British filmmaker Neil Marshall earned a legion of new fans with 2005's The Descent, a genuinely scary flick that put me, for one, off spelunking forever. And for his next act? An energetic but derivative apocalyptic adventure that Rogue Pictures has unceremoniously dumped into theaters without press screenings or even much promotion.

Being one of Hollywood's Shameful Secrets™ (movies not screened for critics before they open) gives a film a certain stench, and it's too bad that Doomsday is stuck with it. It's not great -- I'm not even sure I'd call it "good" -- but the studios have certainly screened films that were worse. Heck, the studios have screened films that were worse this week (including one whose name rhymes with Mever Mack Mown). Doomsday is perfectly acceptable as a C+ movie, the kind that you don't see on purpose but that will certainly amuse you if you happen to stumble into the theater accidentally.

It begins with florid narration by Malcolm McDowell, who tells us that a horrific virus -- subtly called the Reaper Virus -- wiped out much of England. Then a wall was built to divide the infected northern half of Britain from the clean southern half, and all the sick people up north were left to die in chaos. "Social order decayed along with the corpses," McDowell says.

Kim and Erik are long gone, but a bunch of your sexy Cinematicaleers are still knee-deep in SXSW awesomeness. Peter and Jette have been seeing tons of flicks, Snider and I have been trying to do the same (but man oh man do I stay up late!), and all the while ... Austin has been invaded by thousands of music-type people. But we wanted to take a break from the documentaries, the dramas, and the mumblecorings, so four of us (namely: Eric Snider, William Goss, Eugene Novikov and myself) decided to trek towards a multiplex and take in a screening of Doomsday, since it opened today.

For those who don't worship at the altar of Genre Film, I'll remind you that Doomsday is the third feature from Neil Marshall -- after Dog Soldiers and The Descent. Sir Snider will be reviewing the film very soon (while my review will appear at FEARnet), but I do know he liked the film pretty well. I, however, was clapping my hands with childlike glee at every well-timed punch, kick, quip, bullet-hole, and explosion. A great musical score, excellent pacing, a few kick-ass action scenes, an amusing and unpretentious attitude, and no B.S. time-wastin' blah-blah-blah junk.

Then we spent about 2.5 hours trying to travel the half-dozen miles from the theater to my hotel, because apparently the music festival has called DIBS on every taxi in Austin. But I saw a fun movie with good pals, plus I stopped at a book store and bought a new horror compilation from Richard Laymon. Oooh, and we ate at Arby's! And now ... back to the festival!

Despite a putrescent score of 7% over at Rottentomatoes.com, Roland Emmerich's 10,000 B.C. took the saber tooth tiger by the tail and raked in some respectable cash, pulling in more than twice as much as its closest competitor. Last week's two other big releases, College Road Trip and The Bank Job, took second and fourth place respectively. Vantage Point enjoyed its third week in the top five, with sales already exceeding the film's $40 million budget by more than $10 million. Here are last weekend's totals:

1. 10,000 B.C.: $35.7 million.
2. College Road Trip: $14 million.
3. Vantage Point: $7.5 million.
4. The Bank Job: $5.7 million.
5. Semi-Pro: $5.8 million.

Last week's prehistoric adventure is counter-balanced by a post apocalyptic (sort of) romp, a classic children's book brought to the big screen, and teens kicking the living crap out of each other.

Doomsday
What's It All About: In the wake of a devastating plague, an entire country is walled off to prevent the disease from spreading. Thirty years later when the plague resurfaces, a military team is dispatched into the now barbaric quarantine zone in search of a cure.
Why It Might Do Well: Director Neil Marshall has The Descent and Dog Soldiers to his credit, two very cool flicks that have me curious about his latest.
Why It Might Not Do Well: The unimpressive trailer indicates a hodge podge collection of influences including The Road Warrior, Escape From New York and Underworld.
Number of Theaters: 1,800
Prediction: $9.5 million

Man, on days like today, I wish I could make this post have a soundtrack. Just the thought of horror in the Old West makes me think of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. It would be so easy to darken that tune up and make it creepy. Anyhow, Variety reports that Rogue Pictures, who will release Neil Marshall's Doomsday this Friday, has made a deal for the writer/director's next flick, an Old West horror film called Sacrilege.

Marshall says: "It is set during the Gold Rush, a time remembered for incidents like the Donner Party. It is meant to be a pitch-black, gritty, period horror movie." Well, we certainly don't get blood fests in period garb everyday. The filmmaker goes on to say that the film is influenced by The Thing, will tap into isolation and paranoia, and will be "Unforgiven by way of H.P. Lovecraft." The project is just in the idea phase right now, although Marshall plans to start writing the script immediately.

In the meantime, you can watch Rhona Mitra fight the deadly Reaper virus from within suffering, and quarantined country this Friday.

You know, for a movie that probably isn't the best idea to begin with, a lot of people certainly seem to be lining up to work on it. Just days after rumors swirled that Rob Zombie would be taking over the Conan remake for Millennium/Nu Image, now Doomsday director Neil Marshall has also been added to the list of possible directors for the fantasy update.

Rumors of Marshall's involvement first surfaced over at IGN, where it had also been confirmed by one of their sources that Zombie was in talks with the producers. That same source then threw Marshall's name on the list. Marshall joins John McTiernan, Zombie, and Hitman director Xavier Gens as possible candidates to direct. It has since been confirmed that Zombie will not be taking the reins, and instead is off working on the biker flick Tyrannosaurus Rex. According to IGN, Gens has also been in talks with the producers, but so was Zombie and look how that turned out.

The production has struggled since the beginning; first there were battles over the rights to the franchise, and after a few false starts, Millennium/Nu Image was left standing and they are now the proud new owners of the film. Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer have been allowed to work on the script during the strike thanks to an agreement between Millennium and the WGA. IGN also reports that Millennium/Nu Image will not be choosing their director until the script has been completed. By then who knows how many more names will have been added to the list. Conan is tentatively scheduled for release in 2009.

[via Comics2Film]

Having a baby, meeting extraterrestrials, losing your cat: these are all jumping off points after which -- for good or ill -- your life is never quite the same again. This week we're looking at trailers for films that show big changes.

Doomsday
Yeah, I've got to imagine the end of the world will change everything. At the very least, you won't have to go to work tomorrow, and to hell with that car payment. When a lethal plague devastates a large section of England, the area is walled off for decades. When the plague resurfaces, a special team is dispatched inside the quarantined area to look for a cure. This is from director Neil Marshall, whose last two films -- The Descent and Dog Soldiers -- I loved. The Mad Max influence is obvious, but it also brings to mind all the Italian-made Mad Max knock-offs from the 80s, of which there were so many that they became a genre unto themselves. There's also a fair amount of Escape From New York evident here, and our heroine Rhona Mitra (pictured above) recalls Kate Beckinsale in the Underworld movies. I'm getting lots of deja vu here, with nothing really striking me as original. I'll probably see this based on Marshall's credentials, but the trailer doesn't sell me. Here's Scott's take.

Baby Mama
Tina Fey plays a successful business woman who wants a baby, and she hires a working class woman played by Amy Poehler to be her surrogate. Between Knocked Up, Juno and Waitress, it's been a big year for pregnancy comedies, and I have to wonder if Hollywood has gone to the well once too often with this one. I loved Fey and Poehler on Saturday Night Live, and Fey's 30 Rock is a riot, but this trailer isn't grabbing me. Like Doomsday, if I see this one, it will be on the basis of the reputation of the people involved and not the preview. Here's Erik's take.

I'll keep this short because I just did a Doomsday piece a few days ago and I don't want my geekish enthusiasm for post-apocalyptic action mayhem to be mistaken for Universal shillery ... but we now have a trailer. So if anyone out there thought that Neil Marshall was going to do some sort of rom-com or arthouse tear-jerker after wooing the genre fans with Dog Soldiers and The Descent -- feast your retinas on this hardcore lunacy.

Clearly shooting for an Escape from New York / Mad Maxine vibe, the flick looks to be grade-A matinee madness all the way. For a bit more on Doomsday (which opens on March 14), check out this previous report, the MovieFone page, the official site, the IMDb page, and (obviously) the trailer. And then go outside and get some sun.

Normally the arrival of a new release date wouldn't warrant an entire blog post of its own ... but then again most movies aren't hardcore post-apocalyptic action-adventures from the guy who directed Dog Soldiers and The Descent. Yes, genre fans, Mr. Neil Marshall is back with a concept that should thrill anyone old enough to remember the sheer cinematic awesomeness of Mad Max, The Road Warrior and Escape from New York.

Starring Rhona Mitra, Bob Hoskins, Malcolm McDowell, Adrian Lester and the mega-cool Sean Pertwee, Doomsday goes a little like this: "Authorities brutally quarantine a country as it succumbs to fear and chaos when a virus strikes. The literal walling-off works for three decades – until the dreaded Reaper virus violently resurfaces in a major city. An elite group of specialists, captained by Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), is urgently dispatched into the still-quarantined country to retrieve a cure by any means necessary. Shut off from the rest of the world, the unit must battle through a landscape that has become a waking nightmare."

Sold! Done! Yes, I'd like to see that movie NOW please, thanks very much! But alas, we must wait until March 14 to enjoy the end of the world, and it looks like Universal chose a very solid release date for the action thriller. Also opening on that date is a family flick (Horton Hears a Who), an awful-looking Karate Kid retread (Never Back Down), and a cop drama (Pride and Glory) -- which means an R-rated action-fest could do pretty well that weekend.

I'm not all that interested in the box office numbers, really. I just want to see Neil Marshall maintain his perfect record.

Pictured Above: Augie (CHRISTOPHER MINTZ-PLASSE), Danny (PAUL RUDD), Wheeler (SEANN WILLIAM SCOTT) and Ronnie (BOBB'E THOMPSON) in a comedy about two likable losers forced to do community service-Untitled Mentor Project.

As we told you earlier, Universal Pictures has released their upcoming 2008 film slate, including a ton of photos to go along with what looks to be a pretty solid list. Above you can check out the first image from the Untitled Mentor Project (aka Little Big Men on IMDb), starring Paul Rudd, Seann William Scott and Christopher Mintz-Plasse, following up his superb debut as McLovin' in Superbad. Below, check out an image of Angelina Jolie from Clint Eastwood's The Changeling, which comes with the caption: "Christine Collins (ANGELINA JOLIE) is introduced to a boy claiming to be hers by Captain J.J. Jones (JEFFREY DONOVAN) in a provocative thriller that tells the shocking tale of a mother's quest to find her son, and those who won't stop until they silence her-Changeling, from director Clint Eastwood.

Lots more after the jump ...

You'll think I'm shamelessly name-dropping but it's a relevant (and amusing) story, so here goes: I once got to sit down with director Neil Marshall during a one-on-one interview at the Sundance Film Festival. (I agreed to the interview because I'd seen both of the guy's movies and was very enthusiastic about both. Ask Kim or James how often I do interviews. I can't stand 'em.) Anyway, more than eight months later I was in London to visit the 28 Weeks Later set, and one night a bunch of us horror nerds went out drinking. "My friend Neil is going to meet us here," said the lovely Axelle Caroyln of Fangoria Magazine. So imagine my surprise when "Neil" turned out to be not only Neil Marshall -- but also that the guy actually remembered dorky ol' me from that Sundance sit-down!

So yeah, the director of Dog Soldiers and The Descent is every bit the low-key, good-natured, horror-addicted movie freak you might suspect, and the whole bunch of us spent about three hours in a dingy pub discussing the guy's next movie. The script was called Doomsday, the conversation was off the record, and (needless to say) the night was a drunken hoot.

So now that Mr. Marshall's Doomsday is finished production in London, Scotland and South Africa, and marching firmly into the realm of internet marketing, I thought it was time to take a closer look at a project I know only from one lengthy and beer-filled conversation. (See? I told you that anecdote was relevant!) So far we know that Doomsday will be a gritty futuristic action thriller that stars Rhona Mitra, Malcolm McDowell, Bob Hoskins and the awesome Sean Pertwee. So far so good. The story deals with a Britain that's been walled up and infected for three full decades -- until someone has to re-enter the danger zone for a very important reason. (Yes, I'm still trying to remain relatively spoiler-free.)