The Fast and the Furious franchise has recently risen from the grave and reinvented itself as a pretty great action franchise. The success of Fast Five has given the filmmakers the conifdence to ramp up the scope and size of the next film. So much so that it looks like it might end up being two films.
The Hollywood Reporter recently talked to series star Vin Diesel who had this to say:

“A coda at the end of [Fast Five] teases the return of a character played by Eva Mendes last seen in 2 Fast 2 Furious as well as the return of Michelle Rodriguez.vWe have to pay off this story, we have to service all of these character relationships, and when we started mapping all that out it just went beyond 110 pages,” Diesel explained. “The studio said, ‘You can’t fit all that story in one damn movie!’”

Diesel did not reveal details on whether the two movies would be two-parters or two standalone movies.” The Fast movies are always a lot of fun and you can tell with the last installment that the film makers were enjoying playing with the universe they created.

The next film or films in the franchise are going to be highly anticipated and the franchise is healthier now then it has ever been.

If there’s two things that go together well it’s cars and movies. In fact, there’s a fine history of great cars in great (and not so great) movies over the years.

So it should come as no surprise that the most popular car show of all time, Top Gear, has decided to make a movie about cars, involving cars and shoot it on film. That’s just what Top Gear at the Movies is and as you would expect, it’s pretty awesome.

We’ve got the trailer for it to share with you today. In said trailer you can experience lots of car action, explosions and all the other things that go into a proper movie. Well, at least as close as this gets to a proper movie.

Still, it’s great fun. Check out the trailer after the break. Top Gear at the Movies is available on November 14th.

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It should come as no surprise to regular readers of this site but in addition to movies, TV, comics, tech, games and all things geek, we also love cars. So, when we can combine two of our loves, like TV and cars, we are, of course, even more ecstatic.

You can probably guess, then, how we feel about a little BBC TV show called Top Gear. That’s right, we love it. With that in mind, then, how do we feel about the US version of Top Gear which airs on the History Channel and is hosted by comedian and car buff Adam Ferrara, champion rally and drift racer Tanner Foust and racing analyst Rutledge Wood?

Well, um, it’s complicated.

We tried to like it. Really, we did. We want to like it. We want it to succede because the world needs more fun, entertaining shows about cool cars on TV. Sadly, it just isn’t very good.

Let’s face it, Clarkson, May and Hammond are a tough act to follow and the US version has a long way to go. Still, we won’t give up on it just yet.

Neither will History Channel, it seems. Top Gear USA’s ratings for the second season improved greatly over the first to an average of 1.9 million viewers per episode. As a result of that increase, the network plans to extend the season with eight new episodes and is already in production on them at a secret location outside of Los Angeles, CA.

Ok, it’s actually in Irvine, but don’t tell anyone.

The new episodes are set to premiere in 2012 but as yet we don’t have a firm date. We’ll let you know when we do.

Director Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive is a film I enjoyed very much. It’s stylish, almost absurdly violent and immensely entertaining.

It’s what movies should be. Well, it’s what drama/action movies should be at the very least, Don’t get me wrong, it’s also got a brain.

But what makes this movie so cool are the visuals and the anti-hero played by Gosling. He’s a man of few words who lets his actions speak for him.

In the film Gosling plays “Driver,” a Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a wheelman that will take any job and not ask questions. All is well until that fateful day he discovers a contract has been put on him after a heist goes wrong. And oh boy does it go wrong.

Because I enjoyed it so much I want to do whatever I can to help get the word out. Like we’ve already done. Now, We’ve got even more from the film to share with you.

This time around it’s a bunch of videos including some behind-the-scenes stuff as well as a few scenes from the film itself. You can check them out after the break.

In addition to Gosling, Drive stars Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, Oscar Isaac, and Albert Brooks. It hits theaters this Friday. See it.

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You can say what you will about Adam Carolla. Call him a loudmouth or some other less flattering names. Why not, he sometimes says things that make people angry and is in the public eye, so he’s pretty much fair game.

Whatever your opinion of Carolla, you can’t fault the man on at least one thing: his cars. In case you hadn’t heard, Carolla is a very enthusiastic car guy and collector. In fact, his obsession with cars led him to start a podcast about them and eventually to a TV show on Speed TV called The Car Show.

But what cars does Carolla have in his own garage? Well, the folks over at Autoblog got a chance to tour Carolla’s garage and found quite a few interesting and exotic surprises there. You may be surprised at his love of all-things Datsun as well as his fondness for classic Lamborghinis.

Like Carolla or not, his selection of cars is pretty interesting, and pretty damn cool. We’ve included a couple pics of some of the cars after the break. Head over to Autoblog for the rest.

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This comes directly from the “things we would love to have when we’re filthy rich” department. Yes, we have one of those here at The Flickcast. Doesn’t everyone?

To what lust-inducing thing of beauty am I referring? Well, be sure you’re sitting down because this one is pretty impressive. I’m talking, of course, about a turbine powered Keaton-era Batmobile.

Designed and built by Casey Putsch, the car is a hand-made repliaca of the famous vehicle powered by the same Boing engine used in a Navy drone helicopter. Sadly (but good for someone else) Putsch has decided it’s time for his creation to go to someone else.

So, what do you do with your turbine powered Batmobile when you want to sell it? You put it on eBay of course.

The price? Well, as they say, if you have to ask you can’t afford it. Okay, it’s $620,000. Start looking under those sofa cushions.

Also, click through for a video of the car in action.

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We now continue our rather infrequent series of car-related posts with this new one containing a video of the world’s most famous actor, Tom Cruise, putting the Red Bull F1 car through its paces. Yes, the car is fast and yes Cruise is a pretty good driver who really shows he’s got some skills.

Sadly, things don’t go completely perfect for the diminutive action star as you can clearly see if you watch. However, that doesn’t mean the video isn’t interesting, it is.

It also makes us very jealous he gets to drive cars like this and we don’t. Damn him.

And damn him for corrupting young Katie Holmes too. Oh well.

Anyway, the video is still pretty cool and we think you’ll enjoy it. Check it out after the jump.

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If there’s one thing we love as much as movies, TV, comics, games and pop culture here at The Flickcast, it’s cars. Cars are fun and they go really fast. We like fast.

Speaking of fast, there’s a new documentary out now called Senna which tells the story of a man who liked to go fast and is widely regarded as one of the greatest Formular One drivers that ever lived. That man: Ayrton Senna.

Director Asif Kapadia has put together a great documentary about the man and his legend and the guys at one of our favorite car websites, The Smoking Tire, managed to snag an exclusive interview with Kapadia, which we are glad to bring you right now.

Check out the interview after the jump. Senna is in theaters on LA and New York now with a wider release to follow. If you like cars and great stories, this is one you don’t want to miss.

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In what was expected to be one of the smaller opening weekends in this year’s epic summer movie season but Disney and Pixar’s Cars 2 ended up surprising almost everyone with an estimated $68 million take at the domestic box office.

Not only did Cars 2 have the biggest 3-day pull of the year so far, it blew the original 2006 film out of the water by an astounding $8 million lead. The newest film pulled in over $110 million worldwide, which is quite impressive, considering how most Pixar films perform overseas.

In second place this weekend was the raunchy comedy from Sony/Columbia, Bad Teacher. The film performed mildly well domestically, pulling in an estimated $31 million and upwards of $20 million overseas.

Another film that opened this weekend made some impressive strides as well, with the indie documentary Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop. The film only opened in 24 screens and managed to pull in $105,000. Not bad for CoCo.

Next weekend, expect the results to be skewed, as Transformers: Dark of the Moon opens to 4,000 screens on Wednesday. Those who miss out on the robot-on-robot action will get Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in Larry Crowne.

PIXAR began taking the cinematic world by storm in 1995 with the original Toy Story. Part of what made that film so good was the songs and score by Randy Newman, who would go on to write music for the next three PIXAR films. For the fifth film by the studio, Randy’s cousin Thomas Newman stepped up to the plate for the Finding Nemo score. It began to look like the Newman scoring dynasty had the monopoly on Disney’s golden goose.

That was until PIXAR brought in an outsider to direct their sixth film, The Incredibles. Brad Bird brought on young TV composer Michael Giacchino to write the Bond-tastic music and the rest is history. Giacchino has since won an Oscar, and was nominated for another, for his work with PIXAR and now has come full circle with another international spy influenced score for Cars 2.

There are few things that are a certainty in life, and it is starting to become obvious that one of them is Giacchino’s PIXAR scores are some of the greatest pieces of music written in the last decade. Cars 2 is absolutely not an exception to that rule. The music is fun, exciting and catchy as all hell, I instantly find myself whistling and humming along with the tracks. I have only been with the CD for a week and I already count it as being as good as the best scores from last year.

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It’s that time of year again when we all gather together to see our loved ones… that’s right. The Con season has begun. Whether it’s SXSW, Toy Fair, C2E2 or Comic Con in San Diego, if you are a reader (or writer) of the Flickcast, it’s likely you are going to end up at least one, if not all, of the Cons this season. Our first one up on the east coast is Toy Fair. Now while Toy Fair isn’t open to the general public, we made sure to get in and get a peek at some of the hottest new toys of the season.

We got to take a peek at the new models for the Walking Dead action figures alongside our friends from MTV Splashpage as the legendary Todd McFarlane himself explained how the zombie bodies will literally explode in the customer’s hands. We can’t wait to see the final versions in action.

There was a plethora of Green Lantern merchandise that we were unfortunately unable to snag pictures of as well as the brand new Thundercats line which is coming out soon. We were able to sneak a few pictures though of some of the Mezco Green Lantern products though.

The video game world was represented strong with Sonic The Hedgehog, Halo, Deus Ex, Street Fighter, Final Fantasy and Little Big Planet. Activision also announced to the world Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure for the Wii where toys and video games come together in a very interesting new way. Check back later this week for a full post including video of the product in action.

Check out all of our pics from Toy Fair below and keep checking back this week for more from the show (including an appearance on this week’s podcast discussing it with Matt and Chris)!

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A few weeks ago, we brought you the very first teaser trailer for Disney and Pixar’s upcoming sequel, Cars 2. Now, things are getting a bit more exciting with a brand new, full-length trailer.

We know that we’ve lost Paul Newman, George Carlin, and Joe Ranft since the last film, who all voiced main characters. With that, the team at Pixar and Disney has helped by introducing some great new characters, including a James Bond-esque spy car voiced by Michael Caine.

Cars 2 is set to hit theaters in IMAX 3D, Digital 3D, and standard 2D on June 24th of 2011. In the meantime, check out the new trailer after the jump.

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