This may be the biggest year for the Academy Awards, as some major Hollywood players are going up against some fresh newcomers. Eyeballs everywhere will be glued to ABC on Sunday, February 27th at 8PM E/5PM P when the awards show goes live. But before that, we decided to do some picking of our own with the staff’s predictions for each award.

For a full list of the nominees, check out our previous article on the subject. Now, on to the predictions.

Best Picture

Shannon Hood-The Social Network. It had early and consistent momentum all year, and the Academy appears to be trying to shake up their stodgy image. This would be the perfect film to put their money where their mouth is.

Matt Raub – True Grit. Not only are the Coens a regular in the “I Have an Oscar” club, but this testament to classic western films is definitely one for record books, between its all-star cast and gritty (no pun intended) visual style, this one definitely deserves the golden statue.

Chris Ullrich – True Grit. Even though this was a pretty great year for movies and there are many excellent choices in this category, True Grit stands on its own as my pick. As an example of pure movie storytelling, this Coen Brothers masterpiece excels on every level and delivers a pure entertainment experience you will want to revisit many more times in the future.

Cortney Zamm – The Social Network. There’s a lot of great films in this category, some of them from my favorite directors and starring my favorite people. But the one that combined all of the essential elements of filmmaking into a truly gorgeous, compelling, and memorable film was The Social Network.

Though it was rumored months ago, Marvel Studios has officially announced that actor Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith in The Matrix, among others) has been cast as the main antagonist, the Red Skull, in Joe Johnston’s upcoming Captain America: The First Avenger.

The news doesn’t come as much of a shock, even without the rumors. Weaving has made himself known as one of the top character actors to play a marketable villain since his work in The Matrix, and has even reprrised his badassery in Michael Bay’s Transformers films as Megatron. Also, director Johnston just finished and released The Wolfman for Universal, which cast Weaving as one of the main characters.

In the film, the character is said to be an updated version of the villain we know from the comics. In this incarnation, Johann Schmidt is drafted into the Third Reich and given the codename “The Red Skull.” In the comics, Schmidt is given the name due to an accident that caused his head to be…a red skull. Whether or not they will actually put Weaving in tons of makeup has yet to be announced.

The film also stars Sebastian Stan (Hot Tub Time Machine) as Bucky Barnes, Hayley Atwell (The Prisoner) as Peggy Carter, and Chris Evans as the titular Captain America. Captain America: The First Avenger is currently set to hit theaters on July 22, 2011.

In the latest The First Avenger: Captain America news, HeatVision is reporting that Hugo Weaving (Matrix, Lord of the Rings) is Marvel Studio’s first choice to star as the film’s villain, Red Skull. In the comic books, Red Skull is Captain America’s archenemy, engaging in espionage and sabotage as Adolf Hitler’s right-hand man.

If Weaving is tapped, it would reunite the star with director Joe Johnston, whom he worked with in this year’s The Wolfman. In other casting news, the list of Captain America contenders appears to have thinned.

We recently reported that five actors were in the running. However, HeatVision and Deadline New York have both reported that John Krasinski is no longer in the race for the coveted role. According to the sites, Marvel is now considering Wilson Bethel (Generation Kill), Mike Vogel (Cloverfield), Chris Evans (Fantastic Four) and Garrett Hudlund (Tron Legacy), who have all either read, tested, or received test offers.

The First Avenger: Captain America is slated for a July 11, 2011 release.

Director Martin Scorsese and frequent collaborator Leonardo DiCaprio proved to be a lethal combination at the box office this weekend, as Shutter Island sold the most tickets. The psychological thriller scared up a healthy $40 Million during its first weekend in release, buoyed by mostly favorable reviews. The film piqued the interest of horror fans, DiCaprio fans, and  Scorsese loyalists.

Despite tumbling a massive 69% from its opening weekend, Valentine’s Day still managed to snag an additional $17 Million. Avatar is still comfortably hanging out in the top five, and added $16m to its staggering totals. Ten weeks, people. Unbelievable.

Number four Percy Jackson dropped about 50% for $15 Million. Universal’s worst fears about The Wolfman have come true. The film dropped 68% from last weekend, and made a measly $9.8 Million.  That $150 Million budget looks impossible to make back at this time.

You can’t blame it strictly on bad word of mouth-I have yet to hear of one single person who actually enjoyed Valentine’s Day, yet people still flocked to see the film. Quite frankly, I am scratching my head over this turn of events. There’s a reason I don’t write box office predictions.

Outside of the top five, Dear John is shaping up to be a nice hit for Sony. After 3 weeks in release, the film has more than doubled its budget of $25 Million, and has made a solid $65.9 Million.

This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt work alone and without a net covering all kinds of new topics including Toy Fair 2010, the box office success of Valentine’s Day and The Wolfman and new adaptation announcements such as Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein and Dracula (aka Vlad the Impaler). They also discuss the oddness and length of recent movie titles, the Avatar prequel novel, the potential endings for ABC’s Lost and who rules Bartertown.

They both also made some good picks again this week incuding Matt’s pick of Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant and Chris’ pick of the Martin Scorsese gangster classic Goodfellas, featuring Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro.

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 and MySpace or via email.

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One would think that the overwhelming success of Summit Entertainment’s Twilight series would spark a resurgence of the classic Universal monsters, but in the end it took Universal itself to get things back into the public eye, with this weekend’s release of The Wolfman.

First, news comes that a new Frankenstein project is in the works. Now Summit has decided to drop their their hat into the vampire ring again with a new Dracula project.

The studio has been planning this remake of the Dracula story for some time, but they’ve now made things serious by hiring The Machinist writer Scott Kosar to clean up the script. The original screenplay comes from Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam, who had never written a feature script until now.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the story takes an “action-oriented look at Dracula, or Vlad the Impaler, as a young prince.” With music video director Anthony Mandler signed on to direct, Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B producing, and Summit taking the helm, expect to see this film make plenty of waves when the time comes.

Doh! Women flexed their box office muscles once again and helped boost the bland Valentines Day to a record breaking weekend.  Silly Hollywood, when will you learn?

First we had New Moon, then last weekend Dear John, and now Valentine’s Day. Each time a movie that has a largely female demographic wins the weekend, all the trades are SHOCKED to find out that women go to the movies.

Each time, I read that there will be a onslaught of female centric movies green lit by the studios.  And, it never happens.  I must say I am not completely proud of what my sisters choose to spend their box office dollars on (before you boys snicker, might I remind you of G.I. Joe, and Transformers), but it is interesting to note  this possible shift in marketing.

Three day totals for Valentine’s Day are around $52 Million, making it the highest grossing movie ever for a President’s Day weekend. Women weren’t the only ones in the mood for movies this weekend. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief made a very respectable $31 Million over the weekend, and Benicio Del Toro’s The Wolfman took a bite out of the box office to the tune of $30 Million (sorry, that was a terrible pun.)

Avatar took a tumble to the number four position this weekend, but a $22 Million gross is still quite astonishing for its ninth week in release.  Dear John dropped about 50% from its opening weekend, which is average, and earned an additional $15 Million.

The action movies Edge of Darkness, and From Paris, With Love both are shaping up to be box office disappointments.  Edge of Darkness has only made $36 Million in three weeks (with a budget of $80 Million), and From Paris now stands at $15 Million after two weeks.

I had some major reservations going into the screening of The Wolfman. For those of us who followed the film’s production, there were frequent rumors of strife on the set, and then there was an ominous release date switch at the last moment. However, once the film began, those reservations were put to rest. I had a blast seeing this new vision of the classic movie monster brought to life.

Director Joe Johnston manages to deliver an atmospheric Gothic thriller, full of foggy London moors, mythical beasts, and buckets and buckets of blood and gore. When all was said and done, I was willing to forgive some story flaws, because this was just so much fun for the horror fan in me. The film is a nice throwback to the monster movies of the 40’s, and has a distinctly nostalgic feel.

A perfectly cast Benicio Del Torro (who has a very feral look in real life) plays Lawrence, who has been living in America, but has been summoned to return to London because his brother has gone missing.  By the time Lawrence reaches his family’s dilapidated mansion, his brother’s mutilated body has been found in a ditch.  Lawrence’s father (a diabolical Anthony Hopkins) seems curiously nonplussed by the whole ordeal, and clearly harbors a deep-rooted dislike of his remaining son.

Lawrence makes a promise to his brother’s grieving fiancé Gwen (Emily Blunt) that he will solve the mystery of what happened to his brother.  His quest takes him to a nearby gypsy camp that has fallen under the suspician of the townspeople. While he is talking to some of the gypsies, a creature attacks the camp with undiscriminating zeal.  Sheer mayhem occurs as decapitations, amputations, and slashed throats lay in the wake of the beast’s assault.

While more than half of the people gearing up for this weekend’s Super Bowl XLIV will be more excited for the commercials, we unfortunately won’t be getting as many movie trailers as we are hoping to see. It’s been reported that Paramount, Disney, and Universal are the only studios buying time to promote their upcoming films during Sunday’s broadcast.

During the last two Super Bowl games, studios amped up their marketing and promoted 9 films over the course of the game, while we’ll only be seeing ads for 7 films this Sunday. Paramount will be buying ads to promote Shutter Island, and The Last Airbender, leaving Iron Man 2 out in the cold.

Disney, who promoted films like Up and Race to Witch Mountain last year will be focusing more on Toy Story 3, Alice In Wonderland, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Meanwhile, Universal will be setting up promotion for The Wolfman, Robin Hood, and their 3D animated pic Despicable Me.

While it’s still mostly speculation that these films will get Super Bowl spots, it’s been confirmed that Overture bought time to promote The Crazies and Sony bought time for Bounty Hunter. Warner Bros and Fox will sit this one out, as they have since 2008.

Though we may be getting less movie trailers than previous games, this will be a big year for commercials. There are more than 60 spots that have been slotted for this year’s game, where last year’s telecast fell just short. This Sunday will be an entertaining show, for sports fans and entertainment fans alike.

It looks like today is Trailer Day, after Fox released the first teaser trailer for Avatar earlier. Now Universal has released the first trailer for their Wolf Man reboot starring Benicio Del Toro. The film, which finished it’s production a few months ago, looks to be a pretty fair reinterpretation of the original Universal Monster movie.

Company favorite Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer, Jurassic Park 3) took the helm for this film, which is the last project he is doing before taking the director’s seat over at Marvel Studios for The First Avenger: Captain America. The writing team consisted of David Self (Road to Perdition) and Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en).

The film also stars Emily Blunt, Hugo Weaving, Anthony Hopkins, along with Benicio Del Toro, who is doing an American accent for the first time. Check out the brand new trailer, courtesy of Yahoo Movies,  after the jump.

Universal’s The Wolf Man hits theaters February 12 of next year.