As with most any other genre, pitching a thriller seems to go that much more swimmingly once one finds an ideal blockbuster reference point with which to do half of the leg work. It's 'Die Hard meets this', 'Speed on a that', and, when in doubt, just say the damn thing is 'Hitchcockian'.

Post-2001, the likes of TV's '24' and 'Sleeper Cell', and film's Jason Bourne franchise, have tapped into both our political climate and pop culture zeitgeist, into a globe-trotting, gun-toting fear of the here and there and always now. Jeffrey Nachmanoff's Traitor feels like the first film that has itself been directly spawned in the wake of those successes, as opposed to merely being bolstered by it, and while it may overtake, say, Vantage Point in terms of plausible plotting and worldly knowledge, it remains a film that is good enough to grasp the bar and yet not quite enough to raise it.

It comes as little surprise whenever a studio decides to kindly remove a film from a director's hands -- the situation with Lionsgate's treatment of Punisher: War Zone still smells fishy from this end -- but while most filmmakers would proceed to bite their tongues and salvage their careers, Mathieu Kassovitz begs to differ on his own film, the Vin Diesel vehicle Babylon A.D., which opens this Friday in an all-too-familiar August dump situation (joining it on the marquee: alleged comedies Disaster Movie and College).

In an exclusive interview with AMC's sci-fi blog, Kassovitz admits that a troubled production and comprised final cut (at least in the States, although reviews from elsewhere aren't much kinder) are responsible for turning his adaptation of Maurice Georges Dantec's futuristic novel into "pure violence and stupidity... like a bad episode of '24'."

While my mother swears that Friday the 13th was responsible for many a nightmare in my six-year-old mind (thanks to sneak viewings at a friend's house), Children of the Corn has always been the flick to make my skin crawl. I don't know why. My memories of the film have faded, but the creepy feeling has never completely gone away. And now the kids are coming back to freak me out some more.

It's not like there haven't been rumors of a Children of the Corn remake for a while now. In 2007, Darren Lynn Bousman was said to be looking into the idea. But now rumors are intermingled with casting choices. According to Beyond Hollywood, It seems that instead of a big-screen version, the Sci-Fi Channel wants to whip up an original movie tapping an anti-Heroes player and a chick straight out of Battlestar Galactica. Should this rumor be true, it means that David Anders would take on Peter Horton's role, while Kandyse McClure would take on Linda Hamilton's.

Could Adam and Officer Anastasia pull it off? Does it bum you out that it won't be on the big screen? Sound off below!

In February, Brittany Murphy signed on to star in the noir thriller Across the Hall, and now you can check out a trailer for the film above. It's supposed to be a thriller about a man, his fiancee, and his best friend, and it is, but there are also a whole lot of mixed messages thrown in for good measure.

While the plot seems like your typical love triangle -- girl cheats with lover's best friend, lover chooses to kill best friend and live happily ever after -- there's a whole slew of horror techniques that are either misleading or hinting at some big, supernatural twist. The hotel and the room across the hall are described as if they're filled with ghosts or other ghoulish things, instead of just a jealous fiance. Quick cuts merge with eerie voice-overs, but while some sort of big fright seems right around the corner, it never comes.

It's all a big mystery, but at least it looks interesting. The film is slated to hit theaters February 6, 2009.

[via Ace Showbiz]

The dog days of summer hit the indie box office this weekend, as the top earner was a film in its third week of release. Elegy, directed by Isabel Coixet and starring Ben Kingsley and Penélope Cruz, expanded from six to 92 theaters and grossed $5,546 per screen, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. The adaptation of a novel by Philip Roth has not been universally praised, but maintains a strong 74% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes. I can't help but conclude that Penélope Cruz is the art house crowd's answer to Megan Fox, because . . .

. . . Cruz also stars in Vicky Christina Barcelona (pictured), which made $4,339 per screen in its fairly wide (692 theaters) second week. Woody Allen's latest features other pretty people such as Javier Bardem and Scarlett Johansson, of course, and has very good reviews behind it, yet it's silly to ignore the current Cruz heat factor.

As Eugene has already noted, Andrew Fleming's Hamlet 2 got a jump start on its wide release by opening on 103 screens, but its average of $4,223 "doesn't inspire confidence for the expansion." Will this slow down star Steve Coogan?

Suspense drama Transsiberian ($4,157 per screen, 38 theaters, 6th week), tense drama Frozen River ($4,048 per screen, 41 theaters, 4th week), and mystery thriller Tell No One ($3,643 per screen, 101 theaters, 8th week, $3.8 million total) continued to draw well, while debuting debt doc I.O.U.S.A. made $3,461 per screen at 18 locations.

Do you really want to get an IRA mole mad? British spy drama Fifty Dead Men Walking has stirred the ire of Martin McGartland, its real-life inspiration, according to The Hollywood Reporter. McGartland "threatened legal action against the Canadian-British co-production ... on grounds that the feature infringes his moral rights." On the same day that McGartland made his threat, a scheduled press screening was canceled by Canadian distributor TVA Films, which claimed "a print problem."

The film is scheduled to have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on September 10 -- a splashy, red carpet Gala Presentation. But McGartland says that the film "is an entirely false and distorted account of what took place." He is also "reserving all [his] legal rights and remedies in this matter." But one has to wonder -- didn't he already sign off by selling the film rights? Or was that out of his hands and up to his publisher (Hastings House)?

McGartland infiltrated the IRA for the British police in the 1980s and then had to go on the run when his true identity was uncovered. Kari Skogland (Chicks with Sticks, The Stone Angel) adapted McGartland's 1998 book for the screen and also directed. Ben Kingsley, Rose McGowan, Jim Sturgess (21) star. The prospect of Kingsley (in a bad hair piece) and Sturgess facing off somehow -- is Kingsley his police "control"? a member of the IRA? -- sounds very enticing, as does the prospect of Sturgess tackling a serious subject, so let's hope this gets resolved quickly.

I never would have thought I would see the day that moviegoers and critics would praise the heck out of Jean Claude Van Damme -- unless they were all in the midst of a discussion about awesome crappy martial arts movies from the '80s. But the critical praise has finally come with his work in J.C.V.D. which means that the sucker has to hit screens soon so the rest of us can see what the fuss is about. According to AOL Money, Peace Arch Entertainment bought all the North American rights to the film, with plans to release it shortly after it screens at TIFF. Okay, so the exact date is not set, but the wait for Jean Claude's latest could be as short as a month. Stay tuned! (We'll have a review and mayyybe an interview with the man himself later next month.)

Meanwhile, Cabin in the Woods, which started whipping up buzz back in July, is going to make us wait a little longer. Ace Showbiz reports that MGM has scheduled Drew Goddard's film for an October 23, 2009 release. That'll slide it into theaters a week before Saw VI. Now this is assuming that the production goes according to schedule -- it hasn't started yet and there hasn't been any big casting announcements.

"Rules Remain The Same, Except Some Changes."

I recall first seeing that tagline attached to a billboard touting The Transporter 3 at Cannes last May (whether or not I actually saw the picture at JoBlo.com then, all that matters is they still have it now) and dismissed it as a clumsy phrase with something perhaps lost in the translation from the European investors into big, fat, shiny English.

And yet IGN has the first domestic teaser up for the film, and that tagline appears nearly verbatim. I probably shouldn't care, and you probably don't, but it's just a further indication that even the filmmakers -- well, their marketing team -- have barely half a heart in this puppy.

In what appears to be part of a most thorough campaign to botch Entertainment Weekly's Fall Movie Preview, a recent press release wholly admits that the North American opening of the 22nd James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, back from November 7th to the 14th marks an effort to capitalize on last week's sudden Harry Potter shift.

Although the removal of the 007th from any coming marketing blitz sure is a shame, it does place this film closer to the release of its predecessor, Casino Royale, which opened on November 17, 2006 to the tune of almost $600 million worldwide. Solace will still premiere in the United Kingdom on October 31.

For those keeping track at home, this now leaves Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and the just now shifted Paul Rudd comedy Role Models on November 7th, and the 14th is now between Bond, Baz Luhrmann's epic drama Australia, and Bernie Mac's final film, Soul Men.

Now, think fast! When does Something of Boris open again?!