ChristopherNolan

There's little in the way of story details just yet, but Latino Review does cite Brainiac and Lex Luthor as the villains. Hooray for Brainiac, but can we please skip Luthor for at least one installment of the series? No film has quite gotten the character right, and I'd rather see Supes face off with someone he can actually have physical action scenes with -- Parasite, Mongul, Bizarro, anyone but Lex Luthor.

A new Superman movie sounds like a really tough sell, and this is coming from a guy who actually liked Bryan Singer's homage to Richard Donner. I acknowledge that it wasn't the Superman movie than most fans wanted to see, but it still strikes me as odd that Superman would ever be in a position where he'd actually be hard to market. Once bitten, twice shy, I guess. I'm hopeful that Nolan and company can turn this image problem around. There's still a lot to love about the Man of Steel.

Unless you actively scrounge the Internet for spoiler morsels and script leaks, chances are you have no idea what Inception, Christopher Nolan's sci-fi film due out this summer, is about. The trailer hints at a plot revolving around entering the dreams of other people, but the relative lack of dialogue combined with stunning imagery of Parisian streets folding in on themselves makes it rather hard to get a firm grip on it all. That's just clever marketing, right? Surely the people involved with the production entirely understand what's going on, right?

Maybe not. While doing press for the coming release of the Martin Scorsese directed Shutter Island, Inception star Leonardo DiCaprio revealed that he doesn't get what it was all about. From his interview with the UK's Daily Telegraph, "It didn't make much sense to us when we were doing it, and we had to do a ton of detective work to try to figure out what the movie was and what we were doing from day to day, but, thank God, we had somebody who knew what he was doing."

That somebody would of course be writer/director Nolan, so given his track record I'm willing to assume that it all indeed makes perfect sense and this is just one of those times when keeping the plot under wraps meant keeping some of the talent in the dark. At least I hope that's the case. If Inception does only make sense to Nolan and no one else, I don't think my hard sci-fi craving heart can take a disappointment like that.

An interesting bit of news from Deadline Hollywood this morning reveals that director Christopher Nolan is being asked to "godfather" a new Superman film. It's an odd choice of words, but it may reveal that Deadline Hollywood has no idea what Nolan is doing if he's taking meetings with Warners over the proposed film. To me, "godfather" sounds an awful lot like "producer", if they're naming Nolan as a man to come in and shepherd the project. I just don't think they know what he's doing (yet), but it makes sense that Warner Brothers would approach the man who brought us The Dark Knight and at least get his opinions on what he'd do with Superman.

And what would Nolan do with Superman? Nolan has admitted in the past that he's not a comic book reader, and I have to wonder how familiar he is with the character, first of all. Secondly, are we craving another deadly serious Superman film after Bryan Singer's Superman Returns? Nolan is a skilled director, but his creative interests (namely, complex mysteries) seem at odds with the material. I think fans have been waiting for a more fun approach to Superman on film -- something with more comic book science-fiction and large-scale action. We're waiting on Darkseid and Brianiac and Mongul and Doomsday, not another Lois Lane/Superman love story set against a Lex Luthor money-making real estate scheme. Maybe, just maybe, they're meeting with Nolan to get his thoughts on revitalizing Superman by having him appear in the third Batman film?

Warner Brothers is moving forward on the project while they still have the chance. The rights to Superman revert entirely to the estates of Superman creators Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster in 2013, and a new deal would have to be negotiated at that point (which I'm sure will happen anyway -- I can't see Warners letting Superman go). If they're trying to put something together for Summer 2012, they're going to be moving quickly, so expect more news on this soon.

A new trailer for Christopher Nolan's Inception has hit Apple trailers. We get trippy shots of an entire city bending in on itself. We get a lot of gravity defying escapades. We get a great deal of star Leonardo DiCaprio looking very, very concerned. And it all looks gorgeous, surreal and completely unlike something you'd see in a trailer for a tentpole summer release from a major studio.

So, um, what exactly is Inception about? Apparently it takes place in "the architecture of the mind" and "your mind is the scene of the crime." The ever-helpful IMDB lays this shocking tidbit at our feet:

"A CEO-type becomes involved in a blackmailing scandal. "

Nolan and WB are keeping their cards close to their chest on this one. Knowing Nolan's penchant for surprise and mystery, it's both expected and entirely welcome, not to mention a refreshing change of pace from marketing that encapsulates the entire plot of a movie into two and a half minutes. Nolan tackling an original science fiction film (undoubtedly his post-Dark Knight thank you gift from WB) is more than enough reason to be excited. Let's not forget that when he's not making his Batman adventures, Nolan is making great films like The Prestige, Insomnia and Memento. The guy has chops beyond the superhero scene and anytime he takes anything on, people of good taste have reason to celebrate.

Yeah...but what's it about?

Frivolous question. I'm going to see it and you're going to see it and if they keep pushing this as being from the director of The Dark Knight, your mother, father and cousin will probably see it too. DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine, Tom Berenger, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy and presumably just about every other awesome actor out there will be solving architectural mind mysteries on July 16th, 2010.

Votre esprit est la scène du crime.

Translation: Your mind is the scene of the crime, or less literally, there's a low-res Inception trailer online and it's in French (courtesy of Making Of). If that's all you need to hear, then just go below the jump and we've got the trailer embedded for you.

If you're curious as to what exactly is being said in the trailer, Daemon's Movies went to the trouble of translating things for us. After checking out the translation, I'd say the voice-over is intriguing but definitely not the least bit revealing. Christopher Nolan and the Warner Bros. promotional team seem to be playing things close to the chest, and after catching this extended look at what they've got on hand, it looks like the mystery could really play to their advantage.

We watch a city block literally fold in on itself (correct me if I'm wrong, but that looks like Paris), scenes of city destruction and some very, chilly blue shots of Leonardo DiCaprio in what could easily have been an outtake from The Dark Knight. In short, this thing looks absolutely wild (side note: DiCaprio and Ellen Page make for an interesting visual pair on the screen, eager to see how that works out in full).

From the first teaser to the generally hush-hush attitude, Warner Bros. and all the players have taken, mums been the word on the details of Christopher Nolan's Inception. This might seem hypocritical coming from a movie blogger, but it's actually kind of refreshing how WB and Nolan have managed to keep loose lips from sinking the secrecy around any significant details.

Keeping those appetites wet, WB released the first Inception poster, which Quint over at Ain't It Cool News pointed out, is cut almost precisely from the mold as posters like this one. Nothing wrong with a little pilfering, and technically, it isn't really stealing if you're taking from your own cookie jar. The more interesting bit is where the poster came from -- a nifty little game on the Inception website called "Mind Crime". Essentially, you plot out a maze with a start and end point, and then the rudimentary map becomes a city maze. Avoid contact with all other little people on the map (in true paranoid form, everyone is the enemy) and when you finish, the big reveal is...the poster that you've already seen.

Besides being an addicting office diversion, though, "Mind Crime" seems like a pretty good place to keep your eyes peeled for future trinkets, like say a full trailer or something of that nature. The WB marketing team really knocked it out of the park with The Dark Knight viral stuff, so it'll be great to see how they continue to sell Nolan's original sci-fi project.

The first teaser trailer for Christopher Nolan's Inception has arrived online, courtesy of Yahoo (watch it after the jump), and while it looks very cool, we still have no idea what this sucker is really about. This, I think, is a good thing -- too many movies are ruined too far in advance these days, and so for this to hit the teaser trailer stage without a somewhat meaty synopsis having already been revealed, that, well, is a pretty cool thing.

Here's what we do know: It's a film that will take place within the architecture of the mind (does that mean our main character can control things with his mind?), and that Leonardo DiCaprio plays a "CEO type who gets caught up in a blackmailing scandal." What the teaser does tell is that this will definitely play a little strange, as one scene features men fighting Matrix-style in a hallway ... and what's with the spinning silver top? So much is left to be revealed, and you bet this is already at the top of our most anticipated list for next summer.

Inception is due in theaters on July 16, 2010. Watch the trailer after the jump.