After the outstanding success of his Star Trek reboot, director J.J. Abrams has found himself fielding questions about the film’s sequel on a near daily basis. Who will be the villain? Does Chris Pine have as hard a time with Tribbles as William Shatner? Etc, etc. Luckily, Abrams is one of Hollywood’s more nerd friendly directors, so you can always count on him giving you a decent answer.

Recently, MTV caught up with Abrams for an exclusive interview about Star Trek 2. In the interview, Abrams discusses some possibilities  for the sequel and the relative leeway the screenwriters have in bringing old characters back to the big screen. Care to guess which name brought up the most excitement? You guessed it, KHANNNNN!!!!, a.k.a Khan Noonien Singh, the genetically engineered superhuman played by Ricardo Montelban in Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan.

Ever since Twilight made author Stephanie Meyer a millionaire, it seems as if the publishing industry has caught teen angst/fantasy/horror fever. Naturally, the fever spread to Hollywood where new movies about teenage werewolves, vampires, and various other classic movie monsters are appearing at an alarming rate. According to Variety, the most recent fantasy franchise to make the jump to the big screen will be Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments series.

For those unfamiliar with The Mortal Instruments, here’s a quick blurb from the Variety article: “Story revolves around teenager Clary Fray’s search for her missing mother, which leads her to a city filled with mysterious fairies, raucous warlocks, vampires and other demons.” Collectively, The Mortal Instruments series of books have spent 28 weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers List.

Scottish comic book writer Mark Millar has been getting awfully cozy in Hollywood over the past couple of years. In addition to seeing the film version of his graphic novel Wanted bank for more than $340 million worldwide,  Millar has been able to work closely with director Matthew Vaughn on the film adaptation of his comic series, Kick-Ass, which comes out in April 2010. Now, according to the man himself, Millar is planning on getting behind the camera for his very own directorial debut. According to Millar’s personal website, principal photography on the project begins in March 2010.

Ah, but you must be saying to yourself, “Rob! You didn’t tell else what movie Millar is directing. Are you some kind of incompetent fool?” Friends, if I knew I would tell you, I promise. Unfortunately, Millar is keeping his lips sealed until February when more release details will be coming out.

Chris Hudak of GameRevolution had the chance to sit down and chat with Tron Legacy producers Steven Lisberger and Sean Bailey at the D23 Expo in Anaheim. The wide-ranging interview touched on a number of aspects of the film, including the film’s look, its tone, and its music. I’ve excerpted some of the juicier segments below. For the full interview, visit GameRevolution.

Steven Lisberger on the tone of Tron Legacy:

“The tone of first film reflects a certain naïve idealism. This film reflects the temperament of Joe Kosinski, our director, our young writers, and Sean Bailey, my fellow producer – those who have a more realistic point of view of the upsides and downsides of technology and cyberspace.”

In the grand history of horror films, we’ve seen psychopaths slaying their victims with a veritable armory of weapons. Freddy had his claws, Michael Myers had his butcher knife, Leatherface had his chainsaw, and so on, and so forth. To be perfectly frank, finding creative and terrifying ways to kill people has become something of a lost art. Luckily, there are still bold and creative-minded filmmakers working in the horror industry; filmmakers like Richard Gale.

Gale’s most recent project pushes the very limits of horror. It dares to ask the question: How many years can a man fight for his life against an evil unstoppable force? If you have the stomach, watch the 10-minute trailer below. Be advised, in addition to the heart-pounding terror, there is some adult language.

Scream 4 is coming and it might be coming in 3D! According to /Film, there is a rumor out there that the latest installment in the popular slasher franchise will be filmed in stereovision. It wouldn’t be the first time that a horror movie has used 3D to enhance its fright factor. One recent example is the abysmal My Bloody Valentine. Ugh. Honestly, if the story sucks, I don’t care if a giant, digitally projected knife is coming at my face. It’s just not scary.

On that note, I’m really hoping Scream 4 brings the franchise back to its roots. When it came out, Scream was critically praised for its clever mix of humor, satire, and genuinely frightening horror. For my money, there hasn’t been a slasher film as good since. Even Scream 2 was pretty awesome, though I don’t want to get into the mess that was Scream 3.

On Thursday, Variety shared the news that screenwriter Billy Ray (State of Play) was set to take on the real life story of Captain Richard Phillips, the man who was held captive by Somali pirates for five days earlier this year. As interesting as it would be to see Captain Phillips’ dramatic escape brought to the big screen, there was a line at the bottom of the Variety article that was far more interesting: “He [Ray] is currently writing “Gears of War” for New Line.”

Wait? Gears of War? Last time we heard, that movie was being written by the team of Len Wiseman (Underworld) and Chris Morgan (Wanted, Fast and Furious), with Wiseman as director. What happened? Brendon Connelly over at /Film speculates that Wiseman turned to Billy Ray after the duo worked successfully on the forthcoming film, Motorcade. Motorcade, if you’ll recall from our previous coverage, has been in development for sometime with Tom Cruise as its originally intended star. The film will now feature Ryan Reynolds (he is everywhere nowadays!) and will not be directed by Wiseman, but by 24 director John Cassar.

If you read the title to this post and thought, “Awesome! The dude who made Wanted is making a new superhero movie!” you were only half right. Black Lightning is sort of a superhero movie, but it has nothing to do with the famous DC character of the same name. Also, Timur Bekmambetov isn’t directing it (Alexandr Voitinsky and Dmitriy Kiselev are.) He’s just producing it, so I guess you’d only be one-third right.

Anyway, I should probably move on to what Black Lightning is about. From what I can tell by watching the Russian-language trailer (below), Black Lightning basically borrows the plot of the first Spider-Man film with a little bit of Transformers thrown in for good measure. Let me clarify. Remember how Peter Parker/Sam Witwicky wanted to get a cool car to impress Mary Jane/Whatever Megan Fox’s character’s name was? Black Lightning works with the same concept, except that instead of the boy becoming super powered, his car, a Soviet-era Volga, does. Check it out for yourself.

According to Variety, director Adam Shankman has signed on to direct and choreograph the film adaptation of the Tony-award nominated Broadway play, Rock of Ages. If you’re unfamiliar with Rock of Ages, here’s a brief summary of the movie from Variety:

The musical tells the story of a couple that meets at the Sunset Strip club Rock of Ages, falls in love and tries to stay together amid the rough and tumble rock lifestyle. The cast finds reasons to belt out 80s rock anthems made popular by Journey, Twisted Sister, Joan Jett, Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar and other MTV generation staples.

The first trailer for the Mel Gibson action/drama Edge of Darkness is out and it looks good. Edge of Darkness features Gibson as a Boston detective who uncovers a conspiracy while investigating the death of his activist daughter. The film was written by William Monahan (The Departed) and was directed by Martin Campbell (Casino Royale).

(Fun fact: The part played by Ray Winstone was originally supposed to be played by Robert De Niro who dropped out of the film in its early stages.)

Check out the trailer and a poster for the film below:

Attention all fanboys! If you were thinking of scoring four-day + preview night passes for San Diego Comic-Con 2010, think again. According to Collider, the four-day + preview night passes are already sold out. Let me repeat that again in bold: the four-day + preview night passes are already sold out.

You heard it right. Even though there are still more than 280 days until Comic-Con 2010, organizers are already selling out of tickets. It’s kind of amazing when you sit down and think about it. I mean, Comic-Con 2009 ended less than three months ago! Most people haven’t even planned their costumes yet, let alone bought tickets.

Back in February, Screen Rant reported that actor Eddie Murphy would portray Richard Pryor in a Bill Condon-directed biopic of the late comedian’s life, tentatively titled Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said? At the time, the fit seemed perfect. Not only were Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor friends, but they are both respected as two of the most influential and successful comics in history. As of last week, however, it appears that Murphy won’t be stepping into the shoes of his longtime friend. According to an article over at HitFix, Murphy has been replaced in the role by actor Marlon Wayans (G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra).

In addition to the news that Murphy is out and Wayans is in, Paramount and Fox Searchlight are no longer considered potential distributors for the film. Instead, the project will now be produced by Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison production company, which operates under the umbrella of Sony Pictures.

After bringing in an impressive $25 million in its first weekend, the splatterfest zombie comedy Zombieland already has fans clamoring for a sequel. Luckily for them, it looks like everyone involved with Zombieland is just as excited to come back for another round of Zombie slaying action.

In an interview with MTV, Paul Wernick, one of the writers of the critically acclaimed comedy, spoke about the cast and crew’s enthusiasm for the sequel.

After earning nearly $300 million in worldwide box office grosses during its theatrical run, G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra is set to make another boatload of money this November 3rd, when the film comes out on DVD and Blu-ray. Available in multiple formats, G.I. Joe fans can take the film home for $19.99 as a one-disc DVD, for $24.99 as a two-disc DVD, or for $29.99 as a two-disc Blu-ray.

If you opt for the two-disc DVD or Blu-ray, you’ll get access to a digital copy of the film, as well as two featurettes, “The Big Bang Theory: The Making of G.I. JOE” and “Next-Gen Action: The Amazing Visual FX and Design of G.I. JOE.” Oh yeah, there’s one more special feature I would be remiss to mention. It’s a little hard to explain, so I’ll let the press release do the talking.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Fox Searchlight is in talks to produce a biopic about the seminal punk rock band The Ramones. The film, which would be based on the forthcoming memoir I Slept With Joey Ramone by Ramone’s brother Mickey Leigh and punk journalist Legs McNeil, would focus on the origins of the band, each member’s myriad problems with drugs (and with each other), and the group’s considerable impact on modern popular music.

Since Christopher Nolan’s upcoming sci-fi film, Inception, premiered its teaser trailer in August, news and footage from the film have been rolling out steadily.

Today, we got word that Inception would receive a dual release in both standard 35mm and in IMAX. Check out the full text of the press release from the IMAX Corporation and Warner Bros. below for the details and our thoughts.

Here at Screen Rant we love charts. Lucky for us then that over the past couple of months, a whole slew of fun movie-related graphs have hit the net. Check out four of our favorites below.

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Our first movie chart comes from the guys over at GeekTyrant. As you can see, it’s a graph comparing the relative size of a bunch of famous movie monsters. At the bottom of the scale is our old knife-wielding friend Chucky, from the Child’s Play franchise. The biggest baddie on the chart is “Clover,” the 180 ft. tall monster from J.J. Abrams’ 2008 blockbuster Cloverfield.

We shared the first images of the Warner Brothers’ film The Losers a little over a month ago. Now, thanks to the power of Twitter, we have a new image from the set of the film. Actor Idris Elba (The Wire) tweeted the picture, which features himself, Columbus Short, Chris Evans, Óscar Jaenada and Jeffrey Dean Morgan looking appropriately bad-ass as they wait on the film’s Puerto Rican set.

The Losers, which also features Star Trek’s Zoe Saldana, revolves around an ex-CIA Black Ops team who seek revenge against the mysterious Max (played by Jason Patric), their former handler and the man who betrayed them. The film is based on the Eisner-nominated DC/Vertigo comic book series of the same name, which ran from 2003 to 2006.

Back in the halcyon days of 1997, Tim Burton had a dream: To bring Superman to the big screen. The film, entitled Superman Lives, was supposed to star Nicolas Cage as the legendary Man of Steel. Obviously, the movie never panned out, though the rudiments of the project would eventually become 2006’s Superman Returns. For a detailed explanation of why the film never made it past pre-production (aside from the producer’s ludicrous “toy first, plot second” approach to filmmaking) check out the Wikipedia entry on the movie.

After raking in worldwide grosses of nearly $300 million, it’s no surprise that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was getting a sequel. Now, thanks to a Korean news site, we know that G.I. Joe 2 will begin filming by the end of the year.

The article (which comes our way thanks to iesb) focuses on Korean actor Lee Byeong-Heon, who played the inimitable Storm Shadow. The report declares that Byeong-Heon will “be starting the filming by the end of this year and has been contracted for the 3rd sequel, also!”

Hey Harry Potter fans, guess what! The sixth film in the popular franchise (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) is coming to Blu-ray and DVD on December 8th.

According to Coming Soon, the film will be released in three formats: a three-disc Blu-ray, DVD, digital copy combo pack; a two-disc digital copy special edition (as seen in the above image); and a one-disc wide-screen and full-screen edition.

So, which one should you get? Well, that’s hard to say. Normally, I would recommend buying the Blu-ray DVD. Go big or go home, right?

Although Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass doesn’t premier for another seven months, Mark Millar (co-creator of the comic) already has high expectations, telling MTV that a sequel is already in the works. According to Millar:

“There’s a basic plot. The series ends on a teaser for the next one, and the movie ends on that teaser, too…We don’t want to sound too cocky, but we know this is good. It didn’t cost that much money to make. There will definitely be another one.”

Do you want to see Bruce Willis get hit by a truck? Well, we’ve got a treat for you.

Disney recently released three new clips from Willis’ upcoming action/sci-fi film Surrogates and we have them here for you. In case you haven’t been keeping up with our coverage of Surrogates, the film takes place in a world where humans live their lives via remote-controlled robots. Willis plays Agent Greer, a detective investigating a Surrogate-related death that rapidly leads to a larger conspiracy.

Of all the movies coming out this fall, perhaps none is more anticipated than Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are. Adapted from Maurice Sendak’s beloved children’s story, Where the Wild Things Are has already received significant praise for its unique visual style (a common trait of Jonze’s work) as well as its emotional depth.

What has impressed me the most about the film so far are the “Wild Things” themselves. Created using a mix of live-action and CGI, Jonze’s Wild Things capture Sendak’s  illustrations so well that I literally got goosebumps the first time I watched the trailer. Jonze elaborated on his approach to filming the movie in a recent article for the New York Times, saying “I wanted it to be as natural feeling as possible…I wanted to shoot the wild things in camera: on location, out in the wild.”

Despite the mixed critical reception for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the film made more than enough money ($786 million worldwide) to warrant immediate talk of a sequel. Up to this point, however, we haven’t heard anything definitive about the movie, besides the usual “we’re working on it” talk.

While in France recently for the Deauville Film Festival, Harrison Ford added to this “maybe yes, maybe no” trend when he spoke with Le Figaro magazine on the possibility of donning the fedora and whip for Indiana Jones 5. According to Ford, it all depends on the script.

Since 2007’s Bourne Ultimatum, fans of super spy Jason Bourne have been waiting patiently for the next installment of the critically acclaimed franchise. Unfortunately, for months, all we’ve gotten out of director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon is that the movie is “being worked on” and that they “have a story, but not a script.” Luckily, thanks to Steve Weintraub over at Collider, we have a little bit more information on the film that indicates the possibility of the movie moving along sooner than you think.

At a press conference for Damon’s new film, The Informant, Weintraub asked the Academy Award-winner about the project. I’ve excerpted some of Damon’s answers below. For the full interview, head over to Collider.

According to an exclusive report from Bloody Disgusting, Columbia Pictures has purchased a spec script for a horror/action film called Supermax. The film, which was written by Mitch Rouse and Christopher Allen Nelson, “takes place in a Maximum Security Prison for the Supernatural as a skilled guard must join forces with a lethal inmate after a riot ensues in order to fight his way through various monsters and madmen in order to survive.”

If that plot sounds familiar, it might be because you’re remembering the David S, Goyer-penned Super Max – a.k.a. the Green Arrow movie. The script for that film, which earned some major positive buzz when it first hit the Internet, follows the falsely accused Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) as he attempts to escape from a maximum security prison for super-villains. Along the way he fights against and teams up with a whole slew of famous DC comics villains, (allegedly) including the Riddler and Lex Luthor.

When Google acquired YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion, CEO Eric Schmidt remarked, “This is the next step in the evolution of the Internet.” Three years later, YouTube is still not profitable, hosting thousands upon thousands of silly cat videos, while its primary competitor, Hulu, has already secured content syndication deals with NBC, ABC, FOX, and scores of cable networks. Ouch.

Of course, we shouldn’t be writing YouTube’s epitaph just yet. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, YouTube is currently in discussions with a number of movie studios, including Lions Gate, Sony, MGM, and Warner Brothers, to develop some kind of movie rental agreement.

Few upcoming comic book movies are as widely anticipated as Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass. After fans got their first look at the film at Comic-Con, it only took a few weeks before Lionsgate picked it up for distribution, and now we know that it will be released April 16, 2010. A pretty quick turnaround for a self-financed movie about wannabe teenage superheroes and foul-mouthed prepubescent assassins, don’t you think?

The phenomenal buzz surrounding Kick-Ass comes in no small part from the creative talents of the comic’s creators, Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. As such, it’s no surprise that director Matthew Vaughn decided to work closely with both Millar and Romita throughout the production. In fact, Romita even produced his own animated sequence for the film. Now, thanks to MTV, we know exactly what it will be about.

You know what’s great about superhero movies? If you don’t like one, wait a year or two and you’ll probably get a reboot. Back in March, Screen Rant reported that Fox was considering rebooting their financially successful (but critically panned) Fantastic Four franchise. Now we have confirmation. According to Variety, the Fantastic Four reboot will be produced by Akiva Goldsman (Jonah Hex and Hancock) and written by Michael Green (co-executive producer of Heroes and co-writer of Green Lantern).

When we first heard whispers of this reboot from IESB, the word on the block was that a reboot would be “darker.” Big surprise, right? Every superhero movie wants to get “darker” right now. Of course, darker is a relative term. As it stands, there’s “dark, but fun” (Iron Man) or “just plain dark” (The Dark Knight). I’m betting that Fantastic Four will be more like the former.