There’s a lot of interesting stuff on the radar this week. An Avatar alumni could face off against Conan, Modern Warfare developers bring a fight to Activision, and director Guy Ritchie may be breathing new life into the heroes of Camelot.

Fox finds its shadow for $1 million and David Slade may be the man

Fans of the comic book series The Shadow rejoice as it seems the reboot continues to move forward.  While it was thought Sony and director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, Army of Darkness) would bring a new version of the character to the big screen things have changed somewhat.

After Raimi began shopping the property around Fox decided to purchase the rights. Sadly, it sounds like Raimi may no longer direct, possibly replaced by David Slade.  Slade directed the vampire film Thirty Days of Night which, unfortunately, felt just that long in the theater. Here’s hoping he can put a little more adrenaline into The Shadow.

How I Met your…Smurf?

Neil Patrick Harris will be venturing to the land of blue, three apples tall creatures in Smurfs: The Movie.  The How I Met Your Mother star won’t be playing a Smurf though.  As this film will be a mix of live action and animation, Harris will be playing the lead live action character.  Too bad, I would have liked to know just which Smurf he’d play.  ”Awesome” Smurf maybe?  Let us know your picks in the comments.

‘Wolverine 2′ starts shooting next January

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was pretty good, but it was missing one thing: ninjas!  Hopefully that will be rectified in the sequel which is set to begin shooting next January.  Delving into Wolvie’s Japanese mythos the script follows stories penned by two pretty big names:

“Based on a story cycle by Frank Miller and Chris Claremont, Wolverine’s adventures in martial arts will be a love story featuring a Japanese actress, I am told. ‘It’s a beautiful story,’ says a source, ‘and will be very different than the first film.’”

Okay, I’m not really sold on the “love story” angle but considering the number of women that went to see Wolverine (pretty much for mutant hunk, Hugh Jackman) at least this will be one you can take your girlfriends to.

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In news that seemed “too good to be true”, Guy Ritchie, who directed such action-comedies as Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, would be directing an adaptation of the DC character Lobo for Warner Bros. Since then, Ritchie’s stock has gone up in a huge way with his Sherlock Holmes bringing in over $350 worldwide since it’s Christmas Day release.

With that in mind, both Warner and super-producer Joel Silver have decided to fast-track a Holmes sequel, which would put Lobo on ice, possibly permanently. When the LA Times sat down with Silver, he didn’t seem too convinced either way.

“I don’t think he’s going to do it now,” Silver said of Ritchie directing “Lobo.” “The studio wants us and Guy to focus on making another ‘Sherlock Holmes.’ So I think we’re going to be doing that. But we’re seeing what happens with this.

Everybody is analyzing everything. It’s all kind of happening right now as we talk. ‘Sherlock’ is sitting at just about $400 million in worldwide gross and showing itself to be pretty effective and pretty strong. So we’re trying to see if we can do something quickly with another ‘Sherlock Holmes’ movie. We have some ideas and some good story points.”

It was also rumored that Brad Pitt, a Guy Ritchie favorite, would be stepping in on the Holmes sequel to play the evil Professor Moriarty, but Silver didn’t seem to think that the plan would move on past the “wouldn’t it be cool?” stage.

Downey Jr. also just recently picked up his second Golden Globe for his performance in Sherlock Holmes, which you can still catch in some theaters.

Guy Ritchie puts his unmistakable stylistic stamp on this re-imagining of the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Robert Downey, Jr. plays the slightly disheveled, deranged, but brilliant Holmes, who may or may not be under the influence of various pharmaceuticals at any given moment of the film. Downey’s version of Holmes is a devilishly clever mad-scientist type who happens to be a martial arts expert, an astute observer, an alchemist, and a forensics aficionado.

He also has the amazing ability to call upon whatever skill set that a particular predicament warrants. For me, it was a little hard to swallow. However, Downey darn near pulls it off. He is completely convincing as a man slightly-off-his rocker who has a penchant for scrappy street fighting, and his performance alone is worth the price of admission.

Jude Law plays his trusty sidekick Watson, and the relationship works surprisingly well on screen.  The two banter and bicker like an old married couple, and are constantly rescuing one another from certain death. The fact that Watson is engaged, and will soon be moving out of Holmes’ life,  provides for some comedic moments. Holmes behaves like a petulant child during a dinner where he is to meet Watson’s betrothed, played by Kelly Reilly (Eden Lake.)

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Box Office Mojo has reported that Avatar added another $16 million to it’s box office on Monday. Considering the soft opening that the movie had over the weekend ($77 Million), due to sold out shows and a snow storm that hit most of the east coast, this might just be the beginning of some staying power for James Cameron’s latest project. Titanic, the previous Cameron film released 12 years ago, managed to stay in theaters for almost 11 months, which helped to make it one of the top box office earners in history.

Compared with one of this year’s other financial heavy-hitters, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which opened to around $102 Million in June but only made $14 Million on the Monday following it’s opening weekend. They’re slightly comparable in that both were released during a time when families and younger fans have more free-time, with Independence Day being the following weekend for Transformers 2, and Christmas coming this weekend, which is Avatar’s second weekend .

It’ll be interesting to see how well Avatar is able to hold on, between the varied opinions on the film, the positive word of mouth, and the opening of another potential box office smash with Robert Downey Jr. and Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes. Whether or not Avatar proves itself to be the next financial Titanic or not, it’s sure to be an epic clash at the box office this weekend.

Director Francis Lawrence, who’s previous credits include I Am Legend, Constantine and TV’s Kings has picked up another directing gig. He will take on the big screen adaptation of DC’s comic character Sgt. Rock for producers Joel Silver and Akiva Goldsman. The film, who’s previous director Guy Ritchie left to take on DC’s Lobo adaptation, will be scripted by relative newcomer Chad St. John.

Another change announced for this project is the shift from a WWII setting, where in the comics Sgt. Rock leads his “Easy Company” team of soldiers against the Nazis, to the future where, reportedly, the producers feel the film will be more universally accepted due to the comic’s current “pro-America” stance. Plus, the producers are worried about the relative box office success of a big budget WWII action film, Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds notwithstanding.

I guess both of those things make sense. Although, I would argue that WWII is a great place to set a movie and Nazis are always okay as bad guys. Look at the huge success of the Call of Duty video game franchise and Tarantinio’s film as examples. Setting the film in the future, whatever that might mean, just seems kinda like a cop out.

No word on casting or a release date for the film as of yet. Or on what further changes will be made to the premise. We’ll keep an eye on this one and let you know what develops.

It looks like the Family Guy special which was suppose to promote Windows 7 has found a new sponsor since Microsoft backed out late last week. Warner Bros. Pictures stepped up and took the opportunity to pitch director Guy Ritchie’s upcoming Sherlock Holmes film starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law.  It would have been way funnier if Apple took the spot but this should be pretty cool too.

Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show is still set to air on November 8 with sneak peeks of the Sherlock Holmes film set to come out Christmas Day. The original concept for the show was to feature Windows 7 promotion spots instead of commercials. However, there’s been no word on how tightly integrated the Holmes content will be by comparison. Hopefully Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane will somehow tie-in the new material for the show itself as originally intended.

Here’s hoping Warner Bros. has watched Family Guy and understands what they’re in for. I’m all for covering stories but the last think anyone needs is yet another update about this special episode. I would hazard a guess and say at this stage this is a done deal. Oh no, I didn’t just jinx myself by saying that did I?

With the first Sherlock Holmes movie featuring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law not even out in theaters until this Christmas, it looks as if Warner Bros. is already hard at work developing a sequel. This second installment is reportedly bringing writers Kieran and Michele Mulroney, currently working on the studio’s Justice League: Mortal, on board to pen a draft of the new script. In addition to that news, it seems the studio has its eye on a very well known actor to portray Holmes’ arch nemesis Moriarty in the film: Brad Pitt.

In case you’re not familiar with this updated take on Holmes, its more of an action-heavy rendition of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle creation and features Downey, Jr. as the title character, Jude Law as Watson and Rachel McAdams as love interest Irene Adler. The film is directed by Guy Ritchie who may return for the sequel as well as most, if not all, of the original cast.

Developing sequels to films not yet released seems to be more of a trend these days in order to shorten the time between installments of a new franchises. Plus, developing sequels early is also relatively low cost for the studio because only writers need to begin work at this stage while other deals for talent and director are being worked out. It makes sense, especially for a film like Holmes, which based on the trailers released so far and what we saw of it at the recent Comic-Con in San Diego, looks to be a monster hit.

The first Sherlock Holmes hits theaters on December 25th. The next chapter? Maybe sooner than we think.

The director of such films as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch and the upcomimng Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey, Jr., Jude Law and Rachel McAdams, has just landed a brand new directing gig to expand his already extensive resume. What’s next for Ritchie? The director has signed on to helm the live action adaptation of the DC comic book Lobo for Warner Brothers and producers Joel Silver, Akiva Goldsman and Andrew Rona.

In case you’re not familiar, the movie, adapted by Don Payne, concerns a seven foot, blue skinned, heavily muscled anti-hero and interstallar bounty hunter who comes to earth in search of some fugitives intent on destruction. Once here, he teams up with a small town teenaged girl to help stop the mayhem and in the process learns a little something about humanity. Or, I might have made that last bit up. Either way, the film sounds pretty cool and Lobo is a pretty great character that will do well as a movie.

At any rate, according to the report, Warner Bros. is looking for a PG-13 rated experience which will hopefully bring in the audience that stayed home instead of watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The film will also, which is no surprise, be heavy in the special and visual effects areas. The movie is expected to start production early next year and I can’t wait to find out who ends up playing Lobo. Thoughts?

Megan Fox hadn’t finished taking photos at the end of the Warner Bros. presentation for Jonah Hex before Robert Downey Jr. leaped onstage past the starlet to the surprise and delight of the crowd gathered for the Sherlock Holmes panel. SciFiWire notes Downey acknowledged the applause of the crowd by bowing to the packed hall before screening a clip from the film..

The footage introduces Downey as Holmes, Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler, Holmes’ female foil and sometime lover, Jude Law as Watson and Mark Strong as Lord Blackwood. One sequence features Holmes squaring off in a ring against a much larger man; before they battle, he imagines (in slow motion) what he should do to maximize the damage he can inflict, then does it in real time. Later, Holmes is bested by McAdams’ character, who seduces him, chains him to a bed and leaves him for a chambermaid to discover. The clip also featured a lot of big action, including a fight scene atop a drawbridge and a showdown by the docks.

Director Guy Ritchie wasn’t in attendance to promote the film, but producers Susan Downey (Robert’s wife) and Joel Silver and co-star McAdams took the stage with Downey to talk about the character. Susan Downey suggested that Sherlock Holmes “applies as much today as he did” in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s, while Silver praised the interpretation of him, saying “Downey really is genius in this role. He made it come to life.”

McAdams pointed out that she had the freedom to develop her character, unencumbered by the legacy and mythology of the Holmes novels, mostly because Irene appears in only one book, for about 10 pages. She also said that Irene was uncharacteristic for Holmes’ era, explaining that “she kind of lives in the underworld. [Holmes and I] develop this kind of strange, unique love affair.”

At the end of the panel, Susan Downey revealed that although Mrs. Hudson makes an appearance in the film, none of the other Baker Street characters are in the film. Regardless, she insisted that the film has “a narrative unique to the movie.” Sherlock Holmes opens Christmas Day.

With next week’s release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince hitting theaters on Wednesday, there seems to be more and more focus on what trailers Warner Bros. will attach to the film, seeing as how this is the biggest release for the studio this year. One film that seems to be attracting most of the excitement is the adaptation of the children’s book Where the Wild Things Are.

The original trailer hit a few months back, which looked pretty cool. From there, it seemed to have developed it’s own growing fan base, so you can imagine how excited the rest of the world will be in moments leading up to the Harry Potter film.

With that trailer we are also expected to get a first look at Robert Rodriguez’s Shorts. Starring James Spader, William H. Macy, and Leslie Mann, the film is about a magical rock that grants wishes to a small town called Black Falls. This will more than likely fall on the side of Rodriguez’s Sharkboy and Lava Girl, rather than his work with Tarantino and Grindhouse.

Finally, there will be a new trailer for the Guy Ritchie, Robert Downey Jr. project Sherlock Holmes. The film looks to be a blockbuster, which is different for Ritchie, but should only add to the pile of Downey’s Iron Man popularity. See all the footage with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Wednesday, July 15.