Sure, some of the big guns of the summer season have yet to unspool at your local cineplex, but lets take a look ahead to the fall. Specifically, Quantum Of Solace, the followup to the wildly successful 2006 Bond franchise relaunch, Casino Royale.

Despite a change of directors, Marc Forster stepping in for Martin Campbell, this new installment looks like it will provide the same raw, bone-crunching action its predecessor did. The trailer will be in theaters later this week, in front of prints of the new Will Smith film Hancock. But you can check it out earlier, below. 

Following the closure of its US distribution arm last month, UK genre film distributor Tartan Films closed its doors late last week. Variety is reporting that the London offices were locked when employees arrived for work on Thursday morning.

Both the US and UK branches of the company were known for releasing edgy genre films, primarily form Asia. The are responsible for bring the works of directors like Takashi Miike (Audition) and Chan-wook Park (Oldboy, Lady Vengeance) to Western audiences.

The closure comes on the heels of a streak of financial bad luck that has plagued the company for over a year. Negotiations to be purchased by the Capco Group, who also own ThinkFilm, fell apart last year. A restructuring, which included a merging of its separate PR and marketing departments into one unit based in its London head office, and a cash infusion from a private investor were not enough to stem the tide.

What will happen to Tartan UK’s library of films has not yet been determined, but it will probably be sold off to pay any outstanding debt the company may have,

Palisades Media Corp. has acquired the rights to Tartan US’s library of films and is reportedly working at keeping them in print and available.

Two more installment of The Dark Knight viral marketing have hit Comcast’s On Demand service yesterday, further detailing the crime and corruption rampant in Gotham City that serves as the backdrop for the upcoming film.

The first of the two features Dark Knight star Anthony Michael Hall as newsman Mike Engel discussing the changes in the criminal underworld that have occurred in Gotham since the events of the last film with newspaper reporter James Levine. Much like the first installment of Gotham Tonight, this discussion briefly turns into a debate over the merits or drawbacks to Batman’s vigilante actions. The discussion also serves to remind us that Batman Begins villain Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka The Scarecrow, is still at large as are numerous inmates from Arkham Asylum. A plot point for the upcoming film, perhaps?

The second episode focuses in on the elevation of Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and his elevation to the rank of Lieutenant and head of the newly formed Major Crimes Unit. Of course, the rumors of Gordon working with Batman have brought him under the scrutiny of crusading new District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). Teases for future episode promise a more on this conflict and a debate between Gotham Police Comissioner Loeb (Colin McFarlane) and “alleged” mob boss Salvatore Maroni (Eric Roberts).

Last week, we discussed what comic projects might lie in Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier’s future. Well, they are all going to have to wait. Variety is reporting that Leterrier has signed to direct the Clash of the Titans remake.

Leterrier replaces the previously announced Steven Norrington, who dropped out of the project over budgetary concerns.

Warner Brothers is putting the project in the fact track for a 2010 release due to competition from a similarly themed War of the Gods from director Tarsem Singh and production house Relativity Media.

Both projects are set in the world of Greek Mythology and the similarities go all the way down to the lead character’s name: Perseus in Clash, Theseus in War.
Usually, in foot races like these, there is one winner and one movie that doesn’t get made. However, there are rare occasions where two mirror image films make it all the way to theaters at the same time (as exemplified by 1998′s Armageddon and Deep Impact).

I have to agree with FilmBuff Online Grand Poobah Rich Drees assessment of this remake. The original was known primarily for its intriguing mix of name actors and being the last film to feature Ray Harryhausen’s trademark stop-motion animation. The remake’s tight budgetary reins would seem to prohibit the former, and the producers are replacing the latter with computer generated images. All you have left to imitate from the 1981 version is the campy, overly familiar story. Good luck with that.

Everyone’s favorite She-Devil With a Sword is coming back to the big screen, and Robert Rodriguez is bringing her there.

USA Today announces that Rodriguez with be producing and directing a remake of Red Sonja. Who will be filling out, and filling out quite nicely, I’d image, the chain mail bikini? Rodriguez’s real-life paramour, Rose McGowan.

My knee-jerk reaction to this is mixed. The positive is that the director of such kick-butt films as El Mariachi, Sin City and Grindhouse: Planet Terror is guiding Red Sonja’s return to the big screen. However, it seem a bit like a vanity project he’s doing for his fiancee. I mean, McGowan is an improvement over Brigitte Nielsen (who played Sonja in 1985′s Red Sonja film), but would she have the lead in a sword and sorcery actioner if she wasn’t engaged to the producer/director?

Red Sonja is a minor character from the Robert E. Howard mythos who gained higher exposure in the 1970s when Marvel Comics’ writers increased her role in the pages of their Conan the Barbarian books. The character currently has her own ongoing series published by Dynamite Entertainment.

This version of Red Sonja is set for a 2010 release.

1.Wall*E (3,992 Theaters, 103 Minutes, Rated G): It’s going to be a tough weekend for movies in the Gatevackes household. While we each want to see both of the movies opening this weekend, my wife wants to see this film more and I want to see Wanted more. Top that off by us going out of town to see friends this weekend, and might not be able to see any. Ach, such is life.

This is the story set almost 700 years in earth’s future. All the humans are gone, having colonized the stars. They left behind a robot to clean up the planet named Wall*E. But the years of solitude and tedious work have done something to the little guy–they’ve made him develop a personality.

This sounds charming, and since the Pixar name is attached to the film, you can pretty much guarantee that it is. Pixar holds a place with me where they can’t lose. Their films have all been of such a high quality and so good that I can’t see them doing any wrong. Or, at the least, their failures are ten times as interesting and entertaining as anybody else’s good stuff.

There have been a few naysayers who have been critical of this film ahead of time, especially the fact that there is no dialogue for the first 30 minutes of the movie (and rumor has it earlier versions of the film had no dialogue at all). But don’t listen to them. Go see it and be charmed.

2. Wanted (3,175 Theaters, 110 Minutes, Rated R): Now we come to a comic book movie that bares little resemblance to the comic book that inspired it. Instead of superpowered bad guys, we have a fraternity of less-colorful assassins.

This time, it might not be the fault of the producers. Mark Millar, writer of the comic this movie is based on, said that when he was shopping projects around to producers, it was an early version of the script and the characters were assassins, not supervillains. Yes, this project was shopped around way before the comic book even came out.

If you flip through the trade paperback the next time you are in the book store or comic shop, you can tell how desperately Millar and artist J.G. Jones wanted this film to become a movie. They did pre-casting in the comic. Wesley was drawn to look like rap star Eminem, who was hot off his 8 Mile film. Fox was drawn to look like Hallie Berry, and Wesley’s dad was drawn to look like Tommy Lee Jones.

Hollywood being what it is, Wesley is now James McAvoy, Fox is now Angelina Jolie, and while I’m not sure who is playing Wesley’s dad, Morgan Freeman has become Wesley’s boss/mentor in the film. I think that casting is a slight improvement over the casting.

Another thing that has changed from the comic is the motivations of the characters. In the comic, they are evil through and through. There is no redeeming quality about them. As a matter of fact, that was the point. But since it is hard to market a film chock full of evil jerks, the characters become that rare breed of assassin who only kills to make the world better. See, even though they are cold-blooded murderers, they are good cold-blooded murderers.

It seems almost impossible to believe, but John Badham’s War Games is celebrating it’s 25th Anniversary this year. And NCM Fathom is presenting a special, one night event to celebrate that fact.

On July 24, 2008 at 7:30 local time, NCM Fathom and MGM will be showing War Games on the big screen at theaters near you.

A Cold War thriller for the teen set, War Games featured Matthew Broderick as a teenage hacker who tries to break in to Atari for a peek at the latest games. It turns out that the new game he found, Global Thermonuclear War, wasn’t part of Atari’s Christmas releases, but rather part of the U.S. Government’s doomsday scenario. Inadvertently, he sets the world on the course for, well, global thermonuclear war.

NCM Fathom has done similar events around the 20th Anniversary of Dirty Dancing and the 25th Anniversary of Poltergeist. It also simulcasts performances of the Metropolitan Opera and other special events.

Tickets for the showing of War Games go on sale June 27th. To purchase tickets or find the location of a participating theater near you, vist the NCM Fathom Website.

A few months ago, Watchmen director Zach Snyder started a contest where fans who were handy with a camera could construct ads for products put out by company owned by the character, Adrian “Ozymandias” Veidt. Winners would get the chance to have their ads play on television sets in the background of the film.

Well, it appears that the contest is over and the winners have appeared online. You can see all the clips on the Watchmen YouTube Channel. The best commercials capture the mid-80s cheese (Watchmen is set in 1985) of that era’s ads quite well.

Cinema Blend has posted five of their favorites on its site. Here are three of mine.

This one is for the Veidt toyline that fans of the comic will remember well.

Love the director credit at the beginning. This next one is an ad that might have made the 1985 High School version of me buy the hairspray in an attempt to be cool.

The creator of this fake ad has two other versions of this idea in the winning ads.

And, finally, this ad for Nostalgia perfume captures the Bergmanesque quality of the 80s Calvin Klein Obsession ads (which many contest entries tried to do to varying degrees of success), but also ties in to the comic’s (and, hopefully, the film’s) plot as well.

The five winners voted best by the fans received a High-Definition Canon Vixia HG10 camcorder and eight other winners picked by Snyder himself received $1,000. All presumably have a shot of making it to the big screen.

Pretty much everyone here at the FilmBuffOnLine offices are big Bruce Campbell fans. And we have watched in growing frustration as his comedy My Name Is Bruce has been repeatedly had its release date pushed back. So forgive us if we are skeptically hopeful that this latest announced release date – this coming October – actually holds.

The word comes from Dark Horse Comic’s Mike Richardson, who was chatting with the folks from Shock Till You Drop at last evening’s Saturn Awards.

Some people maybe thought the film fell out or that there was something wrong with it… We did our shoot, put it in the can and the studio that financed it liked it so much they gave us more money to do a second shoot. We beefed it up so it could go into the theaters.

For the uninitiated, in My Name Is Bruce, Bruce Campbell stars as Bruce Campbell, an actor recruited to rid a town of invading undead based on the fact that he did it so well in the Evil Dead movies. Yes, it’s a goof concept, but can you really see anyone else pulling such a story idea off?

Richardson also states that they are already knocking around the idea of a sequel if the first film does well. We’’l believe it when we see it.

Via Cinematical

If you are a fan of Watchmen like the crew here at FilmBuffOnline, then you’ll be sure to like this. The folks over at Collider.com have a great two-part video interview with director Zack Snyder and wife Debbie.

The interview, recorded yesterday at the 34th Annual Saturn Awards, clocks in at about ten minutes and covers everything from Snyder being the main attraction at next-month’s Comic-Con to how long the running time will be on the DVD. One interesting reveal: the looming possibility of a Watchmen trailer in front of The Dark Knight. While the question isn’t directly answered, it seems Zack and Debbie can’t refrain from smiling LARGE.

You can see the interview here.