Trick R Treat, the directorial debut of Michael Dougherty (writer on X2, Superman Returns) has been finished and sitting on a shelf somewhere in the bowels of Warner Brothers for about two years now without a proper release either theatrically or on DVD. The film got a ton of good buzz last autumn when a promotional screening was so packed that hundreds of folks had to be turned away.

That was followed by a few under-hyped, over-crowded screenings in LA and NY, but none of the positive buzz the film built around itself seemed to help as another Halloween season passed without news of a Trick R Treat release.

One of the rumors surrounding the film’s slow process to the eyes of viewers is that the WB is hesitant to launch a horror flick opposite Lionsgate’s SAW franchise. The original idea was that Trick R Treat would be a yearly series coming back under the guidance of a new director each year, but for whatever reason the WB has decided to hold onto this flick through two autumn marketing seasons.

Now we have a myserious title on a new trailer and a vague blog post. It looks like Trick R Treat is at least coming to DVD, but will we get to see it in theaters? Well…

Angels & Demons isn’t even out yet, but already Hollywood is salivating at the idea of a third Robert Langdon film from Dan Brown…

There goes another boutique studio. Fox Atomic, the arm of 20th Century Fox that handled the genre films and comedies aimed at the teenage to mid-20s market is going to fold up into 20th Century Fox, who will likely pick up some Atomic releases.

Atomic was started in 2007, but it’s death was slow. In January 2008, Fox and Fox Searchlight gobbled up Atomic’s marketing arm, and the studio hasn’t really been producing hits with fare like Turistas…

Know who Declan O’Brien is? Me neither. Here’s his IMDB profile.

As you can see, he’s worked on stuff, just stuff I haven’t seen.

In this brave new world of unoriginal ideas, where Spider-Man can go from comics to cartoons to live action movies to a U2 musical, or where The Producers can go from movie to Broadway musical to movie based on the Broadway musical, it’s about time someone revisited The Little Shop of Horrors, don’t you think…?

I’ve complained about it before, and I will complain about it again: Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince should have just disappeared from the PR landscape after they bumped it into this July out of last November. I cannot express to you how frustrating it is to see “new trailers” or “new posters” and not be excited by any of it.

Movie PR is a very calculated thing, from poster to teaser to 60-second TV spot to second trailer to 30-second TV spot to visual ads to 15 second TV spot. If the same formula has to be drawn out over six months, people like me and you who check these blogs and track the pulse of their favorite films get fatigue, and we’re the people who are going to be reviewing it for those folks who aren’t sick of using the same 5 images for Harry Potter post banners.

Sigh.

Good news is that we’ll be seeing Star Trek a day early and HP6 made another move, though it might be meaningless…

We haven’t heard much about the rumored Venom solo spinoff film since Sony announced it was developing it last July. Venom made his first film appearance in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, which you might remember for its multiple dance scenes and lack-luster plot. The rumor going around when 3 came out was that Raimi didn’t really want to include Venom, but Sony told him that a popular Spider-Man villain and fan pressure goes beyond artistic control.

Now, two writers claim that the Venom script is in their hands…