This may be the biggest year for the Academy Awards, as some major Hollywood players are going up against some fresh newcomers. Eyeballs everywhere will be glued to ABC on Sunday, February 27th at 8PM E/5PM P when the awards show goes live. But before that, we decided to do some picking of our own with the staff’s predictions for each award.

For a full list of the nominees, check out our previous article on the subject. Now, on to the predictions.

Best Picture

Shannon Hood-The Social Network. It had early and consistent momentum all year, and the Academy appears to be trying to shake up their stodgy image. This would be the perfect film to put their money where their mouth is.

Matt Raub – True Grit. Not only are the Coens a regular in the “I Have an Oscar” club, but this testament to classic western films is definitely one for record books, between its all-star cast and gritty (no pun intended) visual style, this one definitely deserves the golden statue.

Chris Ullrich – True Grit. Even though this was a pretty great year for movies and there are many excellent choices in this category, True Grit stands on its own as my pick. As an example of pure movie storytelling, this Coen Brothers masterpiece excels on every level and delivers a pure entertainment experience you will want to revisit many more times in the future.

Cortney Zamm – The Social Network. There’s a lot of great films in this category, some of them from my favorite directors and starring my favorite people. But the one that combined all of the essential elements of filmmaking into a truly gorgeous, compelling, and memorable film was The Social Network.

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There have been some pretty big hits in the box office this year, and some expected whales, but overall this has been a great year for the worldwide box office, and here’s the proof you need. From THR.

10. Clash of the Titans, $493.2 million worldwide
9. How to Train Your Dragon, $494.9 worldwide
8. Despicable Me, $539.9 million
7. Iron Man 2, $582.2 million
6. Twilight Saga: Eclipse, $693.5 million
5. Shrek Forever After: $739.8 million
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. $824.1
3. Inception, $825.4
2. Alice in Wonderland, $1 billion
1. Toy Story 3, $1.1 billion

There are a few genuine good films on the list, like Iron Man 2 and Inception. Some big surprises, considering how bad the reviews were for films like Shrek Forever After, Clash of the Titans, and Alice in Wonderland. And even a few expectations like Twilight, Harry Potter, and How to Train Your Dragon.

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It’s a pretty big decision to choose the host of The Academy Awards every year. There have been some epic hosts in the past, and some pretty bad ones. One thing is for sure, it’s going to be hard to top last year’s picks of Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. It seems like the Academy has made their choice, however, as word is coming out that James Franco and Anne Hathaway are currently booked for the event. Here’s the official press release.

“James Franco and Anne Hathaway personify the next generation of Hollywood icons— fresh, exciting and multi-talented. We hope to create an Oscar broadcast that will both showcase their incredible talents and entertain the world on February 27,” said Oscar telecast producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer. “We are completely thrilled that James and Anne will be joining forces with our brilliant creative team to do just that.”

Franco, who currently can be seen in “127 Hours,” will be making his second appearance on an Oscar telecast. His other film credits include “Eat, Love, Pray,” “Date Night,” “Milk” and “Pineapple Express.” Franco is also known for his portrayals of Harry Osborn in the “Spider-Man” trilogy.

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It’s that time of the year when the regular award season comes to a halt and those “other” award shows start picking up the slack. The quotes are in place due to the fact that awards like the upcoming MTV Movie Awards are only awards in the sense that the chosen winner gets a trophy. It can’t even be called a popularity contest anymore as it’s more like the ”Twilight wins while people promote their upcoming project” awards.

Last year, Twilight collected a record four awards, which is a third of the categories given. This year, there are a few others hoping to knock the shiny vamps off of the hill like Avatar and Alice in Wonderland.

Parks and Recreation star Aziz Ansari is hosting this year, so expect some solid written material for the opening monologue and more. Check out the site to vote for your favorite film and actor/actress, and be sure to catch the 2010 MTV Movie Awards Live(ish) on June 6th at 9PM/8PM Central.

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Well, there wasn’t much of a box office battle this weekend as Clash of the Titans easily slayed the competition with a total weekend haul of $61.4 Million. Some weekend totals are reflecting Thursday night earnings as well, which brings the total closer to $64 Million.

Despite the fact that most critics were horrified by the look of the post-production 3D of the movie, and practically begged audiences to see the 2D instead, it seems that roughly half of the weekend revenue was from 3D screenings (LA Times.) The 3D money train marches on, at least for another weekend.

It is of interest to note that the movie did drop almost 20% from Friday to Saturday, which can be a direct result of bad word of mouth.

Tyler Perry pulled out yet another surprise as Why Did I Get Married Tooearned $30 Million. Perry has an an unconventional marketing strategy-he never pre-screens his movies for critics. His movies always enjoy an opening day unfettered by any reviews, positive or negative.

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Wow.  I’ve got to say that it was a pretty tepid weekend at the movies. We had a couple of new releases that I thought would just rake it in this weekend, but instead, they barely registered a blip on the radar screen.

How to Train Your Dragon actually won the throne this weekend, but I have to think the $43.3 Million opening was a disappointment for Dreamworks. This movie has family appeal and enjoyed stellar critical reviews, but had an underwhelming opening.  I have seen the budget reported at between $165 Million and $180 Million, either of which will ensure an uphill battle for the movie to recoup its costs.

Remember last week when I hinted that How to Train might have difficulty getting booked on 3D screens because Alice in Wonderland is still going strong? Well, it may be entirely coincidence, but when the husband and I tried to find a theater nearby to take our kids to see How to Train Your Dragon, we couldn’t find one.

It was no big deal to drive to one a bit out of our neighborhood, but I wonder if this happened nationwide?  I have lived in my city 15 years, and I have never had to drive out of my little five mile radius to find a movie, especially such a big release.

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This week On the Radar Michael Bay does his part to help take down the American car industry, MGM loses a bidder as it struggles to stay afloat, and in completely contradictory fashion James Cameron, of all people, advocates against 3D.

Maleficent finds a writer in Wonderland

Long before Alice in Wonderland stormed the box office there were rumblings about director Tim Burton tackling one of Disney‘s best baddies, Maleficent.  Well, the success of Alice has only bolstered this film’s development and Alice in Wonderland writer Linda Woolverton has been tapped to write t script.  While there were some Alice detractors out there, it’s hard to argue the success of the film.

For better or worse I think we’re witnessing the beginning of the fairy tale phase in cinema.  I’m sure the studios couldn’t be happier.  Most fairy tales, in their original iteration, are in the public domain which means the whopping cost of zero to use the stories.  Sorry, Disney, but you couldn’t be the sole exploiter of classic children’s tales forever.

Bryan Singer off X-Men: First Class?

When word came out about Bryan Singer returning to the X-Men franchise fanboys rejoiced.  Well, the excitement certainly didn’t last too long.  It seems Singer has to choose between X-Men: First Class and Jack the Giant Killer.  Unfortunately, he can’t do both:

“Before Singer can dive into casting, he has a rather large problem –  the fact that Warner Bros. has the filmmaker on the hook to direct ‘Jack the Giant Killer.’  Fox, flush with money from ‘Avatar,’ is eager to move forward with its mutant franchise in all of its permutations, so there are negotiations that need to be done.

With Singer contractually obligated to Warner Bros. it means Fox has begun searching for other directors to reignite the X-Men films.

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Several prognosticators predicted that the one-two punch of Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler co-starring in a romantic comedy would equal box office gold. Well, until the reviews started trickling in. When the dust settled, The Bounty Hunter had amassed a truly rotten score of 9% favorable reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Ouch.

Despite that, the film made $2 1Million, good enough to place it in third place for the weekend. With a production budget of around $40 Million, it is way to early to call this a flop. $21 Million is a respectable opening weekend take.

The Red Queen and company from Alice in Wonderland continue to surprise everyone.Now in its third weekend in release, Alice is still bringing in some pretty big numbers. It dropped 45% over last weekend, for $34.5 Million, bringing its three week cumulative total to a fantastic $265 Million.

So what box-office star beat out Aniston for the number two spot? Would you believe nobody?  A cast of relative unknowns starred in Diary of  Wimpy Kid, which you probably have never heard of unless you happen to have elementary school-aged children.

It is a hot book franchise for those who run in the pre-tween circles, and apparently that was enough to buoy its box-office take.  Diary narrowly edged out The Bounty Hunter with $21.8 Million, but with a much more modest budget of $14 Million, it is already profitable.  There are plenty of books (4 already out, with plans for a fifth this year) to pillage for a franchise, too.

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With The Flickcast’s own Shannon Hood covering all the excitement at SXSW this week yours truly is stepping in to take over box office duty. Don’t worry all you Hood fans, I have no doubt that she’ll be back next week, which means I’m only here for one week. That’s something that can’t be said about Alice in Wonderland, however.

Even with mixed reviews, Alice took the top spot again over the weekend. While it dropped 46% drop from last week, the 3D fantasy took in another $62 Million, bringing its total to $208 Million in only two weeks. As Shannon noted last week, this is Tim Burton’s biggest opening and the film is certainly finding an audience.

One concern from reviewers was whether or not audiences would be somewhat disappointed by the 3D aspect of Alice in comparison to Avatar. While Avatar was quite an immersive experience Alice in Wonderland presented more of your traditional 3D environment. It seems movie goers don’t mind the difference and are eager to see Johnny Depp and cast as they romp through Wonderland.

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Wow, I don’t think anybody predicted the massive opening weekend that Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland just had. Audiences scooped up an amazing $116 Million worth of tickets to the film. This is the biggest opening weekend in Tim Burton’s entire career, and despite a critical consensus that this was a very average movie, word of mouth appears to be good.

This also appears to indicate that audiences are embracing the 3D trend. I am very curious if there will be a large drop-off next weekend, because the 3D in Alice was in no way comparable to  the 3D in Avatar. If  Avatar is what people are expecting, they are going to be disappointed.

It is interesting to note that Avatar only opened to $77 Million, but has now grossed over $720 Million. I will be pretty shocked if Alice has any real legs at the the box office, but the totals this morning show me that this movie may be full of surprises.

Brooklyn’s Finest, starring Don Cheadle, Richard Gere, and Ethan Hawke, came in second over the weekend with $13.5 Million.  It played in just under 2,000 theaters, and has a fairly modest budget of $25 Million, so it will likely end up profitable.

Shutter Island made about $13 Million in its 3rd week in release.  It now has exceeded its budget of $80 Million (with $95 Million total), and looks certain to hit $100 Million next weekend.

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Even when he tackles darker subject matter, Tim Burton always manages to bring a touch of whimsy to his films.  On the surface, Alice in Wonderland seems to be the perfect tale for the eccentric filmmaker to put his own spin on. With Alice oscillating wildly between giant and diminutive proportions, two queens vying for control of the land, and anthropomorphic fauna and animals, the tale seems ripe for a wild re-imagining.

Trouble is, Burton leaves the enchantment at home along with warmth and heart. The resulting movie is rather cold, devoid of color and brightness (save for the mad hatter’s shock of orange hair and startling green eyes) and not a lot of fun. I’m not saying that makes it bad, but it was very different from what I was expecting.

In this particular retelling, Alice is a grown woman instead of a little girl. At a large party she learns she is to marry a stodgy bore of a man. She rushes off to be by herself and falls down the rabbit hole into the “underworld.”  There she encounters the characters that we are all familiar with. There is the white rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen), the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), the stoned-out-of-his-cocoon caterpillar (Alan Rickman), and of course, the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp.)

This version of the  Mad Hatter is a more tragic character with a brutal back story to explain his madness.  I found Depp’s portrayal of the Hatter annoying and frenetic, crazy for the sake of being crazy. He drifts in and out of a heavy Scottish brogue for reasons not immediately clear.  I wish the character had been toned down a bit as I think it would have made him a little more likable.

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This week in New York City, the annual Toy Fair convention hits the Jacob Javits Center and thousands of new and popular toys and toy properties are shown off. There were, of course, some less-than-interesting booths, but we know what you want to see, so we went straight to the newest lines of toys and statues based on some of the upcoming movie and TV properties.

Obviously, Toy Story 3 had a huge presence at the show, given the fact that it’s the best hybrid of toys and film out there today. Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland had some great new figures of the whacked out Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. LEGO stepped up their game with some brand new LEGO Star Wars playsets, including a great “Luke on Hoth” scene.

Diamond was also in attendence with some great new Ghostbusters products, including a new Ghostbusters replica sign for those hardcore fans. Finally, there were some great new 12-inch figures for the upcoming Jonah Hex film, including our first look at John Malkovich from the film.

Check out our Movie Toys picture gallery from the show after the jump, and be sure to check back in tomorrow to see what else we’ve got to show you from this year’s Toy Fair.

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