One could split the career of Chris Pratt into three separate eras. His early years through the 00s was a hodgepodge mix of TV and movie including 89 episodes of the drama Everwood… but then things changed when he became a standout on Parks and Recreation and Hollywood started to really pay attention. Then, of course, came his current blockbuster period, which includes Marvel, Jurassic World, Super Mario and more.

A lot has changed for him in the last quarter century… so what was it like for a director who worked with him in that first era to work with him again now?

I posed a version of that question to filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov earlier this month during the virtual press day for his new movie Mercy – which sees the filmmaker working with Pratt for the first time since the actor played a supporting role in 2008’s Wanted. The director explained that his reunion with the star was a mix of both old and new, as he recognized the man that he knew, but also saw the impact of his current A-list status. Starting with a reference to one of the most memorable shots from their first collaboration, he told me,

Chris Pratt only had a small supporting part in Wanted (he plays the underhanded best friend of James McAvoy’s Wesley), and he had a lot of similarly scaled roles in movies around that time as he was waiting for his true big break. Now that he is a superstar, however, his life and world and very different and that was apparently something that was apparent on the Mercy set.

As noted, that recent success has been particularly driven by big IP projects, but Timur Bekmambetov wanted him to do something very different with their second movie together and pitched him on the timeliness of the material given the major ongoing discussions about the place of artificial intelligence in our world:

A vision of the year 2029, Mercy is a real time thriller that sees Chris Pratt star as a cop who has been charged with the murder of his wife and is forced to prove his innocence to a digital adjudicator (Rebecca Ferguson). Locked into a chair and given access to all available cameras, phones and computing devices he needs, the protagonist has to find some kind of substantial reasonable doubt in the span of 90 minutes, and if he fails to do so, he’ll be executed.

In addition to implementing tools like real-time and screenlife storytelling, Timur Bekmambetov addressed the full ambition of Mercy, which includes an IMAX experience unlike any other:

That experience is available to audiences now, as Mercy is now playing in theaters everywhere – having successfully defeated Avatar: Fire And Ash at the box office to become the first 2026 movie to hit number one in the Top 10.

Artificial intelligence has always been a ripe subject to stage a movie around, and it’s never been more relevant than right now. One upcoming 2026 movie Mercy introduces an interesting premise, when a detective accused of murdering his wife has 90 minutes to prove his innocence to an advanced A.I. before it decides his fate. Critics have seen the sci-fi action thriller, and they’re saying it felt like they were the ones being held captive.

Chris Pratt plays Chris Raven, the accused detective, and he’s joined by Rebecca Ferguson as the A.I. Judge Maddox — Raven's judge, jury and potential executioner. In CinemaBlend’s review of Mercy, Eric Eisenberg says the plot “doesn’t make a lick of goddamn sense,” and without that foundation, the film can’t produce anything insightful or even fun. He rates the movie 1.5 stars out of 5, writing:

Artificial intelligence? More like “artificial stupidity,” according to the Daily Beast’s Nick Schager. The critic is declaring Mercy the “worst movie of 2026,” which is a bold statement to make in mid-January. But watching people watch screens is boring, and the mystery plays out with a frustrating half-heartedness, Schager says, continuing:

Siddhant Adlakha of IGN gives the movie a “Bad” 4 out of 10, saying it squanders its good ideas. It’s also rough to adjust your eyes to all of the different windows popping up in different planes of focus, the critic writes — especially if you see the film in 3D. Adlakha says of Mercy:

Frank Scheck of THR says that with Chris Pratt strapped to a chair for most of the movie, Mercy is about as fun as watching 90 minutes of surveillance footage. So many low-res videos make a car chase scene near the end a welcome sight, Scheck says, and audiences will definitely be left in need of a digital detox. As for the leads’ performances, Pratt is hampered by his character’s circumstances, as the critic writes:

It’s not all bad, though. Eli Friedberg of Slant gives the upcoming action flick 2.5 stars out of 4, saying Mercy poses interesting questions about privacy, policing and (of course) artificial intelligence, all while capturing the familiar anxiety of doomscrolling. Friedberg posits:

Critics as a whole don’t seem to be buying into the screenlife sci-fi thriller, with the movie earning just 16% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, if this plot seems intriguing to you, or you never miss a chance to see Chris Pratt on the big screen — no matter how sedentary he may be — you can catch Mercy in theaters starting Friday, January 23. (Also, don’t miss that Parks and Recreation cameo!)

Having incidentally rewatched Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report within the last month, I can write with refreshed enthusiasm that it’s a tremendous science-fiction vision and a title that stands among the best in the director’s storied filmography. An adaptation of a work by one of history’s greatest genre visionaries, it is smart, thrilling and dramatic in its exploration of its premise, which sees an evolution in the American legal system begin thanks to visions from a trio of mutants with the ability to see the future.

In the 2002 film, the plot makes sense: the discovery of the so-called precogs changes how humanity comprehends fate, and society attempts to evolve with the development of a precrime police division that stops and arrests murderers before they kill. It’s assumed to be a flawless program… until it’s proven to be both flawed and manipulable, imperiling the life of the story’s principal character.

I make a point of describing this 23-year-old blockbuster because it’s so clearly what director Timur Bekmambetov’s Mercy wants to be. Based on an original screenplay by Marco van Belle, the new film attempts to draw a straight line between the precogs and modern artificial intelligence by imagining a world with a new legal procedure that has the ballyhooed technology at its core, and it centers on a protagonist who is a proponent of the system up until he becomes a victim of it. The problem? The idea doesn’t make a lick of goddamn sense, and because it’s everything that the movie hinges on, it renders the entire cinematic experience a baffling disaster.

The film tries to comment on the dangers of A.I. while unfolding in real time and executing a new take on screenlife storytelling – which is an admirable effort from a creative standpoint – but its foundation is a train wreck, and it makes it impossible for the movie to actually be something interesting, insightful or even fun. It gets some points for being flashy and bold, but it’s also most certainly suited for its January release date and seems destined to become an early 2026 punchline.

Chris Pratt stars as Chris Raven (yup, that’s his actual name), a Los Angeles police officer who wakes up to discover that he has been locked into a chair and is sitting before a digital adjudicator named Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson). He has been selected as the nineteenth individual to stand accused in the Mercy Court – which is particularly significant given that he is famous for arresting the first person who went before the A.I. bench a couple years prior.

Deemed guilty until proven innocent within the new system, Chris is told that there is a calculated 97.5 percent chance that he stabbed and killed his wife (Annabelle Wallis) during a domestic dispute earlier in the day, and the onus is on him to reduce that surety level to at least 92 percent within 90 minutes – at which time he will be executed for the crime. To help him in his defense, the protagonist is given access to every phone, computer and camera in the city to hunt for any new information or suspects that could ultimately exonerate him.

Simply put, this movie makes no sense.

Mercy fancies itself as a kind of cautionary tale given the extreme investment that our world has been put into artificial intelligence (the movie is boldly set in the near future of 2029), but any point it tries to make about the potential danger of trusting A.I. in the legal system is undermined by the nonsense that is the execution. Having the accused sitting in front of a digital judge assessing likelihood of guilt is an interesting idea, but the actual case needs a depth that simply isn’t present, and that flaw eats away at the setup with each new plot development.

Chris is deemed preemptively guilty because he was caught on a doorbell camera fighting with his wife just prior to her time of death and was found in the aftermath black-out drunk at a bar. This is deemed more than enough evidence to see the man delivered the death penalty… until Chris is able to deploy his secret weapon: totally basic police work in the near-immediate aftermath of a crime! The protagonist’s progress toward exoneration sees him searching for others via digital footprint with the magic combo of motive and opportunity, and while I won’t spoil the various developments that unfold as he searches for the truth, the revelations are so textbook that one is left constantly more baffled by the computer’s extreme confidence.

On the one hand, the film does illustrate that computers could do a really bad job judging crimes, but it does so with elementary school-level concepts, and without the complexity in plotting that would be necessary to make its point, Mercy feels like it just gets dumber and dumber as it goes.

Mercy tries new things with screenlife filmmaking, but they don’t quite work as they should.

As far as style is concerned, I consider myself genuinely curious about the screenlife aesthetic (with notable titles including Open Windows, the Unfriended movies and the Missing and Searching duology). Mercy, however, can be described as a kind of hybrid, and it’s unable to quite click into what makes the movie in the format work – which is reflecting the way that people navigate the digital world in a familiar way. On the one hand, it’s interesting to see Chris bounce around modern communication methods to search for the truth behind what happened to his wife, but the science-fiction circumstances don’t allow the same kind of familiarity that makes the medium fun and special. Additionally, it has its own way of undermining the plot: if all of the evidence needed to exonerate Chris or at least generate acceptable reasonable doubt is discoverable via data, how is it that the artificial intelligence deems him guilty?

Ultimately, Mercy is a gimmick movie – the gimmicks being the new angle on screenlife filmmaking and the real-time storytelling – and I have no inherent problem with that, as there are plenty of solid features in cinematic history that hinge on unique approaches. The problem here is that those gimmicks are put on top of a rotten foundation, and that means that the work gets more and more broken as it continues to build. Save for you being abducted, locked into a chair and forced to watch it, it’s most definitely a film to skip.

A lot has changed since Wanted, starring James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie, pulled McAvoy’s Wesley out of a white collar, dead-end job and turned him into an assassin. If Wanted 2 were to happen, it would have to compete with the likes of John Wick, among other action movie heavy hitters. Well, recently, director Timur Bekmambetov shared what he’d like to do with Wanted 2, and let's just say it would involve going down a totally different direction than what you might expect.

Timur Bekmambetov made a big, five-picture deal with Universal Studios recently, according to Deadline. Each picture will be shot in the relatively untapped Screenlife format, similar to the hit movie Unfriended. In response to a possible Wanted 2, Timur Bekmambetov threw this idea out there:

Timur Bekmambetov clearly hasn’t seen John Wick. This new take would be quite a departure from the original format, and since fans of the first film would likely expect more bullet-bending action from James McAvoy, it’s hard to imagine a Screenlife Wanted film being fully embraced by fans.

Most Screenlife movies end up as horror or thriller movies. Unfriended, about a group of friends being haunted online by an account of their dead friend, somewhat helped usher in the new genre. While it didn’t receive the greatest reviews, it raked in $65 million on a $1 million budget.

Years later, Searching, starring John Cho, had an even smaller budget and collected roughly $71 million. It’s about a father who starts digging around in his daughter’s computer after she goes missing. Given how successful Searching and Unfriended were, it’s clear why Universal Studios would want to explore this genre more.

Which leads us to Wanted 2. Since Wanted’s release, news reports have cropped up now and again about the sequel being in development. Back in 2014, producers Marc Platt and John Deluca confirmed a script was written that involved the death of one character and the continuing story of James McAvoy’s character.

If Timur Bekmambetov pursued Wanted 2 with a Screenlife angle, though, I have to imagine that he’d start from scratch. While the Screenlife gimmick seems to work well with horror and thrillers, action movies demand... well, action. It would be quite a trick if Bekmambetov could convince people to shift gears to a movie about an assassin bending ideas rather than bending bullets.

However, given the times we live in, perhaps his idea is not as much of a stretch as it seems. But, what do you think? Would a Screenlife version of Wanted work? Let us know in the comments below!

An interesting problem that has developed in the world of modern cinema has been the increased use of hand-held cameras and the issue of nausea that it can create. Films like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield are famous examples, but some movie-goers have even take some issue with the cinematography featured in Paul Greengrass’ Bourne titles. You’d think that this would be a serious issue for the new action movie Hardcore Henry - which plays out entirely in first person – but the reason it doesn’t is because a great deal of experimentation and testing was done to make sure it wouldn’t.

In advance of Hardcore Henry’s release this week, I had the opportunity to hop on the phone with producer Timur Bekmambetov (best known as the director of Wanted and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer) and while we touched on a number of topics – including his upcoming remake of Ben-Hur - one subject was the process to make sure nobody was throwing up because of Hardcore Henry. As he explained the work began long before production on the film itself actually started:

Similar to what we regularly write in our reviews of 3D movies, everybody’s reaction to Hardcore Henry is going to be different simply because we all have different levels of sensitivity. Speaking personally – admittedly having never felt the ill effects of hand-held camera work – I can say that I felt perfectly fine watching Hardcore Henry, and had a blast watching it.

As Timur Bekmambetov further discussed, however, preventing the possibility of motion sickness was only one of the issues that had to be sorted out with the aid of extensive experimentation. In making the film play out from a single perspective, director Ilya Naishuller and the crew essentially had the cameraman playing two important, yet very distinct roles: one as a piece of cinematography equipment, meant to capture the scene with proper impact and coverage; and the second as the titular character, Henry, who we obviously follow throughout the entire story. The producer explained,

You can soon see how those three years of work panned out for the production of Hardcore Henry, as the film will be out in theaters nationwide this Friday, April 8th.

It’s been close to seven years since Wanted smashed into cinemas in such gloriously over-the-top fashion that it instantly developed a fervent fan-base. Talk of a sequel has come and gone with every subsequent film that its rich ensemble and creative team have been involved in, and the subject of Wanted 2 has once again risen during a discussing with director Timur Bekmambetov - who insists that he’d love for it to happen and wants his original stars to return.

During his chat with Collider, Bekmambetov admitted that he’s already been hard at work on Wanted 2. In fact, he’s already outlined the story for the film, got a team on-board to bring it to fruition, and he even teased that he wants to work with all of the original cast members from the original; even the ones who died in the film. Said the director,

There’s just one problem with Bekmambetov wanting to bring back Angelina Jolie’s character for Wanted 2: Fox died courtesy of her own curving bullet to save the life of James McAvoy’s Wesley at the end of the first Wanted.

Still, that slight hiccup can be solved with a simple explanation. The biggest problem regarding Wanted 2 is that everyone involved is waiting for Universal to figure out when the best possible start-date for it might be. Or as Bekmambetov but it,

However despite this hype and hysteria for the follow-up, Bekmambetov teased that Universal are dragging their feet as they look for the best possible date to squeeze it out. Apparently the studio is still contemplating possible pre-production start dates.

It’s understandable why Universal is currently deciding when to put Wanted 2 into production. The original was a relentless rollercoaster of uniquely bombastic action that was punctuated with fine performances and stylish direction, plus it also grossed an impressive $341 million from its $75 million budget.

But the adaptation of Mark Millar and J.G. Jones’ impressive comic-book series has since been joined on the big-screen by a plethora of other franchises from the medium, and now that the likes of Marvel, Warner Bros., and Fox have taken up all of the good dates for the next five years, it’s hard to know when Wanted 2 can both hit multiplexes and be successful at the same time.

Fingers crossed the powers that be can figure out the answer to that conundrum soon, because another Wanted film would be the perfect anecdote to the cavalcade of superheroes that currently populate the cinematic schedules.

Is there finally a P.O.V action movie coming that will actually be worthwhile? It certainly looks that way. Hardcore, which describes itself as the world’s first action P.O.V film, has been completed, and it's now looking for donations on Indiegogo in order to help it through its final stages and find its way to an audience.

Hardcore comes from the mind of Ilya Naishuller, who last year made the short film Bad Motherfucker. This quickly became a viral sensation and has now been watched over 40 million times. It also generated thousands of positive messages that pleaded for a feature film to be made in the same mould. The result is Hardcore, and its official synopsis makes it sound like a relentless blockbuster that should be able to eclipse its gimmicky style.

It turns out that we have Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov to thank for Hardcore too. The director of the upcoming Ben-Hur remake was hugely impressed by Bad Motherfucker, and after he convinced Ilya Naishuller that he was the only man who could bring a POV film to the big screen, Hardcore was born. Ilya Naishuller also made a great move in casting Elysium and District 9's Sharlto Copley in the lead role as well. Hardcore was shot using Go-Pro cameras and a clip has been released to try and raise an extra $250,000 so that it can remain under the creative control of both Bekmambetov and Naishuller. You can check out the rather enthralling footage below. It will be the best thing that you do all day.

It’s hard not to be impressed with this first glimpse of Hardcore. You can immediately get a sense of Ilya Naishuller’s style, while it also gives the always impressive Sharlto Copley the chance to adopt an English accent while he effortlessly glides around as a soldier. Maybe it’s a tad gory and some of the action scenes seem a little bit stale - especially when Henry is able to dispatch three soldiers with ease after jumping on them - but the choreography of the myriad of dying stuntmen was for the most part perfect. Hopefully the aforementioned plot will also help to maintain audiences’ attention, as I can’t help but be a little bit worried that the P.O.V. shooting style will eventually become tiresome. Despite these concerns, I’m still excited for Hardcore. It’s still over $200,000 shy of its total, though. So those of you who want to assist it to completion should check their piggy banks and sofas for any amount that can help get them there.

Ben Stiller’s reputation as a director appears to be on the rise. Just yesterday, the helmer of Zoolander and Tropic Thunder surprised us with an utterly gorgeous trailer for his upcoming Secret Life of Walter Mitty, showing he can do something outside of outlandish comedies. And today THR reports he’s being considered by The Weinstein Company to direct a historical drama called The Current War.

The feature will focus on the infamous feud between rival inventors Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse as each attempted to make his brand of electricity the one the public would embrace. Written by first-time scribe Michael Mitnick, The Current War first earned buzz in 2011, when it snagged a coveted spot on the Black List—a collection of the best unproduced scripts floating around Hollywood. A few months later, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter helmer Timur Bekmambetov acquired the script with plans to direct. Currently, his production company Bazelevs Productions is in talks with TWC to have them finance and distribute the film, but the Weinsteins are eager to get The Current War into production ASAP, with or without Bekmambetov as its director.

Bekmambetov is no longer attached to direct, and no specific reason is given to why. Maybe it’s a scheduling issue. Maybe after Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter flopped domestically, the Weinsteins don’t consider him a safe investment as a director. Given how eager they seem to going on the film, we should hear updates about who will direct soon. But when considering who should take over, it’s worth remembering this is no dry story about necessity being the mother of invention. The Current War (or War of Currents as it was better known) was a far darker affair.

In the late 1880s, both Edison and Westinghouse were working on ways to supply electricity to the public. Edison favored direct current—or DC—while Westinghouse pushed for alternating current—A.K.A. AC. The two became contentious in their fight over which system would come out on top, and in his publicity campaign Edison did some things that still taint his reputation. For one, he began to spread misinformation proclaiming AC current was more dangerous than DC current. His examples of this included publicly electrocuting a circus elephant named Topsy, who had been doomed for this cruel experiment after killing three men. Taking things a gruesome step further, Edison commissioned the first electric chair to show the devastating effects AC current would have on a live human body. You can learn more about this grim bit of history below, but be warned: this is not for the squeamish.

It’s worth noting that back when Bekmambetov bought The Current Wars, Sacha Baron Cohen was said to be interested in playing Edison. No mention is made of him in the latest THR item. But having exited the Freddie Mercury biopic, perhaps he’ll be eager to keep current with this intriguing docudrama.

If you've been waiting all this time for a sequel to Wanted, you're clearly a more patient soul than I. There's been talk of the project basically since the first film came out, and even with Angelina Jolie declining to participate, producer Jim Lemley has continued making noise about it, and the film's writers were hired last September to write a script for the sequel. Now it's director Timur Bekmambetov's turn to fan the flames of anticipation, taking the opportunity of the press tour for his next film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter to make some vague promises about where the Wanted sequel would take things. Here's what he said to The Playlist:

Now it's up to us to figure out how this fits into last fall's news about Derek Haas and Michael Brandt writing the script, since A) there are two of them and not just "the writer" as Bekmambetov says, and B) if he came up with this idea a few weeks ago, what have they been working on for the last 9 months? Bekmambetov also went on to say that "other people are dead, you know, we can't bring them back," which suggests that-- SPOILER-- Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman won't somehow be bringing their characters back from the dead. That leaves it to James McAvoy, who starred in the first film as Wesley Gibson, to shoulder the franchise on his own-- though in the 4 years since Wanted came out, does anyone actually remember the first one?

Chalk me up as one of the skeptics, since I honestly don't think Wanted 2 will ever happen. But if you're one of the faithful, Timur Bekmambetov is right there with you-- and you can probably increase the odds of the movie happening by seeing Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter this weekend, so take action now while you still can!

Though presently in the thick of post-production on his latest effort, the big-budget, horror-infused historical fiction Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, director Timur Bekmambetov is already eying a curious script for his next effort. Variety reveals Bekmambetov's production company Bazelevs has purchased The Current War, which scored a spot on the 2011 Black List, as a directing vehicle for the celebrated genre-bender.

Penned by first-time scribe Michael Mitnick, this seemingly spectacular spec script chronicles the fevered race between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to be the first inventor to manifest a sustainable electrical current. At first blush The Current War looks to be a pretty straightforward historical drama—without vampires or conspiracy theories—so it is an unexpected pick for Bekmambetov, who is best-known for crafting visually striking action features with a high-contrast aesthetic and a high-octane sensibility, like Night Watch, Day Watch and Wanted. However, rumor has it that envelope-pushing comedian Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, The Dictator) had expressed an interest in playing The Current War's Edison, which suggests there may be more to this screenplay than its logline lets on.

Now that they've officially laid claim to the script, Bekmambetov and producer Steve Zaillian (The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo) can begin the casting process for The Current War. At this point, there's no word on whether or not they will pursue Cohen for the role he's eyed, though I must admit that possibility does intrigue me. Of course, whatever the cast, it will be interesting to see what Bekmambetov and his distinct aesthetic will bring to 1870s American history.

Alright, Fox. You win. We’re officially on board with Timur Bekmambetov’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. We’re buying into the genre mashup of American history and gothic horror. We loved the first poster, and we flipped for the first photos. This new poster (via impawards.com) isn’t quite as inspired, but like I said, we’re in:

Now how’s about you showing us a trailer? Really, I want to get a sense of the tone Bekmambetov’s going for with his adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith bestselling novel. We’ve seen the Wanted director do straight-up horror with his vampire series Night Watch and its follow up, Day Watch. But the premise behind Lincoln suggests the possibility of a jokier tone … a big-budget spin on Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer with our nation’s 16th president swapped in for Sarah Michelle Gellar’s teen-queen slayer.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have to believe we’ll be seeing a trailer on Vampire Hunter soon, as the film is racing ahead to a June 22 release date. Until then, we’re guessing. And the strange photoshoppiness of the above image isn’t helping ease of mild concerns that this will be too “spoofy” to be taken seriously. Because I think there’s potential here for this to be the guilty-pleasure carnival ride that Summer 2012 is looking for, but we really won’t know for sure until we get closer to release date – and see that elusive trailer.

Abraham Lincoln’s an absolute ass kicker in the latest photo from Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, director Timur Bekmambetov’s stylish adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s mash-up novel. The photo comes courtesy of USA Today:

Not to be confused with Steven Spielberg’s developing Lincoln project, Bekmambetov’s genre splice re-imagines our 16th president as a vampire slayer stomping through the Civil War-era United States. In the photo abaove, Ben Walker (as Lincoln) administers a painful beating to what we assume is an undead soldier. Can you think of anything cooler than Honest Abe laying the smack-eth down on a bloodsucker?

It’s hard to tell from the angles of this picture, though, just how stylish the action in Vampire Hunter will get. Obviously, Bekmambetov helmed the over-the-top actioner Wanted with Angelina Jolie, as well as the visually revved-up Night Watch (and its crazy sequel). From the look of the above shot, Lincoln’s foe is taking a spin in mid-air. But is it slow-motion? Wachowski-inspired bullet-time? Straight-up, Brad Bird-style, balls-to-the-wall action? We should be seeing a trailer on Vampire Hunter soon, as the film is racing ahead to a June 22 release date. Until then, it’s all speculation on the motif Bekmambetov chooses to assign to one of our nation’s most iconic historical figures. Then again, when it comes to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, historical accuracy likely won’t be much of an issue.

UPDATE: Variety is reporting that Dominic Cooper has also joined the cast of the film and will be playing Henry Sturges, a vampire who assists Lincoln in hunting down bloodsuckers.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter already stands to be a pretty great movie. Based on the book by Seth Grahame-Smith (who also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), the project has a pretty cool director in Timur Bekmambetov and a solid up-coming star in Ben Walker, who already earned rave reviews while playing a former president on Broadway in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. Now the film has added yet another great piece to the puzzle. Deadline reports that Anthony Mackie, best known for his role in The Hurt Locker, has been added to the cast of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. In the film, Mackie will play Will, Honest Abe's best friend and fellow vampire hunter.

With all of the to-do that was made over Jeremy Renner's performance in The Hurt Locker - which was outstanding, don't get me wrong - I've always felt that Anthony Mackie didn't get enough credit. The guy has some serious chops, and while this film may not be the best way to show them off, it may at least get his some deserved attention.

It's not often that you see a teaser poster for a movie that hasn't started shooting yet-- though J.J. Abrams' teaser trailer for Super 8 may have set a record-- but when you're filming and releasing a movie within a six-months period, you've got to get the ball rolling early. The Timur Bekmambetov-produced Apollo 18 brought on a new director last week, but it's still moving toward its March release date, and today the film's first teaser poster has hit over at IGN.

Check out the poster below and meet me after for some discussion.

As teaser posters go it's a pretty great one, with that intriguing and vague alien footprint next to the human moonboot and the tagline, "There's a reasons we've never gone back to the moon." The film will be a found footage-type thriller, about a secret manned mission to the moon that resulted in serious extraterrestrial disaster for the humans on board the ship. Apparently the majority of the film takes place on board the ship, so don't expect nearly as much lunar surface action as the trailer suggests, but it still might be an interesting take on the found footage mini-genre, which could use something a little more original than just another Paranormal Activity knockoff.

The movie also launched its official site today, which you can check out (speakers on!) here.

Olatunde Osunsanmi, the director of the found-footage horror project The Fourth Kind, has already announced plans to direct a similar kind of film about a secret mission to the moon, but believe it or not, Timur Bekmambetov is going to beat him to the punch. Bekamambetov will be producing a project from director Trevor Cawood that doesn't just focus on similar secretive missions into space, but is scheduled for a March 2011 release. As in, five months from now. And no, it hasn't yet started shooting.

The press release from the Weinstein Company doesn't explain how any of this is possible, because it's working with the gambit that the film is not a narrative at all, but based on "Russian film footage" that Bekmambetov discovered while shooting a documentary about the Russian space station. The idea is that, while Richard Nixon technically cancelled the Apollo 18 space mission, it actually did take place, and "reveals startling evidence of extraterrestrial life forms." OK, sure. The script comes from Brian Miller, who won the screenplay contest at the Astana International Action Film Festival, which brought him to Bekmambetov's attention.

The low-budget, quickly shot film will likely fall into the Cloverfield/Paranormal Activity of fiction the marketers want you to believe is real, and if the movie is good enough, moviegoers may be wiling to fall into the ruse. I just know I'd be livid if I were Olatunde Osunsanmi-- obviously the two projects were developing at the same time, so there's no real argument that he's been ripped off, but it's going to be a lot harder for him to get his film out there if Bekmambetov's project really does make it out by March of next year.

Considering what Gareth Edwards was able to accomplish with so few resources in his first feature film Monsters, it comes as no surprise to hear the writer-director has already got something else in the works. What also comes as no surprise is that this upcoming project is well, a bit unusual; it’s "An epic human story set in a futuristic world without humanity."

While talking Monsters at New York Comic Con, in reference to the new movie’s log line, Edwards jokingly asked, “Does that make sense?” Honestly, it doesn’t really at the moment, but it should be interesting to see what Edwards does with the concept once Monsters hits theater and he has time to work on the script.

The film will be developed with Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov, the man working on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter for Twentieth Century Fox, and with Bekmambetov’s help, Edwards is hoping to have some financial stability and enough creative freedom to be able to make this one “on our own terms and make the film we want to make.”

It’s hard to get enough of a sense of what he has up his sleeve with so little information, but with Edwards in particular, it’s easy to appreciate the mystery. Walking in to see Monsters, I expected something far different than what he delivered and the surprise was rather nice. Edwards also has an impressive sense of making fantastical concepts feel real, a prime concern when he was working on Monsters. Another plus is how driven Edwards is to make the film on his own terms. With the big studios assuming almost all of the creative control over bigger budgeted science fiction flicks, it should be refreshing to see Edwards deliver what I’m assuming to be something very different.

Check out what Edwards had to say about the new film in the clip below and click here to watch our full interview with the writer-director.

Timur Bekmambetov's schedule has been in flux lately, after Universal put the stops on a Wanted 2 rather than go forward without Angelina Jolie. Now the Russian director has apparently figured out what he wants to do next-- Production Weekly reports that the director's next project will be an adaptation of Casebook of Victor Frankenstein, the novel by Peter Ackroyd that posits some supernatural adventures between poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and a researcher named Victor Frankenstein.

And while that might make for a seriously awesome college comedy, what Ackroyd has in mind is a lot more supernatural. Here's a description of the book dug up by Coming Soon:

Now that Captain America has been cast it's time for Marvel to take the next big step forward on their multiple-movie, superhero universe project. Everything they've done and will do in Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and The First Avenger: Captain America culminates in a still far off summer tent pole team-up movie called Avengers. For Marvel it's a monumentally important film, but perhaps even more critically a desperately difficult one. Whoever ends up directing it will be tasked with handling a massive ensemble cast of established stars, a huge budget, a massively effects heavy movie, decades worth of established comics mythology, and the unreachable expectations of a billion fanboys. Directing The Avengers will require a special sort of talent.

Thanks to Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier we know that Marvel already has a mysterious short list of directors they want in charge of this monumentally important project, and we know that Leterrier is on it. No offense Louis, but we're hoping you're pretty far down on it. Avengers is too important a project and Marvel, you can do better. The obvious choice for the job is Jon Favreau, but he's already made it clear that he's taken himself out of the running. That means it's up to us to steer Marvel in the right direction. Hey Kevin Feige, before you make that horrifying call to Brett Ratner, consider hiring one of these directors instead:

Timur Bekmambetov

Timur Bekmambetov is a Russian director best known in America as the guy at the helm of Wanted, on which he worked closely with comic creator Mark Millar. In Russia, he's also known as the director of their Night Watch series, the most popular movies in Russian history. They're kind of like The Matrix with vampires. He's no stranger to event movies and he's a pro when it comes to adapting comics. Who knows how he'd handle such a massive, ensemble cast but Bekmambetov's take no prisoners, blockbuster style could be a fascinating way to approach Marvel's Avengers team-up movie.

Alfonso Cuaron

Curaon directed what is without a doubt the best of the Harry Potter movies in Azkaban, which means not only does he have a knack for gorgeous visual effects he's had a lot of experience dealing with a large, ensemble cast. More importantly, he's ridiculously talented at pretty much anything and everything. He's made his name handling all manners of different subject matters and styles with unmatched ability. His last movie, Children of Men was easily one of the best science fiction movies of the past decade, and used gritty realism in contrast to the fantasy reality of Azkaban. He's done everything from sex movies, to kids movies, to futuristic war. He's never done superheroes and though he has a few projects in early stages of development, he hasn't done a movie since 2006. Cuaron is due for a big return and it doesn't get any bigger than Avengers.

J.J. Abrams

Looking for a great ensemble film with great action sequences? Try and remember all the way back to the beginning of summer in 2009 and you'll find director J.J. Abrams' Star Trek. Yes, it was the movie that got Chris Hemsworth the lead in Thor, but that isn't the point. Overuse of lens flare aside, in just two hours the film was able to give complete back stories to its two main characters while paying dedicated attention to its source material. What more can you really ask from the director of The Avengers? Throw on the fact that he has no problem taking on an existing series and you have a formula for a perfect Avengers director.

Kenneth Branagh

When Kenneth Branagh was announced as the director of Thor, geeks worldwide did a spit-take and exclaimed, "The Shakespeare guy?" This reaction was somewhat warranted: Branagh has never been seen as a big budget director, and, yes, five of the directors 13 credits are based on Shakespeare plays. But giving Branagh the reigns of both Thor and the Avengers would give the series continuity, and if you imagine the presentation that Branagh must have delivered to producers and look at the film's incredible cast, it seems certain that everyone involved knows exactly what they're doing. Unlike Iron Man or Captain America, Thor takes place in a much larger universe, incorporating not only his character on Earth, as disabled medical student Donald Blake, but in the Norse world of Asgard where he is the God of Thunder. Branagh is the man Marvel brought on to direct the most epic aspect of the Avengers team and that level of filmmaking will be needed for their team-up.

Paul Greengrass

Paul Greengrass's gritty, realistic, shaky-cam style might seem like a strange fit for a superhero movie but, before Snyder's version took off, he was actually pretty far along on his own Watchmen take. Greengrass is obviously interested in superhero movies of a sort, and he's already attempted to make the most unfilmable superhero movie . His close-in style could be a way to handle the project's otherwise overly bloated budget Allow Greengrass to give some of the film's super-powered fights a more intimate tone and you'll keep Avengers awesome while saving money on expansive CGI. It's unlikely that Marvel could get him interested, it's hard to imagine Greengrass taking the reigns on something so many other directors have already had a hand in defining, but The Bourne Ultimatum is easily one of the best action movies of the decade and if you can get the guy who made that on board with the Avengers then you take him.

Zack Snyder

With two comic adaptations already under his belt, there is little chance that Zack Snyder would balk at the chance to direct such an epic comic book movie event flick. He has proven three times now that he's capable of creating fantastic action sequences, and, as seen in Watchmen, he has no trouble balancing a group of superheroes, and giving each one plenty of screen time to appease fans (though credit for that should be shared with writer Alan Moore). Since Marvel announced a plan to amalgamate all of its characters in to one film, critics and fanboys alike have wondered if the task is even doable. So why not give it to the man who tackled the "unfilmable" graphic novel?

Brad Bird

You can have your Dark Knight or your Spider-Man 2, even though it's computer animated, Brad Bird's The Incredibles is the best superhero story ever put to film. He's never done live-action before, but recently he's flirted with making the jump from animation, and his talent is too impressive to be limited by format. In a way, The Incredibles is exactly the kind of team-up movie you'd want Avengers to be, minus the familial element. For Bird, super-team-ups are old hat. Better still, he's already shown the ability to jump in and build on material started by others. Ratatouille was originally someone else's film before Bird was brought in at the eleventh hour to take the reigns and bring it back on track. He may not have experience with big-budget, live-action effects but with movies like The Iron Giant and The Incredibles already under his belt he's proven a mastery over brilliant storytelling on an epic scale.

Mark Millar

Millar may not yet be a well known name amongst movie fans, but he holds the rank of royalty in the comic book world. While he has yet to direct a feature, he has served as a producer on both of hi movie adaptations, Wanted and Kick-Ass. More recently Millar announced that he'll be begin making his directing debut with a superhero flick of his own creation this summer in his native Scotland. In the comic book world, most know of him through his work on Civil War, which is as big an ensemble work as there is in comics. Sure there's little chance that Marvel would take a project so monumental and place it in the hands of someone so inexperienced, but few out there that have dipped their toes into both the film and comic worlds like Millar has.

Bryan Singer

People look at the task of making a multi-superhero film as though it has never been done before. Not only has Bryan Singer done it, but he did it twice. In both X-Men and X2, Singer utilized his large cast perfectly, spending enough time with each of the main characters to create depth without sacrificing structure. To truly see how deft the director was in doing this, all you have to do is watch Brett Ratner's jumbled mess in the third installment. Hell, going from Wolverine, Jean Grey, Professor X, Rogue, Cyclops Storm and Magneto to just Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Hulk might be a walk in the park for Singer.

Jonathan Mostow

Jonathan Mostow is the most "gettable" director on this list and maybe for Marvel, the one that might end up making the most sense. He first got attention back in 2000 for directing the capable submarine movie U-571 and he followed that up with the extremely divisive Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. While fans may debate the merits of making a third Terminator movie there'd no denying that in it Mostow showed a serious talent for pulling off massively eye-popping, big-budget battle sequences. More recently he directed the capable sci-fi thriller Surrogates, based on a graphic novel. There again, Mostow showed a real talent for visually stunning effects sequences, even when saddled with what was rather mediocre script. He's experienced with the comic book genre, he knows big-budget action, he's done a movie in which he joined an existing franchise midstream, and while in the past he's been rumored for mostly dead in the water projects like Sub-Mariner right now he doesn't seem all that busy. Marvel, give him a call.

I know there's a lot of good to be found in quirky literary revisits like Pride, Prejudice & Zombies or author Seth Grahame-Smith's newest, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. But when the trick is to take an author's familiar prose or a person's life story and throw in supernatural creatures, is it really going to translate that well to the screen? Twice?

Tim Burton is apparently counting on it. Not long after Natalie Portman optioned Pride, Prejudice & Zombies, Burton and Russian director Timur Bekmambetov have plans to produce Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which was published yesterday (you can see a "trailer" for the book here). Apparently Lincoln's mother was killed by supernatural creatures when he was young, so his willingness to beat the South during the Civil War wasn't motivated by slavery or states' rights, but a desire to crush the vampires who lived there.

The Deadline Hollywood article also includes the detail that David O. Russell is looking to direct Pride, Prejudice & Zombies, which is news to me-- and surprising, given that his recent film Nailed still hasn't managed to see the light of day. With the Zombies movie, at least we have a classic TV movie version and feature version of the book to keep us satisfied. But there's still never been a truly great biopic of Abraham Lincoln, and as Steven Spielberg's pet Lincoln project gets continually delayed/put off, it's a little heartbreaking that the vampire version will get to the screen first.