With 37 years now since the final installment of the original series, and the lackluster performance and lukewarm response of Tim Burton’s 2001 “re-imagining,” you might think that Twentieth Century Fox would have given up on attempting to reignite the Planet Of The Apes franchise.

You’d be wrong.

It had been reported that Oscar-nominated screenwriter Scott Frank (Minority Report, Out Of Sight) had long been working on re-tooling an existing script for a proposed series reboot, with plans to also direct. With recent reports that Frank had officially left the project citing creative differences, the new Apes looked to be on the fast-track to development death.

However, insiders are now claiming that Fox very quickly filled Frank’s void by enlisting writer Jamie Moss (Street Kings) to put the finishing touches on the script, and have even called in the screenplay’s original writers, Amanda Silver (The Hand That Rocks The Cradle) and Rick Jaffa (1997′s long-forgotten The Relic) to help.

Frank’s proposed plotline (referred to secretly as Caesar) served less as a remake of the original film, in which Charlton Heston’s astronaut crash lands on a violent planet inhabited by intelligent simians, and more as a reworking of the series’ fourth act, Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes, in which the world’s first advanced ape, named Caesar, spreads his knowledge throughout the world’s primate population, and leads an eventual uprising.

Whereas the Caesar of the 1972 original was the son of a time-travelling ape couple from the franchise’s earlier films, the reboot presents Caesar as the product of intense psychological testing, resulting in his highly-evolved intellect.

No word yet on a possible director for the new Apes, but keep your eyes glued to Atomic Popcorn, as this project seems to be moving very quickly.

James Cameron’s recently opened Avatar may not have ousted I Am Legend as the biggest December weekend opener (Return of the King takes the cake for all-time highest grossing December release, but came out on a weekday), but it certainly did well in its first day.

The film’s release at 3,452 theaters saw an intake of $27 million, which is shy of the $30 million brought in by I Am Legend, but is the highest grossing release for a Twentieth Century Fox production released outside of summer. Ice Age: The Meltdown previously held the record, with first day earnings of $21.8 million

Avatar‘s opening came one day short of being exactly twelve years after the release of Cameron’s blockbuster Titanic, and saw more than three times the earnings the 1997 megahit saw it its first day. For comparison, Titanic‘s opening brought in only $8.7 million in its opening. Much of the success of Titanic was thanks to word of mouth, and stellar exit polls suggest that the same will also prove true for Avatar.

The sci-fi action flick swept the box office competition on Friday, with the second biggest film of the day, Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, bringing in a mere $3.4 million. The Blind Side stayed in third with $3.2 million, while the only other opener of the weekend, Sony’s Did You Hear About the Morgans, started its run in 4th, with $2.4 million.

After months of teasing movie-goers with the working title of Wichita, Twentieth Century Fox has announced Knight and Day as the real title of the action-comedy starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.

According to the official press release for the film, production is underway on the new film, which is currently being shot in Massachusetts, but will also have scenes filmed in Spain, Austria, the tropics, and other international locations.

Cruise and Diaz will be working alongside director James Mangold, who co-wrote the movie, as well as actors Peter Sarsgaard, Viola Davis, Paul Dano, and Olivier Martinez.

Knight and Day follows a fugitive couple, played by Cruise and Diaz, as they are pursued across the globe in the midst of ever-changing alliances and unexpected betrayals. At times glamorous, at times life-threatening, the couple’s adventure leads them to encounter situations that aren’t what they seem, and people who aren’t who they claim.

Knight and Day is slated for a release date of July 2nd, 2010 as a result of Twentieth Century Fox/New Regency co-production efforts.

Munching away on a pretzel in sleek business suits in the middle of New York City is common. What is not as common is when it’s Michael Douglas and Shia LaBeouf walking around like this, but for the newest Oliver Stone movie Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. The Twentieth Century Fox feature also stars Susan Sarandon, Frank Langella and An Education’s Carey Mulligan. Here are some exclusive pictures below from Splash News:

Wall Street 2 Pictures from Splash News

Keanu Reeves continues on his quest to get the popular Japanese animation series Cowboy Bebop onto the big screen. MTV Splash sits down with the actor, who is set to play the lead role, and talks about what is to be expected of the script in progress. Peter Craig is currently writing the script with the project under Twentieth Century Fox. Check out the video below:

Deadpool is going full steam ahead in development, according to co-creator and comic book artist Robert Liefeld. Within a barrage of ‘tweets’ on the popular social networking website Twitter, Liefeld divulges what will be in store for the smart aleck mercenary.

Great Deadpool movie meeting! Lauren Schuler Donner and her team are headed in the right direction!

Deadpool movie checklist – DP in costume – check! Breaking 4th wall – check! Loads of killing- double check!

Deadpool movie – YES Ryan Reynolds is on board!!!

Also excited to discuss possibilities of Cable in future X-films!!!

Later on in the artist’s posts, he quickly corrects a mistake:

Clarification, Cable definitely NOT in Deadpool movie, but possible role in future X-films….not First Class.

The emergence of the Deadpool movie came about when X-Men Origins: Wolverine was first released. Ryan Reynolds quickly signed on to star in the spinoff film, even though recently the actor signed on to play the Green Lantern. The Marvel property is one of their more recent creations, spawning to life in the early nineties and first appearing in the comic series New Mutants. Ever since his initial creation from Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza, the double sword-wielding man has made his way onto several other series including the most recent Merc With A Mouth. Twentieth Century Fox and Marvel Enterprises are still in the early stages of development, trying to get together a script and continuing the hunt for a director.

The folks over at /Film got to talk to X-Men franchise producer Lauren Shuler Donner about the future projects with the group of mutants. Here is what she had to say on the subject matter:

According to Shuler Donner, there’s no truth to the initial claim at all. She announced that the film has no scheduled start date and will definitely not be kicking off in February. What’s more, she confirmed that no actors have signed contracts to appear in the film.

As well as the eventual New Class, then – whenever that might be – Shuler Donner revealed that she has been cooking up plans for several other mutant films. The two she named? An X4, reuniting the X-Men and a big screen outing for The New Mutants. X4, she said, had yet to be pitched to the studio, however.

This report here quickly throws out the notion of X-Men: First Class filming early next year in a previous article. The X-Men adaptations have spanned on for almost a decade, starting off with Bryan Singer’s first film in 2000. What continued on was not only the blossoming of a lucrative franchise but a starting off point for the full blast of comic book adaptations that still continue on. Whatever latest step they will take on the popular X-Men movie franchise, we’ll keep you up to date here on Atomic Popcorn.

Jack Kirby, co-creator of such comic book creations like the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Captain America, is coming back for copyright vengeance. Well, at least his estate is. The estate of Jack Kirby is going straight for the jugular, as BleedingCool has more:

[The Kirby Estate] has sent notices terminating copyright to publishers Marvel and Disney, as well as film studios that have made movies and TV shows based on characters he created or co-created, including Sony, Universal, 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures. Just as the Jerry Siegel estate has done so with rights to Superman, so Kirby’s estate is looking to regain his share of copyright in the characters and their use in comics and other media.

What does this mean in the world of comics? If the lawsuit is successful, it would hit starting from 2014 and, as always, its worth noting that Marvel/Disney will still own the trademarks of the characters in comics, and the studios in movies. The likelihood is that, if successful, the Kirby estate would enter into negotiation with Marvel over terms to continue publishing comics based on his work.

We’ll keep you updated on the latest of this comic book battle as it progresses on.