We posted our review of Rob Zombie’s Halloween II here last week, amongst our full coverage of the film including an interview with Zombie himself. One subject that was sensitive for him was talking about a third film in the franchise. Zombie’s official statement was that he wasn’t making a third film, but it looks like Bob and Harvey Weinstein have a different plan.

Before word of how Halloween II even did in the box office over the weekend (coming in at #3 with only $17million, giving the top spot to Final Destination), the studio has already set a tentative release date of August 2010, and if that goes well, you can expect to see more done in the vain of the Saw films with a yearly release.

According to the LA Times, Rob Zombie will not be returning to the franchise for the aptly titled Halloween 3D. Zombie has already stated that his immediate plans revolve around his next album (hitting shelves in November) and currently drafting a script for a remake of the 50′s horror film The Blob.

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We got the chance to talk to Rob Zombie about his release of Halloween 2 this week, and though he stated that he has no intention of remaking any other horror movies, it looks like Genre Co.’s Richard Sapperstein may have made his mind up for him.

According to Variety, Genre Co., which is founded by former Dimension Pictures President Sapperstein, will be producing a remake of the 1958 classic The Blob along with the original producers at Worldwide Entertainment Corp. According to Zombie, this is something new for him, and he’s ready to take a crack at it.

“I’d been looking to break out of the horror genre, and this really is a science fiction movie about a thing from outer space,” Zombie said. “I intend to make it scary, and the great thing is I have the freedom once again to take it in any crazy direction I want to.”

Zombie has begun writing. He’ll follow the release of “Halloween II” with a new album and tour this fall and get the script done at that time.

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Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 doesn’t live up to the promise of his first effort and is only marginally entertaining for its running time. The film, which begins about a minute after the last one ends, continues the tale of Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) and her descent into madness. During the film she’s also pursued by Michael Myers, a sinister and relentless killing machine who even thought he’s on a mission to find Laurie and do whatever it is sociopaths do with people they find instead of killing them, he manages to stop along the way and kill many people seemingly at random or just because they happen to be in his way.

There are some things to like about this sequel. First, Zombie manages to up the tension and the stakes a bit from the first one — its now even more about saving Laurie — plus he throws in a pretty effective misdirection at the beginning of the film that leads us to believe we’re going to be watching a very faithful remake of the original Halloween sequel. Fortunately, he’s able to get away from that concept pretty gracefully and ends up taking the film into another less familiar, but in the end no less predictable, direction.

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Michael Cera has lately been getting a bad rap. He has seemingly fallen from grace and lately gone the way of Bill Heder and playing the same role over and over. Since his jump to stardom with Arrested Development and Superbad, Cera has gotten the role of the nervous lead nearly half a dozen times.

However, all may not be lost as it looks like things may just be changing for him — at least judging by the first trailer for his latest film Youth in Revolt which has just hit the Internets. Cera initially plays the same character many have grown tired of, until that character decides that he needs to manifest a separate identity. When that happens, he follows no rules, and only knows the path of the sexy villain — which could be a nice change for the actor if he can pull it off.

The film also stars Ray Liotta, Zach Galifianakis, Fred Willard, and Justin Long. Check out the trailer after the jump.

Youth in Revolt hits theaters October 30th.

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I’m not sure who exactly was waiting with baited breath for this, but whomever it was should be happy to read this post. To what am I referring? I’m talking about the announcement today that both David Arquette and Courtney Cox are signed up for another chapter in the Scream franchise which, at the moment, carries the clever title Scream 4.

According to Marc Malkin of E! Online, the duo are onboard the new film and, especially in the case of Arquette, thrilled to be doing it. “I fell in love with my wife on Scream, so the opportunity to bring [Dewey] back to life and for my wife to play that really bitchy character again, it’s just going to be really fun,” he said in the article.

Also according to Malkin, Kevin Williamson is busy working away on a script which apparently includes all the characters, even though Neve Campbell (currently seen in NBC’s The Philanthropist) has so far refused the idea of playing Sidney Prescott again. Of course, everyone involved wants Wes Craven to return to the director’s chair but so far, unlike Campbell, he’s not saying anything at all about returning.

Of all the people involved in Scream who might be excited for another installment (besides Arquette), I can’t think of anyone who probably needs it more than Kevin Williamson. After his huge success with projects like the first two Scream films, I know What You Did Last Summer and Dawson’s Creek, he seemed pretty much able to do anything he wanted.

Unfortunately, his star has faded after several less-than-successful film and TV projects like Hidden Palms and Cursed, so he’s probably ripe for a comeback and is looking for a way to make it happen. And what better way to do that then by going back to the material that made your career in the first place?

The reboot/remake train just keeps on roiling along. Now we can add John Landis’ 1981 horror/comedy An American Werewolf In London to the list of movies getting a “refresh” — at least according to a tipster who dropped some info over at Bloody Disgusting. In the article, the tipster reveals that writer/director Landis himself may be responsible for setting the wheels in motion on the reboot by selling his remake rights to Dimension Films.

Producing the film for Dimension will reportedly be the Weinstein brothers, who are currently about to launch Halloween II into theaters and are also hard at work on a reboot of yet another horror franchise: Clive Barker’s 1987 film Hellraiser. In case you’re not familiar with Landis’ original film, it concerns two friends traveling in England who are attacked by a werewolf.

One of the friends is killed but the other survives and begins to change and become a werewolf himself — much to the dismay of his new girlfriend, a nurse he met while recovering from the attack. In truth, this movie is one of my favorite horror/comedies of all time and I was actually discussing and recommending it to some friends just the other day. This particular reboot seems like a very bad idea.

The original film was great and achieved just the right mix of horror, action, suspense, romance and gore making it a very tough act to follow — as evidenced by the abismal sequel An American Werewolf in Paris. I know reboots and remakes are inevitable but I also know, especially in this case, there’s pretty much no way a reboot will ever live up to the original.

Normally, we would try to make some comment about a new movie trailer or provide some context so you know what you’re seeing. We would also probably tell you a bit about the film, its story and the characters. Fortunately, with this new trailer from Rob Zombie’s sequel to his reboot of Halloween, context and commentary really isn’t all that necessary.

If you’re a horror fan and you’re reading this, you’ve probably already seen John Carpenter’s original Halloween and Zombie’s reboot. In fact, you probably have seen all the Halloween movies, and most other horror films, so you pretty much know what you’re getting with this movie. Fortunately, you’re suspicions are proven true in this new trailer.

It features all the thrills, chases, screaming, blood, gore and the unstoppable killing machine (aka Michael Myers) you’d expect from a Halloween movie. In short, it looks kick ass.

Halloween 2 opens August 28th. Check out the new trailer after the jump.

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They say that getting to Carnegie Hall just takes “Practice, practice, practice”, and writer/director Kevin Smith certainly has had practice. Over the years in between making his films, writing comic books, and directing tv shows like Reaper, he’s toured to colleges around the country and has created three Evening with Kevin Smith DVDs. Wednesday night at Carnegie Hall may have seemed different to the naked eye–a sold out show in one of the most prestigious concert venues in the world–but it was just as laid back, hilariously dirty, and raunchy as anything Smith’s done before.

I was lucky enough to attend the performance, a three hour laugh fest that revealed some of Smith’s most embarrassing, but also most touching moments. If you’ve never seen Kevin Smith live, there’s a basic format: fans line up to ask questions, and Smith answers them as honestly and openly as you’d expect. Since this show was a bit bigger than usual (the show sold out all of its 2,000 tickets), fans submitted their questions beforehand and were drawn from a lottery. Sometimes these questions take a few minutes to answer, or a few hours.

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When it comes to posters, there have been some pretty bad ones released lately, from poor photoshopping to a complete lack of creativity, they have all been less than decent. But finally, a poster has come along for a film that looks to be a little more than decent. I’m talking about the new Italian poster for Quentin Tarantino’s Iglorious Basterds.

For those not aware, Basterds is about a group of Jewish-American soldiers during World War II known as “The Basterds”, led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), who are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.

The poster shows off Pitt doing his “nat-zee scalp hunting” face, along with Eli Roth (left), Christoph Waltz (right) and Diane Kruger (top). We’ve already seen a few clips from the film and heard about the astounding reaction from Cannes, now we have a cool-looking poster to hold us over until the film’s release on August 21.

Check out the larger sized poster after the jump.

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Last week on The Flickcast, our own Chris Ullrich chose Rob Zombie’s Halloween reboot as his pick of the week. He was impressed with the film and found it to be much better than he expected. Obviously, he’s a fan.

Well, he’s in luck then, as are the rest of you who are fans of Rob Zombie and Halloween, because Zombie is hard at work on a sequel, currently entitled Halloween 2. And now, courtesy of the folks over at Club Scout and a rather shaky person with a camcorder aimed at their tv screen, we’ve got two new video clips of Halloween 2 tv spots to share with you.

These two video clips show Zombie’s vision at work bringing new dimensions to the horror that is Michael Myers. Expect more of the same: Michael Myers chasing people, killing people, people trying to kill him and various other scenes of that nature. Plus, Myers appears to roll over a car by himself and sent it down an embankment. Great stuff.

Sadly, because of how they were taken, the videos are not of great quality. But still, I’m sure you get the idea. Halloween 2 hits theaters August 28th.

Check out the videos after the Jump.

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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.