One of the most anticipated comic book movies to be released this year, after Iron Man 2 and maybe Scott Pilgrim Saves The World has to be Jonah Hex. The trailer has just recently hit the web, and here it is for your viewing pleasure.

My verdict? A great 30 seconds makes way for needless and tacked on superpowers, pisspoor southern accents, and completely anachronistic guns. So, this film has gone from my “look forward” list to my “very worried about” list.

For a picture that is just over a year away, Thor is certainly getting a lot of attention through leaked photos, although this time, it is an official leak.

Yahoo! has the first pics of Chris Hemsworth as Thor. And, I have to say, the look of the character is remarkably like the modern comic book version. Granted, the beard stubble is from an earlier version of the character, but the armor is right off the version in comics now.

See for yourself below.

Any film remake fairly or unfairly invites comparison to the original. Are the new filmmakers finding different and engaging things to explore in the material or are they simply going through a rote rehash of the original story? Does the new version adhere too closely to its progenitor, never finding its own life, or does it veer too far from the source material, leaving one to wonder if the filmmakers really understand what made the original film work?

The new version of A Nightmare On Elm Street is a bit of all these approaches. Its basic story and many of its scares are familiar to those who have seen director Wes Craven’s 1984 original. But the variations this new version introduces fall flat, never letting the film become its own piece, never escaping out of the long-cast shadow of its forerunner.

On it’s surface, the plot of Nightmare version 2010 is roughly the same as the 1984 part. Several high school students discover that they are all having the same dreams about a man with a burned face and a glove with steak-knife claws stalking them through various grungy, industrial settings. It soon becomes apparent that if the mysterious figure is far more than a figment of dreamtime and he wants these teens dead.

This new version of A Nightmare On Elm Street is a movie whose idea of characterization is placing a protagonist in a Joy Division t-shirt. It’s this kind of lazy shorthand that hobbles whatever good intentions the filmmakers may have had when they embarked on this project. But instead, we are left with the teens that Freddy terrorizes through the film being fairly nondescript cannon fodder for a script that doesn’t really give us a reason to care whether or not they survive to the final credits or cheer if they do. The original film played with the idea of the disconnect between teenagers and their parents. Here, however, the parents are drawn just a flatly as their children and we just don’t care about them either.

The script does no great service to franchise villain Freddy Kruger. It’s mutation of pre-supernatural transformation Kruger from serial child murderer to a pedophiliac day care center worker who succumbs to the brutal mob justice of outraged parents feels like an attempt to be edgy, but comes across as just plain lurid. It creates an “ick” factor that causes one to pull back from their engagement in the story at a time when the movie should be further reeling in the audience’s attention. The movie does try to float a “Was he really a pedophile or wasn’t he?” mystery at one point, but it is introduced out of left field, goes absolutely nowhere and is just as summarily dismissed before the climax.

Perhaps thinking that fans were expecting them to recreate some of its scares verbatim, the filmmakers stage several scenes familiar to anyone who has scene the original Nightmare, occasionally trying to put a different twist on them, subverting expectations. But each and every time they try this, the attempt falls flat. The famous sequence where Freddy tries to drown the film’s heroine in a bath tub gets a nod. The scene plays out as a bit of feint against your expectations, but does it so badly that it comes off as laughable. Early in the original, there’s a moment where Freddy seems to be pushing through a wall, stretching it like rubber, above an unsuspecting teen’s head. The new version replicates this scene, but uses CGI to realize what had been done as a practical effect by Craven in 1984. Amazingly, the newer version looks worse than the original in terms of just being a special effect! Peter Jackson had a similar sequence also created through CGI in his horror comedy The Frighteners made a decade and a half earlier that looked markedly better.

But it is not just when it tries to echo the original film that this new iteration of Nightmare fails. The movie restructures its beginning somewhat for a more Psycho-like bait and switch. But let’s face it, director Samuel Bayer is no Hitchcock and no one in his cast approaches the level of an actor like Janet Leigh. In fact, the film is so blandly directed – the only time the movie makes you jump is when a sudden, loud noise thunders across the soundtrack – that it is a little sad that the most ominous camera work is devoted to a scene where Nancy’s mother is asked to sign a “consent to treat” form at a hospital. When you’re trying to make a clipboard seem scary, you really should be re-thinking your career goals.

1. A Nightmare On Elm Street (Warner Brothers/New Line, 3,332 Theaters, 95 Minutes, Rated R): The original Nightmare on Elm Street was a step above the typical teen slasher films of the 1980s. It had a great back story–a child killer is burned alive by the neighborhood parents only to come back and kill their kids in their dreams. It had themes–vengeance, revenge, Children paying for the crimes of their parents. And it had a lot of psychological twists and gruesome, yet imaginative deaths.

The original is considered a classic of its genre. So much so, that a remake seems superfluous. But they are remaking every horror movie of note from the last 30 plus years, and they would have to get around to this one eventually. So why not now.

This version has one major improvement over the original–the guy playing Freddy. Robert Englund was awesome as the creepy and campy clawed killer, but how many Oscar nominations did he have? One less than the current Freddy, Jackie Earle Haley, who is enjoying another chance to employ his Rorschach voice in his current role.

2. Furry Vengeance (Summit Entertainment, 2,997 Theaters, 92 Minutes, Rated PG): If Brendan Fraser’s career was in Nightmare on Elm Street, stay with me here, I know it sounds weird, but stay with me, if his career was being hunted by Freddy, when it came time for the big kill scene, this film would unspool.

Seriously, this films has a 0% fresh over at Rotten Tomatoes.  Granted, only 21 reviews are in, because the studio refused to screen it for critics (BAD SIGN!!!! BAD SIGN!!!), but no one have it a thumbs up. Lets see if it gets any positive reviews before the weekend is up.

Gawd, this film looks positively awful. Fraser plays a real estate who finds himself up against a cadre of woodland creatures when he wants to develop their habitat. Nut shots, peeing in the mouth and skunk sprays ensue. But I’d wager not much hilarity.

This film supposedly passed through Steve Ccarell and Jeremy Piven’s hands before it landed at Fraser’s. Those men should send a nice gift basket to their agents. And Fraser should fire his. 

Remember how we told you earlier this week that it was looking really good that a sequel to Will Farrell’s 2004 comedy Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy could be going in to production early next year?

Forget we said anything.

Anchorman director Adam McKay tweeted the bad news earlier today that studio Paramount has decided not to pursue a follow up to the Will Farrel comedy.

So bummed. Paramount basically passed on Anchorman 2. Even after we cut our budget down. We tried.

Unfortunately, with Paramount passing the film is dead as McKay clarified in a subsequent tweet a few hours later-

To all who asked: no we can’t do Anchorman 2 at another studio. Paramount owns it.

I have to admit that this is a turn of events that has caught me by surprise. Studios have been becoming more risk averse in the last several years, only bankrolling projects that seem like sure shots. And with all the box office drawing power of the principals involved, their pledge to return for a second film for a lower paycheck than they usually get and the built in audience from the first film, this certainly fits the definition of a no-brainer to me. Way to not stay classy Paramount.

David Ayer has been picked by Twentieth Century Fox to write and direct a remake of the 1985 Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick Commando.

If you’re wondering why they want to remake what many consider a minor action classic, Deadline reports that Ayer, a former Navy man, will bring “real-world spin on this original premise” and that his “protagonist will be less brawny, but more skilled in covert tactics and weaponry.” Considering that much the original film’s appeal was its slightly goofy tone, which would dance up to the boarder of self-parody before moving back, the idea of a more real-world spin on the material sounds counter-intuitive to me.

If you don’t want to know anything about the plot of next summer’s superhero adaptation Thor, go no further.

Seriously, you need to click away, to another story.

It is a picture that reveals a character/plot point that you might want to know about before the film opens in May 2011.

Honestly… Last chance.

OK, you were warned.

Latino Review managed to score a picture from the recent location shooting for the film in New Mexico, copied below. If you’re not a reader of the Thor comics, you might not recognize the formidable suit of armor standing there as that of the Destroyer, created by the Norse king of the Gods Odin (Anthony Hopkins in the film), which can be magically animated by a god to be an unstoppable killing force. Given that part of the official plot synopsis for Thor reads “It’s while here on Earth that Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth,” I don’t think that its appearance in the film spells anything good for the Thunder God (Chris Hemsworth).

Ugh.

Despite horrible reviews, Clash Of The Titans has managed to earn almost $390 million worldwide at the box office, so it should come as no surprise that studio Warner Brothers is certainly anxious for a sequel. The studio has already tapped Greg Berlanti to write a script with hopes that they can get the film into theaters by the spring of 2012.

However, don’t expect Louis Leterrier to return to the director’s chair for the follow up. According to Deadline, Leterrier’s departure was “harmonious” and was explained away as him not being anxious to dive back into production on another film right away. But when you factor in the stories of reshoots and editing room interference from the studio, it perhaps isn’t so surprising that he declined to participate in the rush to get a second installment cranked out in just 24 months.

And speaking of those reshoots, I’m a little surprised that Warners didn’t just decide to cobble together a second feature from the reportedly copious amount of left over footage littering the editing room floor.

I suppose that there is a bright side to a Clash sequel, though. Since Warners is  intent on having their major tentpole releases all be lensed in 3D, then a second installment will be shot for the process and will not suffer from the shoddy, computerized, post-production transformation from 2 to 3D that the first film did.

With both The Losers and Kick-Ass under-performing at the US box office, it’s nice to know that a comic book film is doing well elsewhere in the world. In France, the number one movie two weeks ago was director Luc Besson’s Les aventures extraordinaires d’Adèle Blanc-Sec aka The Extraordinary Adventures Of Adèle Blanc-Sec. Knocking the much bigger budgeted Clash Of The Titans form its top of the box office perch, the film earned $4.6 million (US), a pretty impressive figure given that France’s population is one-sixth the size of the US and ticket prices are lower there than they are here.

Set in pre-World War One France, Eurpoean audiences have been thrilling to comics creator Jacques Tardi’s tales of the adventures of the feisty female reporter who finds herself drawn in to stories that have a mystical or fantastical bent since 1972. While I’ve not read any of the series, and some of it was translated in to English in the early 1990s, the trailer for the film below

Unfortunately, there is currently no distribution deal in place to get the film to US audiences.

Is that much talked about Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy ever going to happen? In the ironic wake of having seen Anchorman 2 showing up on a couple of “movies that are never going to happen” lists on other websites recently, it’s looking better than it has in a while that the sequel will be going before cameras early next year.

Anchorman‘s director Adam McKay spoke with MTV’s Movie Blog, telling them that while some of the holdup in getting a sequel moving has been financial, it hasn’t been negotiations over salaries for the cast.

It’s a tricky movie because everyone went and did really well after it, so everyone’s prices went up and everyone’s time got a little more valuable. But at the same time, graciously, Steve and Paul and everyone agreed to cut their price to come and do [the sequel], which you don’t see very often in Hollywood — and cut their price substantially. But even with that, it’s just a budgetary thing with Paramount in terms of how much they’ll give us to make it.

The first Anchorman was made for just $26 million and sold $85 million in tickets at theaters and found a further audience thanks to home video. McKay thinks that a second film could be even more successful for the studio.

Austin Powers didn’t make a ton of movie in its first go-round and then it caught fire in the next one. We’re hoping they’ll look more at that sort of projection.

Of course, the second (and third) Austin Powers flicks repeated a lot of the jokes found in the first film, but it sounds like instead of finding more things to do in the 1970s, a second Anchorman film will move the channel 4 news team of Will Farrell, Christina Applegate, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd and David Koechner in to the next decade.

That’s loosely what the idea is. [The '80s angle is] more the frame of it. We have this other, bigger, crazier idea that’s really more what it’s about, which I can’t say. Our thinking was there’s just no way the second one is going to be as good as the first, because the first one is the first one. So our idea is if we’re going to do a second one, we better go for it and try some insane stuff and we’ll be enjoying it and that way it can’t be half bad.

An Anchorman sequel seems like a no-brainer to me. The cast had a great chemistry, and it is evident that the film was a labor of love for everyone involved. So much so that in addition to the DVD release, a second disc entitled Anchorman: Wake-Up Ron Burgundy was cobbled together from out-takes and storylines cutout from the finished film. Best Buy also released an exclusive bonus disc that contained a further 30 minutes of cut footage. If the cast is willing to take paycuts, they’re not making the movie as a quick payday. If Paramount were to give the go-ahead for Anchorman 2, I expect that they will wok just as hard.