There are few people that are aware of the growing movie market overseas. Thailand is emerging as a serious threat in the marital arts action genre with the help of Tony Jaa (Ong Bak); Russia is proving they can make a slick and entertaining film thanks to studios like Disney (Black Lightning); and, of course, Japan has always been the source for many Hollywood studios’ “inspired” horror remakes (The Ring, The Grudge). One foreign market that tends to be brushed off as only doing kung-fu or martial art films is China.

Today we have a trailer for a new Asian film which has the odd IMDB genre label of romance/sci-fi called Ci Ling (Treasure Hunter). Why are we at Screen Rant sharing this trailer with you? Because Treasure Hunter stars an actor most English-speaking audiences may not be familiar with yet, but will be next year: Jay Chou. Chou is also playing Kato opposite Seth Rogen in the upcoming re-imagining of The Green Hornet. We thought you might a first-look at how the actor does onscreen.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or if you want more frequent updates follow us on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!

Earlier this summer, we posted a great trailer for the upcoming modern vampire tale Daybreakers. The first time I watched the trailer was in the theater before watching The Final Destination and all I could think was “Wow, I wanna watch that instead!” How can a movie go wrong with actors like Ethan Hawke (Gattaca), Sam Neil (Event Horizon) and Willem Dafoe (John Carter of Mars)? The answer – You can’t!

Set in a (obvious) future, fictional world where vampires have just about converted every human to be a stalker of the night, Daybreakers takes the unique approach of applying modern day situations and geopolitical statements to the vampires – they are slowly running out of food (read: blood) and have begun farming humans for just their blood, think The Matrix but with plasma.

The AFM (American Film Market) is a very big deal. Every year thousands of people attend and hundreds of films are shown by hopeful indie filmmakers trying to get picked up by a studio for a distribution deal. The festival ended last week but the deals are still coming – one of those deals was between After Dark Films and Agora Entertainment for their horror film The Final.

The Final will join 7 other films in the After Dark Horrorfest 4: 8 Films to Die For which include Hidden, Dread, The Graves, Lake Mungo and ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction.  Here is the official synopsis for The Final (as well as a trailer for the film):

Everybody loves a good Easter Egg – both the kind you decorate, hide, then eat and the kind that artists, directors and musicians include in their various works of art for dedicated fans to find. Going way back to 2000 when the X-Men DVD came out, fans were treated to a brief introduction of Spider-Man in the special features section.  That was just the first of many eggs to come.

When Iron Man came out, many sharp-eyed fans were quick to point out Captain America’s shield laying on Tony Stark’s work table; Ol’ Cap was then glimpsed  frozen in an iceberg in a deleted opening scene from The Incredible Hulk. Just recently Michael Bay inserted a hidden video of himself talking about Unicron in the Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen Blu-ray; Bay even put a Terminator reference in TF2 with the words “T-1000” branded onto a destroyed robot’s arm.

The remake bug has made its transition from the big screen to the small screen. This infectious virus, which the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has categorized as the most aggressive ever, has been mutated and become a full-fledged epidemic among the major television networks.  It started a couple of years ago when NBC tried to remake two classic shows from the 70’s and 80’s, Bionic Woman and Knight Rider.

ABC has already showed symptoms of the bug with its most recent remakes of V and Melrose Place. Now, according to Variety, ABC’s next attempt will be the 70’s female spy show Charlie’s Angels.  Josh Friedman, who helped adapt Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles for Fox, Leonard Goldberg who was a producer for the original Charlie’s Angels, Steve McPherson, and Drew Barrymore (who was in the movie version of the show in 2000 and its 2003 sequel) are all attached to the project.

Recently, Geoff Boucher from the LA Times had a chance to sit down with producer Frank Beddor (There’s Something About Mary), one of the minds behind the Monopoly concept, and Beddor gave readers the first ever look into what the story for the upcoming movie adaptation of Monopoly will be. What he said is not totally surprising: Beddor is working on a re-imagining of the Alice in Wonderland story called the Looking Glass Wars and he took that idea and applied it to Monopoly.

“[Hasbro has] this big world and this game — it’s the most famous board game in the world — and it just really came out of the whole ‘Alice’ thing. I took the approach of thinking of the main character falling down a rabbit hole and into a real place called Monopoly City … It was the re-engineering of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ that got me thinking and then with this it came around full circle and I was able to utilize that. That’s a big world. They were searching for that.”

Last month we reported that Paranormal Activity director Oren Peli was starting production on his next big screen project Area 51. For those living in a cave or under a rock, Area 51 has long been the focus of much extraterrestrial conspiracy theory. Famed for being a hotbed of alien activity, whether it be spaceships or alien beings, Area 51 holds a special place in modern day pop lore (thanks in part to movies like Independence Day).

Well the script was supposed to be one of the secrets that no one would ever crack. *Snicker* Come on now! This is the 21st century; home to the internet (thanks Al Gore), Facebook, Twitter and 24 hour non-stop news, sports and games. Did they really think that a leak of some sort wasn’t going to happen? Our co-horts in cinema at Latino Review were visited in the night by an “owl” (named LEVLE) and when they woke up, he had left a mysterious package containing the script review at their bedside.

When I first heard that Alexandre Aja (The Hills Have Eyes, Haute Tension) was writing and directing a remake of the classic 70’s Joe Dante film Piranha, I thought “Hmmm. This could be a good thing.” Then I read that he was doing it in 3D and I thought “Dang! I thought this could be a good thing; guess I was wrong.”

The remake, cleverly titled Piranha 3D, is set in the fictional location of Lake Victoria during spring break (think Lake Havasu), and after a underwater earthquake releases a prehistoric flesh-eating fish, “an unlikely group of strangers must band together to stop themselves from becoming fish food for the area’s new razor-toothed residents.” Sherriff Julie Forester must risk all that she loves and knows to destroy the piranha “save the lake and her family from totally being devoured.”

As some of our regular readers may know by now, we at Screen Rant like to hear about small studio indie films that may find a way to bring some original stories to the table and become widely successful. The recently successful Paranormal Activity is the biggest thing in the indie world since sliced bread. Last week, we introduced you to a new indie web series Broken Toy and of course we have been following the movies Black Death, Solomon Kane and The Tournament, in hopes of seeing them snag a big-screen wide release.

Today we bring you two trailers for a new film by indie studio Double Edge Films, which hopes to continue the indie breakout trend with their movie INK. Written and directed by Jamin Winans (which might make my top 10 coolest names – Kofi Outlaw is on that list as well), INK is the story of a little girl caught in a “metaphysical war being fought between the forces of light and darkness.” She gets kidnapped by a mysterious creature called Ink and is “taken  through a labyrinthine world of dream states while those who love her fight to bring her back into the real world and bring salvation to her desperate father.”

Don’t act like you’re surprised. You knew this announcement was coming from the moment we first heard that director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future) was making a sequel to his 1988 smash hit, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? It was just a matter of time, really. With three Mocap (that’s the new slang for “motion-capture”, FYI) films already under his belt – Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol – it was a natural leap of thought to assume Zemeckis would use his favorite new toy in a Roger Rabbit sequel.

However, it appears that the Toon characters (Roger, Jessica, Benny the Cab) will not be the ones making the leap into the 21st century. According to his interview with MTV, Zemeckis doesn’t plan on using Mocap for those characters, just the human ones (as if that makes it any better). Read what he had to say below:

There are only a couple of reason why you clicked through to read this article. A) You have kids and they still enjoy reading the books and watching the cartoons made popular by Jan and Stan Berenstain or B) You have a morbid sense of curiosity and just had to see what all the hubbub is about.

Either way, the news is true; Coming Soon points to a report from USA Today stating that Walden Media has bought the movie rights to produce The Berenstain Bears movie adaptation. The film will be a comedy with a mix of live-action and CGI (of course it will). No 3D has been announced yet, but just wait, it won’t be far behind, I’m sure.

I love salt, all types of salt really – Sea salt, table salt, rock salt and Evelyn Salt. Not familiar with that last one? She’s next summer’s female action spy played the ever so pouty-lipped Angelina Jolie. At one point, Tom Cruise was rumored to be attached to the Phillip Noyce (Patriot Games, The Bone Collector) directed secret double agent yarn but ultimately, Noyce and company decided to go with a more feminine touch. Good move guys!

Jolie has proven time and again that she is the go-to woman in Hollywood for lead female action roles. Say what you want about the Tomb Raider movie, but as Lara Croft there can be no other woman playing the part. Same goes for her roles in Mr. and Mrs. Smith and last summer’s Wanted. In Salt, she appears to be just as convincing while playing a wrongly accused woman on the run.

The sequel to Ghost Rider is going to happen. Just deal with the reality and move on. You can whine all you want about how poorly done the first one was, in acting, script and direction, but that won’t change the fact the Ghost Rider 2 is on its way like a flame- skulled demon riding a motorcycle. All that fan boys can hope for now is a faithful retelling of the popular second tier Marvel/Disney property. I’m just hoping for a story that doesn’t include a flaming skeleton horse.

Last month, David Goyer (Super Max, FlashForward), who is producing his half a score old script (that’s ten years for you non-math majors), talked about his story a bit and confirmed he was attached to the project. Today, MTV has an interview with Goyer and addressed concerns about the sequel pulling off a PG-13 rating. So will it or won’t it be a reboot?

We’ve seen a lot of origin stories in the past few years – Wolverine just came out this summer, Magneto may or may not be happening, there is always Superman and of course Batman’s origin has been told several times. Heck, The Hobbit can even be considered an origin story. Ghost Rider was unfortunately given an origin movie that dated back to the old west. I’m a huge fan of Tremors and the 4th movie went back to the old west as well, for an origin story about the subterranean monster worm.

So I understand why studios and copyright holders want to make origin movies on comic book characters and even monsters, but I cannot for the life of me figure out this latest news coming from “wrastlin” news site Lords of Pain. WWE, in a bid to capitalize on one of their brands, is in the process of making a big-screen film on the origins of the current WWE SmackDown World Heavyweight Champion – The Undertaker. Yeah you read that right, a real-life, old-school wrestler is getting his own origin story. But why?

It’s very sad that I have to write an article like this in our day and age. One would think that society has grown and matured over the years to the point where we wouldn’t have to be told how to act around other people. Well it would seem that courtesy has been thrown out the window and a new day is dawning where people couldn’t care less about others around them. Back in 2003, Screen Rant founder Vic Holtreman wrote a great rant about people talking during films. I’ve decided to expand on those thoughts.

We could talk for hours about how rude society has become and how we ultimately got to this point, but that is a discussion for a different time and place. I want to discuss some of the issues facing the modern day moviegoer and what they can do to make everyone’s movie watching experience more enjoyable. So, I will be discussing the 3 biggest problems in movie theaters today: cell phones, babies and talking during films.

As I write this, I’m listening to an eclectic mix of Michael Jackson, Pearl Jam, The Foofighters and David Sanborn all of which are being pumped through randomly via my Zune. Just a few years ago, I would have been concerned about receiving a legal notice in the mail or the FBI breaking down my door for illegally downloading a three and a half minute song, but thanks to Amazon, iTunes and the Zune Store, I can listen to anything artist I want legally for a small fee.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) are always touting how their products are on the cutting edge of technology. Musicians now sing and perform in Dolby Surround sound and High Definition while movies like the upcoming A Christmas Carol and Avatar use motion-capture and state-of-the-art 3D technology to enhance our theater experience. But what happens after we leave the concert or theater and want to listen or watch again?

Every time that a new Uwe Boll film comes out, I watch it hoping that this will be the film in which he succeeds in blowing me away; I haven’t had that happen yet. Sure, his next release, Rampage, looks like it may be his finest work to date – but that is like saying a small bag of garbage is better than a large bag of garbage. Our buddies over at /Film have pointed out a new trailer for Boll’s next film titles Storm, or Final Storm if you check out the IMDB page.

To be honest, with Boll’s track record of video game movies, I fully expected Storm to be about the new Blackberry phone; however, the only synopsis I could find for Storm was on IMDB and it looks like I I’ll have to wait for that Blackberry film:

This summer’s breakout hit has to be The Hangover. Everyone expected it to be funny and do well at the box office, but no one expected it to eclipse the $400 million worldwide mark. In case you didn’t know (or couldn’t guess), The Hangover 2 is already filming and planned for a Memorial Day 2011 release.

The film revolved around a group of four guys who head to Vegas for a bachelor party and after a night of raucous activities, can’t find the bachelor, have a baby to take care of and a tiger in their bathroom. Needless to say, all the pieces come together at the end of the film but have you ever thought to yourself “Man! How much would a night like that cost?”

A little while ago, a teaser trailer for Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon hit the internet but it was such poor quality that it really didn’t do the film justice. This would probably be the reason why Paramount asked us a day or so later to pull the video. A couple of weeks later, a proper teaser trailer came out with the exact same footage and to say it was tons better would be an understatement.

Today, thanks to Trailer Spy, Dreamworks has released the official trailer for How to Train Your Dragon in glorious HD and it is beautiful. The story is based on the 2003 children’s book by the same name written by Cressida Cowell. The movie is set in the land of Vikings and dragons and follows a Viking boy named Hiccup on the island of Berk. For Hiccup and his people, fighting dragons is an everyday occurrence.  The world Hiccup knows changes entirely as he ultimately befriends a wounded dragon instead of killing him, much to the embarrassment of his father.

Horror and comedy are two of my favorite genres and just like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, I like when they are combined. Last month, Screen Rant writer Ross Miller did a series on horror films that were combined with other genres. One of those combinations was horror plus comedy and the movie he choose was Shaun of the Dead. Other great examples are the always popular Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness with Bruce “The Chin” Campbell.

Well today, courtesy of our friends at Bloody Disgusting, we have a new trailer for the upcoming horror/comedy film Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. If the film is half as funny as the trailer then I am really looking forward to seeing it. The movie stars Alan Tudyk (Firefly, Dodgeball) and Tyler Labine (Zack and Miri Make a Porno) as two redneck hillbillies that want to do nothing more than enjoy their new vacation cabin in the middle of the woods.

Twilight fans grab your life-size Robert Pattinson stuffed doll, call all of your friends, gather around your computer monitors and giggle together in anticipation because Screen Rant has got some skin-tingling news for you. Last week MTV showed its first ever Halloween special, Ulalume: Howling at the New Moon. During the show, MTV showed an exclusive clip from the upcoming Twilight sequel New Moon and in case you missed it (if you are a Twilight fan, then I seriously doubt you missed it) you can watch the clip over at MTV or just check it out after the jump.

All the popular kids were on hand to debut the new clip, including every girl’s (and a few oddball boy’s) favorite brooding teenage vampire hunk, Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen). Oh yeah, in case you care, Kristen Stewart (Bella Swan) and Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black) were there too. But seriously, did you see the dreamy, pale-skinned, red-eyed Edward? That man just exudes sexy, in an “I want to drink your blood” type of way.

There are a lot of independent film makers in the world and most of them never get a chance to have their materials shown to a wide audience. That is until the Internet and YouTube came along and completely changed the rules of the movie game. It used to be that if you were lucky enough to attend an entire film festival, then you could watch one or two short films or low budget films that were very good but no distributor wanted to pick up.

Just a few days ago, we talked about a report E! Online had put out which stated that RocknRolla star Tom “Handsome Bob” Hardy and Charlize Theron were on the short list to star in George Miller’s 4th installment of the Mad Max series, Fury Road. E! Online didn’t have any solid confirmation regarding the rumors so the information was to be taken with a grain of salt.

Today we learn (thanks to a heads up from First Showing), that The Hollywood Reporter is confirming both Hardy and Theron have entered into negotiations to star in Fury Road, with Hardy filling in for Mel Gibson as the titular role of Max Rockatansky and Theron as the female lead (does that mean she’s the new Tina Turner?). At this point, unless something wonky happens, Hardy and Theron will be the ones we see come release time.

Sony Pictures Twitter account, @SonyPictures, was on fire Tuesday night with constant tweet updates about this celebrity or that celebrity showing up on the red carpet to go watch the premier of the late Michael Jackson in This Is It. Along with those celebrities, thousands of people across the nation were able to see the film for the first time as well.

According to CNN, This Is It brought in an estimated $2.2 million for Tuesday October 27th, and although the official numbers will take another day or so to be finalized, the final numbers shouldn’t be too much higher or lower than that. There are some conflicting numbers coming out though, and it may not be until later next week before we see anything concrete. While CNN is saying $2.2 million, Hollywood Insider is reporting $7.4 million domestic and $12.7 international. The LA Times seems to echo Hollywood Insider’s numbers with a global total of $20.1 million

Ever since Comic Con, Disney has been pushing their Robert Zemeckis-directed version of the Charles Dickens’ classic story A Christmas Carol. They’ve done everything they can to ensure that as many people as possible know about the film and go see it. Of course, that is the whole point of marketing but I fear they may be over doing it a touch. The 7-month-long A Christmas Carol train journey was almost overdoing it but now I think they are showing way too much of the film two weeks before its release.

However, some people like to watch as much as they can for an upcoming movie; I just don’t happen to be one of them. Steve “Frosty” Weintraub at Collider is just like me (‘cept cooler) in that he doesn’t want to have the entire movie spoiled. We both want to experience it for the first time in the theater, in IMAX or 3-D; but on the off chance that you want to soak up as much Christmas Carol as possible; Collider has assembled 6 video clips into one 5 minute video for you to watch.

All aboard the Avatar train! Next stop Pandora!

I won’t lie: I have been on the skeptical side of the fence when it comes to Avatar. Not because I thought the film was going to be a dud or not fun to watch, but because I didn’t think all the hype was justified. Well, I just watched the International Trailer for Avatar, and I must say, color me impressed. Today, Coming Soon has dropped a new behind-the-scenes featurette on the making of Avatar and it gives some further insight on the film.

Yesterday we put up a link to the Eventful page where you could “demand” that Troy Duffy’s The Boondock Saints:All Saints Day be shown in your hometown theaters. So far, the movie has scraped together 18 thousand votes; that’s 5 thousand more votes than yesterday. Sadly, it’s not a big enough number to warrant a wide release. That may be why Apparition decided to release the first 5 minutes of footage of the film today in hopes of gathering some more attention.

I’m not thinking this was the best move or their part because (as much as it pains me to say it) I’m completely underwhelmed at the opening. There are more clichés than a bad 80’s action film. Duffy has managed to explain everything and nothing at the same time. He writes off 10 years of absence with scruffy beards and hair and then writes that off with a 2 minute shave, hair cut and shower montage.

I like rock music montages but this just feels cheesy and forced. I’m so upset right now I could spit. I can’t even type straight any more. Watch the preview after the jump:

Early this summer, we announced that Dimension Films was in the process of giving Johnny 5 a remake-over with a new Short Circuit film. They just about had all of the pre-production people in place to make it happen; all they needed was a director. Dan Milano (Greg the Bunny) was putting together the script; David Foster, who produced the original, was returning to produce the remake and joining him were Ryan E. Heppe and John Hyde. So where did Dimension Films go to find a director? Where everyone else goes when they need to find something, of course – the mall.

Steve Carr, who directed 2009 surprise hit Paul Blart: Mall Cop, has been chosen to direct the Short Circuit remake and that just means one thing – a embarrassingly, unfunny actor will surely be cast as the male lead. What brings me to that conclusion? I’m glad you asked…

Ben Fritz, a writer for the LA Times, reported the other day that the major studios are considering spreading out the time between when consumers can buy DVDs and when they can rent them. As it is right now (and has been for years), movies are available to rent the same day that they can also be purchased. According to Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix, he has recently met with several of Netflix’s biggest suppliers (read: studios and distributors) to discuss a “delayed-rental proposal.”

The current DVD release system has DVDs available for purchase and rental on the same day from companies such as NetFlix, Blockbuster and RedBox. Under the new DVD release system, those dates would be separated by a few weeks. What is the reasoning behind this move? Studios cite a sharp decline in DVD sales. Said Hastings:

“The studios are wrestling with declines in DVD sales while the DVD rental market has been modestly growing. One of the mitigating steps some are considering is introducing a DVD retail sales-only window for a few weeks.”

The faltering economy has families and individuals looking for ways to save money, not spend it. One of those ways is to rent DVDs and not purchase them; a theory that is backed up by NetFlix’s recent quarter numbers of 24% growth! That is a truly impressive financial achievement in this harsh recession; an achievement that surely has investors smiling, but not as impressive as rental company RedBox’s growth. RedBox saw a staggering 113% growth in the first six months of this year!

Those sorts of numbers where the reason that studios 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. all attempted to keep RedBox from having access to their DVDs until well after the initial release.  The popular rental giant only charges $1 per night, per rental, and the studios felt RedBox wasn’t charging enough for people to rent their movies. Of course, RedBox responded with a lawsuit to keep that from the studios off its back and the suit is still in court…although the point may soon become moot.

The new release system could go into effect as soon as next year and if that happens, every rental company will be affected, not just RedBox, and I would suspect the suit would be dropped by all parties involved. Said a RedBox corporate spokeperson:

“We must have a level playing field and the right to buy movies at the same time as any of our competitors.”

Ben Fritz makes the following statement in his report:

“Hollywood studios prefer that consumers buy DVDs because that generates significantly higher profits than rentals.”

And Wade Holden, an analyst for SNL Kagan, gives this insight:

“The studios might try to implement something like this to increase demand for sales because they need to protect that revenue stream the best they can.”

Does that statement strike anyone else as extremely greedy? I understand movie studios are a business aiming to make money for both themselves and investors; I’m not arguing that point at all. What seems ridiculous to me is their business model and the idea that pushing back rental dates will make consumers buy a movie because they don’t want to wait another three or four weeks to rent it.

(Are studios getting greedy or getting their due? Keep reading…)

Apparently, there is a new and developing trend in Hollywood and it all started with the breakout hit Paranormal Activity. You see, a few weeks ago Paramount wasn’t planning on giving Paranormal Activity a wide release, but then word started spreading about the film and its popularity grew. What happened next was nothing short of a miracle. The director and producers put a link at the end of the trailer where moviegoers across the nation could “demand” the film be shown in their town. The viral marketing worked and this weekend Paranormal Activity dethroned Saw VI to become the reigning Halloween champ.

The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, Troy Duffy’s long awaited sequel, opens in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey this Friday, October 30th, which is great news for fans living in those New England states – however the rest of us are out of luck.

Or are we?