Zack Snyder is probably one of the busiest and most ambitious filmmakers around. After exploding into the mainstream thanks to the success of 300 and following that with the uber-ambitious comic book adaptation of Watchmen, Snyder is one of those directors that you want to know more about. With his first all-CG film, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, releasing later this year and looking spectacular, many have speculated about what future projects the talent Snyder might have in store. Well, thanks to some reporting from the San Diego Comic Con, we not only have a glimpse of his new project Sucker Punch but also some juicy rumors about possible involvment in a Frank Miller written 300-esque prequel (though not quite a prequel) Xerxes.

First up we’ll take a quick look at the post-apocalyptic sexy girls fighting with robots action flick Sucker Punch which looks like a cross between Tank Girl and Sin City. The film stars an assortment of young actresses including Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung. The plot revolves around the story of a young girl (Browning), who is institutionalized by her wicked stepfather, retreats to an alternative reality as a coping strategy and envisions a plan which will help her escape from the facility. There’s a teaser site already up that has a pretty cool animated panorama of a scene from the film but doesn’t reveal too much else. In addition to the cast and title, we also have five tantiliazing posters for the film that showcase each of the girls. Sucker Punch is set to be released in March 2011 and footage should be revealed tomorrow at Comic-Con.

But what about after that? What is Snyder planning for his next project? According to Hero Complex, Snyder is eyeing returning to the ancient battelfields of the Persian war. Snyder has his sights set  to make the adaptation of Frank Miller’s latest novel that he’s been currently working on, titled Xerxes:

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To continue on the Oscars,  Here are some of the top ten films that they missed when handing out the nominations about a month ago.

Here are the rules: If a film is nominated already for something I cannot use it.  Even if it’s that the film wasn’t nominated for the proper award. Therefore I can only nominate films that have completely omitted from the list at this year’s awards ceremony. Read the full story

The Playlist is reporting that British actor Matthew Goode has auditioned for the role of Bilbo Baggins in Guillermo del Toro‘s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s The Hobbit. Goode‘s young career has been up and down to say the least. In 2009, he was awkwardly cast as Adrian Veidt in Zack Snyder‘s Watchmen, although he was more than impressive in another tricky role as Colin Firth‘s deceased lover in A Single Man. So far this year, he starred alongside Amy Adams in Leap Year, a critical and commercial bomb. Read the full story

THR is reporting that Alex Tse, co-writer of last year’s Watchmen, has been hired by Fox to adapt the Fourth Realm Trilogy. The three sci-fi books are written by John Twelve Hawks, and titled The Traveler (2005), The Dark River (2007), The Golden City (2009). The best-selling books have “comparisons to Dan Brown, The Matrix and Star Wars used to describe a series that explores the ideas of free will and public surveillance, secret societies and good versus evil.” Check out a synopsis of the first book below. Read the full story

With this week’s release of Valentine’s Day, I’ve decided to share what I think are some of the best ‘ensemble’ films I’ve ever seen.

What is an ‘ensemble’ film?  You may have heard of an ensemble cast, which is a film with a ton of minor characters all in a huge film (think 2012 or The Towering Inferno). I believe an ‘ensemble’ film to be a movie which decides to take all of these characters and make the film about a number of stories rather than one massive story as we are used to seeing every week in the cinema. Sometimes these stories can find a way of coming together and sometimes these ‘stories’ are just digging into different characters to give us a sense of perspective. Read the full story

According to Bleeding Cool Watchmen 2 might be one step closer to becoming a reality. According to solid rumors it seemed as though the greatest block to a sequel for the 2009 hit, was former DC Comics Publisher and President Paul Levitz. His concerns that a sequel would be against writers Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ wishes and his doubts on the film’s financial viability put a stop to any plans for Watchmen 2. As irony would have it, however, the Watchmen comic became DC’s best selling publication of all time after the movie put a spotlight on it. Read the full story

Editor’s Note: This is first of five lists highlighting our main staff’s favorite films this year. Check back throughout the week for more countdowns.

Let’s just make something clear here; this is my list. Not your list, not the guy who writes for that other site, this is my list. I’m saying this because there’s some choices here some may go “huh?” to, and that’s fine. I think 2009 was a fairly inconsistent year, with a year that had great films (see below list), but was also oddly disappointing in the time we had to wait between movies. I also found myself connecting to certain films that others did not. As a result, the films I liked may be ones people forgot or which were received to a mixed reaction. Read the full story

Here we are, eight months and two versions later. When Watchmen was released on March 6, 2009, the film received polarizing reviews from both critics and audiences, and the box office intake has been debated as to whether it was a success or failure, with some like me arguing it actually performed at an impressive rate for the type of film it is, while others argued that it was a complete disappointment. In July the Director’s Cut was released to a stronger reaction, as being extended by 24 minutes of new footage, many said the film felt more fleshed out and had more room to breathe than its theatrical counterpart. Now we have Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut, and this version is most likely the last version of Watchmen we’ll see for a long time, if not ever, and what a glorious send-off it is. Read the full story

Darren Aronofsky Developing the World’s Biggest Heist Film [/Film]

Get Low + Lebanon Picked Up By Sony Pictures Classics [THR]

Precious Takes Top Prize at Toronto [In Contention]

Unused Moon Posters [Firstshowing]

John Malkovich Joins Secretariat [Variety]

Ryan Reynolds Confirms Deadpool Plans [SHH]

Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson Become The Other Guys [Variety]

Andrew Niccol Adapting Stephenie Meyer‘s Novel The Host [Firstshowing]

First Look at The Losers [Collider]

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The calm before the pending Oscar storm is trembling in front of us. Here at TFS we asked each writer to give their Top 20 so far. I then gave 1 point to their #20 pick and 20 points to their #1 pick and everything in between. I added up points for all the films and here is the order leading up to the film with the most points. Let’s take a look at some of the best films of the year so far.