Last year, Niell Blomkamp’s District 9 changed how major studios looked at small science fiction projects. Before, ideas like “aliens in a dystopian future” were mostly reserved for direct-to-video productions. But now more and more studios are investing in scripts like these, hoping to ride the Avatar or District 9 success. Enter Jim.

The story behind Jim can be considered a little complicated, to say the least, so try to stay with the official synopsis, because it takes an interesting turn in the middle.

Being steadily crushed under the weight of debt, unemployment, and increasing isolation, Jim reaches a breaking point. Over a game of solitary Russian roulette he contemplates an unspeakable act of violence as a way of leaving his mark. He is stopped short by a vision of his deceased wife who convinces him that he should instead focus his remaining resources into an act of creation. Armed with his wife’s frozen eggs and a new resolve, Jim secures the services of a large biotech firm to help him create an heir who will be engineered to overcome the obstacles of common men.

Meanwhile in the distant future Niskaa, the leader of a group of genetically modified beings, controls a race of worker clones in a super-industrialized, post-human Earth. As he tries to restore his decrepit empire he comes face to face with a young clone that shows an unprecedented capacity for reason and empathy. Somehow connected to Jim via dreams, the clone manifests secrets of Nature that Niskaa has not accounted for…

The film comes from first-time writer/director Jeremy Morris-Burke, and looks like it could just be a new era for independent science fiction films. Check out the first trailer after the jump. Catch Jim in NY and LA theaters on October 8th and 16th.

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With X-men: First Class scheduled to start filming next week, 20th Century Fox has turned their focus to the their next Marvel film. That film? A reboot of Fantastic Four.

Rumors about the films casting have started with news that The Thing will be completely CGI and Sue Storm being played by Alice Eve or Amber Heard, and it seems the film’s star power will be stemming from the group leader Mr. Fantastic. The two actors in the running for Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards are Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Adrien Brody.

While Jonathan Rhys Meyers is probably best known for his starring role in the Showtime series The Tudors, he also has From Paris With Love in which he starred opposite John Travolta under his belt. He’s also been seen in film such as Mission Impossible III, Match Point and Bend It Like Beckham.

The bigger get would obviously be Adrien Brody, who is quietly growing into an action film with the recent releases of Predators and Splice. Brody is also the forerunner for Edgar Wright’s Ant-man for Marvel Studios. Having the Oscar winning actor attached to the film would add some credibility to the project.

The title of the film will not be Fantastic Four Reborn as previously report, but the actual title has not been released. Now that Chiklis is moving on to No Ordinary Family on ABC and Evans is headed over to work on that other Marvel movie, who would YOU cast as The Thing and Human Torch in the upcoming reboot?

This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt chat about one of the bigger cultural events of this past weekend, the MTV Movie Awards. They delve into why people actually watch the awards, and some of their favorite moments. Plus, they talked all things iPhone 4, which was just announced this week.

Also, the boys weighed in on some pretty big casting news for Marvel fans with Stanley Tucci, Neal McDonough and Jeremy Renner joining various upcoming movies. Plus, they debated the various actors in the running to play the title role in the new Spider-Man reboot.

This week’s picks stayed in the realm of science fiction as Chris picked the recently released movie Splice, which is currently in theaters. Matt also stayed inside the sci-fi world as he picked the comic Serenity: Float On, which takes place after the film, and is written by comedian Patton Oswalt.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.

Killers over Splice?  Really?  What’s wrong with movie audiences? It was another dismal weekend at the box office, and Hollywood executives might be feeling the first pangs of panic over the Summer’s box office potential (or lack thereof.)  Audiences just don’t seem to be into anything that is out in theaters right now, and a three week holdover beat out four new releases for the number one spot.

Shrek Forever After nabbed the top spot with $25 Million, beating out Killers, Splice, Marmaduke, and Get Him to the Greek.  Shrek is still playing on over 4,300 screens, so even though its per-screen total was pretty week ($5,000) it still only dropped about 40% from last week.

Coming in at number two was Get Him to the Greek, the Jonah Hill/Russell Brand comedy produced by Judd Apatow.  The movie was a spin off of Brand’s character from Saving Sarah Marshall.  Interestingly, both movies made almost identical amounts of money on their opening weekend.  Saving Sarah Marshall made around $17.7 Million, and Get Him to the Greek made $17.4 Million (per Box Office Mojo.)

Killers, the “we’re not screening it for critics because we want them to experience the movie along with everyone else” movie managed to make $16.1 Million.  The reviews have started rolling in, and it stands at a proud 14% on Rotten Tomatoes.   For the life of me, I don’t know who was clamoring to see this movie, because merely watching the trailer made me want to gouge my eyes out.

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Given the current spate of advances in genetic engineering, Splice seems eerily prescient. After all, we have already seen the rapid evolution of cloning. Supermarkets now carry cloned produce, and mammals are routinely and successfully cloned as well. Is it really unreasonable to assume we will see a human-animal hybrid in our lifetime? Who’s to say one doesn’t already exist?

It is hard to believe that director Vincenzo Natali (Cube) first conceived the idea for Splice almost 15 years ago, all because he was intrigued by the shocking image of the Vacanti mouse, that little white mouse that had a human ear growing out of its back. The result is this chilling sci-fi/horror hybrid that is teeming with the ethical and moral implications of genetic research.

Elsa (Sarah Polley, The Sweet Hereafter) and Clive (Adrien Brody, The Pianist) are gifted young genetic bio-engineers, who have successfully spliced the genetic material of different animals into a hybrid. A pharmaceutical company has sponsored them, in the hopes of developing new medications.

Frustrated, Elsa chomps at the bit to add a little human DNA to the next experiment, but the company shoots her down, deeming it too risky, not to mention illegal.

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This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt are joined by nobody and instead go it alone with a bunch of new topics. Some of these topics include Guillermo del Toro stepping down as director of The Hobbit, the upcoming films Splice and Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World,  Donald Glover as Spider-Man, J.J. Abrams potential reboot of Alias and who the real protagonist of the Star Wars saga is.

The boys also made some picks this week including Matt’s pick of  the talk show Shatner’s Raw Nerve and Chris’ pick of Rockstar Games’ hit Red Dead Redemption.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.

This Friday, the Science Fiction/Horror hyprid Splice hits theaters, and we recently got the chance to speak with director Vincenco Natali. Natali spoke about the upcoming film, the horror genre, and even his prospects of working on a film adaptation of the DC Comics character Swamp Thing.

In Splice, Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley star as genetic engineers who recklessly splice human and animal DNA, the result being Dren (nerd spelled backward), a creature that brings to light the unintended consequences of messing with mother nature.  

The Flickcast: The movie touches on medical ethics, moral implications of medical research, and it is very timely and  topical right now. Was that your intention, or is it just fortuitous that some of these things are closer to  becoming a reality?

Vincenzo Natali: The movie was really inspired by this thing called the Vacanti mouse, which was a mouse that appeared to have a human ear growing out of it’s back, it was pretty disturbing.

You know, we have a very visceral reaction to these things, and it really inspired me in a way. As it turned out, in the length of time that it took me to develop the script the science really evolved exponentially.

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We’ve been following director Vincenzo Natali’s latest film Splice for a little while now because, among other reasons, we’re big fans of sci-fi around here and his first film, Cube, was a pretty great low-budget first feature effort. And now, thanks to the power of the Internets (and the folks at Collider), we can bring you a new clip from the film as well as a poster.

In case you’re not familiar with Splice, it concerns “superstar genetic engineers Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) specialize in splicing DNA from different animals to create incredible hybrids.” These driven scientists use human DNA to create a hybrid that, at first, surpasses their wildest dreams.

But as this hybrid, called Dren, begins to grow, those dreams turn into nightmare as it begins to develop unexpected abilities and appetites. Well, that does sound scary and after looking at this latest clip, I’m even more interested in this film. The effects look pretty good for such a low budget and who doesn’t love science gone wrong allegories? I know I do.

We’ll bring you more on this film as it gets closer to the release date, including an exclusive interview with director Vincenzo Natali, so be sure and check back soon. Until then, check out the clip and poster after the jump. Splice hits theaters on June 4.

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