Diablo is one of those franchises that exists in every gamers dreams. It was one of the classic Blizzard titles that has been long lost in the success of World of Warcraft and Starcraft, but there has always been hope that we would see a return to the action RPG franchise.

So a few years ago it was announced that Diablo 3 was officially on the way, and the world of video games seemed like a happier place. However, A funny thing happened on the way to Gamestop and the release missed an originally planed 2011 release window. Reports of an early 2012 release were heard, but alas we have at least a few more months to wait.

Activision announced in a recent financial report that Diablo 3 is currently expected for the middle of the year, killing any hope that we would see the game sooner rather than later.

That was not the only disappointing news for Blizzard fans in the report. The long awaited second part of Starcraft 2 and the next World of Warcraft expansion are on shaky ground for a 2012 release. Blizzard is only expected to ship one other title this year in addition to Diablo 3, meaning one or both of those two announced projects is going to be pushed to 2013.

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It’s been almost a year since we first brought you news of Jeremy Renner starring in the fourth film in the ‘Bourne’ franchise. All that time we’ve wondered how he would do as the new Bourne and if he would be able to make us forget about Matt Damon who, let’s face it, did a pretty good job.

Well, pretty much all of our questions have been answered now with the first trailer for The Bourne Legacy being released today. In it we see Renner in action as the new ‘Bourne’ (actually, as a character names Aaron Cross, but who’s counting?) and also get a better idea of where his character comes from.

We also get more of an idea who will be accompanying him on his journey. Fortunately, many of our favorite supporting players also make an appearance. All of it serves to make this trailer, and the upcoming film, look pretty darn good.

As to the question of Renner helping us to forget about Matt Damon, the answer to that is “Matt Damon who?” Plus, the movie has Rachel Weisz in it so we’re going no matter what.

Look for The Bourne Legacy, directed by Tony Gilroy and featuring Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Joan Alley and Albert Finney, to hit theaters on August 8. Check out the trailer after the break.

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Even though Robert Rodriguez has long been touting 2009′s Machete was the beginning of a trilogy of films, it was thought to be dead in the water due to the lackluster performance of the original. Now, Deadline is reporting that Rodriguez has producer Alexander Rodnyansky on board and is ready to move forward with the sequel Machete.

The sequel, as was hinted during the first film, will be titled Machete Kills, already has a script and will start production as soon as April. The new film finds Machete recruited by the U.S. Government to take on a mission that would be too much for any normal man.

Machete must battle his way through Mexico single-handed to “take down a madman cartel leader and an eccentric billionaire arms dealer who has hatched a plan to spread war across the planet with a weapon in space.”

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This week’s pick is yet another John Carpenter classic. Kurt Russell stars as the first ever action hero of the 1980s in Escape From New York (1981). After success with Halloween and the horror classic The Fog, Carpenter’s next project would be a unique blend of science fiction, action, noir and a western. The result is one of the finest multi genre classics of its time.

Set in a dystopian future (now the past) the United States’ crime rate rises to an astonishing four hundred percent in 1988. To combat the growing crime rate, the United States becomes a totalitarian police state and the great city of New York is turned into the one prison for the whole country. A fifty-foot containment wall is erected around all of Manhattan Island, all the bridges and waterways are mined, and the United States Police Force patrols the wall perimeter to insure no one escapes. Once you go inside the prison, you never come out.

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We here at The Flickcast don’t like to judge films based on their rating. While it might be in vogue to jump on the hate wagon when a popular franchise goes for a PG-13 instead of an R, none of that matters if the story is good. The rating should be dependent on content, and that content should be determined by what ever choices lead to the best possible movie.

That said, it is hard not to feel a little enthusiasm when the current rights holder to the Terminator franchise tweets outs gold like this:

@meganeellison: @terminatorfans We can’t really tell you guys anything about Terminator BUT it will be an R rated film as God and James Cameron intended.

In the years since the release of the first two Terminator films, action and violence has grown more and more accepted by the MPAA, leaving films like T2 as examples of very soft R rated films. The franchise doesn’t “need” an R rating in the same way a Zombie film or a Slasher movie does. However, knowing that at the very center of all things Terminator  an R rated film means in the writing phase there will be no compromises, which is very encouraging after the debacle that was Terminator: Salvation.

The second Hangover movie was a success. The movie might have suffered from being to much like the original, but the original was pretty damn awesome, so there was still lots to like. So a third installment seemed likely, and now according to The Hollywood Reporter the final hurdles are being cleared as we speak.

Dealmaking on the studio’s third installment in the raunchy comedy franchise is wrapping up after dragging on for months due in part to the salary demands of its three stars. Sources close to the negotiations say Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms are asking for $15 million each (against backend) to reprise their roles, and they now are likely to get it.

The next Hangover film is said to be a departure from the formula of the first two films. It is risky to stray to far from a proven formula, but knowing that the filmmakers actively want to make a film with these characters that we know and love with out an inexplicable third memory blacked out party is a great sign.

Warner Bros. is hoping to bring the story to Los Angeles, with filming beginning in the summer. Hangover 3 has a tentative release date of Memorial Day 2013.

If there is one franchise that has managed to live up to its very low standard, film after film, it would have to be Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil. Since the first one back in 2002, this franchise has managed to keep up with the technology, while hardly losing any of the excitement that fans are piling in to see with every new release.

With that comes Retribution, the fifth film in the franchise. This time, we’ve got a full group of folks joining from across the decade-spanning films. Joining lead Milla Jovovich this time around is Michelle Rodriguez (returning from the first film), Oded Fehr (Apocalypse & Extinction), and Sienna Guillory (Apocalypse & Afterlife).

A pretty stellar cast, given the heavy mythos of this world. And speaking of heavy, here’s the synopsis (as if you needed one):

The Umbrella Corporation’s deadly T-virus continues to ravage the Earth, transforming the global population into legions of the flesh eating Undead. The human race’s last and only hope, Alice (Milla Jovovich), awakens in the heart of Umbrella’s most clandestine operations facility and unveils more of her mysterious past as she delves further into the complex.

Without a safe haven, Alice continues to hunt those responsible for the outbreak; a chase that takes her from Tokyo to New York, Washington, D.C. and Moscow, culminating in a mind-blowing revelation that will force her to rethink everything that she once thought to be true. Aided by newfound allies and familiar friends, Alice must fight to survive long enough to escape a hostile world on the brink of oblivion. The countdown has begun.

Take a look at the trailer after the jump, in which takes a fun jab at the world of tablets we’ve come to live in. Catch Resident Evil: Retribution in theaters and in 3D on September 14th.

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The fourth installment of the Underworld franchise tried to bring the series back to it’s bread and butter, Kate Beckinsale in skin-tight leather. That was seemingly all you need as the film bounced back from the disappointing third installment and stands tall with a similar start to that of the first two movies.

The estimated twenty-five and a half million dollar haul puts Awakening on pace to top the over all totals of the first and third movies, whether or not it can catch the series peak, set by Evolution, will depend on it’s hold next weekend. The per theater average and total screen numbers are comparable to the second film which performed the best up to this point in the series.

Coming in at an impressive nineteen million is Red Tails, the Lucasfilm tale of the famed Tuskegee Airman. The movie surpassed many expectations and out paced other fighter pilot films by a solid margin. Much like Underworld: Awakening, the critical reception of Red Tails has not been kind, so it will need strong word of mouth to maintain momentum into next weekend.

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The original Expendables film was a who’s who of classic 80s and 90s action super stars. It was a throwback film to a time when hardcore action films were made for a more hard core audience. The second film looks to follow in the original’s footsteps by amping up the nostalgic icons, but is the action going to take a step back?

Sylvester Stallone recently confirmed rumors over on Aint It Cool News that the film is aiming to earn a PG-13 rating:

Harry, the film is fantastic with Van Damme turning in an inspired performance… Our final battle is one for the ages. The PG13 rumor is true, but before your readers pass judgement,  trust me when I say this film is LARGE in every way and  delivers on every level. This movie touches on many emotions which we want to share with the broadest audience possible, BUT, fear not, this Barbeque of Grand scale Ass Bashing will not leave anyone hungry…Sly

The initial reaction people will have from this news is likely to be negative, but it is important to remember that the original film was eyeballing a PG-13 rating during it’s filming as well. Stallone has earned the trust of the movie going audience as a director and storyteller, and The Expendables 2 still has in impressive cast list. We will have to wait and see if the teen friendly rating negatively effects the final project.

With Twilight coming to an end and with Harry Potter already over, the world of young adult fiction franchises is looking pretty thin. The next series to take a stab at filling the void left by sexy vampires and teen wizards is The Hunger Games. The books are widely popular and the upcoming films are headlined by hot and talented young actors who could carry a series for a few years, so it behooves the studio to hedge their bets and begin working on the sequel as soon as possible.

TheWrap.com recently revealed that the studio has brought on writer Simon Beaufoy, whose credits include The Full Monty and Slumdog Millionaire, to begin work on adapting the second novel in the series. This isn’t exactly a huge surprise as a November 2013 release date has already been penciled in for the second film.

Director Gary Ross is supervising the script writing process as he plans on jumping into the sequel as soon as he is done with his work on the first film. Beaufoy is a very interesting choice who has had great success with recent adaptations winning an Oscar for his adaptation of Slumdog Millionaire and receiving another nomination for his work on 127 Hours. You can say what you want about a film that is aiming for the Twilight audience, but you have to give them props for using quality, talented people.

This past weekend we saw the release of Beauty and the Beast in 3D, the most recent in a string of classic films getting a 3D face lift.  The next big re-release is only a few weeks away with the first of the Star Wars 3D updates. Lucas is starting with Episode One, and is moving on through the franchise with a new re-release every year.

Even though the prequel trilogy lives in infamy among most film fans, the impending arrival of a Star Wars film on the big screen still holds some weight. In advance of the February launch a new set of five posters has hit the web, each with a wildy different design and most of them actually pretty cool.

It is gratifying that the posters excise the existence of Jar Jar Binks completely, although it would have been nice had Jake Lloyd received the same treatment. The upcoming 3D versions of these films represents the greatest perk of the 3D post conversion era we live in.

To have an opportunity to watch classic films on the big screen again in new and exciting ways is an exciting proposition. Hopefully lesser films like the prequel trilogy don’t ruin it before we get back to the original trilogy.

You can see the whole set of new posters after the jump.

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This week’s pick is The Road Warrior (a.k.a. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior) (1981). Mel Gibson dons his black leather uniform once again in this second installment of the franchise.

The Road Warrior begins with a narration sequence with an elderly man’s voice as it is shown to the audience the widespread pandemonium, which has steered the world towards nuclear Armageddon. Mad Max I shows the audience the beginning of the end. The Road Warrior picks up after the world has been destroyed and society hangs by a narrow thread.

Max roams the wasteland of Australia with his battle-torn black V-8 interceptor and his cattle dog foraging for supplies mainly food, and fuel for his gas-guzzling supercharger. Much like the first film, the first several minutes of the film offer an amazing chase sequence where Max is being pursued by a band of marauding punks led by the vicious Wez (Vernon Wells) who plan to kill Max and take his vehicle and what precious supplies he has left.

Max foils their attempt and wreaks two vehicles in an amazing crash sequence. Max commanders what fuel he can from one of the wreaked cars and fends off an attack by Wez who was shot in the arm with an arrow.  Collecting what he can Max sets off again with his dog and his even more damaged vehicle.

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