20th Century Fox »

I'm not going to pretend like I had any kind of a reaction to the initial news that Joe Carnahan was remaking The A-Team. I have no sentimental attachment to the original show from the '80s, nor do I have much affection for Carnahan's filmography. That said, once the film cast Liam Neeson, 'Rampage' Jackson, Bradley Cooper and Sharlto Copley as its crew of wrong war vets doing good while on the run, I was in. However, those who weren't too fond of the news of yet another pop culture staple getting re-manufactured by Hollywood might like to know that the original "A-Team" will be popping up in the reboot.

Well, at least one of them will. The Official Dwight Schultz Fansite is reporting the actor, who played the original 'Howling Mad' Murdock, has been on location in Vancouver filming his undisclosed role in the picture, which will be out in June of 2010. They're giving no hints as to who Schultz is playing this time around, but they have relayed his take on the District 9 star filling the same shoes he once did, "Sharlto Copely, the South African actor who plays Murdock, is according to Dwight: 'brilliant beyond words'. Dwight has seen his screen test and he stated: that honestly, if Sharlto is given an opportunity to do what I saw in that test, "Murdock" will be better than ever!"

That should be a sigh of relief to fans who were worried about the handling of their beloved characters. There's no mention if any of the other originals will pop-up in the new A-Team. George Peppard, who first played Liam Neeson's Hannibal, passed away in 1994, but Dirk Benedict and Mr. T could still join Schultz on screen. What say you fans of "The A-Team"? Would you like to see the remaining crew cameo or are they better left confined to '80s nostalgia?

Talking about film budgets is a tricky thing. Talking about the budget for Avatar is an even trickier thing. I recently mused about how Fox's huge gamble had caused four highly-anticipated films in China to flee from its shadow, poising the film on the precipice of a perfect storm of box office success in China that no previous film had been privy to. In doing so I invoked the ire of a good number of commenters, all of whom felt my budget-returning extrapolation from the news that Avatar is set to dominate in 80% of China's screens during its biggest blockbuster season wasn't just a wrong hypothetical, but downright ignorant.

While I still stand by the point of that post - that the hitherto unseen convergence of all the elements behind Avatar's release is going to see unprecedented box office in China - I'll concede that there is no chance that the film makes its budget back from China alone; not with the New York Times now claiming that the film's price tag is breaching the half-billion mark. As with all things budget, however, this number isn't as simple as it looks.

The $500 million is NYT's combination of the estimated $300 million it cost to actually produce the film, the approximately $150 million Fox plans to spend on global marketing alone, with the remaining $50 million being a cushion for the cumulative costs some of the film's partners have already ponied up (such as Avatar Day, whose bill was footed mostly by IMAX). However, even if their newly estimated number is accurate, that doesn't mean that Fox is on the line for the full half-billion.

At a press junket earlier this summer for 2012, Roland Emmerich told reporters he's not doing any more blow-'em-up flicks. "I would not know how to top this... It's just one of these things, you know. I had a hard time deciding to do another disaster movie, but... you cannot make a disaster movie if there's not something --- an idea in this disaster which elevates it to something more than a disaster. And so it was this idea, you know, that there will be a global flood and it's a retelling of Noah's Arc."

Later he added, "It's not my last film, it's my last disaster film. And that's because I wouldn't know what else to do. It's just, you know what, I really didn't want to do this movie at first... But when I decided that the idea was too good to not do it for the reason I had done before, I said, okay, if I do it, I will do it in such a spectacular manner that nobody can top it for a long time. I have that pride in my work."

I don't know how many moons orbit Cameron's fantasy planet Pandora, but I'm just going to assume they're currently all heading for alignment. Screen Daily tells us that Avatar's two-months away release in China has caused no less than four of its own would-be blockbusters to hide from the giant shadow the blue cat-people will inevitably cast when they debut there January 1st. Zhang Yimou's remake of the Coen Brother's 1984 directorial debut Blood Simple has now decided to bow closer towards the beginning of December. Same goes for the road movie Wu Ren Qu, The Pang brother's fantasy/action sequel The Storm Warriors, and the sci-fi western Treasure Hunter (starring Jay Chou, who America will soon know as Kato in The Green Hornet).

Now I understand that few people who read Cinematical are going to be affected by the release date shift of those four films, but what makes this news worth paying attention to is the fact that these changes slot Avatar into a position in which it could conceivably earn its budget back from Chinese cinemas alone. The biggest time of the year for the Chinese box office is the three month window that covers Christmas, New Year, and the Chinese Lunar New Year and now that these four domestic films have made way for an international usurper, it means Avatar will be taking over a whopping 80% of China's screens during its most crucial box office season.

It's no secret that James Cameron's Avatar has been fighting an up-hill battle for years. Film geeks, particularly those who spend most of their time online, are a tough crowd to uniformly please, so early buzz on the film was as much an excitement accelerator as it was a dare to dislike. When the first trailer for the film was at long last unveiled back in August, it was met with incredulous, befuddled cries of "Is that it?"

If, like myself, you were disappointed with that first teaser, and if, like myself, you avoided Avatar Day and any subsequent new marketing tactics outside of the normal trailer build up, then maybe this new, full trailer for Cameron's return to science fiction will be the first time you set aside your cynicism and think "Alright, I get what all the fuss is about now." This second trailer is nearly identical to the international trailer that has been making the online rounds lately, except there's one huge difference: this isn't a blurry hint of things to come. Yahoo has the debut, and we all know that means a crystal-clear, HD if-you-want-it look at the alien world of Pandora.

Unlike the first trailer, there's no teasing going on here; this is an exposition-heavy tour of the film's plot, characters, and, most importantly, alien Na'vi. Not only do we have more than one line of dialog now, but we're given context-relevant glimpses at what will, I no longer doubt, be the must-see spectacle film of 2009.

Click on over to Yahoo and check it out. If this expanded foray into jungle battles doesn't get you pumped for December 18th, I don't think anything will.

Feelings are mixed about The A-Team movie, and Entertainment Tonight's on-set visit doesn't shed a whole lot of light on the plot. Naturally, one of the team members (Bradley Cooper as the old Faceman) and the one lady in the movie (Jessica Biel as Amy Allen) used to date, and there's some undercurrent of drama between them. Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson, who is taking over Mr. T's star-making role as Bosco Baracus, does sport the Mr. T hairdo (I pity the fool who calls it a hairdon't) but claims there will be "more muscle, less gold." And Bradley Cooper gives us some diet tips.

"No salt or sugar. That's been greeaaat. I just eat what they put in front of me, but it's a lot of, like, boiled chicken and brown rice and broccoli."

I'm going to go eat a hamburger in his honor.

Two stand-out people they didn't talk to include Liam Neeson and District 9's breakout star Sharlto Copley. I'm very curious to see if Copley can parlay his first role in a big-budget US movie into stardom. I hope so, because I thought he rocked in District 9, as anyone who has ever heard me screech "PRAWNS!!!" in a restaurant can attest.

Did this video make you any more or less excited about the movie? Personally, I'm going with no.

Watch ET's set visit after the jump along with an inspirational YouTube video of Mr. T's song "Treat Your Mother Right." Just because.

The wonderful people at Empire have landed a big interview with Lauren Shuler Donner where she foretells the future of all the X-Men spinoffs. Not surprisingly, the majority of their energy is being focused on Wolverine's adventures in Japan, and he'll be seeing production long before Deadpool, X-Men: First Class, and Magneto. While it's heartening to hear they don't plan on straying from the Chris Claremont / Frank Miller story, I'll need an amnesia bullet to forget at all the continuity errors in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, so I'm not going to hold my breath.

The best news belongs to the Deadpool spinoff. According to Donner, you can forget all about the abomination called Deadpool in Wolverine. "I want to ignore the version of Deadpool that we saw in Wolverine and just start over again. Reboot it. Because this guy talks, obviously, and to muzzle him would be insane." Don't look for Hal Jordan to jeopardize the future of Wade Wilson, either. "I don't see it as a problem that Ryan [Reynolds] is also playing Green Lantern. I mean, look at Harrison Ford - he was in Stars Wars and Indiana Jones at the same time and everyone was fine with that. Green Lantern could not be more different to Wade Wilson." Donner promises it will be a "dark, snarky, very funny movie," echoes Reynolds' fourth wall promises, and stresses it may be one of the hardest stories Fox has handled thus far.

Donner also made X-Men: First Class sound a lot more promising than previous stories did, but maybe I'm just softening on the idea. As you may remember, First Class will be loosely based on the comic series and will follow the early adventures and schooling of the X-Men we already know and love.

Go below the jump for more

Before our generation comes to a close, all of ancient history and mythology will have been filmed through a Zack Snyder / Frank Miller lens. Variety reports that the next ancient text to get the green-screened sepia treatment is the tale of Moses. Yes, Ten Commandments Moses.

20th Century Fox and its new big dog, Peter Chernin, have snapped up a pitch to retell "Let my people go!" in 300 fashion, and put Adam Cooper and Bill Collage to work penning a script. You might not remember their names now, but they're also pairing up with Timur Bekmambetov to remake the story of Moby Dick in a 300 "graphic novel style." Variety notes that all the elements you know and love from the story of Moses will be there (the Red Sea, the plague of locusts, the golden calf) but they will also incorporate "brand new elements" drawn from Midrashic sources. I wonder if they'll also find a way to include the scene with Zipporah rescues their son from the Lord by circumcising him? Because they could do some slow motion blood splatter with that.

Being an irreligious sort, I find the idea silly instead of offensive but it's possible that a lot of moviegoers could find this very disrespectful to their faith. Will it spur on copycat projects? Will other studios go "Why didn't we think of the Bible?", abandon Greek texts, and start producing 300 versions of Maccabees? Judges? 1 and 2 Kings? There's a lot of gory tales just waiting to be revamped with green screen.

When you think of a man of brawn who can outwit the ruthless Predator, you think of two men: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Adrien Brody. What, you didn't picture that last one? Well, Robert Rodriguez and Nimrod Antal did. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Brody and Topher Grace are both set to join Alice Braga, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, Walt Goggins, Danny Trejo and Oleg Taktarov in Predators, a franchise reboot of sorts that will follow several of earth's "killers" who are kidnapped and dropped on the Predator's home planet for a game of hide, seek and be brutally murdered.

All joking aside, Brody and Grace's unassuming demeanors will be a big part of their characters. Brody will play a soldier forced to become a leader (presumably because the Predator killed the old one), but is fit for the job because he's "a hunter of men." Grace will play a nerdy, accountant type whose very ordinariness hides the fact that he's a serial killer.

The rest of the cast is a little better suited for the lethal jungle. Braga will play a tough female killer, while Ali is a man who is unafraid to die. Goggins is a loose cannon (there's always one!) and Takatarov will be a former Russian operative. But baddest of them all is Trejo's Cuchillo, "a hardened warrior with two uzis strapped to his back." I don't know about you, but my leader would be the one with the twin uzis. That's just me though.

Shooting begins next month in Hawaii, and then moves to Austin. Variety notes that Brody lobbied very hard for the role, and has already signed on for future installments. So, I guess we know which operative makes it out of the jungle ...