Martin Campbell’s particular skill set seems to be geared towards remaking something. He is best known for his two James Bond reboots, Goldeneye & Casino Royal, both of which routinely rank among the best Bond adventures.

When he tries to make an original movie, or at least one with out cinematic forebears to stand on, he makes Green Lantern. So consider it a positive turn of events when Deadline reports that Campbell is getting back in the reboot game:

Martin Campbell [will] revive the cult 1978 adventure/sci-fi series Blake’s 7. Writer Joe Pokaski will pen the re-imagining of the original series created by Terry Nation, a prolific UK TV writer who also created the Daleks for the classic BBC series Doctor Who. Campbell is attached to direct the Blake’s 7 reboot, which is being shopped to U.S. networks.

If Campbell’s revival can connect with modern thematic elements and topical stories like the Battlestar Galactica relaunch did, this has all the makings of a great new show. There is a reason why those classic old series still resonate today, and if given the proper respect we could see something special.

Or we could see dreck, the man did do Green Lantern after all, and he still has some time left on his director jail sentence for that one.

Stay tuned to The Flickcast for any future updates on this potential project as it makes the rounds at US networks.

Kenneth Branagh has one of those careers that every struggling actor waiting tables in Los Angeles dreams of having. He is an extraordinary actor who has mastered The Bard and eventually turned himself into a well-respected director.

He is in his ‘tent pole’ era as a director right now, coming off of Thor his next project is a reboot of Jack Ryan for Paramount. Variety is reporting that Branagh might have finally found himself a villain for the project:

Paramount didn’t have to look far for the villain in its untitled Jack Ryan reboot, as the studio is in negotiations with Kenneth Branagh — who’s also directing the film — to star opposite Chris Pine in the action thriller that aims to reinvigorate the blockbuster franchise.

Directing a major blockbuster-to-be and being able to insert yourself as the main bad guy of the piece? Like said, the career every aspiring actor dreams of having.

As a wonderful, British, actor Branagh is a uniquely qualified for the bad guy role. In my estimation this reboot is shaping up rather nicely.

Expect the next Jack Ryan adventure to hit theaters some time next year, and stay tuned to The Flickcast for any other news about Branagh deciding to write the score of the film himself too.

When the initial rumors of Ryan Reynolds circling the role of Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod rose, people were skeptical that he could do the part justice. Those people must not remember what Highlander is as a franchise.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a bigger Highlander fan than you normally encounter, and Christopher Lambert’s Connor is an iconic genre character. There just isn’t a ton of hollowed ground in this franchise, which should be obvious to anyone who has seen one of the 13 different versions of Highlander 2.

Now those rumors are becoming reality as The Tracking Board is reporting that Reynolds has finally signed on to the reboot:

After roughly a month of negotiations, Ryan Reynolds has officially been cast in the lead role for Highlander. Reynolds will play Conner MacLeod, a Highlander who discovers he is one of a dwindling group of immortals who wander the earth and kill each other in combat for the final “Prize” – mortality.

Of all the 80′s era properties that are getting reboots today, this is one that makes a ton of sense. Reynolds is a good actor, and has shown some real action chops in three unfortunate comic book movies. Hopefully this franchise will finally be the one that suits his specific talents.

Remember a few months ago when it seemed like fall 2012 was loaded with tons of awesome, highly anticipated video game releases?

We told you how BioShock: Infinite would be delayed several months and now add another of those high-profile games has jumped ship to early 2013. In an announcement made on Edios Games’ forums, Darrell Gallagher informed us that the Tomb Raider reboot game has been pushed to 2013:

Our priority now is to make sure we fully deliver the very highest quality game. In order to do this, we have decided to move the game’s release date by a few months, from Fall 2012 to the first quarter of 2013.

We’re doing things that are completely new to Tomb Raider in this game and the additional development time will allow us to put the finishing touches into the game and polish it to a level that you deserve. We believe this is the right choice and I guarantee it will be worth the wait. The game is looking amazing and we can’t wait to show it to everyone at E3 in a few weeks.

Unfortunate news for a game that a lot of people were really look forward to. Although we here at The Flickcast think this might be for the best, in a world where Uncharted has set a new standard for action and treasure hunting games, Tomb Raider has a lot to live up to. At the very least the game wont be a no-show at E3 like BioShock, so we wont have to long to wait to see what sort of additions this delay allows.

Most of us will be seeing The Avengers in a few days and The Dark Knight Rises trailer is still on everyone’s mind. So Sony wants to remind you all that they have a pretty big deal super-hero movie coming out too.

The new posters for Amazing Spider-Man are nothing particularly exciting, although the standing Spidy one ditches that all too familiar blue-tinted cityscape for a far more intriguing and realistic color scheme. In fact I think that one now ranks as my favorite of the posters for this flick.

The second of the new posters actually reminds me of those classy Dark Knight posters with Batman standing watch over a blue-tinted Gotham from inside an office building. The Spider-Man poster has what looks like a very similar blue-tinted city, but it looks more like he is busting through the glass. Might it be a subtle dig at The Dark Knight, or might I be reading way to much into a similar image? I vote the latter.

You can check out these two new posters after the jump, and don’t forget to catch The Amazing Spider-Man in theaters this summer.

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The career of Kenneth Branagh is one of the most interesting in modern Hollywood. From Shakespeare to Super Heroes and lots in-between, Branagh has range beyond most modern filmmakers. He is a fantastic actor to boot.

Last week we told you that the new Jack Ryan movie lost it’s director and was in fast need of a new one. Variety is reporting that they have found their new director:

Paramount and Skydance Pictures moved quickly to find their next director — and it’s Kenneth Branagh… The untitled pic, based on the character created by Tom Clancy, has been a priority at Paramount since Chris Pine came aboard to star, with Lorenzo di Bonaventura producing.

The movie is likely to get underway after Star Trek 2 finishes, giving star Chris Pine time to finish his other big franchise and giving time for Branagh to clear off what ever is on his current plate. This is fantastic news for the movie which was in unstable shape after it lost its previous director.

Bringing on Branagh is one of the boldest choices they could have made and represents a big plus for this flick. Although, it is still looking for a title so hopefully we won’t be saying the Untitled Jack Ryan movie for much longer.

There is a troubling trend brewing in the wake of the current influx of modern reboots. That trend is the incessant and entirely predictable whining about every detail that is released.

Today brings a brand new detail for the internet to get up in arms about. We will be able to see into Robocop‘s eyes through his visor.

This detail was unveiled at MTV by Joel Kinnaman the star of the upcoming remake:

RoboCop is going to be a lot more human… The first movie is one of my favorite movies. I love it. Of course, Verhoeven has that very special tone, and it’s not going to have that tone. It’s a re-imagination of it. There’s a lot of stuff from the original. There are some details and throwbacks, but this version is a much better acting piece, for Alex Murphy and especially when he is RoboCop. It’s much more challenging. 

It’s not going to be jaw action. They’re still working on the suit and how it’s going to look, but the visor is going to be see-through,” he said. “You’re going to see his eyes.

I appreciate that they understand the Verhoeven tone and are not trying to recapture it, instead use the cornerstones of the original and make something new. As for the see through visor, that is more up in the air. It could make RoboCop much more relatable, or it could be like Snake Eye’s mouth in GI Joe, unnessecarry and distracting.

The original Vacation movie is a bona fide classic. The film was made during the primes of Chevy Chase, John Hughes and Harold Ramis, three of the most prolific names in 80s pop culture. It spawned a hit and miss franchise that most people remember fondly to this day. So this news was inevitable.

The Hollywood Reporter has announced that the guys who wrote Horrible Bosses, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstien, have turned in a script for a new Vacation movie and New Line is keen to give the duo the chance to direct too.

Daley and Goldstein’s Vacation script, first set up in 2009, plays like both a sequel and a reboot of the franchise that began with the 1983 Harold Ramis-directed comedy National Lampoon’s Vacationand continued with European Vacation, Christmas Vacation and Vegas Vacation.

A now grown-up Rusty Griswold, the son of the Chevy Chase character in the original series, experiences a misadventure with his own family.

It is in fashion right now to bash on remakes and reboots. That line of thinking may or may not be warranted, but you should hear none of it when talking about the upcoming Evil Dead reboot.

Of all the horror franchise that have been revived in the last decade, none more than the Evil Dead series is more malleable. The franchise has always reinvented itself with each new installment, so a new, modern reboot shouldn’t cause immediate concern.

The movie is going to begin filming in a few months and Bloody Disgusting has the scoop on the first bit of casting:

Bloody Disgusting has learned exclusively that Lily Collins (The Blind Side, Priest, Mirror Mirror) is in final negotiations to play “Mia” in FilmDistrict’s reboot aiming for release on April 12, 2013.

In this version, the story centers on five friends (David, Natalie, Eric, Olivia, and Mia) holed up at a remote cabin where they discover a Book of the Dead with a demonic force unleashed possessing each until only one is left to fight for survival.

Lily Collins is a great young actress who shined in The Blind Side and even in the otherwise horrid Priest. We don’t know which of the characters is going to be the “Ash” archetype, but rumors have bubbled up that Raimi wanted a girl to fill that role. Could that be Lily Collins’ Mia? Only time will tell.

Bryan Singer is determined to relaunch a classic show from his youth. First, he was connected with attempts to bring Star Trek back to television, and more recently he has talked about rebooting Battlestar Galactica as a feature film. Well, third time seems to be the charm as a Singer directed Munsters pilot has been ordered by NBC.

The Hollywood Reporter reports:

“[The Munsters] is billed as an imaginative reinvention of the classic comedy series as a visually spectacular one-hour drama.

Singer will executive produce alongside Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies), who also is writing the Universal Television-produced project.

Fuller and NBC first made an attempt to revive the 1960s CBS sitcom last year, with the network ultimately passing. His newer version is said to be an edgier and slightly darker take exploring origins of Herman and Lily Munster (originally played by Fred Gwynne and Yvonne De Carlo) and how they arrived at the famed 1313 Mockingbird Lane address.”

Singer does have good experience in the TV world, he also executive produced and directed the pilot of the hit show House. However, it is the other executive producer that inspires the most intrigue from us. Bryan Fuller’s Pushing Daises was an incredible show, packed with larger than life characters and situations. If anyone can turn The Munsters into a “visually spectacular one-hour drama,” odds are Fuller is that man.

Remakes get a bad reputation in the fan community. Mostly for good reason, but a few bad eggs like Gulliver’s Travels or The Honeymooners ruin the concept for the whole group, which is just unfortunate. These days, a few remakes are welcome with the current technological advances we have in CGI or, heaven forbid, 3D.

That’s where a remake like The Thing comes into play. Some call it a remake, others a “prequel/reboot hybrid”. All we know is that we’re getting to see some pretty badass scenes that we never got in the original from 1982. For all 8 of you who haven’t seen the original or need a refresher, here’s the premise of the film.

Taking place three days before the events of the John Carpenter film, paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) joins a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across a crashed extraterrestrial spaceship buried in the ice of Antarctica. They discover a creature that seems to have died in the crash eons ago.

When an experiment frees the alien from its frozen prison, Kate joins the crew’s pilot, Carter (Joel Edgerton), to keep it from killing and imitating them one at a time, using its uncanny ability to mimic any life form it absorbs through digestion, and potentially reaching civilization.

The trailer manages to keep the film’s creepy and shock-tastic tone while still looking like an intriguing science-fiction piece. Check it out after the jump and be sure to catch The Thing in theaters October 14th.

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Machinima’s Mortal Kombat: Legacy, the live action web series rebooting the epic fighting game and it’s universe, has really taken off. Each week, we’re getting more of our favorite characters broken down and retold in new and innovative ways.

Yesterday marked the brand new, fourth episode, and it’s an epic two-parter about the deadly twinsKitana and Mileena. Here’s the synopsis.

Beautiful, athletic, and trained as highly skilled assassins, Kitana and Mileena have grown up thinking that they are sisters. Shao Kahn, Emperor of the Outworld, has tricked Shang Tsung into becoming his servant for Mortal Kombat by making him clone Mileena as a Tarkatan clone of Kitana, out of Shao Kahn’s fear that Kitana wouldn’t love him enough if she ever found out the truth about her Mother and Father.

This may be the first episode where the budget was a bit obvious, as half of the story is told using a classic “storybook” style with animated imagery and a God of War-style voiceover.

Take a look at the new episode after the jump, and try not to get too angry at the cliffhanger, we only have to wait six days for the next episode.

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This is something that should be filed under “?”, as some alleged test footage of the once shelved Thundercats project out of Warner Bros has surfaced on the web and it looks….good? About a year ago, the project was announced to be dead (or at least “postponed”) due to budget constraints. A new anime-style cartoon reboot is currently in the works over at Cartoon Network, but it looks nothing like this.

Flixter first had the video, saying that it’s an official CG test from the project back when it was still in the works, and we have to admit, it doesn’t look half bad. Sure, it’s appealing to a younger crowd, with a comical, puerile Lion-O, but it’s got the action, and the animation looks quite impressive.

We’ll be pretty upset if this turns out to be a fake, but at least we know that fans everywhere are still thinking about Lion-O and his band of butt-kicking cats. Check out the footage after the jump.

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Though February is considered Black History Month, this year it seems that Hollywood is turning it into “Reboot Month”. Less than two weeks into the month, and we’ve already gotten word on a reboot for Daredevil, The Thing, Gunsmoke, Hawaii Five-0, and word that the Spider-Man reboot will be in 3-D.

It seems that Tinseltown and New Line Studios is setting their sights on another classic franchise, in National Lampoon’s Vacation. The original, which started in 1983, beget 4 sequels, including the direct-to-DVD film Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie’s Island Adventure. From Variety:

The latest project, which will no longer carry the National Lampoon credit, is being described as more of an update than a sequel and will be closer in tone to “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” than the previous chapters. Story will focus on Rusty Griswold, now a grown man, who decides to take his own wife and kids on a road trip to Wally World before it closes forever. Chase is not attached at this time to reprise his role as Clark Griswold, now a grandfather.

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To many studios and producers in Hollywood, the word “reboot” seems to have magical properties. To them, the word means “take a failed property and wash away all the bad with a new film.” It doesn’t always end that way, when the “bad” in this instance is something as bad as Ang Lee’s Hulk, and even a Robert Downey Jr. cameo can’t wash that away.

Relentlessly, studios don’t seem to care and continue to “wash away” failed films with shiny new projects. With that in mind comes news that Warner Bros. is planning a reboot of the 1995 adaptation of Mortal Kombat. The original was certainly no Street Fighter, but it’s in no way a “classic” either.

The plan is to have newcomer Oren Uziel pen the script, with no set date on production. A reboot may not be a bad idea, considering the bad press that video game films got in the 90s, and how that seems to be changing lately with the Resident Evil and Tomb Raider films doing well financially.

The question now is “What ever happened to the third Mortal Kombat film that was set to begin production last September?” The film was originally rumored to be a reboot, with cartoon writer Sean Catherine Derek writing the script.

No word on whether that film fell apart or not, but with the recent news of Warner’s involvement, you can believe that the original project is dead.