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Few people were more excited than me when it was announced back in July that Guillermo Del Toro would finally be making his version of HP Lovecraft's creepy novella At the Mountains of Madness. The tale focuses on an Antarctic expedition that uncovers some truly chilling things lurking in a mountain range that dwarfs the Himalayas. Having read the novella several times, I can tell you that it should make for a really spooky movie -- something akin to John Carpenter's The Thing.

Del Toro's set to direct the project for Universal, with James Cameron producing. Now there's news of potential casting for the film -- and the first possible standoff between the filmmaker and the studio.

Universal has their sights set on James McAvoy to play the lead role, while Del Toro wants Tom Cruise. Speculation is that Del Toro wants Cruise because the two had talked about doing a reboot of Van Helsing and had a liking for each other. I'm okay with either actor taking on the part (Chris Pine was reportedly also in the mix, but his schedule is apparently too busy for another project), but all things being equal, I'd rather McAvoy get the role. Cruise is such a big name that no matter what he does in a film, he's always just Tom Cruise. I'd rather see someone with a more average Joe quality in the in the lead.

As Collider mentions, filming isn't set to start until May of next year, so neither actor may land the part. McAvoy's set to tackle the role of the young Professor X in X-Men: First Class while Cruise has Mission: Impossible 4 starting next month and the Les Grossman spinoff at some point after that.

Still, for the sake of discussion, who would you rather see in the role? Tell us below.

When Hollywood can't decide if they want to remake, reboot, or leave a popular franchise alone, they often turn to the video game designers to help keep a popular brand alive. Fortunately the folks at Universal have decided to entrust their Back to the Future and Jurassic Park properties to an outfit called Telltale Games. And gaming fans will be quick to remind you that this is the team the produced some really high-end games based on Wallace & Gromit and Homestar Runner, plus they have some very well-regarded original titles like Monkey Island and Sam & Max.

USA Today brings us the early word on what the Back to the Future game will look like, and personally ... I think it looks pretty cool. Turns out that producer / screenwriter Bob Gale will be working with Telltale on the five-episode game series, and it's always a good thing when the original filmmakers are involved with a video game design. The game company's website has a page covering the Universal projects right here, and (hat tip) Slashfilm has a lot more details on the nuts & bolts right here.

All I wanna know is this: will I be able to trick a Tannen into being covered with manure of some kind?

Why Scott Pilgrim vs. the World tanked articles were bound to flood the Internet after the well-reviewed flick's dismal opening weekend. Now that Scott Pilgrim has just wrapped up its second week in theaters, the constant chatter has somewhat fizzled out, but folks are still examining the divergence between critics and fans that has occurred more than once this year and could certainly effect the types of films the major studios pump out in the future.

In The Wrap's latest article on the topic, the site suggests five reasons why the film failed. The list consists of exactly what you'd expect, but a few quotes liven up the subject a bit, especially the ones from folks on the marketing side of the industry.

The first finger is pointed at genre confusion. What is Scott Pilgrim? Is it an adventure, romance or comedy? Based on the promotional material, it's impossible to know. Come to think of it, even after seeing the film, there's no way to give it a clear-cut label. Scott Pilgrim is just something we've never seen before and while it should be praised for daring to be different, moviegoers are running scared. Even the film's posters sent out a confusing message. At first Cera looks super cool rocking out on his guitar, but then we see he's just a geek in the commercials. A marketing executive suggested, "They couldn't decide if this was a true superhero movie and they should make him look like a hero, or if it was an underdog story and you were supposed to root for him to get the girl."

Deadline confirms that Tim Burton (Alice in Wonderland, Sweeney Todd, The Corpse Bride, The Nightmare Before Christmas) will reunite with Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the screenwriters behind one of Burton's better films, Ed Wood. Alexander and Karaszewski will write the script for Burton's stop-motion animated film, The Addams Family. Burton was already attached to direct The Addams Family, a new take on Charles Addams' fictional family that first appeared in the New Yorker in a series of single-panel cartoons that ran periodically from 1938 to Addams' death in 1988, but was later immortalized on television in the mid-1960s, for Illumination Entertainment and Universal Pictures under the stewardship of Chris Meledandri.

Meledandri scored a $200 million box-office hit this summer with the Illuminatio-produced 3D animated film, Despicable Me. He purchased the rights to the Addams Family earlier this year specifically with Burton in mind to direct. Now Meledandri has writers who have a positive history with Burton and independent success on their own (1408, The People vs. Larry Flynt). During their meeting with Burton, Alexander and Karaszewski showed Burton an original script, Big Eyes, based on the lesser known controversy over the credits for the big-eyed paintings of children that were extremely popular in the 1960s. Walter Keane initially took credit for the paintings, but it was his painter-wife, Margaret, who, after accusations of mental illness and a prolonged legal battle, gained final credit for the paintings.

I think we can all agree that Hugh Grant has the lovestruck fool down pat. In Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Nine Months, and Love, Actually among others, he's milked the awkward Brit routine for all its worth, only occasionally switching it up to play a complete cad (American Dreamz, the Bridget Jones films). Only in 2002's About a Boy did he manage a rare balance between the two extremes, and I don't think he's given a more charming or completely fleshed-out performance to date.

Battle: Los Angeles and Skyline both promise a showdown between mankind and evil extra-terrestrials bent on destroying us -- but before that happens, it appears we have to deal with another conflict first -- a potential legal battle between the two projects.

Sony Pictures Entertainment has their gaggle of lawyers investigating legal action against Skyline filmmakers Greg and Colin Strause. The issue is that the Strause brothers own a special effects company named Hydraulx and they were hired to do visual effects work on Battle: Los Angeles -- and they forgot to mention they were working on their own alien invasion film at the same time.

While many are quick to view this as a "David Vs. Goliath" tale of two filmmakers being threatened by a giant corporation, things aren't so clear cut. As a Deadline article points out, the Strause brothers were hired for the Battle: Los Angeles job and considered for directorial duties -- meaning they had access to storyboards, the script, and all kinds of other goodies that they could have incorporated into their own film or used to enhance what they were doing. At best, there seems to be a definite conflict of interest thing happening here.

Of course, what seems to really have Sony up in arms is that Universal is set to release Skyline -- which garnered a lot of attention at Comic-Con -- on November 12th, several months ahead of Sony's much larger project. Sony could simply be rattling its legal saber to convince Skyline to shift to a later release date so as not to interfere with Battle: Los Angeles' debut.

Both sides were largely reluctant to speak on the issue, although a spokesman for the Strauses did offer this: "Any claims of impropriety are completely baseless. This is a blatant attempt by Sony to force these independent filmmakers to move a release date that has long been set by Universal and Relativity and is outside the filmmakers' control." While we don't know all the details yet, we do know the Strauses were involved with both projects and they overlapped. Does this sound "baseless" to you or does Sony have a legitimate complaint? Play Nancy Grace in the comments section below.

Breakthroughs are tricky business for actors, because they can define an actor as easily as they can establish them. But Kieran Culkin has been around for years, doing terrific work in lots of different kinds of movies, so his latest breakthrough feels like more of a reminder than the arrival of some unknown quantity. That said, it may still feel like people are seeing him for the first time – as an adult, anyway – as he steals scenes from Michael Cera in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World as Wallace Wells, the roommate, critic and sometime conscience of the title character.

Cinematical sat down with Culkin at the Los Angeles press day for Scott Pilgrim just days after the film premiered at a secret screening in San Diego during the 2010 Comic-Con. In addition to talking about his character's camaraderie with Scott and the rest of the ensemble, Culkin examined his own approach to playing such varied roles throughout his career, and reflected on the prospect of putting himself into the public consciousness with his high-profile appearance in the film.

Between my junior and senior years of college, I studied abroad in Great Britain and Scandinavia for a month studying the film movements in those regions. I had a great professor who showed us all sorts of terrific old British and European films, introduced me to filmmakers like Bergman, Tony Richardson and Derek Jarman, and in the spectrum of attendees, who vacillated between shopaholics looking for an excuse to visit Hard Rock Cafes in London and folks sincerely interested in learning about international cinema, I was more or less the group's ultimate film nerd.

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were two of the filmmakers we learned the most about, although in the span of one month, we covered so many other simultaneously I didn't get to show them my full attention. Since then – a pathetically long 14 years – I've been otherwise occupied with classics like That Darn Cat and Patch Adams, and have devoted far too little time to catchin up on their collective achievements, even if I've since become a hardcore fan of Powell's Peeping Tom.

All of which is why I was especially excited to revisit one of their greatest films, The Red Shoes, when the good folks at Criterion re-released it on Blu-ray. Already a marvel of color and cinematography, I could scarcely imagine how good their classic might look in high definition. But does it still seem as magical and moving some 62 years after its initial release? That's what I was eager to find out in this week's Shelf Life.

In retrospect, it seems appropriate that I spoke to Edgar Wright for this interview via telephone as he rushed from one place to another, dropped the call at one point, and was generally pressed for time during the entire conversation. Mind you, that isn't a complaint at all; rather, it's an indication of how hard-working, committed and most of all energetic Wright is. That he would devote whatever spare minutes he had to field a few questions from yours truly about Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, his terrific new film, is a testament to his generosity, and that he would provide such interesting, insightful, and thought-provoking answers is one to his febrile intelligence and the completeness of his filmmaking vision.

Scott Pilgrim is of course an adaptation of the Bryan Lee O'Malley graphic novel series of the same name, and it seems tailor-made for Wright's leapfrog, pop-culture-saturated sensibilities. The film version is full of references to video games, movies, TV shows, even technological benchmarks, although all combined into one exhilarating pastiche that manages to celebrate and send-up its influences all at the same time, and more than that generate a sincere and substantive connection to its characters. In addition to talking about that foundation of media and technology that fueled his creativity, Wright discussed the characters and feelings beneath all of that visual flourish, and examined the film's ability to work both as a timely chronicle of contemporary relationships, and a reflection of the filmmaker's own evolving maturity.

I'm neither hip nor cool. If you rounded my age up you'd hit 40 and if you asked me if I'd read the Scott Pilgrim novels I'd have said "Scott what now?" I have no interest in what's hot or cool or popular at Hot Topic these days, I'm absolutely clueless about current pop music, and I couldn't care less what's "trending" on twitter at the moment. In other words, I'm old. The maniacal new romantic comedy Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is not exactly "geared" to my "demographic," and aside from the fact that I like the director and several cast members, I had no real rooting interest in the project one way or another.

Then I watched the film, and what I saw was one of the purest, sweetest, funniest, and most dead-on accurate portrayals of "young male in love" syndrome that I've ever seen in a cinema. One need not be a hip youngster or a seasoned film critic to see what's going on beneath the surface of this powerfully entertaining movie -- but it certainly helps to approach this strange little experiment with an open mind and a youthful heart. Anyone who dismisses this film as youth-pandering video game ephemera simply isn't looking closely enough.