Feeling a little bummed that you couldn’t make it to SXSW this year?  Feeling even worse because the people that did get to go got a sneak peak at Robert Rodriguez’s upcoming Predators film?  Well, you can start feeling a  little better because The Flickcast has you covered!

Fox was nice enough to post the premiere footage online for everyone to see and  it looks pretty darn awesome. Directed by Nimród Antal, Predators follows the same kind of plot as the first film but with a fresh take on the subject matter:

“Official Plot Synopsis: Royce, a mercenary who reluctantly leads a group of elite warriors who come to realize they’ve been brought together on an alien planet… as prey. With the exception of a disgraced physician, they are all cold-blooded killers mercenaries, Yakuza, convicts, death squad members human “predators” that are now being systemically hunted and eliminated by a new breed of alien Predators.”

The synopsis sounds bad ass enough, but when you watch the clip you’ll certainly get that original Predator vibe (which is a good thing in this case). Predator 2 and subsequent films involving these intergalactic hunters really haven’t cut it (no pun intended) in my opinion.  As such, it’s great to see Predators get back to the roots of this interesting character/creature.

Predators are set to invade movie theaters July 7, 2010. Click through to check out the sneak peak.

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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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Even with SXSW Film being just over a week away, more events are still being added to the already impressive program. This time around it was revealed today that Robert Rodriguez and Director Nimród Antal will present a “first look” at their upcoming movie Predators during the fest, which is a reboot of the film originally starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Said Rodriguez about the event: “My director Nimród Antal and I are excited to bring this first look at Predators to Austin’s SXSW Film Festival, an event that’s become vital to the filmmaking scene. Austin is my home and I’m proud that Predators was conceived and filmed here.”

In addition, it was also announced that the world premiere of Géla Babluani’s 13 would take place during SXSW as the previously announced Super Secret TBA screening. The event is part of the SX Fantastic midnight section.

The Predators “first look” will take place on Friday, March 12th at the Alamo Ritz Theater in Downtown Austin at 10:15pm and will also include a Q&A session after the event. The screening of 13 will take place at Midnight on Saturday, March 13 at the Alamo South Lamar Theater. We advise getting in line early for both of these events.

Also, be sure to check back here at The Flickcast for our extensive coverage of this years SXSW Fest.

For more info on these events, check out the full press release after the jump.

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Sci-Fi Wire reports that while visiting the set of the new Nimrod Antal (Armored) directed film, Predators, they discovered another person joining the already amazing cast. Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus in The Matrix films), has joined Adrien Brody, Danny Trejo and Topher Grace in the Robert Rodriguez produced sequel to the classic 1987 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, and half a dozen more.

According to the article, Fishburne will be playing “Noland, a character being compared to Yoda, who has used his Zen-like abilities to survive among the alien Predators on a deadly hunting planet.” Some filming has already taken place in Hawaii and has now moved to the Austin based Troublemaker Studios to finish it’s production.

The basic plot of the new film reads: “A group of elite warriors are hunted by members of a merciless alien race known as Predators.” With Brody playing a character known as “a hunter of men,” Grace is an “accountant type whose calm demeanor hides a serial killer underneath,” and the various other character roles are interesting in that cliche kind of way, yet I still am interested in this film.

Predators is scheduled to be released on July 9, 2010, and despite my opinion on the character descriptions, I’m looking forward to what these fun filmmakers do with the franchise.

Those who had the dedication to sit through nearly 4 hours of film in the theater when Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse hit cinemas worldwide are tough. Not for the four-hour film stint, but because they managed to sit through Death Proof without tearing out their eyes.

Thankfully, we all had a selection of great, fake trailers in between the films to keep us entertained. Trailers directed by names like Eli Roth, Rob Zombie, and Edgar Wright, which are all still rumored to be in the works as real films. We all know that Rodriguez’s Machete is being planned, and almost ready to start.

After seeing those trailers, it was only a matter of time before the YouTube generation got their hands on some fun footage, and made it look like a Grindhouse film. What better film than something as depressing and cheap-looking as Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler.

Check out the masterpiece after the jump. Also, be sure to check out all of our other Fan Film Friday links while you’re at it.

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Oscar winning actor Adrien Brody is joining the cast of Robert Rodriguez’s upcoming reboot of the Predator franchise, currently entitled Predators. The film, directed by Nimrod Antal, may also get another cast member soon, in the form of Topher Grace who’s currently in negotiation to join Brody in the cast.

In addition to Borday and potentially Grace, Rodriguez and company have already assembled a cast that includes Alice Braga (I Am Legend), Mahershalalhashbaz Ali (The 4400), Walt Goggins (The Shield), Danny Trejo and UFC fighter Oleg Taktarov. In case you’re not familiar with the reboot’s story, written by Rodriguez, Alex Litvak and Michal Finch, it concerns a group of elite warrior-types who have the table turned on them when they become the hunted.

Once this happens, they must struggle to survive as a group of deadly Predators set about decimating their group. According to the trade, Brody ends up inheriting the mantle of leader and is known as a hunter of men. Grace would play an accountant-type whose meek nature masks a dangerous serial killer. Braga is the tough female killer.

Ali is a man not afraid to die, Goggins is the loose canon of the group and Taktarov is a former Russian special ops agent. Trejo, already cast, is Cuchillo, a hardened warrior with twin uzis strapped to his back. Of course he is.

Shooting begins next month in Hawaii then moves to Austin at Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios. Predators hits theaters on July 9, 2010.

It’s interesting how much money is made that stemmed from jokes. 2006’s Snakes on a Plane generated $62 million dollars in the theater, not to mention merchandising and DVD sales, and the film all started with spoofed Photoshop image. It looks like the next Snakes will be Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, starring his cousin Danny Trejo.

The film started off as a mock trailer (which you can check out after the jump) for Rodriguez and Tarantino’s Grindhouse film back in 2007. There was talk about doing an entire film of spoof trailers, among many other pipe dreams. Rodriguez then mentioned that he wanted to turn the 2-minute trailer into a feature-length film, and here we are.

News just came in yesterday that the film has gotten it’s cast, and it looks to be pretty impressive, given that the film all started with a joke. Now signed on to do next year’s Machete alongside star Danny Trejo is Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Jonah Hill, Don Johnson and Jeff Fahey.

This almost seems like a joke itself, pulling in names like De Niro, Seagal, and Lohan in the same picture, but the story seems to be legit. Some of those name’s aren’t foreign to a Rodriguez pictures but Nash Bridges? The Lawnmower Man? Jonah Hill??

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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.

We’ve mentioned this movie before when it was first announced and when it it looked like Neil Marshall was set to direct it. But now, forget all that because according to the gang at Ain’t It Cool News, Robert Rodriguez, who is writing and producing Predators, has confirmed to the site that Nimrod Antal will direct the film. In addition to confirming the director, he also offered up a few details about the film, which is supposed to completely reboot the franchise and move it as far away as possible from the Aliens vs. Predator movies.

According to AICN honcho Harry Knowles, Rodriguez said this about the story of the film: “I can’t go too much into the story right now, because we’re still writing. But it still involves a very intense group of people stranded on a Predator planet discovering unspeakable horrors (that are not always from outside their group). So like the original movie, the title does have a double meaning. Aliens was a different take on the Alien idea, and an original movie in its own right, and that’s what we want to do with this.”

As for his choice of director, Rodriguez was very enthusiastic, saying: “First of all, on a personal level I found him to be an outstanding presence, a great communicator full of ideas, and upon meeting him you can immediately understand how he is able to wrangle cast and crew and get the best out of everyone. I always loved Kontroll, where he proved himself to be a very resourceful and original filmmaker. When I saw Armored, I could tell he’s also great with action and has a keen eye for casting.

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One of our favorte directors here at The Flickcast, Neil Marshall, is apparently in talks to take on another project that we’ve mentioned here before in connection with Robert Rodriguez. According to Bloody Disgusting, the man responsible for the super cool werewolves versus soldiers film Dog Soldiers, the cool spelunkers versus creatures film The Descent, and the sorta cool Rona Mitra versus everyone film Doomsday, may take on the reboot of the Predator franchise cleverly entitled Predators.

To be clear, this is just a rumor at this point. Nobody has signed anything on the line that is dotted and nobody is drinking any coffee yet (Look it up). Still, given Marshall’s experience with atmospheric creature films, his ability to make his movies look very good on a limited budget, and his experience with action, he may be a great choice to take on Predators.

But still, this is all rumor and speculation. For all we know, the studio could just be dangling Marshal in front of Robert Rodriguez to get him to commit to directing the film himself. Or, Marshall may actually be in real negotiations for the job?

No matter what the truth really is (And we may never know), things at least look to be moving forward on the Predator reboot front — something that, as a fan of the franchise who thinks it needs another chance, I couldn’t be happier about.