This week on The Flickcast Chris and Joe once again dig deep into all the geek news, views, and more, you could possibly need. The boys kick it off this time around with a discussion on “Blockbuster” screenwriting and movies and the recent interview with writer Damon Lindelof.

There’s also more discussion on Expendables 3 and the final casting for the movie and the success and relative merits of World War Z. Then, they shift gears and talk about who should play Batman in the next movie now that Christian Bale is out. Who do they like? You’ll just have to listen.

They also get into other topics like the absurd charms of the movie Olympus Has Fallen, a recent fan poll ranking Star Trek movies that put Into Darkness last, even after the parody movie Galaxy Quest, recent leaks of trailers for X-Men: Days of Future Past and Guardians of the Galaxy, the current state of sci-fi movies and a whole lot more.

This weeks picks include Joe’s pick of the A&E TV series Longmire and Chris’ pick of the recent sci-fi movie Europa Report.

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, Google+ or via email.

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Animated sequels in recent history are hardly a slam dunk at the box office, for every Toy Story 3 there are three Happy Feet 2. Thankfully for all of the principles involved, Despicable Me 2 was every bit the hit the former was.

The popularity of the Minions can not be denied as Despicable Me 2 brought it more money than any animated film has ever earned over a five-day span. Granted the Fourth coming on a Thursday is a near perfect storm for a major release, but the final tally of over $142 Million speaks for itself. Even when you shave the first two days off the tally, the traditional three-day weekend was right in line with the monster $80+ million Monsters University brought in a few weeks ago.

Coming up in second place for the holiday stretch was the sputtering Lone Ranger. It seems like high-profile bombs have become commonplace, and everything about the action western screamed this would be another one. Guess what? It was! Coming in at just over $29 million for the three-day, and just under $49 since Wednesday, the film was not the same abject failure John Carter was, but it is far from the performance one expects from the same crew that gave us the Pirates of the Caribbean films.

One was a slam dunk, the other was a blockbuster to be that came into the weekend stinking of behind the scenes drama. Yet in the end both hit theaters this week and obliterated expectations.

Monsters University is the prequel to one of the older PIXAR classics, telling the tale of how everyone’s favorite boogie men, Mike and Sully, learned their scare trade. The film took in $82 million over the weekend giving PIXAR its second highest opening ever, and their 14th strait number one debut. Lets just ponder that for a second, even as the creative armor of the premier animation house of the west shows some chinks in their armor, they maintain a perfect record on the financial side of the movie equation. The quality of the recent PIXAR films is up to some debate, but what can’t be denied is they still know how to make a movie people want to see.

While everyone and their mother knew MU would be a hit, the big surprise of the weekend came from the Brad Pitt zombie blockbuster, World War Z. The studio had modest expectations initially, and the general geek community had no expectations. The film veered far from the source material that is much beloved, the movie was plagued by re-shoots and seeming instability from the set, and it is a PG-13 zombie film which just feels wrong. Despite all of that working against it in the buzz department, the film was well sold and generally positive reviews helped to make all those other issues all but disappear. The net result was $66 million at the box office and a lot of turned heads.

Do you remember the lead up to John Carter? How most people had a big problem with the marketing but many held a faint glimmer of hope that remained until the first reel ran in theaters opening weekend. Yeah, World War Z wishes it was generating that kind of reaction.

Basically, all of the worst parts of the bible would be an upgrade over the current approval rating of the upcoming PG-13 zombie epic. The stench of the film has been brewing for years, delays and behind the scenes instability have not provided any faith of a good adaptation of a book that is already hard to envision in cinemas. The problem is the structure of the book, it is an oral history not a linear narrative, and no one understands how a Brad Pitt saves the world film was the best that could be done.

So consensus is the film will be a terrible, no good, very bad adaptation and the best we are hoping for is a fun diversion wearing a WWZ pelt for warmth. Of course this leads to all the bitching and moaning about how the film’s existence is an affront to the loyal book fans who deserve better. Well cool your jets book worms and hipster wanna bes, there is a silver lining to this story and it alone more than justifies the looming horror of the upcoming film.

We were as excited as anyone when we first heard Max Brooks’ novel World War Z was heading to the big screen. It’s a great book and from the moment we first read it, we were convinced it would make a terrific movie.

Obviously, we weren’t the only ones who thought so. Cut to several years later and the World War Z movie is finally about to arrive in theaters. And even with all the troublesome news surrounding the shoot, we’re still excited for the movie.

After having already seen the trailer, there’s a new clip from the movie that’s hitting the Interwebs this week. In it we find Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) and his wife (Mireille Enos) and kids on an aircraft carrier. Once there some government types convince Gerry that’s he’s humanity’s last hope to stop the zombie apocalypse.

Can it be stopped? Who knows. You’ll have to wait and see the movie. Until then, check out the clip after the break and look for World War Z in theaters on June 21.