When writer David Goyer left his post as showrunner for TV’s Flashforward there were rumblings about what he was up to. At the time the most obvious answer  was that he was helping director Christopher Nolan with the third Batman script. At the same time, DC had confirmed Nolan would be helping to get the Superman franchise back on track.

Well, today all the pieces are falling into place as we learn Goyer has been hired to write the next Superman movie.  A source confirmed the news to Latino Review and gave a little indication of what we can expect:

“I can tell you that Goyer’s story involves Luthor and Brainiac.  It is NOT an origin and assumes audiences already know about Lois, Clark, Jimmy and Perry.  I know the Daily Planet is struggling due to the internet.  And I know it sets up a huge Kryptonian mythology.”

Some other points of interest are that Bryan Singer and Brandon Routh will probably not return. Also, the film may be called The Man of Steel instead of Superman: The Man of Steel.  Contrary to prior rumors Mark Millar will not be involved  from the sounds of it.

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Marvel has a long list of comic-to-film projects that didn’t pan out so well. Ghost Rider is one of them. That may be the most diplomatic way I’ve ever put that. Ordinarily anything having to do with Ghost Rider has elicited a rage in me that leaves me angry. . . Hulk angry. So why am I so calm this time?

Well, as we’ve already covered here at The Flickcast, Ghost Rider is getting a sequel which could have been as craptastic as the first film. However, the script for the new movie is from one of my favorite writers David Goyer (Batman Begins, FlashForward).  Recently, MTV caught up with Goyer and asked him about the Ghost Rider sequel:

“It’s not exactly a reboot,” said Goyer, “I hate to say it’s more realistic, because he’s got a flaming skull for a head, but it’s a bit more stripped down and darker. It’s definitely changing tone. What ‘Casino Royale’ was to the Bond movies, hopefully this will be to ‘Ghost Rider.’”

I’m not sure Casino Royale is the best comparison to make, but I understand what Goyer is trying to say. Dropping all the baggage like Mephistopheles and his minions and focus on Johnny Blaze and his curse.  That’s definitely the way to go as there was way to much attention paid to peripheral nonsense in the first movie.

There was one other thing I found interesting about the interview.  Goyer states Ghost Rider 2 isn’t really a reboot but then says: “You don’t have to have seen the first film. It doesn’t contradict anything that happened in the first film, but we’re pretending that our audience hasn’t seen the first film.”

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This week we meet Dominic Monaghan’s character of Simon, but we do not get anything more than a  tease on how he and Simco killed 20 million people in their experiment with the blackout. So that mystery is extended, but at least we know who is responsible and how they got it. Also, Mark (Joseph Fiennes) meets the man who will replace him in the bed of his wife (Sonya Walger), and she finds out that Mark was drinking in his flash forward. All this and more in another innocuous episode of Flash Forward.

We open on a train ride coming from somewhere and going to Los Angeles. Here we have Monaghan’s character seducing a woman by explaining quantum physics, achieving something in three minutes the Big Bang Theory has been trying to do for however long that show has been on.

Following the last episode, Agent Janis Hawk survives her gun fight, but in having been wounded in her pelvis will never be allowed to bear children. So, this raises the question of how she will be pregnant come April 29, 2010.

The over coming thread throughout this episode is now that we know the future: will it actually happen? It seems like this episode seems to suggest no, not exactly. With Janis now not being able to give birth, and Simco’s super weird kid trailing the Benford’s super weird kid to their house, causing Simco and Olivia to finally realize their flash forwards was kind of ridiculous but creepy-cool. Creepy cool in a way that The Shining is creepy cool and those two kids are straight up creepy, with their chant over that doll of the Benford’s kid.

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Add another change of TV show leadership to the list that already includes CBS’s The Good Wife as, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Marc Guggenheim is stepping down as showrunner on ABC’s first season drama FlashForward. Even though the show recently got an order for 9 more episodes (what is known as the “back nine” in TV production) it will be David Goyer taking the helm from here on out.

According to the trade, reasons for Guggenheim’s departure are not clear. But what is clear is that the show, in spite of good ratings for its debut, has since slipped. For adults 18-49 the show had a 4.1 rating at its premiere and dropped to a 3.1 for its fourth episode. Not the way they hope numbers will go.

Initially, Guggenheim had been brought in after the pilot to replace FlashForward’s co-creator Brannon Braga, who also co-created and ran Star Trek: Enterprise and Threshold, due to his departure to run the latest season of Fox’s 24. Goyer had worked alongside Guggenheim since that point to learn the ropes and will now step up for the next nine episodes.

To be honest, its not that unusual for showrunners to leave shows and go on to something else. It happens. Still, you have to wonder if the ratings had remained consistent, would we even be talking about this at all? My guess, probably not.

FlashForward airs Thursday at 8/7C on ABC.

John Cho has become quite the name in the world of geeks and fanboys over the past few years. From helping to rejuvenate the career of Neil Patrick Harris in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle to coining the term M.I.L.F. for millions of teens to sweat over.

Let’s also not forget that he’s the pilot of one of the most important fictional ships in American Sci-Fi history, the U.S.S. Enterprise. Cho has now found a new home on ABC’s FlashForward, the newest action mystery series done in the same vain as LOST. In the show, everybody in the world blacks out and gets flashes of images that happen 6 months in the future. The mystery only unravels from there, as more gets revealed week after week.

We recently got a chance to speak with John about his role on FlashForward, as well as a future for Harold and Kumar and even what genre he may like to take on next. Check out the interview after the jump. Be sure to catch FlashForward on ABC every Thursday at 8pm/7pm Central.

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Being the geek that I am I’ve been keeping a close eye on the slowly developing Green Arrow film, Super Max. Written by David Goyer (Blade, The Dark Knight), the film is not your average comic book fair. Instead of following the typical origin tale, Super Max plans to take super hero Green Arrow and drop him in a “super max” prison full of villains (many of which he probably put there). Wrongfully convicted, Green Arrow would be forced to work alongside his enemies to escape while trying not to unleash the rest of the villains in the process.  Think Prison Break meets Justice League.

Well, you can imagine my dismay when I read today that Columbia Pictures picked up the rights to spec horror script, Supermax by writers Mitch Rouse and Christopher Nelson. Yes, you read that right, two films with the same name (minus the space of course). Worse yet, the similarities don’t end with the name:

“The script [Supermax], a horror/action combo about a supernatural prison, ‘centers on a skilled guard who is re-assigned to Supermax. After a riot erupts, he must join forces with one of the prison’s monstrous inmates in order to survive and fight his way out.’”

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With the Marvel/Disney deal looming, the race is on for studios to secure properties. Variety is reporting that Columbia Pictures is working on a sequel to Ghost Rider, with David Goyer reportedly in talks to create the story, as well as supervise additional writers for the film. Nicolas Cage is expected to reprise his starring role as Johnny Blaze.

The resurrection of Ghost Rider as a franchise comes in the middle of negotiations with other Marvel characters at Sony, Fox, Universal and Paramount. Studios must move on these properties now if they want to retain the rights to their Marvel superheroes.  If the properties languish, Marvel Entertainment can reclaim the rights to those characters. This is exactly what happened with the Dr. Strange, Black Panther and Iron Man properties. Iron Man languished in development hell at New Line before Marvel turned the property into a self-financed blockbuster last year. And we all know how well that went.

Although Goyer stated through a spokesman, that he has not officially signed on to a second Ghost Rider, plans are already under way to base the sequel on a script Goyer penned years ago. Goyer’s, superhero work includes successful screen transfers of DC’s Batman Begins and Marvel’s Blade franchise.

Columbia isn’t the only one getting in on the properties action. Fox plans to reboot Fantastic Four with Green Lantern scribe Michael Green; develop a Wolverine sequel and other X-Men spinoffs; a Silver Surfer film; and a revamped version of Daredevil.

Sony recently tapped James Vanderbilt to pen the fifth and sixth installments of the Spider-Man series, and Universal is continuing work on Sub-Mariner. Paramount will continue to be the distributor for Iron Man 2 and are also expected to distribute the upcoming Thor and Captain America flicks.