2012 is going to be a big year for stop-motion animation, with three high profile stop-motion animated features invading cinema’s throughout the year. The most notable of this bunch is Tim Burton’s next feature, Frankenweenie, which is a feature length, animated adaptation of Burton’s own 1982 short film.

Frankenweenie tells the tale of young Victor, a boy who loses his beloved dog Sparky and reanimates him with the power of electricity. If it was not obvious up to this point, the film is an homage to the Frankenstein movies and novel.

One thing that the poster clearly presents, but is still probably lost on most people, is that the film is shot in black and white. This is a bold creative decision for any film, and one Burton used to great success once before in Ed Wood.

However, it is still a tremendous risk for a stop-motion animated film, a genre that is usually noted for it’s ability to present vibrant and extraordinary visuals. Even Burton’s own Corpse Bride used color to great effect in illustrating the differences between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

The film is set for an early October release, just in time for Halloween! You can see the full poster after the jump.

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Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance co-director Brian Taylor is set to write and direct a live action adaptation of the iconic video game Twisted Metal. Sony Pictures has offered Taylor a 7-figure deal to head up the film.

Like the game, the film will revolve around an underground event that pits a number of combatants in a fight to the death. They are outfitted in armored weaponized cars that are pimped out with heavy weaponry that includes missiles and machine guns. Each character is set to have their own specialty weapons and style similar to the game. The sole survivor will get any wish granted.

It is rumored that the film will include such signature contestant characters as Sweet Tooth, a homicidal clown who drives an ice cream truck, and Doll Face, a young woman who is trapped behind a porcelain mask and who drives an 18-wheeler.

This is the first project that Taylor will helm solo. He has always teamed with Mark Neveldine on such films as the Crank series. There have been two so far, and they are talking about making a third, in 3D, as well as a possible future Ghost Rider. The team will continue to write and direct films together.

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Living with the immediate “ADD” audience that exists today, it’s hard for major studios to believe that kids today can follow the plot of any single movie, let alone a multi-film franchise like what Michael Bay has done with Transformers. It seems like that argument has gotten to Bay and his producing partner Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, as they are currently planning on rebooting the Transformers series to a brand new audience in 2014. From THR:

Bonaventura said that he and Bay were still in early stages of development process, but they wanted to reinvent the saga to pave the way for a new mythology. Bay showed a willingness to shake up the ensemble in Dark of the Moon, when he replaced Megan Fox with Rosie Huntington-Whitely as Sam’s love interest.

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This week’s pick is the adventure-comedy classic The Goonies (1985). Richard Donner (Superman I, II, Lethal Weapon series) and Steven Spielberg craft this cult classic, which has entertained countless fans for over twenty-five years.

The Goonies centers around a group of seven outcast teens from Astoria, Oregon whose homes are about to be demolished due to a real estate venture to expand the ritzy Astoria country club into their neighborhood. Facing their last weekend together, Mike Walsh (Sean Astin) and the rest of his friends rummage around his father’s attic and uncover a map, and a Spanish doubloon.

Mikey begins to tell the story of a Seventeenth Century Pirate known as One-Eyed Willie who stole a large assortment of treasure from the English back in 1632, and it was rumored to have been buried somewhere along their coastline. At first, Mikey’s friends seem reluctant to go on one last Goonie adventure but change their minds when they realize that if they were to find One-Eyed Willie’s treasure, they and their families wouldn’t have to leave Astoria.

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This week’s pick is the John Carpenter exploitation classic Assault on Precinct 13 that stars Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston, Laurie Zimmer, and Carpenter regular Charles Cyphers. Before Carpenter hit it big two years later in 1978 with the critically acclaimed financial blockbuster Halloween, his first commercial attempt came with Assault on Precinct 13.

Carpenter was a graduate of USC film school and had recently shot the now cult classic Dark Star which failed to give the young idealistic filmmaker the big break he was hoping for. Carpenter went looking for financial backers and found the CKK Corporation of Philadelphia, PA who gave Carpenter carte blanche to make whatever kind of film he wanted.

Carpenter hoped to make a Howard Hawks inspired western much like El Dorado or Rio Lobo. Due to funds in the range of only one hundred thousand dollars, Carpenter changed his mind and decided to make an action exploitation film instead.

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The legal battle between The Weinstein Company and Relativity is over, and The Crow reboot is looking like a foregone conclusion.

Director F. Javier Gutierrez and writer Jesse Wigutow have signed on to once again adapt the James O’Barr graphic novel about a slain musician resurrected for vengeance.

Gutierrez’s sci-fi debut Before the Fall has garnered him awards from bodies as diverse as the Cinema Writers Circle and Screamfest. He is currently in pre-production on an adaptation of The Monkey’s Paw.

Wigutow wrote the 2003 dramedy It Runs in the Family and the upcoming Irreparable Harm. He has also worked on the adaptations of Eragon and The Ruins.

Casting announcements are expected over the next few days.

The Flickcast recently got the chance to speak with Marshall Cook, whose new film Division III: Football’s Finest is now on Blu-Ray and DVD. Cook co-wrote, directed, edited, and starred in the film, which stars Andy Dick as an insane college football coach.

The Flickcast:  Congratulations on the movie; it’s hilariously funny. You clearly have a good sense of comic timing.

Marshall Cook:  Well, a lot of the supporting cast are writers, and it was a culmination of everyone’s work that went into this. I don’t have the ego to say I’m the funniest person here.

TF:  Did you write it with the actors you got in mind?

MC:  Yeah, pretty much all of them, except for a couple. Alison Haislip, who plays my love interest, auditioned and she was very similar to the girl it was based on; she had that guy’s girl personality.  Also, she’s just a solid actor. I’m really glad we got her.

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Fans of the Marvel franchise had a pretty big feast this year with Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger hitting theaters back to back this year. Now that those stories have been established, it’s time to look forward and see what the sequels have in store for us.

The first getting ready for production is Thor 2, which has already lost original director Kenneth Branagh before the film even went into pre-production. Now we’re getting word from THR that the film is losing its second director in Patty Jenkins (The Killing).

The filmmaker was to have been the first female director of a Marvel Studios movie.

Alas, “creative differences” are being blamed.

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The art of the horror comedy is in danger of becoming extinct these days, if not for the zombie genre’s resurrection (pun not intended) with hits like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. Now, rising star in the horror genre Adam Green (Hatchet, Frozen) is taking a whack at it with his new film Killer Pizza, which just got picked up by MGM.

From Deadline:

MGM is in talks to acquire Killer Pizza, an Adam Green-scripted adaptation of the Greg Taylor book about a 14-year old boy who lands a summer job at a pizza joint that is actually a front for a monster hunting enterprise.

Rafaella De Laurentiis is producing with 1492 Pictures and CJ Entertainment. 1492 Entertainment’s Chris Columbus brought it to MGM after meeting with the brass there and sensing the studio’s appetite for Gremlins and Goonies-type fare, and Killer Pizza fit that bill.

The film is said to have a very Joe Dante-esque feel taking tonal cues from Gremlins and Matinee. Can newcomer Adam Green join in the ranks of Dante and Landis in bringing these two genres to a happy medium? We’ll have to find out when MGM brings Pizza into production in the next year.

The original Twilight Zone is one of those classic shows that will always be considered as creepy and intellectual as it was back when it first aired. Several reincarnations of the series ended up falling flat to the episodes that Rod Sterling himself presented back in the early 1960s.

For many, the franchise was rejuvinated in 1983 when a series of directors collaborated together to put together a massive anthology film. Warner Bros. is hoping to jump start the franchise’s popularity once again with a new film, helmed by Cloverfield director Matt Reeves.

Here’s the catch: It won’t be an anthology. Deadline has the exclusive:

Let Me In and Cloverfield director Matt Reeves has been chosen by Warner Bros to direct The Twilight Zone, the Jason Rothenberg-scripted thriller based on the classic Rod Serling TV series. Negotiations will get underway early next week, but this is an assignment that was coveted by a number of top directors.

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As if we didn’t get enough amazingness in the first season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, the folks at the network feel like they need to bring in a few surprises before they start shooting season two, as they have already announced a few special directors tasked with taking on the new episodes.

It looks like director Neil Marshall, who’s no stranger to armor and action from directing Doomsday, will be taking on an episode or two of season 2. From Deadline:

Feature director Neil Marshall (The Descent) is set to direct an episode from the second season of HBO’s fantasy seriesGame of Thrones. This marks the TV debut of Marshall, who a huge fan of the adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s books.

Other directors tapped for Season 2 of Emmy-nominated Game of Thrones include top TV helmers Alan Taylor, who worked on the series’ freshman season, and David Nutter as well as Alik Sakharov and David Petrarca (Boardwalk Empire).

There is still no word on what stories from R.R. Martin’s Song of Fire & Ice will be adapted for this season, but you can certainly expect to see some of your favorite actors (mostly just Dinklage) return for the next batch of episodes.

This week’s pick is the post Cold War thriller Crimson Tide which stars Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman as U.S. Submariners who clash over their orders to launch nuclear weapons in this Tony Scott action classic. Crimson Tide begins during a period of political unrest in post Soviet Russia when military forces crush a rebellion in neighboring Chechnya.

Violence begins to spread throughout other republics and ultra nationalists headed by a man named Radchenko criticizes American, British, and French involvement which cuts off aid to Russia as a protest of its hostilities towards its neighboring country. Radchenko’s forces seize a Russian ICBM missile complex and threaten to launch nuclear weapons if either the U.S. or its allies move in to stop him.

After several years of peace, the Cold War begins to heat up once again.

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