When writer David Goyer left his post as showrunner for TV’s Flashforward there were rumblings about what he was up to. At the time the most obvious answer  was that he was helping director Christopher Nolan with the third Batman script. At the same time, DC had confirmed Nolan would be helping to get the Superman franchise back on track.

Well, today all the pieces are falling into place as we learn Goyer has been hired to write the next Superman movie.  A source confirmed the news to Latino Review and gave a little indication of what we can expect:

“I can tell you that Goyer’s story involves Luthor and Brainiac.  It is NOT an origin and assumes audiences already know about Lois, Clark, Jimmy and Perry.  I know the Daily Planet is struggling due to the internet.  And I know it sets up a huge Kryptonian mythology.”

Some other points of interest are that Bryan Singer and Brandon Routh will probably not return. Also, the film may be called The Man of Steel instead of Superman: The Man of Steel.  Contrary to prior rumors Mark Millar will not be involved  from the sounds of it.

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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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Well, it is the first box office recap of 2010, and it looks like I’ll be dropping  the “B” word, as in “Billion.”  Avatar sailed over the billion dollar mark in only its third week in release. Thanks to this worldwide total, it now sits comfortably at the  number four position of highest grossing movies of all time, right behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

It has already exceeded the total that took The Dark Knight its entire theatrical run to achieve, and Avatar has shown no signs of  slowing down. The movie dropped less than 10% from last weekend and made $68.3 Million, bringing its domestic total to over $352 Million.

There was plenty of box office love to go around this weekend, and several movies did exceptionally well. Sherlock Holmes added another $38.3 Million to its two week total, which now stands at over $140.7 Million. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel made $36.6 Million, for an impressive two week cumulative of $157.3 Million.

The adult comedy It’s Complicated only dropped  15% from its Christmas weekend opening, and racked up $18.7 Million for a strong fourth place. Fifth place went to The Blind Side, which has been in the top ten for over seven weeks now. It actually increased its total 10% over last weekend, and has made over $209 Million now.

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Inception, Christopher Nolan’s new film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and a whole slew of other great names including Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, Tom Berenger, and Michael Caine has finally got a new poster. Other than the fact that its brand new, the big hullabaloo about it is it’s uncanny resemblance to a poster for The Dark Knight, which featured Heath Ledger’s ‘Joker’ facing away from us, with a couple of cards in one hand and a knife in the other.

Both also feature their single character in the middle of a street with a city’s high-rises walling them in. Of course, one of the main differences in the poster for Inception is that DiCaprio’s character is knee-deep in water. The tagline that has already become an Internet meme in itself, “You mind is the scene of the crime,” sits at the top.

The other more interesting question raised by this poster is at the bottom where it states “see it Summer 2010 in IMAX.” I understand that it’s becoming a normal occurrence for summer blockbusters to be released in this format and Nolan has even become obsessed, you might say, with using the IMAX format, but I can’t help but wonder if this movie will actually benefit from being on the larger screen.

I trust that Nolan knows what he’s doing, and the teaser trailer that’s been released, looks pretty amazing.  Anyway, check out the larger poster after the break and mark July 16 2010 on your calendar.

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The Superman franchise continues to struggle as more details emerge from Warner Brothers.  In short, Warner Brothers still isn’t doing anything with the project. According to Warner Brothers insiders:

“The studio is still seeking the right direction. No writers are working on a Superman script. ‘We’re working on a strategy for DC,’ says one Warners exec. ‘Superman is the trickiest one to figure out.’ “

Still “seeking the right direction”? No writers? Tricky to figure out? How “tricky” can this be?  You only have several movies and hundreds of comics to draw inspiration from. Get it together Warner Brothers.

Now, there is the legal matter to deal with which is rather tricky. I can appreciate the fact WB wants these legalities with the Siegel Estate put to rest but seriously, get moving. Providing some indication that you’re actively developing a new movie could certainly help your case instead of simply squandering time.

Sadly, the only direction left for this property is the dreaded “r” word-reboot. Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns hardly met the studios expectations (but I for one liked it).  Having made $391 million worldwide it cost $232 million to make. Do the math and you can’t even compare that film to something like Christopher Nolan’s billion dollar Batman movie, The Dark Knight.

As we’ve noted on The Flickcast before the Siegel family will reclaim the Superman rights in 2013.  That means at a minimum film production has to start by 2011 (and that’s pushing it). The clock is ticking. Time to start moving faster than a speeding bullet Warner Brothers.

Last week I mentally predicted that New Moon would come in around the $80 Million mark. Obviously, there is a reason that I am not in the business of box office predictions. New Moon grossed over $140 Million during its opening weekend, and broke a few records along the way. Fangirls (and a few fanboys) showed that they are an emerging force to be reckoned with, as New Moon ($72.7 Million) broke the opening day record previously held by The Dark Knight ($67.2 Million.)

According to Entertainment Weekly, over 80% of the ticket sales were from women, a truly rare occurrence. Although the film was critically drummed, (currently 29% on Rotten Tomatoes) audiences gave it an A- cinemascore, indicating that they were very happy with the film. The film opened on a massive 4,000+ screens, and averaged over $34,900 per screen. There was a drop off from Friday to Saturday of about 40%.

Also of note: New Moon now has the 3rd biggest opening weekend ever behind The Dark Knight and Spiderman 3. Its midnight screening averages on Friday morning garnered over $26M, setting a new record for that. The world box office take was over $258 Million. Director Chris Weitz must feel vindicated after the disastrous box office performance of The Golden Compass, his last directorial effort.

Early estimates show that The Blind Side had an opening weekend gross of $34.5 Million, which is nothing to sneeze at. This marks the best opening ever for Sandra Bullock, just behind last summer’s The Proposal. The film also got a remarkable A+ cinemascore, which means it will start getting some seriously good word of mouth. Expect it to remain in the top ten for a long time.

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Zombieland opened this week and let me tell you it is, in my opinion, one of the best films of 2009. Only a day into its release Hollywood insiders were predicting the movie could go onto make $30 million in its opening weekend. If that happens it means Zombieland will have made back the $26 million and change it cost to make. While those numbers may not carry the weight of the billion dollars The Dark Knight made Zombieland’s rapid return on investment cannot be overlooked. Hollywood, take note, Zombieland should be the new standard of success.

All that said, I’m not writing a review of Zombieland by any means (Chris already wrote a great one), nor am I looking to talk about the merits of the film, of which there are many. No, I’m casting all the business stuff aside for the moment to speak about one thing: inspiration. You see, immediately after watching Zombieland I got home and was compelled to write (in this case a novel I’m working on). I had in me a burning desire to create. Therein lies the true success of Zombieland. For this writer, it spurred the creative forces that drive cinema.

How did it do this?  Simply put, the film was honest. There was no allusion to a grand design or twist ending. The characters were endearing and story practically A to B simple. Moreover, it defied stock conventions of the genre.  The girls weren’t running away screaming and guys not always the most heroic. These were characters anyone in the theater could relate to personally or through friends they probably know.  Being able to create that rapport with the audience was the secret weapon of Zombieland.  It connected with viewers (trust me on that, I saw the response from the packed theater first hand) and even if only for a few moments at a time they could see themselves in that world of zombies and loved it. Those are the moments writers, specifically, aspire to.

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This week on The Flickcast your favorite trio celebrates a milestone episode 25 and discusses a whole bunch of new topics including the Emmy Awards, Neil Patrick Harris’ hosting performance and Dick Cook stepping down from Disney. They also take on topics such as Christopher Nolan’s plans for a Dark Knight sequel, Johnny Depp’s future as Jack Sparrow and the future of the Pirate’s franchise, the Kirby family lawsuit, the season premiere of Heroes and a whole lot more.

Also, the team makes another set of great picks this week including Christina’s favorite CW show Gossip Girl, Matt’s pick of the web series The Legend of Neil and Chris’ pick of The Big Bang Theory, his favorite show involving four geeky physicists, the hot girl across the hall, Star Trek, robot wars and Comic-Con.

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

Thanks for listening.

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With all the sometimes disappointing and questionable remakes, reboots and do-overs coming out of Hollywood these days, sometimes its nice to get news of a reboot and actually be happy about it. What am I talking about? Well, according to The Risky Business Blog, The Dark Knight producer Charles Roven and Transporter producer Steve Chasman are teaming up to bring Remo Williams (aka “The Destroyer”) back to the big screen.

According to the report, the producers have enlisted Charley and Vlas Parlapanides, who are currently writing the action film War of Gods, to take on the screenplay based on the first book in the massive Destroyer novel catalog — which was written by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir in the 70s and 80s. In case you’re not familiar with The Destroyer, it concerns New Jersey cop Remo Williams, who’s convicted of a crime he didn’t commit.

Williams is sentenced to the electric chair, but his death is faked so he can become The Destroyer, a vigilante who joins a top-secret group of assassins set up by the government to operate outside the law. With the help of Chiun, his Korean mentor and a deadly assassin himself, Williams goes on missions for the government and takes his revenge on the criminal underworld and those who framed him.

As a big fan of the books and the original movie starring Fred Ward as Remo Williams and Joel Grey as Chiun, I’m pretty happy that The Destroyer is getting another chance at the big screen. Its a great story and one that, if done well, can be very entertaining and action-packed. No word yet on who will take on the role of Remo Williams. However, with the two producers involved, might it potentially be either Christian Bale or Jason Statham? It could happen and if it does, we’ll bring you all the news.

Variety is reporting that from now on, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will now nominate ten films for Best Picture instead of five. According to the article, the change comes after some observations of the 2008 nominees and Oscars show by the Academy, critics and the public.

Perhaps after the exclusion of such films as Wall-E and The Dark Knight from the Best Picture category last year, much to the dismay of many film lovers, industry workers, and cinema critics, the Academy hopes to “widen the spectrum” of films nominated. The board hopes that this change will “make it more interesting and less cloistered” in the future, giving room for both small independent movies and big box office hits to win Best Picture.

This change will only affect the Best Picture category, and not any others. This also isn’t the first time the Academy has done this. The Best Picture category had ten nominees from 1931 to 1943.