If you’ve been keeping with our previous posts, you can see that this year is going to be quite the melting pot of horror films. In today’s installment, we sum it all up with the final films of 2012.

Check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven’t yet. Now onto the rest.

October 5, 2012 – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D

(Distributed by Lionsgate Films) This film is intended as somewhat of an alternate sequel to the original 1974 film directed by Tobe Hooper and advances thirty five years into the story.

October 19, 2012 – Paranormal Activity 4

(Distributed by Paramount Pictures) The film is a continuation of the series.  If you’ve seen one then you’ve pretty much seen them all.

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The upcoming World War Z is one of the more interesting high profile films of 2012. It is based on one of the best pieces of Zombie fiction yet written, and it has a stellar cast and crew. Yet there are reports that the studio wants a PG-13 rating and any one familiar with the source material is concerned about the structure this film will take.

So any positive sign from the people involved with the film is encouraging, and we got exactly that when Brad Pitt sat down with the Los Angeles Times:

For Pitt, the big sci-fi thriller also represents his strongest bid to have a big film franchise of his own, which might be viewed as the missing piece of his career jigsaw puzzle. Forster and Paramount Pictures each view “World War Z” as a trilogy that would have the grounded, gun-metal realism of, say, Damon’s Jason Bourne series tethered to the unsettling end-times vibe of AMC’s “The Walking Dead.”

World War Z is not a strait narrative type book, with many stories that are generally unrelated but come together to form an oral history of the great Zombie war. Knowing that they not only have faith in the product to view it has a franchise, but also have no intention of wrapping up the Apocalypse in one film is fantastic to hear.

Even as those of us here in the US celebrate our independence day, our friends across the pond are hard at work still bringing the news. One awesome bit that’s surfaced today are the first set photos from the eagerly anticipated film World War Z.

The Daily Mail has a bunch of photos from the Malta set, dressed to look like an Israeli border checkpoint, featuring the film’s star Brad Pitt and the first glimpse of the evil zombie hordes that will menace him, and the world, during the film.

In the film, Pitt will play the author of the World War Z book Max Brooks, and tell the story of his exploits collecting the stories and experiences of those who have survived the human victory over the zombie hordes, also known as World War Z.

Even though we seem to be getting a lot more zombie stories these days, the fact that this book is finally getting the big screen treatment is welcome news. Love the book and can’t wait to see the film. For more, you can check out my interview with the real Max Brooks over at ComicMix.

Click through to check out all the pics. The Marc Forster-directed World War Z is expected sometime next year.

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World War Z, by Max Brooks, has been gestating in Hollywood pre-production limbo for years now. It is a tough nut to crack with most of it’s narrative being told in one-on-one interviews between Brooks and his fictional characters. Despite the academic structure, Brooks still managed to craft an apocalyptic world that is engrossing and terrifying in it’s realism.

According to Bleeding Cool, production on the feature film version is finally making serious forward momentum as Director of Photography has begun preparations for the shoot, and it is a good one:

Robert Richardson, who recently wrapped Martin Scorsese’s Hugo Cabret down at Shepperton. This time he will be working out of another one of our big production bases, over at Elstree. Amongst Richardson’s other credits are Kill Bill, Natural Born Killers and Eight Men Out.

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San Diego Comic-Con has barely started and we can already bring you some pretty cool news about a great project. During an interview with MTV during preview night at the Con, World War Z writer Max Brooks confirmed that not only is the big screen adaptation of his novel finally moving forward, but Brad Pitt has officially been attached to star in the film.

Back when I interviewed Brooks over two years ago, his novel was just being adapted by Babylon 5 and comics writer J. Michael Straczynski. Since then, writer Michael Carnahan has penned a draft. In addition, the film is still moving forward with Quantum of Solace director Marc Forester attached.

Also according to reports, the novel World War Z isn’t the only zombie story from Max Brooks headed for the big screen. Both The Zombie Survival Guide and The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks graphic novel have also been optioned and will be adapted for the big screen by writers yet to be determined.

According to Brooks, the studio is currently targeting a Summer 2012 release for World War Z, which chronicles a worldwide zombie outbreak through the first-hand accounts of survivors. No further information is available on the other two projects at the moment, but when it is you can be sure we’ll bring it to you.

This week On the Radar Leonard Nimoy says goodbye to Spock, Robert Downey Jr. may journey to the land of Oz, and Mickey Rourke wants to play one of the most feared Mongolians in history.

Did Jason Voorhees just get killed? Oh, the irony!

However evil slasher Jason Voorhees may appear to be it seems there is something that can stop him afterall-movie studios.  While the recent remake of Friday the 13th garnished nearly $100 million worldwide, producer Brad Fuller responded to a fan via Twitter and said a sequel may be dead.

Platinum Dunes does not seem interested in continuing the story at this time.  Let’s not count Jason out yet, though.  Freddy Krueger is about to leap bag onto the big screen in the Nightmare on Elm Street remake.  If that’s successful, Voorhees may climb out of the grave once more.

Leonard Nimoy to hang up his Spock ears for good

While not as active as his friend William Shatner on the acting front, Leonard Nimoy took fanboys by storm by reprising his role as Spock in J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot.  He caused further excitement by taking on the enigmatic role of William Bell in the TV series Fringe.  Unfortunately, it seems Nimoy is ready to step back from the celebrity life:

“I want to get off the stage. Also, I don’t think it would be fair to Zachary Quinto,” he says, referring to the actor who portrayed a youthful Spock in last summer’s smash Star Trek relaunch. “He’s a terrific actor, he looks the part, and it’s time to give him some space. And I’m very flattered the character will continue.”

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With both Chris and Matt extremely busy and the American Thanksgiving this week, you know what that means? The Canadians are taking over The Flickcast (are you with me Sal?).

Having celebrated Thanksgiving weeks ago, we’re in the clear to keep the geek news coming while our neighbors to the South take a few days off.  So be prepared to face sentences ending with “eh”, weird dialect (can you say “aboot”) and an abundance of unnecessary apologizing.  Alright, maybe I’m overstating all that but let me take a moment to wish a very Happy upcoming Thanksgiving from all of us up North.

Now, let’s get to that geek news I was talking aboot. Speaking with Collider, writer J. Michael Stracynski commented on one of our highly anticipated film adaptions, Max Brooks’ World War Z. Even having written five drafts of the film Stracynski only had one response as to whether the script was finished, “One never knows.”

He did however mention that a director (no name was given) was attached to the project and Paramount was looking to get the film done having invested so much money in development so far. Given the unique first person narrative of the story Stracynski took a somewhat simple approach to adapting the book for film:

“A series of interviews, so I basically said, ‘Well, who did those interviews?’ And you tell the story of the guy who works for the UN going around the planet interviewing folks to see what happened to them and report on what happened. Through his eyes, you see flashbacks of those storylines.”

The great thing about this is that Stracynski is one of the best character-driven writers in the industry in my opinion.  As great as the zombies will be, the characters should be as equally entertaining to watch. We can’t wait to see World War Z move forward and will keep you posted as more news develops, eh!

Get ready all you World War Z and general zombie fans Night of the Living Dead is coming back to life. This time around they’ll crawl from their graves not only in CG but also in 3D. The new film, entitled Night of the Living Dead: Origins will be a “re-imaging” of the original, focusing more on the backstory of the characters. Don’t worry, I’m sure there will still be plenty of zombie brain-eating goodness.

While the film will make use of current 3D technology, there is also some interesting new tech being used on this production:

“…a real-time effects system, known as ‘The Beast’, which allows filmmakers the ability to direct CG performances the same way they would direct real live actors.  The aim of the process is to make tennis balls on a stick representing real people or monsters a thing of the past by allowing actors interact with CG elements as if they are tangible.”

This technology will certainly change the way future CG movies are created and enhance the interaction between real actors and their normally imaginary co-stars. While Night of the Living Dead: Origins will be directed by newcomer Zebediah de Soto, the film is being produced by Simon West who directed such mainstream films as Con Air and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

One notable name that’s not involved, at least at this point, is original Night of the Living Dead director George Romero.  As such, it will be interesting to see if he endorses the new film in some way or not. No word on a filming schedule, casting or a release date as of yet, but when there is, we’ll bring it to you.

If you love zombies, are a fan of Max Brooks’ excellent novel World War Z and are excited a feature film version of the novel is being made, then this news might be a bit disappointing to you. According to Fangoria News, the adaptation of Brook’s novel about a war against a virtually unstoppable zombie horde is going to take a bit longer to hit the screen than originally thought.

In an interview with the Swiss site Migros-Magazin referenced in the article, World War Z director Marc Forster, of the recent Quantum of Solace, said that the screenplay by J. Michael Straczynski is in development but “still far from realization.” And instead of waiting around for it to be ready, Forster has moved on to another project, the thriller Disconnect. As for World War Z, hopefully we’ll get to see it eventually after the script is ready. It just doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing it any time soon.

When I interviewed Max Brooks last year, he was pretty sure the scrip was moving along nicely. Although, as he said in the interview, he didn’t really have that much to do with it except for the fact he was thrilled J. Michael Straczynski was the writer. Now that the script seems to be taking longer than expected and the film is delayed, I wonder how he feels about it now?

I know how I feel. This delay is unfortunate for sure but I choose to look on the potential bright side here. Mayabe Stracyznski is taking so long because he wants the script to be awesome? And maybe the departure of Forster isn’t such a bad thing? To be honest, I didn’t really like Quantum of Solace very much so if Forster never comes back, maybe we’ll get an even better dirctor? One can hope.