Despite some pretty scathing reviews, the exorcism film The Rite won the weekend box office with $15 M. Although the film won, that is a pretty disappointing total for a weekend box office winner. This is one of those films where there was a wide disconnect between critics and audiences. The people who were polled by Cinemascore after seeing the movie  gave it a satisfactory “B” average rating. Compare that to the 17% on Rotten Tomatoes. Huge disparity.

No Strings Attached held pretty strong in its second weekend.  The romantic comedy starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher came in at number two. The film only dropped a modest 30%, making about $13.6 M.  It has been a bit of a surprise hit, mostly due to a tight $25 M budget.  The two week total stands at $39 M.

The weekend’s other new release was The Mechanic, and it came in closely behind No Strings Attached with $11.5 M. It had a fairly average per/screen average of about $4,300. According to Sunday’s estimates, this puts The Mechanic in a tie with holdover The Green Hornet, which also made $11.5 M. After three weeks, Hornet has made over $78 M.

The big story this week is The King’s Speech, which upstaged The Social Network at the DGA awards and the SAG awards over the weekend.  The film is getting a serious bounce from all the awards talk, but The Weinstein Company also increased the theater count for the film by over $40% this weekend. Smart.

Natalie Portman continues to impress, as she has not one, but two films in the top ten this week.  The romantic comedy No Strings Attached, featuring Portman and Ashton Kutcher, nabbed the top spot at the box office over the weekend by selling about $20.3 M in tickets. The film is directed by Ivan Reitman, and is the first movie starring Portman to win the box office since 2006, when she starred in V For Vendetta. It attracted a mostly female audience, typical for a romantic comedy.

Black Swan, the psychological thriller, was her second film to place in the top ten. Coming in at number six, the movie picked up $6.2 M in its eighth week in release, bringing its box office total to $83.5 M. If the film picks up a few Oscar nominations (announced on Tuesday morning), it is sure to continue a steady march toward $100 M.

Last week’s winner, The Green Hornet, dropped off 46% from its opening week total.  It came in at number two this week with $18 M, bringing its two week total to $63 M.  It was a costly production to make ($120 M) so it still needs to sell quite a few seats to earn back its budget.

The Dilemma had an almost identical drop off, and made an additional $9.7 M. The King’s Speech is now in its 9th week of release, and only dropped 2% from last week. This is another film that will surely enjoy a boost from multiple Oscar nominations on Tuesday.

True Grit came in at number five with $8 M, making it the second highest grossing western of all time (Dances With Wolves holds the record).  The Housemaid, Barney’s Version, The Company Men, The Illusionist, and Another Year all fared nicely in limited release.

This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt stumble about and try not to embarrass themselves too much. They also manages to talk about a whole bunch of new and returning topics as they often do.

Some of these topics include the Golden Globes, new pics from The First Avenger and Spider-Man, Steve Jobs taking a leave of absence from Apple, the box office success of The Green Hornet, Spartacus: Blood and Sand casting news, Anne Bancroft’s career and more.

They also made some new picks this week including Matt’s double pick of The Last Exorcism and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead as well as Chris’ pick of the classic drama Network.

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 or via email.

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There have been rumors swirling for a long time that The Green Hornet was a troubled production.  Original director Stephen Chow bailed on the movie; George Clooney was once attached, as was Kevin Smith.

Eventually Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) took over the directing duties.  Seth Rogan co-wrote the movie, and stars as the title character. Many felt that he was all wrong for the role of the beloved superhero, but he did end up losing about 30 pounds to slim down for the role.

After all is said and done, The Green Hornet is a mixed bag.  I liked certain parts, but more often than not I had to keep myself from mentally checking out to go over my grocery list. I had to concentrate on watching the movie, and that is never a good sign.

Seth Rogan plays Britt Reid, the Paris Hilton of the publishing world. The sole heir of a publishing empire, Britt spends his life partying and behaving like an all around jackass.  He has a bad relationship with his no nonsense father (Tom Wilkinson) who has no time or patience for his son’s antics. We are shown in flashbacks that the two never had a warm relationship.

When Britt’s father abruptly dies (from a bee sting), Britt must finally step up and take some responsibility. He makes fast friends with his father’s auto mechanic Kato (who is later revealed to be master gadget maker) and with the support of his new friend, he decides to run The Daily Sentinel, his father’s legacy building publication.

The San Diego Comic-Con schedule continues to roll out and now Friday’s list of events, panels, screenings and more has been released. Where Thursday was chock full of diverse programming from comics to movies to a super geek extravaganza in the Joss Whedon / J.J. Abrams panel, Friday has more of a recurring theme going thought it. That theme? Star Wars.

That’s right, Comic-Con has chosen to honor one of the greatest film franchises of all time and bring you several panels and events directly related to that theme. Some of the highlights of Friday’s schedule for us include screenings of Batman: Brave and the Bold, Dimension Film’s Piranha: 3D panel, the Dark Horse Comics panel, AMC’s The Walking Dead panel and the Big Bang Theory panel.

In addition, one of our favorite shows, Spartacus: Blood and Sand, comes to the Con for the first time as well as these: Sony Pictures’ The Other Guys and The Green Hornet panel, a Girls Who Kick Ass panel, the True Blood panel and premiere screening of 30 Days of Night: Dark Days and Batman: Under the Red Hood.

Yes, Friday at San Diego Comic-Con looks to be yet another day chock full of great things to see and experience. Sadly, you won’t get to see it all because you just can’t be in three paces at once. If only they could perfect that cloning technology. We can dream. Until then, get used to some disappointment.

Click through for the full Friday schedule. Of course, be sure to check back right here for more on San Diego Comic-Con.

Not a lot of people are holding out hope for Seth Rogen’s Green Hornet. There seems to be a general consensus from both the studio and the critic community that the film looks pretty awful, to the point where Sony has already attempted to save the film by converting it to 3D and pushing back the release date to a less active weekend.

It just seems that the film is destined for Jonah Hex-style obscurity. With that said, you should know exactly what to expect when going into the film. You could end up having the time of your life if you have little-to-no expectations, and the film could end up surprising you entirely.

The newest trailer lends to that theory. Written by Rogen and Evan Golberg, the same team who did Superbad, the film is a comedic send up to the classic pulp hero. Inglorious Basterds’ star Christoph Waltz even steps in as the film’s baddie, which should raise the film’s geek cred.

Check out the newest international trailer for the flick after the jump. Then, lower your expectations and check out Rogen’s The Green Hornet in theaters on January 14th, 2011.

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.”

This week On the Radar some details emerge on the next Jack Ryan adventure, a possible front runner to fill Peter Parker’s shoes, and bad news for The Green Hornet.

Marvel continues end credit Easter Eggs in Iron Man 2

In keeping with tradition of recent Marvel flicks this Summer’s Iron Man 2 will allegedly have extra footage post-credits.  While it’s hard to confirm just what exactly will be included this time around, speculation surrounds possible appearances by Thor and/or Captain America.  This of course leads into those two films hitting screens next Summer.  So, make sure to hang around after the film.

Michael Bay set to destroy your TV

I suppose it was only  a matter of time before Michael Bay decided to get into the television production game.  While the reality TV project probably won’t have as many explosions as the Transformers films, it definitely sounds like a premise only Bay could conceive:

“For my first television project I wanted to do something that had never been done before, and I believe that ‘One Way Out’ accomplishes that,” Bay said. “Combining unique twists, death-defying challenges, and stunning visuals, we are reinventing the genre, showing just how far people will go when they are stripped of their bare necessities and forced to do whatever it takes to survive.”

That description sounds vaguely familiar.  Maybe this series is just re-edited behind-the-scenes material from his movie shoots.  If that’s the case, I’m totally on board with this show, too bad no network has picked up the project yet.  Come on guys, this is Michael Bay, master of explosions, what could possibly go wrong.  Boom!