It has never been a hotter time to be a fan of Sherlock Holmes. The old chap now has two blockbuster Hollywood movies. Plus, Sherlock has a highly rated and successful BBC television series. The only thing he is missing is a comic book.

His mortal enemy Professor James Moriarty is brilliantly featured in his own series published by Image comics called, what else, Moriarty. It is the beginning of the 20th century, the dawn of World War 1, Sherlock Holmes has been dead for twenty years, and Moriarty has been drafted into service by MI5.

This issue is part four of the storyline called The Lazarus Tree.  A full-scale riot breaks out in the streets of Kyauktada, and the British authorities sweep in to take control. The mystery begins to unravel, and Moriarty becomes aware of the lurking threat of Moran’s sniper rifle hunting him in the shadows.

The characterization of Moriarty is brilliant. He is essentially an evil Sherlock Holmes. He sees common details that people miss, he is a brilliant doctor, and he is even a brilliant professor, dealing with concepts and theories that are way beyond his time. The major problem with the character is that even though he interesting; the writing never truly gives us a reason to like him.

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Usually January is a wasteland for the box office, dominated by award bait films, studio dump offs and the sputtering remains of the Christmas blockbusters. This week, one new film braved these difficult days and came out with very respectable numbers.

The Devil Inside debuted on over twenty-two hundred screens, bringing in an estimated thirty-four and a half million dollars. The satanic possession horror film raked in the 3rd highest January opening ever behind Cloverfield and  the special edition re-release of Star Wars back in ’97. The movie had a production budget of only one million, which makes this weekend a pretty big win for Paramount.

Coming in second place this weekend was Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol , which continued it’s very impressive run. With another twenty million, it now is on pace to threaten Mission: Impossible 2 as the series’ top grosser. The movie has had several weeks of really solid holds and is proving to be the big winner of the crowded holiday season.

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Those of you who follow our weekly Box Office Report may have noticed that we skipped our report last week. It wasn’t for any other reason than it was the saddest and weakest week that the US box office brought in all year. It was pretty depressing.

We figured, given the fact that two blockbusters (one with a soft opening of 425 theaters) and a kids’ threequal was hitting theaters, there was bound to be a boom in ticket sales. Or so we thought.

This weekend, the big hit (and that’s speaking wildly) was Warner Bros’ Sherlock Holmes 2, which netted only $40 Million. That’s about $20 Million less than the first film brought in on its first weekend.

The margin after that first film was also pretty massive, as Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked pulled in a whole third of their production budget with a total of $23 Million for the weekend. This was the lowest of the three films’ opening weekends, which was about half of both films’ respective opening totals.

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Amazon released its “Best of 2010″ lists late last week which highlight the online shopping powerhouse’s best-selling, most wished-for and most gifted products of the year. In the best-selling category, Amazon’s own Kindle topped the electronics category.

Kindle is now the best-selling product of all time on Amazon.com. Which, if you think about it, makes sense. It’s a great product and it has tight integration with the rest of Amazon. That’s what they call in the trade a “win win.” AT&T’s Samsung Captivate was Amazon’s best-selling device in the Wireless & Accessories category, reaffirming Android’s continued success in that market. Just sorry it had to be on AT&T’s network.

Call of Duty: Black Ops was Amazon’s best-selling video game, Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Pro topped the computer category and Sherlock Holmes was the company’s most streamed movie of 2010. So, kudos to Activision, Apple and Robert Downey, Jr.

Click through to check out the full list.

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It seems like even the terrible reviews couldn’t keep families away from seeing the third (and hopefully final) film in the Meet The Parents trilogy. Even our own Nat Almirall gave it a pretty scathing review, but that wouldn’t stop legions of families to pile into theaters over the weekend.

The movie pulled in just over $34 million over the weekend, adding up to $48.3 million since it opened last Wednesday. This is the fourth biggest Christmas Day opening in recent history, behind last year’s epic holiday weekend of both Sherlock Holmes and Avatar, and this film’s predecessor, Meet the Fockers.

Aside from the number 1 spot, True Grit pulled in $25.6 million this weekend, topping it off at $36.8 milion since it’s opening last Wednesday. Word is that this film could be up there as a major Oscar contender, so expect there to be a resurgence in interest after this weekend.

Tron: Legacy grabs the third spot, still holding strong with $20 million, adding up to roughly $88 million since it’s December 17th opening. Chronicles of Narnia still proves to be a monster overseas, pulling in over $128 million internationally and upwards of $200 million worldwide.

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Current Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat is now giving us his interpretation of history’s most famous detective. No, not Batman, but Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s own Sherlock Holmes. On BBC’s Sherlock, Moffat is giving us a modernized version of Sherlock Holmes’ exploits as he searches for a serial killer who makes his murders look like suicides.

The series remains true to the more iconic details from the original books. Holmes and Watson still live on 221b Baker Street and all the characters have the same names. The glaring difference is that the series is set in contemporary London rather than the late 19th century.

The miniseries is set to star Benedict Cumberbatch (The Other Boleyn Girl) as Holmes and  Martin Freeman, who you may remember as Jim from the British version of The Office, as Watson. This project is co-created by Mark Gatiss, writer and actor in various British series including Doctor Who and The League of Gentlemen.

The first episode of the three part series will air on July 25 on the UK’s BBC1 and BBC HD. No premiere date has been announced for the United States, but the show is expected to air on PBS as part of its Masterpiece series.

Between this news and the success of Robert Downey Jr.’s popular film franchise, could we be looking at a resurgence of interest in the classic detective? Can other classics be far behind?

Check out the trailer for this new series after the jump.

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This week sees the release of several new movies and TV shows, some for the first time ever on Blu-ray. Of the ones coming out this week, we’re excited for not as many as last week. But still, the release of An Education, Collateral and Sherlock Holmes (pictured above with Robert Downey, Jr and Jude Law) is reason enough to be excited. Plus, there’s always next week. . . and the week after that.

Check them out:

Film

Alice in Wonderland (2-Disc Special Un-Anniversary Edition) ~ Kathryn Beaumont, Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn (DVD)

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel ~ Anna Faris, Christina Applegate, Justin Long (Blu-ray and DVD)

An Education ~ Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard (Blu-ray and DVD)

Collateral ~ Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx (Blu-ray)

I Sell the Dead ~ Dominic Monaghan, Ron Perlman (Blu-ray and DVD)

Rivals of Sherlock Holmes: Set 2 ~ Derek Jacobi, Judy Geeson, Jean Marsh (DVD)

Sherlock Holmes ~ Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams (Blu-ray and DVD)

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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.

The 67th annual Golden Globes awards took place last night, and Avatar walked away top honors of  Best Picture and Best Director, fueling speculation that it is gaining momentum going into the Oscar nomination race. Avatar and Crazy Heart picked up two awards each, but there were no lopsided wins this year.

Critical darling The Hurt Locker was shut out and went home empty handed.  The Hurt Locker has been cleaning up top honors at Critic Circle awards nationwide. Up in the Air was nominated for six awards, but only won for Best Screenplay.

Veteran actors Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep won acting awards, and delivered particularly elegant and classy acceptance speeches.

On the television side, Dexter fared well, with John Lithgow and Michael C. Hall both winning acting awards.  HBO’s film Grey Gardens won two awards as well.  Mad Men won for Best Television Series, Drama and freshman series Glee won for best Television Series, Comedy or Musical.

A complete list of winners follows. Also, be sure to check out our photo gallery of all the winners after the jump.

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Saturday morning I thought that The Book Of Eli might actually pull off the feat of toppling the unstoppable Avatar, because it did lead the box office on Friday. Well, close, but no cigar. Avatar reigned supreme once again, and made an astonishing $41.3 Million in its 6th week of release, and it is still playing on over 3,000 screens.

Avatar has now surpassed Star Wars as the number three highest grossing movie of all time with a cumulative total of $491 Million. The Dark Knight stands at number two, with $533 Million.

The Book of Eli had a pretty decent showing, with $31.6 Million on just over 3,000 screens. If the movie gets good word of mouth, it should do well in upcoming weeks. In third place was The Lovely Bones, which fared better than I thought it would. It was postponed from last year, and has received somewhat of a critical drubbing, but it still managed $17.1 Million.

In my opinion, this is a testament to how much readers loved the book. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, hung around and made $11.5 Million for fourth place. The movie is closing in on $200 Million, as it now stands at $192 Million.

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Casting for the upcoming Green Lantern movie has become a little more interesting over the last few days. It was long rumored that the role of Sinestro, Green Lantern’s nemesis, would be played by Jackie Early Haley (Watchmen, A Nightmare on Elm Street).  It even went so far as to being kind of confirmed.  It turns out that Haley’s involvement may have been rumor all along.

According to director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale), Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes) is in talks to play Sinestro and discussed the Haley rumor with MTV:

“No, that’s completely wrong,” said Campbell of the persistent rumor, which popped up again recently despite Haley denying any involvement with the “Green Lantern” movie. “In fact, we’re in negotiations with Mark Strong to play Sinestro.”

I have no doubt this will bring another layer to the debate on who would be the best actor to play Sinestro. Even here at The Flickcast, it was discussed thoroughly. While I originally was in favor of Haley, I conceded to Chris’ choices of either Guy Pearce (The Hurt Locker) or Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix).  I wonder how Mark Strong will stack up against them?

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Well, I have officially run out of clever ways to say that Avatar won the weekend box office, and I think I still have weeks, if not months, to go. For the fourth week in a row, Avatar ruled the domestic box office and it has now made a mind-blowing $429 Million in one month. The movie dropped almost 30% from last weekend, yet still managed a hefty $48 Million, which places it in the seven spot for highest grossing movie (domestically) ever. It has earned $1.2 Billion globally.

Trailing the top earner were Sherlock Holmes, and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, which each made around $16 Million. Holmes has now made $165 Million in three weeks, and Squeakquel has made $178 Million in as many weeks. Both look poised to surpass $200 Million during their theatrical runs.

New releases were almost shut out of the top five this weekend, but the vampire horror flick Daybreakers, starring Ethan Hawke, managed to squeeze into fourth place with a respectable gross of $15 Million. It’s Complicated took the number five spot, and made $11 Million, for a cumulative total of $76 Million. The critically maligned  romantic comedy Leap Year stirred enough interest to make about $9 Million for sixth place.

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