” said Aykroyd.”I know we’d have a lot of fun [but] I can’t be mad at him. He’s a friend first, a colleague second. We have a deep personal relationship that transcends business and he doesn’t want to know.”

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In case you were not aware, there is a brilliant modernization of Sherlock Holmes on TV right now. Sherlock, the BBC series, tells the tale of the titular detective in a modern London, complete with text messaging, internet teleconferencing and Watson’s blog!

CBS, excited by the prospect of the most famous detective’s ability to work in a modern setting, has set forth on their own take on a 21st century Holmes, and they just nabbed their Watson.

According to Deadline the role of Sherlock’s faithful aide is being filled by a rather surprising choice:

Lucy Liu is set to play Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick in CBS’ drama pilot Elementary, whose tweaks to Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic include switching Watson’s gender to female. The project, written by Robert Doherty, is set in present day and stars Jonny Lee Miller as eccentric Brit Sherlock Holmes, a former consultant to Scotland Yard whose addiction problems led him to a rehab center in New York City.

On one hand, the concept of Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu running around New York as Holmes and Watson actually sounds crazy enough to work. On the other hand, we might be reaching a point of Sherlock Holmes overload, with a TV show and movie series already very much alive.

We at The Flickcast have our fingers crossed that this adaptation goes just bug nutty enough to work along side Sherlock, not against it.

Moneyball was a great film and it was very interesting to watch Jonah Hill stand toe to toe with Brad Pitt and deliver Aaron Sorkin dramatic dialogue like a pro. So the news that he has signed on to a new dramatic feature is exciting.

Deadline is reporting that Jonah Hill will be joining forces with James Franco, himself another actor fully capable in drama or comedy, for the upcoming film True Story. A film about a New York Times journalist who’s identity had been stolen by a wanted murder while on the run from authorities.

Like Moneyball, this is another opportunity for Hill to veer from his comic persona. He will play Finkel, who was a writer at The New York Times Magazine in 2002 when he learned that Christian Longo was captured in Mexico after a long stint on the FBI Ten Most Wanted List for killing his family. The strange part was that he had been living under the identity of Finkel.

The very next day, the real Finkel was fired by the editors of The Times, right after they ran an editor’s note declaring that he had falsified parts of an investigative article. His career seemed over, until Longo (who’ll be played by Franco) declared that the real Finkel was the only journalist he would talk to. 

Sounds very interesting, hopefully we are just getting to meet a whole new side to Jonah Hill.