One thing you can always count on with a Baz Luhrmann movie is that it will be full of spectacle. Said spectacle may take the form of exotic song and dance numbers, sweeping vistas or elaborately choreographed gunplay, but it will always be there.

His next production, an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, is no exception. It has contemporary songs, dancing, singing and spectacle galore, as you can see from the first trailer for the movie we’ve got for you today.

Heck, it’s even in 3D. That’s a dimension Luhrman hasn’t explored bofore. It will be interesting to see what he does with it. If this trailer is any indication, he’s going to do a heck of a lot.

Look for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan and Joel Edgerton, to hit theaters this Christmas. Check out the trailer after the break.

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The DC animated universe is fantastic. Bruce Timm has been masterminding gold standard animation for nearly two decades, and his crew is finally taking on one of the most important Batman stories ever told, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.

This epic two-part animated event has already been officially announced, but The Hollywood Reporter has announced the principle voice cast:

Peter Weller (Robocop) will star as Batman/Bruce Wayne and Modern Family’s middle child Ariel Winter will play Robin… Also in the cast are David Selby, the veteran actor who starred in the original Dark Shadows soap opera as well as the classic 1980s soap Falcon Crest; Wade Williams (Prison Break) as Harvey Dent/Two-Face; and Michael McKean as Dr. Wolper, the psychiatrist who releases the Joker from the insane asylum.

Fan favorite Michael Ironside played the role in a classic episode of Batman: The Animated Series that payed homage to the seminal story. While it would have been nice symmetry to have him back, Peter Weller is an amazing choice for the role.

The story is being split into two animated features, the first of which will be hitting shelves later this year, followed by the second part in early 2013.

The Dark Knight Rises looms. As The Avengers makes ungodly sums of money and other potential blockbusters come and go, the true tenor of the season wont be determined until Batman has his say.

Warner Bros. has released a new one sheet for the anticipate super hero conclusion, and it really plays up the ‘fire rises’ motif that has been a constant in the marketing. The ad campaign for the sequel has thus far been much less interesting than for The Dark Knight.

The viral aspects seem to cause less of a fervor among fans, there is nothing like those variant Joker tagged posters that popped up in theaters after a few months of the regular ones hanging on those walls. Just on the whole the marketing for this movie just seems to have less impact. Of course this could be on purpose, you don’t need much impact when everyone and their mother saw the last film.It is still interesting to see the different tactics in play.

As for the quality of this particular poster, it is rather nice. Getting a splash of color in there is a good touch, and I like the symmetry of this design and some of the earlier teasers.

Check out the full poster after the jump.

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This is an open letter to anyone at 20th Century Fox, with how I would handle their X-Men Universe in the wake of The Avengers and their successful First Class Pre-Boot-quel-thing. 

The X-Men cinematic universe was the first major franchise launched in this modern era of comic book blockbusters. The original X-Men film managed to successfully lay in the groundwork of how these types of films can be a success without losing their comic book soul.

The sequel was a massive leap forward in both action and general cinematic quality. While the other sequels have received mixed reviews, it was clear that despite the reboot happy tendencies of modern hollywood. Fox remained committed to the continuity of the universe they established in 2000.

Just a few weeks ago The Avengers made more money than conceivable in its debut, representing the culmination of a five-year, 6 movie plan. The newly established ‘shared universe’ model demonstrated by Marvel Studios could be a new gold standard for what a studio can do with these types of properties.

So it is with that context that I present my plan for a smaller scale ‘shared X-universe’ that can allow Fox to use it’s already established property in an exciting new way.

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Normally this is a report about the top 10 in the weekends Box Office, a celebration of the entire spectrum of the week’s best performing movies. That will not be the case this week as The Avengers just demolished even the most generous expectations and became the first film ever to rake in over $200 Million dollars in a debut weekend.

You read that correct, The Avengers made an estimated $200.3 Million this weekend at the Box Office. For reference the next closest film was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 which brought in over $169 Million in its opening frame. Kudos to me for the prediction last week.

There is a fitting symmetry for Marvel this week, as it was the original Spider-Man movie in 2001 that was the first to breach the $100 Million Dollar plateau. In the twelve years since that first triple digit weekend five of the films to achieve the mark were based on Marvel properties, the most of any single franchise.

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One thing will be certain in a few weeks. Once Summer starts there will be more high profile scores than Fridays and some good music might fall through the cracks. Which is precisely why I am so excited to bring you this early review of Danny Elfman’s score from Dark Shadows.

This score ranked as one of my most anticipated of the early summer season, and that anticipation was made all the more severe when we listened to the expanded preview a few weeks back. So suffice to say I am ready to dig into the 14th collaboration between Danny Elfman and Tim Burton.

That is a lot of feature film scores from a director with a very distinct style, and recently there has been a lot of concern about repetitiveness in Elfman’s music. You can only go to that stylized dark well so many times, and eventually it will be dried up completely.

So does this umpteenth collaboration yield beautiful sonic rewards, or is this little more than a Beetlejuice or Sleep Hallow remix album?

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Bryan Fuller, the creative mastermind behind Wonderfalls, Pushing Daises and choice episodes of Heroes and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, might very well have two new shows on the air next season. We already told you about his two new projects likely to hit screens this season.

Now we are getting word from EW that the already greenlit Hannibal series will have a cable-esque 13 episode season one:

Hannibal, which has received a 13-episode series order, features Lecter solving crimes with empathic FBI profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy). For the first time, viewers will spend quality time with Lecter while he’s at large and before the world knows his secrets, working side by side with a similarly brilliant man who is destined to catch him.

What we have is Alfred Hitchcock’s principle of suspense — show the audience the bomb under the table and let them sweat when it’s going to go boom. So the audience knows who Hannibal is so we don’t have to overplay his villainy. We get to subvert his legacy and give the audience twists and turns.

Sounds mighty interesting. If Fuller and company can pull of this tight rope we might have a pretty great show on our hands. Fuller is certainly very capable, but this year will see him tackle two very well known properties. It will be interesting to see how he handles each one.

OK, so lets break it down to you in the simplest way possible. Disney wants to make a movie that is based on a ride, that was based on a movie, that was based on a book. We here at The Flickcast are generally pro re-imagining properties, but that seems stretched a little thin.

Deadline is reporting that Disney is keen to get a movie in production based on yet another popular ride from a Disney Park:

Disney has feature film plans for Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, one of its longest-running theme park rides. The studio has set iconic commercials and video director Pete Candeland to develop a live-action/CGI mix feature that will bring to life a theme park ride that originated in Disneyland on its opening in 1955.

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, if you remember, is the children’s dark ride that simulates a wild and drunken high speed car chase that ends with a first person simulation of a horrible death and hell. It is by far the most insane, ‘WTF’ ride at Disneyland and the concept of turning that experience into a feature film is crazy, but maybe just crazy enough to work.

The current idea would be to craft a film based on the attraction, not the well regarded source material. So sorry Wind in the Willows fans, it looks like you won’t be getting the umpteenth adaptation of your beloved book.

Remaking old TV shows as movies is a tricky proposition. There are a few angles you can take with it, you could make the movie as direct an adaptation as possible. Or you could embrace the camp nature of the source material and make a farce of it.

Both tactics have failed miserably, but so to have they both worked. This spring’s 21 Jump Street is a prime example of a film that works by embracing the absurdity of the original’s sincere premise. Most indications of Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows might have succeeded in a similar fashion, so word of more classic TV adaptations can be met with some optimism these days.

According to Deadline, Universal has gotten behind their next TV to Big Screen adaptation:

Universal Pictures has set David Levien and Brian Koppelman to write The Rockford Files, a feature adaptation of the memorable series that ran on NBC from 1974-80 and featured James Garner as the down-and-out private eye. The studio will develop the film as a star vehicle for Vince Vaughn to play Rockford, and Vaughn and Victoria Vaughn will produce through their Universal-based Wild West Picture Show Productions banner.

Vaughn is a rather obvious choice, but hopefully it means they are going for a more comic approach. I know that will get fans of the original twisted up, but I think a strait forward adaptation of the show wouldn’t really work today. What could work is a Vince Vaughn staring vehicle using the show’s premise and the core of the main character. So long as it is more 21 Jump Street and less Starsky and Hutch we should be fine.

One of the biggest enigmas in the crowded summer blockbuster season is how will the average movie goers take a rebooted Spider-Man so close to the success of the Raimi trilogy. How the reboot is received is going to be an important indicator for the longevity of the comic book movie as we know it.

In the last decade comic book films have rewritten a lot of the rules for how major franchise movies act in cinemas, pretty much demolishing the previous axiom that sequels suffer from standard diminishing returns. Now the success of an event film has much more to do with the reception of the previous film in the series and over all franchise health.

This summer brings two old comic book standards to the big screen, the team-up and the reboot. If these are successful it could signal to other studios that movie going public is keen on these characters, and will show up for a good film starring them even if the story is going back to the beginning.

So a lot is at stake, and as such the marketing push for The Amazing Spider-Man has been going strong for awhile now, keeping ole web head in our minds during the spring and early summer event film season. The newest bit of advertising is a brand new poster featuring some battle damaged Spidy. A really great, simple image that is reminiscent of the Raimi era character posters, while still feeling very much a part of the new tone for the series.

You can check out the full poster after the jump.

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The career of Kenneth Branagh is one of the most interesting in modern Hollywood. From Shakespeare to Super Heroes and lots in-between, Branagh has range beyond most modern filmmakers. He is a fantastic actor to boot.

Last week we told you that the new Jack Ryan movie lost it’s director and was in fast need of a new one. Variety is reporting that they have found their new director:

Paramount and Skydance Pictures moved quickly to find their next director — and it’s Kenneth Branagh… The untitled pic, based on the character created by Tom Clancy, has been a priority at Paramount since Chris Pine came aboard to star, with Lorenzo di Bonaventura producing.

The movie is likely to get underway after Star Trek 2 finishes, giving star Chris Pine time to finish his other big franchise and giving time for Branagh to clear off what ever is on his current plate. This is fantastic news for the movie which was in unstable shape after it lost its previous director.

Bringing on Branagh is one of the boldest choices they could have made and represents a big plus for this flick. Although, it is still looking for a title so hopefully we won’t be saying the Untitled Jack Ryan movie for much longer.

Whenever some one tells you some idea is unfilmable, some concept too complex to work properly on the big screen. You really ought to show them these behind the scenes pictures from The Avengers. Proof positive that large and unfilmable ideas can see the light of day.

To help get the world jazzed up for the upcoming release, Marvel has released several really amazing behind the scenes pictures that are just reeking of cool. Not only do you have geek god Joss Whedon appearing in most of these shots, but you also get to see him directing the icons of the movie.

It really feels like Joss is helping Bruce Banner find his motivation, or that he is sharing a new perspective on a scene with Thor. These actors fit the roles so well that they are transcending their own persona’s and have become the heroes themselves.

Sure that may be a bit of little hyperbole, but these awesome production shots are among the coolest officially released pieces yet and do more to jazz us for the film than 1,000 badly photoshopped one-sheets.

You can enjoy the whole set of six shots after the jump, The Avengers hits theaters May 4th.

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