ComingSoon.net has confirmed that 20th Century Fox will debut a new trailer for James Cameron’s Avatar in theaters this Friday, October 23rd! The trailer, which clocks in at roughly around 3 minutes and 30 seconds, won’t be coming online until October 29th. You should really see this in theaters anyways as we’ve learned that this is THE trailer, the one that will show you much more story (as opposed to the teaser trailer previously released).

Read more @ ComingSoon.net

If early reports from the East Coast are to be believed, this is not the happy Avatar Day that James Cameron and Fox wanted. Reading Twitter feeds is not quite an exact science, but people are saying that they attended screenings in theater that were half, or less, full.

Read more at CHUD

▪ Lionsgate to Distribute Kick-Ass

LIONSGATE, the leading next generation studio, announced today that it has acquired U.S. and Canadian distribution rights to KICK-ASS, the hotly anticipated action-comedy from writer/director Matthew Vaughn (LAYER CAKE, STARDUST). Based on the groundbreaking, best-selling comic by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., KICK-ASS stars Nicolas Cage (the upcoming SEASON OF THE WITCH, KNOWING, NATIONAL TREASURE), rising star Aaron Johnson (the upcoming NOWHERE BOY), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (SUPERBAD) and Chloe Moretz ((500) DAYS OF SUMMER). The screenplay is written by Vaughn and Jane Goldman. The producers are Matthew Vaughn, Brad Pitt, Tarquin Pack and Kris Thykier; Millar and Romita Jr. are co-producers. The announcement was made today by Joe Drake, Lionsgate President, Motion Picture Group, and Co-Chief Operating Officer, and Jason Constantine, Lionsgate President of Acquisitions and Co-Productions. KICK-ASS was the buzz sensation of the July Comic-Con in San Diego, where early footage was shown to wildly appreciative fans. The film is a privately financed independent production from Vaughn’s Marv Films and Plan B Entertainment, and is currently in post-production. Lionsgate anticipates a wide release in 2010.

▪ Bryan Singer to direct Battlestar Galactica

“Battlestar Galactica” appears to be on a fast track and sources said that Singer could be looking at a $10 million paycheck to sign on to the film. Singer has long been intrigued with “Battlestar Galactica” and flirted with relaunching it into a TV series right after he directed the original “X-Men.” Back in 2001 I wrote about his plan, which involved teaming with Tom DeSanto to exec produce the series. Singer planned to direct the pilot of the new version of a series that originally launched on ABC in 1978 and ran two seasons. It is possible that the timing of the series went awry because of the World Trade Center disaster that occurred later that year. Certainly, it made a series that launched with the attack and destruction of earth unpalatable.

▪ Doctor Parnassus gets distributor

Variety is reporting that the Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group is about to sign on the dotted line to acquire Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which the studio will likely distribute in theaters through its Sony Pictures Classics branch, maybe as early as this year.

▪ Tarantino Updates ‘Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair’

Quentin Tarantino is still on the road to bringing us the long-awaited, full, four-plus-hour version of Kill Bill that he originally intended. Even though we still haven’t seen Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair materialize in stores, Tarantino has updated us on the status of the project, continuing to promise that it’s still on its way. Last time we reported on the promised full version of Kill Bill, several different details were revealed about what would differ from the separate Vol.1 and Vol.2 releases. Some of the details were that the black-and-white “House of Blue Leaves” fight sequence will be in color; that there will be gorier anime sequences; and no “baby cliffhanger” that’s at the end of Vol.1. However, one of the biggest changes to the full version will be the addition of a newly created sequence that will take place during the anime segment featuring Lucy Liu’s O-Ren Ishii. Tarantino is still finishing up Inglourious Basterds (since it still hasn’t had it’s theatrical release), but says he’ll move onto The Whole Bloody Affair straight after that. Here’s what he told SciFiWire:

“I need to do one thing with it, though… I’m not going to monkey around with the movie itself, but we’ve actually done a whole new section for the anime as the last thing [we added]. I actually wrote a much longer script for the anime section during O-Ren’s revenge chapter. Remember the guy with the long hair that kills her father? It’s like, what happened to that dude? Well, I wrote it and it was the biggest, most elaborate thing I wrote-her taking him down.

Tarantino says that this added anime sequence was conceived back when he had the four-plus-hour movie in mind, as opposed to it being split into two separate ones. He says that the reason they never had the full anime sequence is because it was so big (read: would add to the already VERY long runtime). However, Tarantino reveals that he more recently showed Harvey Weinstein exactly what he had written before shooting the Kill Bills and they went ahead and made the extended anime sequence with the same team (Production I.G.) that made the existing sequence within Kill Bill Vol.1. Tarantino claims that all that’s left to do is go over it a bit with the anime team, to make sure everything’s right.

▪ Avatar Teaser Trailer is almost here