As a fan of the genre, it’s sad to say it but we have had a bit too much of the “Alien Invasion Blockbuster.” Between subpar films like Battle: Los Angeles, Skyline, and the countless District 9 ripoffs that have gotten the greenlight in the past two years, the genre itself has been a bit played out.

That’s why we’re pretty excited to see something new and fresh with the trailer for The Darkest Hour. Directed by production designer Chris Gorak and produced by our old pal Timur Bekmambetov, the movie has an interesting visual take on the played out story.

The Darkest Hour is the story of five young people who find themselves stranded in Moscow, fighting to survive in the wake of a devastating alien attack. The 3D thriller highlights the classic beauty of Moscow alongside mind-blowing special effects.

Starring a fresh young cast (Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby, Max Minghella, Rachael Taylor) and showing more bystander deaths in the trailer than any film we can think of from the past year, we’re pretty excited to see what this film can bring to 3D and 2D theaters.

Check out the trailer after the jump and catch The Darkest Hour in theaters December 23rd.

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Bradley Cooper’s mind twisting thriller Limitless outperformed box office predictions and handily won the weekend box office with $19M. It also was a hit with audiences, earning a B+ cinemascore.

This is Cooper’s first true starring vehicle, and with a budget of around $27M, it should easily prove profitable. With The Hangover 2 right around the corner, Cooper will surely confirm his status as an A-list talent.

Johnny Depp helped propel Rango to number two with $15.2M.  It dropped a respectable 32% from last weekend, bringing its three week total to $92.6M.

Battle: Los Angeles took quite a tumble; dropping off 59% from its opening weekend. It managed to make $14.6M over the weekend.

Matthew McConaughey scored fourth place with his Lincoln Lawyer debut. The film made $13.4m and was well received by audiences.  Entertainment Weekly reports that this is the first film to join forces with Groupon.  The popular daily coupon site sold discounted tickets to the movie for $6.  They sold almost 200,000 tickets.  It will be interesting to see if this model will be adapted by future films.

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Not a bad weekend for Hollywood and the domestic box office, as Battle: Los Angeles took the top spot with a decent $36 million for a March opening weekend. That is just about 50% of the $70 Million production budget of the film. You know what that means: expect a sequel.

Other opening weekend movies didn’t fare as well including the family CG-animated film Mars Needs Moms, which opened with an unfortunate $6.8 Million (the budget was over $150 Million) and landed in the 5th spot. Catherine Hardwicke’s re-imagining of Red Riding Hood pulled in $14 Million and came in at the 3rd spot.

Movement from last weekend was quite significant, as Rango moved to the number two spot and went down almost 50%, pulling in $23 Million over the weekend, and $68 Million since it’s opening last weekend.

Matt Damon’s Adjustment Bureau must have had some terrible word of mouth, as it went down 45% since last week, and went all the way down to the number 4 spot, with $11.5 Million.

Next weekend Relativity’s Limitless goes head-to-head with the Matthew McConaughey vehicle, The Lincoln Lawyer, and the fanboy-crazed Paul. Could be an interesting weekend, if Battle: LA doesn’t retain for another weekend.

With the new sci-fi action film Battle: LA hitting theaters next week, we thought it would be fun to have a giveaway commemorating the movie and to get you excited for it. So, in that spirit, we’ve got some cool swag for you including some hats and t-shirts and we’re going to be giving them away all next week starting Monday.

How can you get your hands on some of this cool stuff? Well, just keep an eye on our Twitter starting next Monday for your chance to answer a Battle: LA trivia question. If you’re the first person to reply to us with the correct answer, you get the prize!

Battle: LA looks to be a fun ride full of exciting man vs. alien action. What better way to watch the film with your friends than by wearing some official swag from the film? Remember, keep an eye on our Twitter for your chance to be one of the lucky few to get this cool stuff.

Also, be sure to click through right below for some cool pics from the movie and a larger look at the poster. Battle: LA hits theaters next Friday, March 11th.

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Many can debate that modern alien invasion films can’t hold a candle to classics like The Day The Earth Stood Still or War of the Worlds, but one thing that we have today that sets us apart is viral marketing. That’s exactly what’s starting up for the upcoming “military vs. alien” film Battle: Los Angeles.

Over the weekend, a 4 second long YouTube video was released, showing a brigade of alien spacecrafts hovering over the 110 freeway. If submitting a 4 second video to YouTube and getting upwards of 100,000 views in less than a week isn’t considered viral, then we don’t know what is.

For those who want to stay in touch with all things Battle: Los Angeles, they can report to the fictional site that allows citizens to report alien threats at reportthreats.com, like them on Facebook, and follow them on Twitter.

Check out the mysterious viral video after the jump. Battle: Los Angeles is set to hit theaters on March 11th.

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Though 2010 was full of action in the box office, there was one thing missing: aliens. That’s where Battle: Los Angeles looks to be picking up the slack. Consider this film another alien invasion D-Day type scenario with the significant difference here being that the story is told from the side of the military.

With a cast consisting of Michelle Rodriguez, Aaron Eckhart, Bridget Moynahan, and True Blood’s Jim Parrack, the film looks to be this year’s Independence Day. Here’s the full synopsis:

For years, there have been documented cases of UFO sightings around the world – Buenos Aires, Seoul, France, Germany, China. But in 2011, what were once just sightings will become a terrifying reality when Earth is attacked by unknown forces.

As people everywhere watch the world’s great cities fall, Los Angeles becomes the last stand for mankind in a battle no one expected. It’s up to a Marine staff sergeant (Aaron Eckhart) and his new platoon to draw a line in the sand as they take on an enemy unlike any they’ve ever encountered before.

We’ve got a brand new trailer for you, this time showing off more of the Marine Vs. Alien point of view, and much more Eckhart and Parrack. Check out the trailer after the jump, and catch Battle: Los Angeles in theaters on March 11th.

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The week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt return once again with some new things to talk (and complain) about.  Some of the topics on this week’s show include the season finale of The Walking Dead, AMC’s Breaking Bad marathon, the latest Battle: Los Angeles and Tempest trailers, Spider-Man: Turn Out the Dark, the iPad 2, the Verizon iPhone, Adam Green’s Hatchet 2 and a whole lot more.

In addition, like they do every week, the bioys picked some stuff for your reading, viewing or otherwise entertainment pleasure. This week Matt picked Spaghetti With A Chance of Meatballs on Blu-ray and Chris picked The Lord of the Rings on Blu-ray.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.

While Skyline may not have turned too many heads in theaters last month, Sony is hoping that won’t effect the turnout for their big alien invasion film set to hit theaters next year: Battle: Los Angeles.

The last trailer we got gave us a bit more of the titular Battle, but this new trailer to hit the web now gives us history of this world where aliens have been invading for years. Here’s the synopsis.

For years, there have been documented cases of UFO sightings around the world – Buenos Aires, Seoul, France, Germany, China. But in 2011, what were once just sightings will become a terrifying reality when Earth is attacked by unknown forces. As people everywhere watch the world’s great cities fall, Los Angeles becomes the last stand for mankind in a battle no one expected. It’s up to a Marine staff sergeant (Aaron Eckhart) and his new platoon to draw a line in the sand as they take on an enemy unlike any they’ve ever encountered.

Not only does this new spot show us more, but it spills the beans in a possible franchising plan by calling this film World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles. Does this mean we could get more Battles after this one? We’ll have to see how LA fairs against the extra terrestrials on March 11th.

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Even though his film Battle: Los Angeles hasn’t even been released yet, director Jonathan Liebesman has apparently already lined up his next job. That job? Director of the sequel to Clash of the Titans which, at this moment, is cleverly entitled Clash of the Titans 2.

According to Deadline, the director was in talks for the film over the weekend and through yesterday but those negotiations stalled because of, you guessed it, money. But now it seems all is well and they’ve been able to reach an agreement to make a sequel to a film that most people, including a majority of critics, had nothing but bad things to say about.

Unfortunately, the sequel was inevitable considering both of the film’s leads (Sam Worthington and Gemma Aterton) survived and the movie, in spite of its negative reviews and terrible conversion to 3D, made a crap load of money worldwide. I’m hopeful the studio will do better this time and am encouraged by at least one other fact that’s come out during this dealmaking process: They will shoot the film in 3D instead of converting it later.

That alone should improve things considerably. Now if we could just do something about the lame story, wooden acting and uninspired direction . . . then we’d really be onto something. Too snarky? I can never tell.