There aren’t that many current directors who have a laser-pointed style that can be seen from a mile away. Thankfully, Wes Anderson is one of those directors. You can spot a film like The Royal Tenenbaums or Life Aquatic from space and know that they came from the retro dreams of Anderson. Now, he’s at it again.

This time, in his film Moonrise Kingdom, he’s adding new names like Ed Norton, Frances McDormand, and Bruce Willis to his regular cast of players that includes Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman. Take a look at the fantastically twisted premise below.

Set on an island off the coast of New England in the summer of 1965, MOONRISE KINGDOM tells the story of two twelve-year-olds who fall in love, make a secret pact, and run away together into the wilderness. As various authorities try to hunt them down, a violent storm is brewing off-shore — and the peaceful island community is turned upside down in more ways than anyone can handle. Bruce Willis plays the local sheriff. Edward Norton is a Khaki Scout troop leader.

The flick is set to hit theaters on May 25th, and you better believe that Anderson is going to pull out the stops with his indie band connections for what should be a stellar soundtrack. Take a look at the trailer after the jump.

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Merry Christmas to all the fans of Monday Picks. This week’s pick in celebration of the holiday season is Scrooged. Richard Donner (The Omen, Superman I & II, Lethal Weapon series) directs this modern comedy version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Bill Murray stars as media mogul Frank Cross, the head of IBC Networks who has risen to the top of the company by being a cynical, conceited, and cruel individual. Frank is in charge of a forty million dollar production of a live television broadcast that is to air on Christmas Eve.

When company executives show Frank the latest commercial for the broadcast, Frank belittles and insults his staff and shows them an incredibly offensive and violent commercial he has produced for the broadcast, which he plans to air in place of the original. Corporate executive Eliot Loudermilk (Bobcat Goldthwait) confronts Frank on the commercial saying that the ad is in poor taste and will frighten people. Frank goes along with Loudermilk’s suggestion and then has him fired just days before Christmas.

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We preface this whole news piece with the fact that the source is the National Enquirer, so this is to be taken as more allegation than fact.

Bill Murray has been the stick in the mud that has kept Ghostbusters III from getting past the script phase.  He is willing read any script Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd send to him, but his demands for a worthy story and a quality script are well known.

Allegedly now that might not ever come to pass. Murray is said to have sent back the most recent script to the production offices, in a box shredded to pieces. Accompanying the shredded screenplay was a note saying:

“No one wants to pay money to see fat, old men chasing ghosts!”

That was apparently the straw that broke the camels back and now Ramis and Aykroyd are furious and are set to make the movie with out him.

Obviously this story has a rather outrageous feel to it, and it’s source provides no assurance that it is true, but if it were Murray is being a bit of a jerk.

Many people are excited to see “fat, old men chasing ghosts,” and people would gladly pay. There is reason to have faith in this project, but Murray keeps dashing those hopes, it is like a bad tease and if this is true you have to wonder if Murray ever truly intended to return to the role.

These days when you hear about reboots or sequels to classic 80′s franchises, the only thing that comes to mind is a shutter. With things like Footloose or Fright Night trying to take over theaters, it’s hard to believe that a good idea could float to the top.

That’s where Dan Aykroyd’s script for Ghostbusters 3 comes into play. Rumors have been floating around for over a decade about the proposed third film in the franchise, with names like Steve Carell, Jonah Hill, Eliza Dushku, and Alyssa Milano being thrown about, but Aykroyd is here to tell us exactly what we can look forward to, in an ambiguous sort of way.

In a recent episode of The Dennis Miller Show, Aykroyd finally answered the questions we’ve all been waiting for: Will there be a third film?

Yes, we will be doing the movie and hopefully with Mr. Murray. That is our hope. We have an excellent script. What we have to remember is that ‘Ghostbusters’ is bigger than any one component, although Billy was absolutely the lead and contributive to it in a massive way, as was the director and Harold [Ramis], myself and Sigourney [Weaver]. The concept is much bigger than an individual role and the promise of ‘Ghostbusters 3′ is that we get to hand the equipment and the franchise down to new blood.

So the idea of Jonah Hill or Eliza Dushku may not be too far off. The sad part is when Aykroyd explains what has happened to our favorite members of the team 20 years later.

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There are a few loglines that come across our desks at The Flickcast offices that make us all turn our heads like a confused dog, and go “huh?” Mitch Glazer’s upcoming flick Passion Play, starring Rhys Ifans, Bill Murray, Mickey Rourke, and Megan Fox.

The plot is pretty insane, even for the man who brought Great Expectations and Scrooged to theaters in the 90s. Here’s the synopsis.

Nate (Rourke), a small-time jazz musician, is clearly a hard-luck case. Caught trying to break into a car, he is taken off into the desert where his assailant puts a gun to his head. Game over? Not quite. Stumbling into a circus pitched amidst the vast expanses of the southwest desert, Nate finds himself drawn to the exotic beauty of Lily (Fox), the Bird Woman. Lily is cold and dismissive; socializing with customers is not her scene. But it dawns on her that this gentle giant may well be her way out of a life of eccentric exposition. Nate is protective and understanding, and to him her aquiline beauty is a magic part of her uniqueness. As their bond deepens, Nate finds that his dreams of bliss are about to be thwarted by Happy Shannon (Murray), a cucumber-cool businessman with deep pockets and an eye for the bizarre.

Yes. It’s that bizarre. Take a look at the first trailer for the film after the jump, and check out the film in theaters (if you can) on May 3rd.

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While internet pioneers have yet to find an exact science to viral videos, there seems to be a pretty simple algorithm for highly successful fan films. Basically, spoof a distant classic video game, TV, or film franchise, or spoof something so new, that it’s already top of brain.

What happens, however, if you combined a spoof of a classic video game with a modern film, however? Fan film magic.

We present to you College Humor’s The Fantastic Mr. Starfox, in which Wes Anderson is the focus of satire, and the classic arcade game Starfox is the vehicle of funny.

In it, we get some great references to the classic 1983 Atari game and its following sequels, as well some pretty hilarious realizations about Anderson’s one-note directing style and how laughable the premise of The Fantastic Mr. Fox was, when looked at from a distance.

Check out the fan film after the jump, and hope that this doesn’t spark some studio’s interest in rebooting the Starfox franchise.

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Picture, if you will, a film that has the same premise of Bill Murray’s 1993 film Groundhog Day, replaces the talent with a cast that looks like they came from the set of Twilight: Eclipse, and gives it a lame, on-the-nose title that most infants would scoff at. Enter The Repeaters.

From the screenwriter that brought us Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: The Movie, comes this new film about 3 twentysomethings who find themselves living the same day over and over again. They repeat the same day. They are “Repeaters”. Get it?

One thing that could end up interesting is the one aspect of Groundhog that we all wish was flourished a bit more than a 10 minute montage, which is “what if they lived like gods with absolutely no recourse for their actions?” Hopefully, the film will surprise us all and play into the same fan frenzy that Groundhog did 17 years ago.

Check out the first trailer for Repeaters, starring Dustin Milligan, Amanda Crew, and Richard de Klerk, after the jump and catch the film in theaters mid-January.

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Zombieland was one of the most entertaining films I saw in 2009 and I was eagerly awaiting its arrival on Blu-ray this week. Unlike the George Romero zombie films of the past, Zombieland is a unique blend of “The Odd Couple meets the zombie apocalypse.” Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin have great chemistry together as the last few remaining humans in a world gone zombie.

As a die-hard fan of apocalyptic films such as The Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man and The Quiet Earth, Zombieland takes you into a world that has only recently fallen into chaos and shows how those would react when hordes of flesh eating ghoules are waiting for you around every corner.

As I scrolled through the special features on the Blu-Ray disc, I was excited to see that they had added several features that made the disc worth adding to my vast collection. The first feature is “Beyond the Graveyard” which allows the viewer to access picture in picture commentary throughout the feature to learn more about the scenes and special effects associated with them.

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According to an interview with MTV, Ivan Reitman, who directed the first two Ghostbusters movies and some misfires such as My Super Ex-Girlfriend, and the David Duchovny starrer Evolution, will indeed return to direct the third film in the Ghostbusters franchise. He also mentioned that the first draft script from Year One writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky is completed and they are currently at work on another draft.

Regarding rumors from stars Harold Ramis, who said the movie is hopefully to be filmed in time for a 2011 release, and Sigourney Weaver who said Bill Murray’s character would be returning as a ‘Slimer’-like ghost, Reitman kept silent saying he didn’t want to talk about what “cool things” were in the script or what may have been said about it. He did say that he’s hoping to film sometime in the coming year, which fits with hopefully having the movie out next year.

Ghostbusters 3 is set to definitely star Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Sigourney Weaver with Murray, Annie Potts and the retired Rick Moranis all rumored to be returning as well. The story is supposedly about the older generation of Ghostbusters handing the reins over to a younger generation including, again according to Weaver, her movie son ‘Oscar’ who should be all grown-up now.

Ghostbusters is one of those films that’s simply timeless. Sure, the special effects are a little iffy these days but the story and comedic beats are still perfect. On the other hand  Ghostbusters 2 didn’t quite hit the mark for most people. That being the case, it’s hard to decide which way a third film may fall.  Would it live up to the original or become a parody of itself like the sequel?

It’s hard to imagine anything being as good as the original. However, I think some sort of transition film, in which a younger Ghostbuster team takes the place of the originals, could work. Original Ghostbuster Harold Ramis thinks so too:

“Something’s going to happen. Dan [Aykroyd] did write a spec GB3 screenplay a few years ago, but no one was motivated to pursue it. Now, 25 years after the original, there seems to be some willingness to proceed and apparently a substantial public appetite for a sequel. We’ll introduce some new young Ghostbusters, and all the old guys will be in it, too. Think Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future … GB3 is progressing with plans to shoot next summer and release in 2011. . . “

So there you have it, right from Egon’s mouth.  Ghostbusters 3 is on track to production and will probably set up a new franchise. The original spec script by Dan Aykroyd Ramis referred to was Ghostbusters Go To Hell which probably wouldn’t work to well. As such, co-executive producers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky from The Office TV series have been tasked with writing a new script.

Hmm, Ghostbusters meets Dunder-Mifflin?  Sounds crazy, but it may just work.

Here at The Flickcast, we’re very curious about Wes Anderson’s upcoming The Fantastic Mr. Fox, and we’ve dug up all the news we could for you. We brought you the first Fantastic Mr. Fox trailer back in July and a featurette earlier this month, but Ain’t It Cool News has just brought to our attention a new trailer that just hit the web!

While the first trailer gave us a glimpse into the furry world of Mr. Fox, this trailer is a little bit more intimate, giving us a sneak peek at the quirky, zippy dialogue we’ve come to know and love from Anderson’s writing, the amazing ensemble cast he’s assembled, and  a really detailed look at just how beautiful this film is going to be.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox, filmed completely using stop-motion animation and featuring the voice of Meryl Streep, Owen Wilson, Michael Gambon, Bill Murray and George Clooney as Mr. Fox, creeps into theaters November 15. You can watch the newest trailer right after the jump. Enjoy!

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