One thing will be certain in a few weeks. Once Summer starts there will be more high profile scores than Fridays and some good music might fall through the cracks. Which is precisely why I am so excited to bring you this early review of Danny Elfman’s score from Dark Shadows.

This score ranked as one of my most anticipated of the early summer season, and that anticipation was made all the more severe when we listened to the expanded preview a few weeks back. So suffice to say I am ready to dig into the 14th collaboration between Danny Elfman and Tim Burton.

That is a lot of feature film scores from a director with a very distinct style, and recently there has been a lot of concern about repetitiveness in Elfman’s music. You can only go to that stylized dark well so many times, and eventually it will be dried up completely.

So does this umpteenth collaboration yield beautiful sonic rewards, or is this little more than a Beetlejuice or Sleep Hallow remix album?

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Even though there’s a lot of movies being made from TV shows these days, that doesn’t mean we don’t have room for one more. That’s especially true when you combine the talents of Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eve Green, Chloe Moretz and Tim Burton.

In fact, that’s just what Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow have done with the upcoming film Dark Shadows. Based on the popular 70s TV series of the same name, the film features Depp as vampire Barnabas Collins and his re-emergence in 1972.

We’ve got the first full trailer from the film to share with you today. Watching the trailer it seems Burton has decided this is more of a comedy than the original series, which may or may not please fans. However, whatever Burton and company end up doing, you can be sure there’s going to be a lot of black, a lot of pasty people and probably some snow.

Check out the trailer after the break. Look for Dark Shadows to hit theaters on May 11.

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2012 is going to be a big year for stop-motion animation, with three high profile stop-motion animated features invading cinema’s throughout the year. The most notable of this bunch is Tim Burton’s next feature, Frankenweenie, which is a feature length, animated adaptation of Burton’s own 1982 short film.

Frankenweenie tells the tale of young Victor, a boy who loses his beloved dog Sparky and reanimates him with the power of electricity. If it was not obvious up to this point, the film is an homage to the Frankenstein movies and novel.

One thing that the poster clearly presents, but is still probably lost on most people, is that the film is shot in black and white. This is a bold creative decision for any film, and one Burton used to great success once before in Ed Wood.

However, it is still a tremendous risk for a stop-motion animated film, a genre that is usually noted for it’s ability to present vibrant and extraordinary visuals. Even Burton’s own Corpse Bride used color to great effect in illustrating the differences between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

The film is set for an early October release, just in time for Halloween! You can see the full poster after the jump.

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This may come as news to some of you. In addition to being President during one of the most tumultuous times in US history, Abraham Lincoln was secretly also a vampire hunter.

Well, at least that’s how history goes in the upcoming film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Produced by Tim Burton and directed by Timur Bekmambetov, the film is an adaptation of the Seth Grahame-Smith book about Lincoln and his quest to destroy the undead after his mother is killed by bloodsucking vampires.

We’ve got the first trailer for the film to share with you today. To be honest, we weren’t expecting much from this but it’s nice to be pleasantly surprised once in awhile. The pic, at least from this trailer, actually looks pretty good. You will, of course, have to judge for yourselves.

Check out the trailer after the break. Look for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which stars Benjamin Walker, Rufus Sewell, and Dominic Cooper to hit theaters on June 22.

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More and more, YouTube is become less of a place to watch cats beat up other cats, and more of a place to watch premium content that you are lucky to get for free on demand. In the past few years, one of those premium content trends has been “supercuts” and “movie mashups” where talented editors take clips from films and put them all together in one splendid masterpiece (if we do say so ourselves).

With that, one talented YouTuber named Kees van Dijkjuizen, an 18 year old films student from the Netherlands, who has been doing two series. One of which is a year-in-review Cinema supercut, that he’s done every year since 2008, and the other is his [the films of] series in which he showcases some of the most critically acclaimed directors of our time, from Christopher Nolan, to Tim Burton, and Ridley Scott.

His latest cut is the finale of the latter series, and it’s is a dedication to Steven Spielberg. This was a big one for him, which he lays out in the description.

Film as we know it today was shaped by thousands of creative minds working together to create something special for the audience to experience. Among those is Steven Spielberg; considered by many to be the true master of modern day cinema, Spielberg’s 26 feature films have each taken us to magical worlds, introduced us to fantastic characters and on adventures we will never forget. [the films of] has honored many filmmakers, but none of them as significant to film history as the genius featured in this final episode.

Take a look at the supercut after the jump, and check out his YouTube channel here.

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Welcome to another edition of On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage during the week. Let is know if we missed something interesting.

• While things aren’t going so well for the Uncharted or Assassin’s Creed film adaptations, that hasn’t stopped a studio from moving forward on a film based on the classic monster game Rampage.

• The heads of action fans everywhere may just explode when they see the very first poster for The Expendables 2 featuring Norris, Van Damme, and the whole cast.

• Take a jump in a depressing time machine as you see young Tim Burton acting as normal as ever in this footage from Disney Studios circa 1980.

• It looks like the internet is seeping into mainstream media again, as The Annoying Orange was just announced to have a show coming up on Cartoon Network.

• Exactly how many times did The Force get brought up in all 6 Star Wars films? We have no idea, but here they all are.

• You may know the prime Muppets, but here is a list of the best known Muppets from around the world that you may have never heard of. Like Oscar the Grouch’s Israeli cousin.

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This week’s pick is Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (1999), a newer take on Washington Irving’s legendary 1820 novel The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Johnny Depp stars as Ichabod Crane, a New York City police constable who is sent to the quaint upstate village that is the sight of several grizzly decapitations.

Crane believes in science and deductive reasoning, where as the local inhabitants of the sleepy little hamlet attribute the murders to the slain ghost of a Hessian mercenary killed during the American Revolution.

Crane believes that the killer is flesh and blood, and not a demonic spirit as told to him by the town’s elders. Using his powers of deduction and a bag of scientific/forensic tools to discover traces which will lead him to the killer, Crane is about to discover that in the age of reason, there are still many things that are beyond comprehension in the world of Tim Burton.

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• Alec Baldwin is very excited to be the first host of this season of SNL, so excited he felt the need to hump Bill Heder.

• Netflix had a pretty big week, between splitting off into 2 companies and pissing off their clientele. This song pretty much explains it all.

• What happens when the world’s biggest game of dodgeball starts on a football field? Complete pandemonium.

• One of the wrongest-yet-funniest comedies on TV started back up this week as It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia returned to FX. In order to prep for the season, here is the blooper reel from last season.

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This comes directly from the “things we would love to have when we’re filthy rich” department. Yes, we have one of those here at The Flickcast. Doesn’t everyone?

To what lust-inducing thing of beauty am I referring? Well, be sure you’re sitting down because this one is pretty impressive. I’m talking, of course, about a turbine powered Keaton-era Batmobile.

Designed and built by Casey Putsch, the car is a hand-made repliaca of the famous vehicle powered by the same Boing engine used in a Navy drone helicopter. Sadly (but good for someone else) Putsch has decided it’s time for his creation to go to someone else.

So, what do you do with your turbine powered Batmobile when you want to sell it? You put it on eBay of course.

The price? Well, as they say, if you have to ask you can’t afford it. Okay, it’s $620,000. Start looking under those sofa cushions.

Also, click through for a video of the car in action.

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Well, there wasn’t much of a box office battle this weekend as Clash of the Titans easily slayed the competition with a total weekend haul of $61.4 Million. Some weekend totals are reflecting Thursday night earnings as well, which brings the total closer to $64 Million.

Despite the fact that most critics were horrified by the look of the post-production 3D of the movie, and practically begged audiences to see the 2D instead, it seems that roughly half of the weekend revenue was from 3D screenings (LA Times.) The 3D money train marches on, at least for another weekend.

It is of interest to note that the movie did drop almost 20% from Friday to Saturday, which can be a direct result of bad word of mouth.

Tyler Perry pulled out yet another surprise as Why Did I Get Married Tooearned $30 Million. Perry has an an unconventional marketing strategy-he never pre-screens his movies for critics. His movies always enjoy an opening day unfettered by any reviews, positive or negative.

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This week On the Radar Michael Bay does his part to help take down the American car industry, MGM loses a bidder as it struggles to stay afloat, and in completely contradictory fashion James Cameron, of all people, advocates against 3D.

Maleficent finds a writer in Wonderland

Long before Alice in Wonderland stormed the box office there were rumblings about director Tim Burton tackling one of Disney‘s best baddies, Maleficent.  Well, the success of Alice has only bolstered this film’s development and Alice in Wonderland writer Linda Woolverton has been tapped to write t script.  While there were some Alice detractors out there, it’s hard to argue the success of the film.

For better or worse I think we’re witnessing the beginning of the fairy tale phase in cinema.  I’m sure the studios couldn’t be happier.  Most fairy tales, in their original iteration, are in the public domain which means the whopping cost of zero to use the stories.  Sorry, Disney, but you couldn’t be the sole exploiter of classic children’s tales forever.

Bryan Singer off X-Men: First Class?

When word came out about Bryan Singer returning to the X-Men franchise fanboys rejoiced.  Well, the excitement certainly didn’t last too long.  It seems Singer has to choose between X-Men: First Class and Jack the Giant Killer.  Unfortunately, he can’t do both:

“Before Singer can dive into casting, he has a rather large problem –  the fact that Warner Bros. has the filmmaker on the hook to direct ‘Jack the Giant Killer.’  Fox, flush with money from ‘Avatar,’ is eager to move forward with its mutant franchise in all of its permutations, so there are negotiations that need to be done.

With Singer contractually obligated to Warner Bros. it means Fox has begun searching for other directors to reignite the X-Men films.

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The offbeat, swirly, Gothic-lite, snow-filled reign of Tim Burton will never let up. According to Deadline Hollywood Daily, Universal’s Illumination Entertainment has snagged the rights to Charles Addams’ original The Addams Family cartoons with an eye to letting Burton direct a stop-motion feature out of them. Why yes, the term “3D” is also being tossed around. Yay.

I love The Addams Family. I was unhealthy obsessed with the Barry Sonnenfeld film as a pre-teen, and I used to hang out at the bookstore reading the original cartoon collections. It was the closest I got to becoming a Goth.  While I’ve enjoyed a lot of Burton films over the years, I’m not sure I want to see the Addams sent through The Burton Factory, and made out to be a family with a penchant for swirls and black and white stripes.

DHD notes that Burton will ignore the previous films and television show, and return straight to the source.  Apparently, he’s quite drawn to the sharp wit of the original comics. And they are funny. Much funnier than Burton’s Addams imitation, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy which is just kind of gross and painful to read.

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