The fourth installment of the Underworld franchise tried to bring the series back to it’s bread and butter, Kate Beckinsale in skin-tight leather. That was seemingly all you need as the film bounced back from the disappointing third installment and stands tall with a similar start to that of the first two movies.

The estimated twenty-five and a half million dollar haul puts Awakening on pace to top the over all totals of the first and third movies, whether or not it can catch the series peak, set by Evolution, will depend on it’s hold next weekend. The per theater average and total screen numbers are comparable to the second film which performed the best up to this point in the series.

Coming in at an impressive nineteen million is Red Tails, the Lucasfilm tale of the famed Tuskegee Airman. The movie surpassed many expectations and out paced other fighter pilot films by a solid margin. Much like Underworld: Awakening, the critical reception of Red Tails has not been kind, so it will need strong word of mouth to maintain momentum into next weekend.

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Film remakes are something that we’ve all grown accustomed to over the years but with two major releases last week both being remakes, Footloose and The Thing, have we reached the breaking point? Is no film safe from a remake? Is it only time before we see Howard the Duck remade with a CGI duck a la The Smurfs? The new pop-culture debate show GeekDown discuss the pitfalls and necessary evils of remaking classic, or not so classic, films.

Jonathan London of Geekscape.net sits in the guest chair this week to give his insight on why piracy is causing the massive influx of remakes in recent years.

The trailer for Joss Whedon’s Avengers hit the internet this week and fanboys around the world had to change their pants. We manage to calm ourselves for a few minutes and dissect the trailer to make sense of why Thor is about to bring the hammer down on Captain America, why there’s so much Tony Stark, and why Loki hates cars so much.

If that wasn’t enough for one show, Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer is also up for discussion. After a drawn out “will they, won’t they” situation worthy of any sitcom, BioWare finally announced that they will have multiplayer in next year’s hotly anticipated Mass Effect 3.

Is it the final step towards making the game of the year or is it just an afterthought to sell more $10 online passes? Find out what we think on this episode of GeekDown after the jump.

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Is it a sequel? A prequel? A remake? A premake? Yes.

Director Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr. (yes, that is a real name) takes a lot of inspiration and most of the story from John Carpenter’s 1982 classic, the only ostensible difference being that this film takes place in the Norwegian camp immediately before the events of Carpenter’s.

The Norwegians unearth the titular Thing and call in some American paleontologists, among them the comely Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a young graduate student whose major qualification is that she provides a reason for the movie to be in English.

And from there, it plays out as you’d expect.

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Less than a week ago, we brought you a brand new trailer for an action-packed film out of Indonesia called The Raid about a SWAT group that has to make their way to the top of a crime-riddled apartment building. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones blown away by what the trailer had to offer, as Screen Gems is already vying to remake the film here in the states.

Since the film made so many waves at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it already had a distributor going into the fest, Screen Gems’ only reasonable plan was to remake the film for American audiences. Here’s what THR had to report.

Screen Gems is in negotiations on a remake, a move made possible for the label since sister arm Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions picked up North American distribution rights to the film during the Cannes Film Festival. The initial deal called for Sony to have an exclusive negotiating period and right of refusal on a remake in its deal with XYZ Films, the makers of the original.

So it seems that the new recourse isn’t to acquire films so that a wider audience can be privy to the art, but to remake it with young up-and-comers that will likely bring a completely different (possibly terrible) take on the film before we, the frustrated audience members, get to even see the original.

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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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To be honest, as with most remakes, I’m not sure how I feel about this. I’m sure it might look like a great idea on paper, at least to some, but I’m not sure director Spike Lee has the required sensibilities to direct a remake of Chanwook Park’s cult classic revenge tale Oldboy.

That’s right, according to reports, Lee is set to do that very thing for Mandate Pictures. The new film is being adapted by Mark Protosevich, who will also co-produce.

It’s not that I think Lee isn’t a good director, he is. In fact, I very much enjoyed his recent film Inside Man, which showed he can reach beyond the fare he’s usually associated with. Plus, his 25th Hour was also a very good indicator of his range as a director.

But Oldboy requires a certain bit of over-the-top thinking that I’m not sure Lee can muster. I felt the same way when it was Steven Spielberg and Will Smith who were trying to mount a remake a few years ago. I’m not sure they could do the film justice either.

At least, given the choice between Spielberg and Lee, I would pick Lee to do the remake. He’s at least farther down the right track. Of course, now that this is going again and Lee is apparently onboard, the big question is who will play the title character, know as Oh Dae-Su in Park’s version?

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You know us Americans, always thinking we can do things better than everyone else. It’s sorta ironic, then, that a guy named Chris Columbus has made a deal to remake the Norweigian mockumentary monster film Troll Hunter. Columbus’ 1492 Pictures has partnered with CJ Entertainment & Media to acquire the rights to remake the the Andre Ovredal-directed film that’s just now hitting theaters and On Demand.

In case you’re not familiar with Troll Hunter it follows a group of students whose investigation into a series of killings seemingly done by a bear leads them to something even more unexpected. They wind up following and documenting a mystery man who turns out to be a troll hunter. And these trolls are pretty darn big . . . and nasty.

“Troll Hunter was a visceral, thrilling cinematic rock and roller coaster ride of a movie. Visually, there are scenes in this film that American audiences have never seen. We want to introduce an International audience to this amazing moviegoing experience!” said Chris Columbus.

So, you’re going to introduce audiences to this experience by remaking the film? Why not just show them the “amazing experience” of the film that’s already been made and be done with it? Yeah, that’s not likely.

Breaking news coming in today as Ryan Gosling is currently finalizing the deal with Warner Bros. to take the lead in the upcoming remake of the 1976 classic Sci-Fi thriller Logan’s Run.

Rumors have been abound for years on this project and who will take the lead, but it looks like the Warners and producer Joel Silver have found their Logan 5. From Deadline.

Warner Bros is finalizing a deal with Ryan Gosling to reunite with his Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn on Logan’s Run, the remake of the 1976 futuristic drama about a man who tries to outrun a mandatory death sentence that awaits  all 30-year old’s. After a distinguished run in mostly independent films, Gosling’s making the jump to a studio tent pole. Production starts in the fall.

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Having just watched the classic original recently this story is of particular interest to me. Following the trend of remaking classic films, next up from Fox and James Cameron is the reboot/remake of 1966 sci-fi adventure Fantastic Voyage, which was based on the novel by acclaimed author Isaac Asimov.

This project has been in the works for some time with several directors, including Darren Aronofsky, Timur Bekmambetoiv, Johnathan Mostow and Louis Leterrier, circling but with no final selection. That is, until now. Today, Fox and Cameron announced their choice to take on directing duties for the remake is Night at the Museum and Date Night helmer Shawn Levy.

The new film, a re-imagining of the original about a team of scientists shrunk to microscopic size inside a submarine and injected into a man to try to save his life, will be a big 3D release for the studio. The script was written by Shane Salerno and Laeta Kalogridis.

If you’ve watched any of Levy’s other movies you can see his talent but, for the most part, they’ve been comedies. His choice as director of this kind of huge budget sci-fi epic that will, undoubtedly, be mostly CG is an interesting one. Good thing James Cameron will be around if things take a turn for the worse once this thing gets going.

Look for Shawn Levy’s Fantastic Voyage to hit theaters sometime in 2013.

Even if Hollywood has long wanted to remake John Woo’s classic and amazing 1989 action film The Killer, they haven’t been able to get it together yet and I wasn’t disappointed about that at all. However, it seems the project may finally get off the ground, unfortunately, and be headed to the big screen once again.

The announcement came yesterday from Essential Entertainment and Lion Rock Productions. The new film will be directed by John H. Lee (A Moment to Remember, Saying Good-bye, Oneday) and star Jung Woo-Sung (Reign of Assassins, The Good, The Bad, The Weird). John Woo and his producing partner Terrance Chang will produce the film so at least Woo will be around to offer some measure of quality control. Other cast is expected to be announced soon.

While I may not be thrilled at the prospect of yet another classic film being given the remake treatment, I can at least take comfort in the knowledge that it will be in 3D. Yes, you heard that right, this remake of The Killer will be given the 3D treatment. Oh wait, that’s not a comfort at all . . . that sucks.

Check out the full press release about this project after the jump. Expect the remake later this year.

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Based on the original film featuring Charles Bronson and Jan Michael Vincent, this new take on The Mechanic features Jason Statem and Ben Foster as a master assassin and his apprentice. They come together to avenge the death of Foster’s character’s father and in so doing Statham teaches him the ropes.

To get you in the mood for the remake we’ve got the first trailer for the film to share with you today. In it you get a good look at the two leads and quite a bit about the story. Even though it seems like a simple revenge thriller, I hope it ends up being more than that.

The original was such a cool movie when the apprentice finally turns on his master and they have to fight it out using not just their skills but their brains as well. If you haven’t watched it, go check it out. As for this version, we’ll just have to wait and see if it rises to the level of the original. My guess is it probably won’t.

However, that doesn’t mean it won’t be a fun action film in its own right. We’ll find out when the film hits theaters on January 28, 2011. Meantime, click on through to check out the trailer.

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When it comes to Americanized remakes or reboots of other country’s films I tend to think we should wait at least a few years before launching said remake. After all, other countries do have a film production business as well and we don’t always do it better here in the USA. Still, with Hollywood struggling to find ideas that work, we do end up remaking other country’s movies pretty frequently.

Case in point is director Matt Reeves remake of the 2008 Swedish horror film Let the Right One In. His version, known as Let Me In, covers pretty much the same ground as the original as you can see from the new international trailer that has appeared and we’re bringing to you today.

The trailer, courtesy of Deadline, gives us some insight into the film’s story of a boy who realizes the pretty girl next door is actually a vampire and let’s us know this one is going for the scary, moody, suspense of the director’s first film Cloverfield and the original film. And, in spite of my feelings on remakes like this, this trailer actually looks pretty good.

Check out the new international trailer after the break. Let Me In hits theaters on October 1st.

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