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.