Cinematical

While 2010 hasn't exactly been a stellar year for horror movies as a whole, it's at least been a pretty good year for horror remakes. Sure, 'Nightmare on Elm Street' rattled a few cages, but 'The Crazies' and 'Let Me In' are both superb remakes in their own right, and 'Piranha 3D' was a ton of raunchy fun, so three-out-of-four Hollywood remakes delivering the goods isn't too bad of a track record. On December 17th we'll know if 'And Soon the Darkness' can bump that record to four-out-of-five.

A remake of the 1970 British thriller of the same name, Marcos Efron's remake takes the same fish-out-of-water approach, but instead swaps rural France for South America. Here's the official synopsis:

"Stephanie (Amber Heard) and Ellie's (Odette Yustman) vacation to an exotic village in Argentina is a perfect 'girl's getaway' to bask in the sun, shop and flirt with the handsome locals. After a long night of bar-hopping, the girls get into an argument, and Stephanie heads out alone in the morning to cool off. But when she returns, Ellie has disappeared. Finding signs of a struggle, Stephanie fears the worst, and turns to the police for help. But the local authorities have their hands full already - with a string of unsolved kidnappings targeting young female tourists. Skeptical of the sheriff's competency, she enlists help from Michael (Karl Urban), an American ex-pat staying at their hotel. Together they go on a frantic search for Ellie, but Stephanie soon realizes that trusting his seemingly good intentions may drag her farther from the truth. With danger mounting, and time running out, Stephanie must find her friend before darkness falls."

And here's an exclusive clip from the film, which goes into limited release on the 17th before heading to DVD on the 28th.

We pulled a bait and switch on you -- this story isn't some kind of mondo video of Zac Efron getting shot in a gunfight, it's really just a blurb for his latest, um, film. That's right, Zac Efron isn't just for lookin', kids -- he's for actin' too, and according to Deadline he'll be starring as a "fight-prone and death-obsessed young society man" looking for love in all the wrong places. Media Rights Capital is pursuing the script for 'Die in a Gunfight,' which comes courtesy of recent NYU grads Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari.

Society man? We'll buy that for a dollar (ok, not really). Fight-prone? Not so much. In the film, Efron's character pursues a romance with the daughter of his father's enemy, which will allow the shaggy-haired heartthrob to flex his eyelash muscles. It's hard to target the exact tone and setting for 'Gunfight' since Deadline described the film in July as a "high octane action script," but the word "society" has period drama written all over it. Vulture added this to the mix in July, tagging it as a "Tarantino-esque blend of 'Gossip Girl,' 'True Romance,' and 'Romeo and Juliet.' Efron [will] play Ben, an underachieving, deadbeat son of a famous New York high-society attorney who gets himself in over his head when he falls for the daughter of his father's nemesis -- a girl who is already busy being stalked by an obsessive French professor." Hmm.

Hit the comments section and let us know which way you see this one heading. More importantly, will Efron be able to get his hands dirty enough to make a believable hothead?

Each year at Sundance there seems to be at least one short film that sticks out as something you desperately need to see. Last year it was Spike Jonze's 'I'm Here', which, thankfully, premiered opening night and quenched our Jonze-obsessed thirst for all things robotically dark and quirky. This year the buzz is definitely building for Adam Yauch's short film 'Fight For Your Right Revisited', which is said to be about the making of the Beastie Boys' iconic hit video (watch after the jump) for "Fight For Your Right (To Party)". The details are under wraps, and all we have is a tagline that reads: "After the boys leave the party."

The idea alone is tempting, but the cast is what really sells it: Seth Rogen, Elijah Wood, Danny McBride, Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly and Jack Black. Furthermore, the first image from the short (see above) has arrived online showing Rogen, Wood and McBride as the Beastie Boys themselves, and, well, now we're hooked.

No word yet on the short's premiere date at Sundance, but we'll be there when it does screen so stay tuned for our reaction next month when the 2011 Sundance Film Festival kicks off on January 20th.

If yesterday's trailer gave you 'Transformers' fans out there hope for the potential of 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon,' Michael Bay's latest discussion with the blogging community should help even more. Collider recorded an epically long lunch chat in which Bay apologized for the second film, talked about his attempts to make up for it with film number three and how the addition of 3D changed his cinematic process.

Talking about 'Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen,' Michael Bay explained:

"We tried to learn from the second movie. On the second movie we got burned. We had a writers strike, we had to agree on a story in three weeks, and then we knew they were going on strike. It was a f***ed scenario all the way around; it wasn't fair to the writer; it wasn't fair to me; it wasn't fair to anybody. It was still an entertaining movie, but I think we failed on certain aspects. What we did with this movie is I think we have a much better script, and we got back to basics. ... It's more serious. I got rid of the dorky comedy; I mean we've got two little characters, that's it, but the dorkiness is not there. Dork-free Transformers. It's much more serious. It's still entertaining; it's big looking."

When Shawn Levy first signed on to direct a film called 'Real Steel', fans complained that the guy behind films like 'Night at the Museum' and 'Cheaper by the Dozen' wouldn't be able to deliver a badass robot-fighting flick starring Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman. But we're curious to see what people say after watching this first trailer for the film, which looks to combine everything we love about an underdog boxing story with the action and intensity of a film like 'Transformers'.

Due out on October 7th, 2011, Disney is getting out way ahead of this one to start building buzz early (which means we'll also be seeing this trailer in front of 'Tron: Legacy' next weekend). The film stars Hugh Jackman as a struggling robot boxing promoter who believes he's found his next champion in a discarded robot. From there it looks like we're in store from some straight-up, robot beatdowns, with each new nemesis looking even nastier than the one that came before it.

It's Disney and Levy, though, so expect the film to also pack a whole lotta heart in there as well, which is fine so long as they deliver what most people really want to see from a movie like this: robots beating the crap out of other robots. Check out the trailer after the jump and let us know what you think.

- Is a comment even necessary? [via Buzzfeed]

- Disney has advanced 'The Muppets' from its previous Christmas 2011 release to a Thanksgiving 2011 release in hopes that it will keep their holiday weekend winning streak alive and strong.

- ComingSoon.net has a few on-set snaps of Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker's love interest, in the new 'Spider-Man.'

- The old British TV show 'RentaGhost' has been picked up by Warner Bros. for feature film development. Russell Brand will star in the 'Beetlejuice'-esque film about a dead guy who starts a temp agency for fellow ghosts who would like to be more productive in the afterlife than they were in their actual lives.

- In a move that should surprise no one, Magnet Releasing has snapped up distribution rights to Jason Eisner's 'Hobo With a Shotgun,' which stars Rutger Hauer as a transient vigilante, ahead of its debut at Sundance.

- Empire Online have debuted a new, darker poster for Jon Favreau's 'Cowboys & Aliens':

When 'Rabbit Hole' premiered at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, we fell hard for the quietly powerful film about a pair of spouses (Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart) trying to rebuild some sense of normalcy only a few months removed from the death of their young son. Lionsgate snatched it up a few weeks later, and the distributor has done an impressive job of building up some steam for not only Nicole Kidman's superb lead performance, but also for the very fine film as a whole.

As 'Rabbit Hole' prepares to arrive in theaters on December 17th, we were invited to share a brief chat with actor / producer Nicole Kidman on the dangers of making "sad" films, the delicacy of good storytelling, and the importance of fear in an actor's craft.

As you may know, I've been a huge fan of the film since the moment I saw it at TIFF, and that opinion comes from a single guy, never had children...

Nicole Kidman: Thank you, thank you! We are trying so desperately to get people to go see it. It seems like such a terrifying experience to a lot of people, so you can imagine just how grateful we are.

I imagine it's hard for a casual viewer to get past the basic premise.

Nicole: Absolutely. We keep trying to say that the experience of the film is not putting you through the wringer. That's not the point of it.

Of course the subject material is very "sad," but the film as a whole is also rather uplifting.

Nicole: Yeah, and funny too, which sounds very strange to say about this material.