And Alien. My goodness. That film is as compelling, horrifying and inspiring as it was influential. Entire sub-genres of the film business owe themselves entirely to that flick's success. It's The Godfather of sci-fi horror cinema; Cameron's Aliens is its Godfather II.

Will Smith will star in a modern day adaptation of Daniel Keyes' classic science fiction novel, Flowers for Algernon. The novel tells the moving story of Charlie, a man with an abnormally low IQ who undergoes experimental surgery to boost his intelligence. Charlie narrates his tale in a series of progress reports to the doctors who have performed the procedure, documenting and reflecting on his transformation from someone with a low IQ to genius level and beyond.

The first official teaser for Louis Leterrier's remake of Clash of the Titans has been released by Warner Bros. and despite my prejudice about remakes, I'm finally getting excited by this project. Recently having endured the original Clash of the Titans (1981) for the first time in two decades, there's no doubt in my mind that a remake is more than warranted in this case, and if the teaser is an accurate reflection of the movie, Leterrier's remake has all the hallmarks of a long-overdue kick-arse epic fantasy. The cast is outstanding with Sam Worthington as Perseus, Liam Neeson looking ferociously godlike as Zeus, Ralph Fiennes as Hades, Pete Postlethwaite, Mads Mikkelsen and Jason Flemyng amongst others.

Apart from an announcement back in September that the Tolkien Estate and New Line had settled their differences over profits for the Lord of the Rings movies, clearing the way for the studio to proceed with its films of The Hobbit, interesting news about the Hobbit project has been as scarce as goblin charity.

Pre-production is often like that as so much of what is happening from script development to production design takes place behind closed doors. Which is where it bloody well should remain, as far as I'm concerned! There's only ever one opportunity to be truly surprised by a movie and if we over-expose ourselves to the detail beforehand, we're denying ourselves the opportunity to enjoy the full wonder and magic of the experience. Not only that, more serious leaking of detail can jeopardise the very production of a movie as we've seen with the Forbidden Planet remake.

J.Michael Straczynski, famous for creating the Babylon 5 science fiction TV series, has been working hard at getting a screenplay ready for Warner Bros.' upcoming Forbidden Planet remake (which we reported on back in January). Unfortunately though, in a recent post he added to a Babylon 5 forum, he revealed he's had to scrap the current draft because details of the storyline had leaked on the Internet.

Sony has officially confirmed Men in Black 3 and filming could start early 2010, according to The Hollywood Reporter’s Risky Biz Blog. Tropic Thunder writer Etan Cohen is writing the script and Barry Sonnenfeld (director of the first two Men in Black films) may be back to direct. No news on whether Tommy Lee Jones or Will Smith will return. The first Men in Black film was released in 1997 and the second in 2002.

The first movie had some great moments, and apparently was one reason why a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie took so long to get off the ground. Studios felt the whole comedy science fiction angle had already been covered too well after the film was released. It was a massive box office success at the time.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Anthony Hopkins has joined the cast of Thor and will play Odin. In Norse mythology, Odin is the father of Thor and the ruler of Asgard and possesses amazing powers of strength and wisdom. He sacrifices his eye in exchange for knowledge.

Anthony Hopkins seems like the perfect choice all things considered. Hopkins was great in Beowulf in a similar role as a powerful father figure and certainly has the stature and charisma to pull it off. He wasn't a God in Beowulf of course, but his acting abilities (with the help of CGI) should certainly be up to the task.

According to Pajiba.com, Peter Berg is no longer directing the movie based on Frank Herbert's science fiction classic Dune. Paramount, the studio behind the new adaptation, has begun the tough search to find a replacement. According to Pajiba's contacts the search has run into two issues:

"1) they're looking for a director who can put the movie together for under $175 million, which sounds manageable, but they don't want anything resembling the crap effects of the '84 film, and 2) they want a director who already has a pre-existing passion for the novel and is enthusiastic about the project."

As we reported earlier, director Ridley Scott is on board to direct a new Alien movie, a prequel to his 1979 science fiction classic starring Sigourney Weaver. The director recently spoke to Empire Magazine and revealed a tiny bit more about what he has in mind. He was in the UK for the London Film Festival.