The nominations for the 85th Academy Awards have been announced, and it’s quite a whirlwind of nominees.  As expected, Lincoln landed the most nominations with 12, followed with Ang Lee’s Life of Pi which nabbed 11.  The big story here, though, is the Best Director category.  Shockingly, only two (two!) of the DGA nominees for Best Director made the Oscar cut: Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg.  The rest of the category was filled out by Benh Zeitlin for Beasts of the Southern Wild, David O. Russell for Silver Linings Playbook, and Michael Haneke for Amour.  It was almost guaranteed that Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow would be landing nominations for Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, respectively, but shockingly neither made the cut.  Apparently those films just directed themselves.  Based off today’s nominations, it now looks like it’s (surprisingly) down to Lincoln vs. Silver Linings Playbook for the big win.

Hit the jump to check out the list of nominees, and click here to check them against my predictions (somehow I predicted the Best Picture and Supporting Actor categories perfectly).  The 85th Academy Awards will take place on February 24th.

As we head into the thick of awards season, we’re starting to see how the various guilds stack up with regards to the best of 2012 (the PGA nominations were announced yesterday).  The guilds are usually a good Oscar predictor as their voting bodies overlap significantly with the Academy’s voting body, and today we have a peek into the screenplay race by way of the nominations for the 2013 Writers Guild Awards.  The list includes some pleasant surprises like Rian Johnson’s brilliantly original script for Looper and Steven Chbosky’s touching adaptation of his own novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower, as well as expected candidates like The Master, Moonrise Kingdom, Zero Dark Thirty, and Lincoln.

Each year a number of screenplays are ruled ineligible for the WGA’s, and this year is no exception as Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, Behn Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, and William Nicholson’s Les Miserables were all  ineligible for WGA consideration for various insignificant reasons.  Hit the jump to check out the full list of WGA nominations.  The 2013 Writers Guild Awards will be held on February 17th.

We’re continuing on with our weeklong preview of the upcoming 85th Academy Awards, and after running down both acting categories it’s time to take look at some of the other races.  Today we’ll be looking at the Best Animated Feature, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Screenplay categories in depth, and I’ll also make some way-too-early quick picks in the technical categories.  The fun begins after the jump.

Director Robert Zemeckis puts a decade of motion capture behind him and returns to live-action fare with Flight, starring Denzel Washington.  The John Gatins screenplay centers on a pilot (Washington) who miraculously lands a malfunctioning plane, only to become the focus of a follow-up investigation.  Today, we have an exclusive clip to share with you and it is a doozy.  It shows off the inciting incident of Flight while highlighting Washington’s grace under pressure, though the same can’t be said for his co-pilot (is it his first day?).

Also starring John Goodman, Don Cheadle, Melissa Leo and James Badge Dale, Flight opens on November 2nd.  Hit the jump to check out our exclusive clip, and click here for over 20 images from the film. 

Though board game adaptations are a recent trend, Hollywood has been adapting video games for years.  The latest title to get a go on the big screen appears to be the racing series Need for Speed.  Showblitz reports that screenwriter John Gatins (Real Steel) has been tapped to develop a pitch for a big screen iteration of the popular game franchise.  Electronic Arts and UTA are now going out to Hollywood studios to shop the project around, and Warner Bros., Sony, and Paramount are said to be interested in the deal.

The Need for Speed series began in 1994 and has had a fruitful run on multiple platforms ever since.  Given that the game simply consists of racing cars in different settings, studios are really only buying the title recognition.  Someone could just as easily have written a movie set in the street-racing world and slapped the Need for Speed title onto it.  Nevertheless, studios like to make money so I have no doubt in my mind that we’ll see Need for Speed on screens sooner or later.  Battleship is an actual movie that exists, after all.

When director Shawn Levy’s Real Steel opened last October, it surprised quite a few people.  For one, the so-called “robot boxing movie” packed a whole lot of heart.  While some may have been expecting wall-to-wall robot fights, they soon found out that buried beneath this sci-fi adventure was an emotional father-son story.  Secondly, audiences discovered that Real Steel featured some of the best visual effects of the year. I nstead of relying solely on CG for the numerous robot-boxing matches, Levy opted for a nuanced blend of practical effects and cutting-edge motion capture technology.  What resulted was some of the most seamlessly blended effects in recent memory.   When it came time for the Oscars to announce the contenders in the Best Visual Effects category, it was no surprise that Real Steel popped up on the list.

As we’re just a few weeks away from the Academy Awards, Steve got the chance to sit down with Levy earlier today to talk about the visual effects in the film.  In addition to musing on the hybrid effects approach, the SimulCam technology that made the effects possible, and what sets Real Steel apart from the other VFX nominees, Levy also provided a few updates on the Real Steel sequel, specifically talking about how their approach to Real Steel 2 was directly influenced by what demographics responded to Real Steel most passionately.  Hit the jump to watch the full interview.

Back in June, we were pretty sure that the live-action drama Flight was going to be Robert Zemeckis’ next film. We were also confident that Denzel Washington would star. Today, we have confirmation of both courtesy of a press release from Paramount. Per the release, Flight (written by Real Steel‘s John Gatins):

“…tells the redemption story of “Whip” (Washington), a commercial airline pilot who pulls off a heroic feat of flying in a damaged plane, saving 98 lives on a flight carrying 106 people. While the world begs to embrace him as a true American Hero, the everyman struggles with this label as he is forced to hold up to the scrutiny of an investigation that brings into question his behavior the night before the doomed flight.”

Like many, I’m a huge fan of much of Zemeckis’ previous work so I’m always excited for anything he puts his directorial stamp on. Moreover, I’m especially happy to see the filmmaker back in the live-action arena after nearly a decade removed from the format (2000′s Castaway was his last). Per the release, the film is slated to begin shooting in Atlanta this October which means a 2012 release is more than likely in sight. For a little more on Flight, read the full press release after the jump.

After a decade devoted to motion capture, Robert Zemeckis is looking to return to live action for his next film.  Disney’s cancellation of the mo-cap Beatles ode Yellow Submarine surely was a wake up call.   Zemeckis needs time, though, to ease back into the land of the living.  The director flirted with Superman and a Wizard of Oz remake, and the time travel tale Timeless remains a possibility.  And Zemeckis could always revive the Who Framed Roger Rabbit sequel that exists in a constant state of development.

Paramount has added another option, Flight, and it sounds damn promising.  The script by John Gatins (Coach Carter) centers on an alcoholic/drug addict pilot.  And Denzel Washington is “loosely attached” to star.  Details after the break.

Shawn Levy’s Real Steel doesn’t even hit theaters until October 7th, but DreamWorks is happy enough with what they’ve seen to begin development on a sequel.  For those unfamiliar with the movie, Real Steel is being billed as Rocky-meets-Transformers (although I prefer calling it Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots the Movie) and takes place in a future where robot boxing has replaced human boxing.  Hugh Jackman plays a former boxer who becomes a promoter and bonds with his estranged teenage son as they attempt to have their robot win the title.  While I’m wary of Levy (his past credits include the Night at the Museum movies and The Pink Panther remake), Steve was impressed by what he saw when he visited the editing bay.

Deadline reports that original screenwriter John Gatins has been hired to write the sequel and that DreamWorks plans to make new deals with Jackman and Levy.  Hit the jump to check out the teaser trailer for Real Steel.  The film also stars Evangeline Lilly, Hope Davis, Kevin Durand, Dakota Goyo, and Anthony Mackie.

The first image from director Shawn Levy’s Real Steel has been released via USA Today.  While the movie only started principal photography earlier today, Touchstone Pictures decided to stay ahead of any leaks by releasing the first image of Hugh Jackman and a robot today.  And you know what…it’s a very smart move as this image looks great.  Disney has also released the official synopsis:

A gritty, white-knuckle, action ride set in the near-future, where the sport of boxing has gone hi-tech, “Real Steel” stars Hugh Jackman as Charlie Kenton, a washed-up fighter who lost his chance at a title when 2000-pound, 8-foot-tall steel robots took over the ring. Now nothing but a small-time promoter, Charlie earns just enough money piecing together low-end bots from scrap metal to get from one underground boxing venue to the next. When Charlie hits rock bottom, he reluctantly teams up with his estranged son Max (Dakota Goyo) to build and train a championship contender. As the stakes in the brutal, no-holds-barred arena are raised, Charlie and Max, against all odds, get one last shot at a comeback.

UPDATE: Disney has sent over a high-resolution uncropped version of the image which let’s us see the head of the robot.  Also, the robot is called Noisy Boy.  More after the jump:

Sometimes you think that you have Hollywood figured out and then they do something so random that it just confuses you.  First of all, I have never heard of this futuristic robot boxing movie named “Real Steel”.  I also didn’t know that it was one of the projects that Peter Berg has been attached to with hopes of directing.  Well, now we have news that Peter Berg will not be directing this cool as hell sounding movie and instead has been replaced by Shawn Levy (“Night at the Museum”, “Cheaper by the Dozen”).  So, yeah, this movie just went from sounding pretty bad ass to sounding kind of lame to me.  You can get the full details when you hit the jump.