With the announcement a week ago that Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan was set to direct Inception this summer from a script Nolan wrote himself, it seemed like any Batman sequel would have to be put on the back burner. However, Batman-on-Film reported days later that "three sources" said the Inception deal includes "an agreement between the studio and the acclaimed director to helm his second sequel to Batman Begins". This backs up the story by referring to their December report that Nolan himself mentioned he and David Goyer were discussing a third story that they both liked.

MTV News then brought the Batman-on-Film report to a Nolan rep, who denied the report was true.

"He is doing Inception next. We haven’t announced any deal or anything on the next Batman as that is all speculation," said the rep. We get it, wait for an announcement from Nolan.

Inception, described as a "a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind," should start shooting this summer for a summer 2010 release.

Director Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller Inception, otherwise known as the movie that's keeping a sequel to The Dark Knight on hold, has found the star power it needs to compete on its tough opening day of July 16, 2010, the same opening day as possible superhero blockbuster Thor. Variety reports that Leonardo DiCaprio will join Nolan for the first time to star in the thriller about the "architecture of the mind."

If going up against Thor wasn't pressure enough, consider that Thor's director Kenneth Brannagh used to be married to Inception producer and Nolan's current wife, Emma Thompson. You sure you don't want to just make another Batman, Nolan?

Leonardo DiCaprio's getting some company for Christopher Nolan's Inception that reads like a who's who of indie movie all-stars. Variety reports that Warner Bros is negotiating with Juno's Ellen Page, La Vie En Rose's Marion Cotillard and Sunshine and Nolan semi-regular Cillian Murphy to join the cast of the Nolan-scripted sci fi thriller.

DiCaprio will play a CEO type, and Cotillard is reportedly playing his wife. Page will play a grad student that is DiCaprio's sidekick.

Christopher Nolan regular Michael Caine confirmed he will appear in the director's upcoming sci-fi thriller Inception:

I have a little part in it, yes. Just a tiny part. Chris and I are very good friends so I’ll do that little part. I think I’ll work about three days. It’ll be extraordinary, wait until you see this one. I think if I say another word he’s going to kill me!

With Joseph Gordon-Levitt recently joining the cast, and Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard and Cillian Murphy already on board, this is turning out to be quite an ensemble. No new details about the movie's plot was revealed, with Inception remaining shrouded in secrecy.

An update on the casting of Christopher Nolan's Inception:

Ken Watanabe has been cast as the villain of the movie, which Nolan vaguely and teasingly described as a psychological thriller about "the architecture of the mind." You might remember Watanabe as the Japanese general in Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima, or as Tom Cruise's Samurai-sword-wielding better half in The Last Samurai.

Tom Hardy, who portrayed the villain in Star Trek: Nemesis, has also been signed. He'll play an associate of Leonardo DiCaprio's successful businessman, who will most likely be the protagonist.

Hardy and Watanabe join a cast that also includes Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Michael Caine.

Christian Bale has already bemoaned that he is contractually obligated to return for Batman 3 whether Christopher Nolan is involved or not. While Nolan and writer David Goyer have been discussing possible story ideas for some time, Bale may be without the director that revitalized the Batman franchise with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

According to a source speaking with Batman-on-Film, it took a lot of convincing to bring Nolan back for The Dark Knight, but after Heath Ledger's tragic death, it may be impossible to convince the director to come back again. The source confirmed that Nolan, Goyer, and Jonathan Nolan have discussed story ideas, but had originally intended for the Joker to return in Batman 3, creating a problem they have not been able to solve. So far, no decisions have been made regarding the story for Batman 3, pushing the movie's release until 2012 or, possibly, 2013.

Nolan is currently working on Inception, his sci-fi thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Obviously, fans would love to have Nolan return for the third Batman, but until Nolan's involvement is official, they will have to find solace in a report from February that said Nolan's studio deal for Inception included an agreement to make Batman 3. Keep your fingers crossed.

Director Ridley Scott is highly regarded by fans of science fiction as a visionary thanks to his 1982 movie Blade Runner, an adaptation of the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick. So Universal Pictures has high hopes that if anyone can faithfully translate the classic dystopian novel Brave New World into celluloid, it's Scott. Of course, having an A-list actor like Leonardo DiCaprio on board to star in the movie can't hurt.

Writer Aldous Huxley's most famous work, Brave New World takes place in the bleak future of the 26th century, where society is rigidly stratified, families are outlawed, and human reproduction occurs only in factories. Rumors have circulated about Scott's involvement in a possible movie adaptation of the novel for a while now, but this is the first time that the noted director has been officially linked to the project. Scott and DiCaprio have set up shop at Universal and will co-produce via their respective production companies, Scott Free and Appian Way. The two have worked together as director and actor before, on Body of Lies, and are expected to reprise that dynamic on this movie, with DiCaprio likely playing Bernard, the central character in Huxley's novel.

It's unclear at what phase of development Brave New World is in, but it's unlikely that it will get off of the ground anytime soon because of the plethora of projects Scott and DiCaprio are currently involved in. Scott is currently shooting Robin Hood and has as many as ten other features in various stages of development, while DiCaprio is currently filming Christopher Nolan's Inception and is attached to star in at least a dozen other movies, including at least two genre films: Aquaman, based on the DC Comics superhero, and Akira, a live-action adaptation of Katsuhiro Ôtomo's award-winning anime.

Christopher Nolan was set to direct a big-screen adaptation of the British TV series The Prisoner back in 2006, and it was believed that he would start work on The Prisoner after finishing The Dark Knight. When Nolan chose to direct Inception after Dark Knight, it was assumed that The Prisoner would be next, except that Prisoner producer Barry Mendel told CineFOOLS that Nolan has dropped out:

Chris Nolan has dropped out of it, but we have a first draft by David and Janet Peoples who wrote Twelve Monkeys and David wrote Unforgiven and it's a good draft and we're working on the script right now.

Could Nolan be clearing his schedule for Batman 3? Fans are hoping so, though Nolan isn't saying a word. The director is hard at work on his extremely secret Inception, for which so little is known that some Paris-set photos and discovering the characters' names are the only revealing items outside of a curious synopsis that describes the movie as "a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind."

More will hopefully be revealed about Inception when the trailer plays before Inglourious Basterds, but Nolan's involvement in Batman 3 will remain a secret.

Little has been revealed so far about Inception, Christopher Nolan's thriller about the "architecture of the mind." The trailer, released over the weekend before Inglourious Basterds, only brings more questions, such as how can anyone fly up to the ceiling? Perhaps the newly launched official website will answer some questions. Meanwhile, the trailer (see below) has 58 seconds of curious footage to keep people guessing.

AICN reports that should Christopher Nolan return to direct the third installment of the Batman series, which is becoming closer to reality, that Nolan may shoot the entire movie in IMAX.

This, of course, is merely rumor. However, in the past Nolan admitted to USA Today that he has a deep, burgeoning love for IMAX, even shooting four action sequences in The Dark Knight in the complicated format.

There's simply nothing like seeing a movie that way. It's more immersive for the audience. I wish I could shoot the entire thing this way.

Nolan has wanted to shoot an entire movie in the format for some time, but hasn't done so yet because of the difficultly and expense of the IMAX process, not to mention the "loud" volume of the cameras which makes shooting dialogue scenes complicated. Nolan has described a plan where he would shoot action scenes in the IMAX format and dialogue scenes in the traditional, 65mm format as a solution. Yet, besides the four scenes in Dark Knight, he has yet to carry out that plan.

For now, Nolan is immersed in working on his mysterious thriller Inception, a movie that AICN speculates Nolan chose to do before Batman 3 for a good, IMAX-specific, reason.

Part of the reason that Nolan went forward with Inception first — besides taking a creative break from the cape and cowl adventures ... was possibly to create a few new IMAX cameras made to his specs. Once again — the cost of shooting an entire feature film on IMAX ... the stock, the time it takes to reset, to load, to move the cameras ... is daunting, but as Nolan proved with Dark Knight — the difference is stunning.

No word on whether Inception will include any use of the IMAX format, or if Nolan will indeed return for Batman 3.

Next summer can be summed up simply: Sequels, remakes, comic book adaptations, and 3-D. Wait a minute, that's how we summed up Summer 2009! And Summer 2008, too (well, except the 3-D part).

While there might not be a whole lot new in the mix, here are the 20 titles we'll be talking about next summer.

Christopher Nolan has kept details of his upcoming thriller Inception a mystery, only allowing that the movie is about the "architecture of the mind." The teaser trailer revealed that the "mind is the scene of the crime." And rumors say the movie involves technology that allows people to enter the dreams of others.

Whatever Inception is about, what is known for sure is that the movie will include action. The scene description for last weekend's Downtown L.A. shoot reveals a variety of action scenarios:

EXTERIOR SEMI-AUTO ¼ LOAD GUNFIRE BEFORE 9:00 A.M. EXTERIOR AUTO, FULL LOAD GUNFIRE AFTER 9:00 A.M. Simulated car crash with train. Breaking glass. Simulated bullet effects on body and things. Atmospheric smoke effects. Weapons brandished. Driving scenes. Equipment on property, sidewalk, curb lane and across the street. Exterior dialogue. Occasional traffic and pedestrian control. Near hits & misses. Stunt driving. Process trailer. Rain effects. Wetting of the street. Camera car. Condor and crane. Generator. Picture vehicles. Scissor lifts.

Inception opens July 16, 2010, and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Michael Caine.

Michael Caine may be in hot water again. He got in trouble when he confirmed rumors with MTV that Johnny Depp would play The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman would play The Penguin in Batman 3. At the time, Caine said:

When Christopher [Nolan] said we were going to do The Dark Knight next, I didn't [know] what that meant in Batman terms. I said, "What's the story?" and he said The Joker. I said, "Oh, s**t! How are you going to top Jack [Nicholson]?" He said, "Well, I've cast Heath Ledger. And I went "Ha! I couldn't top Jack, but if anyone could, maybe Heath could." And he did.

I was with [a Warner Bros.] executive and I said, "Are we going to make another one?" They said yeah. I said, "How the hell are we going to top Heath?" And he says "I'll tell you how you top Heath — Johnny Depp as The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin." I said, "S**t, they've done it again!" [Laughs]

A year later, Caine is trying to do damage control, speaking with MTV again, and refuting those same newspaper rumors he was so quick to confirm.

Johnny Depp is great in anything, but there is no Johnny Depp in this Batman. They tell me in no uncertain terms.

Depp has claimed he'd "juggle" his schedule for the chance to appear in Batman 3, though there's little reason to worry about that now, since Caine says there's little chance that Batman 3 will see the light of day soon.

There is nobody, there's no script, there's nothing. It can't possibly be made before 2011 because [Nolan's upcoming thriller] Inception is such a big picture.

Of course, after all the trouble he made last year, Caine is currently the last man to know anything about Batman 3.

[They] won't tell me anything because I said this before. No one will tell me anything now. They say, "Don't tell Michael, he'll tell everybody."

Inception, Christopher Nolan's upcoming thriller, is still shooting, which is about all Ellen Page is willing to say about the mysterious project. Page told Collider that working on the movie has been "a blast."

We've shot in a lot of different places so it kind of feels like ... you know you do your England leg and then your France and then we were in Morocco and now we're in L.A. It is a blast and I’m having so much fun. Working with Chris Nolan is a dream. He's amazing to work with and a lovely guy. There is no ego at all. He's just a filmmaker. You know what I mean. And that is totally obvious in his films. He's an incredible filmmaker ... but working with him is such a pleasure and often me and the other cast members will reflect on just how excited we are just to be in his movie. I feel like a little kid.

Other than how much she's loved working with Nolan, Page stayed quiet on Inception details.

Just don't try and find out more. Just love it when it comes out in July. It's going to be really cool.

While Page's silence can be frustrating for those wanting to know Inception's secrets, there is one spoiler we can bring you: Inception will be released simultaneously in IMAX theaters as well as conventional theaters when it opens on July 16, 2010. You can't hide from us, Nolan!

Cillian Murphy recently told MTV that he hopes "they make a third [Batman]." The actor portrayed the villain Scarecrow in both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

[The Dark Knight is] one of the greatest blockbuster mainstream movies. If anyone can match that or top that it's [director] Chris [Nolan]. Fingers crossed.

Murphy is currently working with Nolan on his mysterious thriller, Inception. However, that doesn't mean Murphy has heard anything about Nolan's return for Batman 3.

We don't talk about those things. It's out of my control.

The mystery surrounding Christopher Nolan's upcoming thriller Inception has been extremely hard to penetrate. Along with the earlier trailer revelation that it contains airborne hallway battles, there's the photographic "reveal" this weekend that the movie will feature a sharply dressed Leonardo DiCaprio sitting dangerously on a window sill.

In addition, Nolan favorite Michael Caine has offered up a small tidbit about his role: "I play a professor who's teaching a guy science," Caine told Empire. "It's Leonardo DiCaprio. He's going off to do a science project and he speaks to me before he goes."

Caine couldn't reveal more because he was only handed his one scene, but another Nolan regular, Cillian Murphy, has seen the entire script and still wouldn't reveal much about the movie to MTV.

This is my third film with Chris. He showed me the whole script. It's very very complex and amazing. I'm hugely excited for next year when it comes out. It's conceptual. It doesn't fit into any genre. There are elements of different types of things in it but it is all from Chris' imagination. I've never read anything close to it before.

There is one thing Nolan can't keep secret: Inception opens July 16, 2010.

British actor Tom Hardy has had a few glimpses at stardom, rising from obscurity to a role in Band of Brothers that led to playing the villain in Star Trek: Nemesis and supporting roles in movies like Layer Cake and RocknRolla.

Hardy is now experiencing another brush with possible fame. He's been cast in both Christopher Nolan's Inception and as Mad Max in Mad Max: Fury Road. Hardy told MTV that no one is more surprised by his recent success than he is.

I didn't expect to get Mad Max. I really didn't. I didn't ever expect to get the lead in a Hollywood movie, for Chris Nolan off the bat to offer me [Inception] without an audition and then to go sit with [director] George Miller [on Fury Road] and work with him and not really audition in the orthodox way of auditioning — this year's been crazy. I've been working as an actor for a long time now, and I've been waiting for an independent film to come along because it was very hard to get cast as a character actor, as a lead — being credible but bankable. It's very hard to break in when there are plenty of people who can be cast, who can green-light, who can put bums in the seats. So this whole year has been staggering.

Inception opens July 16, 2010, while Mad Max: Fury Road is scheduled to open sometime in 2011.

Tom Hardy's career certainly isn't getting banged up, but the British actor sure is. Hardy talked to MTV from the set of Inception, Christopher Nolan's upcoming thriller that no one will discuss, where he admitted he often brawls in between takes with co-star Leonardo DiCaprio.

He's a big MMA fan, so we've been kicking each other. Kicking and elbowing each other. He keeps bruising me. He gives me as good as he gets.

Hardy's work in front of the camera doesn't sound much better considering the scene he was currently working on involved him "being plummeted through a floor." Before Inception, Hardy was working on the mixed martial arts drama Warrior, where he suffered a broken toe, torn ligaments, and cracked ribs. In comparison, Hardy seems quite happy sparring with DiCaprio.

I was in shellshock because I'd been pretty badly beaten up on [Warrior]. It was like [Christopher Nolan] swept me up on this carpet of love and took me around the world.

So far, nothing has made much sense about Christopher Nolan's thriller Inception, not the few revealed plot details, nor even the trailer. The latest poster is no help in that regard, showing only a cityscape. Considering that the movie is about the "architecture of the mind," does this mean that the entire city be inside the mind?

It's doubtful that the latest trailer will answer these questions, either. Screening before Sherlock Holmes, several websites that saw the trailer at a recent press screening have done their best to interpret the images and voice-over from Leonardo DiCaprio, which sounds something like this:

What's the most resilient form of parasite? An idea. An idea has the power to build a city ... to change the world, and re-write all the rules ... and that's why I need to steal it.

A version of the trailer, dubbed only in French with no English subtitles, has been doing the rounds on the internet, even though Warner Brothers has been quick to shut it down wherever it lands. You can check it out here, though it may not last for long.

Before the latest Inception trailer premiered locally at screenings of Sherlock Holmes, a French version with no English subtitles was passed around the Internet while Warner Brothers did damage control and tried to shut it down as quickly as they could.

Now that Holmes has opened, the Inception trailer has debuted online, claiming that "the most resilient parasite" is "an idea" in its confusing, city-folding, and mind-bending glory. One thing's for sure: With two trailers released, director Christopher Nolan has still managed to keep the plot of his thriller a secret. See if you can figure out the story below.

We're now two trailers in, and still no one can make sense of what Christopher Nolan's thriller Inception is really going to be about. The movie is purported to focus on the "architecture of the mind," and with the trailers showing gravity-defying fistfights and cities folding together, it's clear Inception is no ordinary thriller. Nolan told the LA Times that one of Inception's influences comes from a certain famous British spy.

I grew up watching James Bond films and loving those and watching spy movies with their globetrotting sensibility. We get to do that here, not just geographically but also in time and dimensions of reality as well. We get to make a movie that's expansive, I suppose you'd say, in four dimensions.

Nolan and his crew "globe-trotted" the movie to six different countries, all to help build a movie Nolan's wife and Inception producer Emma Thomas called both "personal" and "enormous." When the movie's premise is described as "corporate espionage by way of dream invasion," Thompson's description seems about right. The task of making such a complex movie was daunting for even Nolan.

This is the biggest challenge I've taken on to this point. We're trying to tell a story on a massive scale, a true blockbuster scale — the biggest I've ever been involved with. We tried to make a very large-scale film with The Dark Knight and with this one we wanted to push that even further.

Leonardo DiCaprio's upcoming thriller Shutter Island looks like a strange movie, but even DiCaprio knows that when it comes to puzzling flicks, Inception beats all. Neither trailer so far has been able to shed light on director Christopher Nolan's "architecture of the mind" movie. In an interview with Inquirer, DiCaprio admitted that the movie's complex storyline was confusing even to the cast and crew.

I don't know what I'm allowed to say about Inception. I don't even know what I'm allowed to say about Shutter Island, to be quite honest. Both Chris and Martin [Scorsese, director of Shutter Island] are great directors. The material and its complexity are what I'm attracted to. I'm not happy if I don't have a lot to do. I've been lucky to work with people who want to tell stories that hit on different cylinders simultaneously. Shutter Island is definitely that. Inception is the same. It is Chris delving into dream psychoanalysis and, at the same time, making a high-octane, surreal film that came from his mind. He wrote the entire thing, and it all made sense to him. It didn't make sense to many of us when we were doing it. We had to do a lot of detective work (laughing) to figure out what the movie was about.

At least the cast isn't a mystery. DiCaprio plays Jacob, while Marion Cotillard plays his wife. Ellen Page plays Ariadne, a grad student and DiCaprio's sidekick, Michael Caine plays a science professor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays DiCaprio's associate, and Ken Watanabe plays Saito, the villain of the movie.

Inception opens July 16, while Shutter Island releases February 19.

With his latest movie, the Martin Scorsese–directed Shutter Island, in theaters now, and his follow-up movie, Christopher Nolan's Inception, in post-production, actor Leonardo DiCaprio has time on his hands to think about his upcoming projects. And, according to Deadline, one of those projects could very well be the Prisoners thriller that once had Antoine Fuqua (Shooter) attached to direct.

Alcon Entertainment partners Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson (The Blind Side) bought the script from writer Aaron Guzikowski last year and had initially planned to go into production this month. Kosove called the Prisoners script "the most interesting, morally complex thriller" that he has come across in his 12 years at Alcon. If DiCaprio signs on to Prisoners, he would be playing a small-town carpenter who takes the law into his own hands when his daughter and her friend are kidnapped (Taken, anyone?).

Even if DiCaprio does agree to star in Prisoners, it's unclear if it would be his next movie or if it would follow the as-yet-untitled online casino movie that his Appian Way production company has supposedly been developing for him since June of last year.

Director Christopher Nolan and the cast of Inception have done a remarkable job in keeping the details of the upcoming thriller completely obscure. Leonardo DiCaprio has gone so far as to admit that the movie "didn't make sense to many of us when we were doing it." In a recent interview with British magazine Empire, Nolan revealed a few details about Inception.

Basically the film deals with levels of reality, and perceptions of reality which is something I'm very interested in. Its an action film set in a contemporary world, but with a slight science-fiction bent to it. Cobb [Leonardo DiCaprio's character], who is the center of things and expert in a particular technology that the film revolves around, has put this team around him [Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon Levitt]. It's very much an ensemble film structured somewhat as a heist movie. It's an action adventure that spans the globe.

While, on the surface, Nolan's details don't seem to divulge much, they do seem to coincide with some plot details published by In Contention last summer which revealed that the movie takes place "in a world where we have developed a means by which we can enter people's dreams," and that DiCaprio was essentially a thief who "dives into people's dreams to extract information." The "particular technology" Nolan mentions could very well be the means to enter people's dreams, though it also could be extrapolations from In Contention's source after seeing Inception's surreal trailer.

At the very least, it gives fans more to go on than what DiCaprio revealed to Movies.ie.

I can tell you it's about two hours long, give or take. Anything more than that, and Chris has vowed to have me strung up by my tongue...

An impressive amount of secrecy for a project that Nolan came up with when he was 16.

It's been a good week for those anticipating Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller Inception, which has been notoriously light on details since the movie was announced. First, four photos have arrived online, as well as a viral video where Nolan interviews dream experts about REM sleep and lucid dreaming.

A few new bits about Christopher Nolan's mysterious thriller Inception have appeared, though they don't seem to answer any questions about the movie's elusive plot. First is a brand new poster, which, like the previous one, depicts Leonardo DiCaprio surrounded by a blue-hued city, only, this time, the city is folding in on itself—much like the scene from the last trailer—and shows cast members Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, and Ellen Page.

Page was also recently interviewed about the upcoming move, but don't expect her to deliver on any of the movie's secrets ("I wish people would spend less energy trying to find out what it's about, because an experience is always way more exciting having no idea," Page told MTV). However, Page did explain how she came to work on the pic.

When it comes to the mix of movies being offered up, not much has changed since we previewed Summer 2010 blockbusters back in September 2009. The season is still packed with sequels, remakes, comic book adaptations, and 3-D.

Meaning, fans of action/adventure movies (11), comedies (8), and chick flicks (9) are in luck, as are parents looking for a way to entertain the kids (10). But the pickings are slim for horror fans (3) and those looking for some summer drama (6) or thrilling intrigue (5). Check 'em all out in our 2010 Summer Movie Guide.

Once of this summer's biggest movie mysteries has to be Christopher Nolan's mysterious thriller Inception, the plot of which has been kept a closely-guarded secret. With posters claiming "your mind is the scene of the crime" along with trailers showing aerial fighting sequences, and viral videos showing Nolan's sleep research, the fact that it's about dreams is the only thing to be sure of. The Playlist has received an official synopsis from Warners that should finally explain everything.

After months of trying to keep details of Christopher Nolan's Inception secret, the studio is finally getting word out about the mysterious thriller. With an official synopsis finally released, Warners has also unleashed a new poster for the IMAX release of the movie and a theatrical trailer to entice audiences to discover what the movie is all about.

The debut of Iron Man 2 this weekend officially kicks off the summer movie season. Right on cue, the studios have started releasing a flood of new promotional stills for their upcoming movies. The first wave includes Splice, Jonah Hex, and Inception, with this fall's Let Me In added to the mix.

Warner Bros. has aired three new TV spots for director Christopher Nolan's latest movie, Inception, that offer glimpses at some of the movie's staggering special effects, but unfortunately offer very little information about its mysterious plot. Fortunately, the recently released official synopsis explains that the mind-bending visuals are part of the dreamscapes that Dom Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) navigates while attempting to extract information from a dreaming person's subconscious. Even though he is the best at what he does, Cobb is tired of being on the run for his felonious activities and takes one final job to clear his name. But Cobb's last job will be more difficult than any he's ever attempted before because he must insert an idea into the dreamer's subconscious, rather than extract one, a process called "Inception."

Warner Bros recently released three TV spots for Christopher Nolan's latest movie, Inception, that all last about 30 seconds. However, for the UK, the studio has created a minute-long spot that compiles footage from the American ads and adds a few bits of newer footage. We know the movie's surreal plot has Leonardo DiCaprio as a dream thief, but the rest is a mystery.

This season's lineup includes a mix of 50+ releases. That's more than even hard-core fans like us can hope to squeeze in during summer nights and weekends. So ... which movies are must-sees in the theater? Which are better left for DVD? And (dare we say it) which can be safely skipped?

Enter the patented R-SWAG* — a process of "handicapping" the summer's releases that draws on buzz, trailer "awesomeness," and early reviews (if available). And because we know you'll hold us accountable, we're going to make it easy for you. Come back each week to see how accurately we forecast the movies. Better yet? Add your reviews to help determine the Actual Best to Worst.

(*R-SWAG = Reelz.com Scientific Wild-Ass Guess; and yes, the patent is pending.)

The latest trailer for director Christopher Nolan's mysterious thriller Inception hails from Japan, so it's no coincidence that it focuses on Ken Watanabe, the Japanese actor who plays Saito, a target of Leonardo DiCaprio's dream-thievery.

Missing from many of the previous trailers, Watanabe's Saito speaks halfway through the Japanese trailer, which concludes with commentary from Watanbe that's of particular interest to anyone who speaks Japanese. Yet another way Nolan is trying to keep details of his movie a secret.

If there's one thing we know about Christopher Nolan's upcoming thriller Inception, it's about dreams. The movie's first viral marketing campaign showed Nolan's "sleep research," while Wired revealed that the latest is an instructional manual entitled Dream-Share: Tactical Employment Procedures, apparently a text that Leonardo DiCaprio and his team might have used for their dream-theft work in the movie.

With less than a month before Christopher Nolan's Inception hits theaters, a behind-the-scenes featurette has been released. Both Nolan and star Leonardo DiCaprio talk about working on the elusive thriller, which follows DiCaprio and his team as they enter people's dreams to access and implant information.

Loaded with new footage, the featurette also includes a brief glance at the rotating hallway used to shoot a sequence where Joseph Gordon-Levitt engages in a fist fight (and Nolan admitted he got pretty banged up for real in the process).

With the opening date of Christopher Nolan's Inception a little over a month away, it seems that the mystery behind the surreal thriller is becoming more clear. Three new TV spots all deal with the concept of "inception," the process of implanting an idea into the mind, the target of which is seen to be Cillian Murphy, as evidenced by his poster which describes him as "The Mark". All three spots show the PASIV device, the "dream machine" detailed in the latest Inception viral item, but the first spot also includes the new taglines of "one last job" and "one last chance" and Leonardo DiCaprio discussing how the "seed" implanted in Murphy "could change everything." The next two spots have DiCaprio talking about the "gravity" of an "inception" request and explaining how "inception" works to Ellen Page.

Batman 3 has been given a release date of July 20, 2012, and though director Christopher Nolan has admitted that he hasn't signed his Batman 3 contract (yet), The LA Times reports that Nolan "is due to start filming a third Batman film in March."

While Warner Bros is likely to do everything in their power to bring Nolan's pen to the contract, another question surrounding Batman 3 is whether the studio will make Nolan shoot the sequel in stereoscopic 3-D. Nolan admitted he's tired of the "3-D versus 2-D" debate.

Director Christopher Nolan attended the LA Times' Hero Complex Film Festival over the weekend and sat down to be interviewed about his upcoming projects. Nolan's next directorial effort, the thriller Inception, is a movie that Nolan has previously admitted he conceived of when he was 16, but at the Festival, Nolan revealed that it took him 10 years to finish the script.

With Inception just under a month away, a deluge of promo material has been released. Writer/director Christopher Nolan's highly-anticipated thriller dropped 4 new posters and 5 new pictures. Revealed in the latest trailer, the "dream-theft" concept and an introduction of each of the major characters. All this using almost entirely new footage.

Much of the marketing for Inception, has focused on the reality-warping special effects and mind-bending "dream thief" concept at the heart of the plot of the movie. Apparently, Warner Bros. feels confident that potential moviegoers finally have the concept down, because the studio recently released a huge selection of new still images that are less about the action and effects and more about the main characters of the movie, as played by Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Michael Caine, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, and Ken Watanabe. Accompanying the stills are also several pictures from the set showing writer-director Christopher Nolan giving his actors some direction.

The release of Inception, writer-director Christopher Nolan's highly-anticipated new movie, is just over two weeks away and the official Warner Bros. press junket was held this past weekend in Los Angeles. While there is an embargo on details about the movie coming out of the junket, Warner has released a lengthy video interview with Nolan in which he discusses his interest in dreams, the scale and scope of the movie, the concept of dream "extractors," and the performances of some of the principal cast members. Additionally, Warner Bros. has released an interesting "B-Roll," a behind-the-scenes video featurette from the set of the movie that shows how some of the effects were accomplished using practical methods rather than CGI.

While no new information about writer-director Christopher Nolan's latest movie, Inception, leaked out of this past weekend's press junket in Los Angeles, Warner Bros. has released four new TV spots for the movie. The new spots give more details about Dom Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and his team's mission to enter and insert or "incept" an idea into the mind of "The Mark" (Cillian Murphy). Though much of the footage has been previously released in either TV spots or trailers, those who have been following Inception news will notice that there are several snippets of new footage scattered throughout the clips.

With Christopher Nolan's upcoming thriller Inception just ten days away, it's time to catch up with the latest TV spots and a last chance to figure out what Nolan's movie may be about. This much is clear: Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Dom Cobb, is a dream extractor, who sets out, along with his team (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, and Tom Hardy), to plant an idea into the brain of Cillian Murphy. We can only assume that things don't work as smoothly as DiCaprio hopes. What the latest TV spots prove, working in dreams is a tricky business.

British actor Tom Hardy spoke last year about the "staggering" year he's had after shooting Christopher Nolan's highly anticipated thriller Inception and being cast in George Miller's upcoming "relaunch and revisit" of the infamous character of "Mad" Max Rockatansky in Mad Max: Fury Road. With production yet to begin on Fury Road, Hardy has been doing the press rounds for Inception, explaining to ComingSoon that Nolan's mysterious movie isn't as complicated as many think.

Christopher Nolan has admitted that James Bond movies were an influence on his upcoming thriller, Inception, but would he also like to direct a Bond movie? Nolan told the BBC (via Deadline) that he would "love" to.

The Bond influence on the film was very intentional because, for me, growing up with the Bond films — they've always stood for grand-scale action. I’ve loved the Bond films since I was a kid. They’re always about the expansiveness of cinema. The first Bond films set up infinite possibilities about the world they create. I’d love to do a Bond film.

Mainstream and movie industry critics are falling over themselves in praise of Christopher Nolan's Inception, but the indie press may not be convinced of its greatness. Looks like a pic where you'll have to go see for yourself.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio's latest cinematic efforts have not seen him playing your typical protagonists. In Shutter Island, DiCaprio played a character whose psyche was so fractured that he had a hard time telling truth from fiction. In his new movie, Inception, his character is a thief who makes his living stealing ideas from people's dreams. In a recent interview with MTV, DiCaprio talks about the similarities and differences between his recent roles in the two movies and why Inception is "beyond anything" he's ever experienced before.

Director Christopher Nolan's new movie, Inception, could easily be described as the most highly-anticipated non-sequel movie of the year, with expectations running extremely high considering his last movie, The Dark Knight, took in over $1 billion at the worldwide box office. Early indications are that Inception should also be a big hit, with BoxOfficeMojo reporting that Inception's midnight showing earned $3 million, placing it just behind the midnight showings of Avatar ($3.5 million) and Star Trek ($4 million), which bodes well for its opening weekend numbers. How much Nolan takes into consideration a movie's potential earnings before deciding to make it is unclear, but in a recent interview with MTV he said that what does matter to him is that he challenge himself with each new movie he directs.

Bomb of the Week: The $150M-budget The Sorcerer's Apprentice earned just $24M in its opening week, numbers that not only make it Bomb of the Week, but put it in the group of candidates for Bomb of the Year.

Bomb of the Week: The Zac Efron experiment with drama went horribly wrong as Charlie St. Cloud had the indignity of earning less in its opening weekend than Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so the saying goes, but Matthew Vaughn does not agree. The director of the upcoming X-Men: First Class told The LA Times that after watching Christopher Nolan's Inception, he was forced to entirely remove a sequence from the movie.

Ever since a photo surfaced online showing Matthew Vaughn — who had at the time been recently hired to direct X-Men: First Class — canoodling with James McAvoy and Aaron Johnson, rumors began spreading that Johnson would be joining McAvoy on the cast of Fox's X-Men franchise prequel, possibly as Scott Summers, aka Cyclops. The rumor has popped up time and again in the intervening months, but now the truth has finally been revealed. In a recent interview with MovieWeb, First Class producer Tarquin Pack said that Johnson will not be an X-Man.

Don't believe everything you read in the papers about Aaron, unfortunately. Aaron's kind of busy, yeah.

Inception spent 3 weeks at the top of the box office, until The Other Guys took the top spot, knocking Inception to second. That is, in the U.S.

According to Variety, Inception is still at the top of the box office overseas, where the movie debuted at number one in Germany, and maintained its top status in Australia and France, where audiences surely enjoyed Edith Piaf's contribution to the soundtrack (and the score).

It's good to know that no one's suffering during this current economic recession. In Hollywood, that is.

In a move that could have been considered a risk, Leonardo DiCaprio took an upfront pay cut to star in this summer's hit thriller, Inception, preferring to be paid in "first dollars gross" instead.

Ask anyone who saw Christopher Nolan's Inception and you'll likely get several different opinions on the ending. Sir Michael Caine, who appeared in the movie, has his own theory about what the ending meant, which he shared with BBC Radio (WARNING: Spoilers ahead).

[The spinning top] drops at the end, that's when I come back on. Young people say to me, "At the end, when you're there, is it a dream or is it real." If I'm there it's real, because I'm never in the dream. I'm the guy who invented the dream.

After the massive success of The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan took a calculated risk with his thriller Inception. However, after three weeks at the top of the box office and $810 million worldwide, Nolan was rewarded for his inventive and original thriller. Unsurprisingly, Warner Bros. is asking Nolan for another trip through the dreamscape.

Director Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) has said that his take on the Superman mythos in Superman: The Man of Steel, the Warner Bros. franchise reboot being produced by acclaimed director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Inception), will be "different" than previous movies and not linked to previous movies or to any particular DC Comics storylines. Now, we have the first indication of how different it will be. Apparently, Nolan and Snyder will be ditching the iconic theme music and score composed for Richard Donner's Superman by five-time Academy Award-winning composer John Williams—which Bryan Singer also used in Superman Returns—for a new score by Hans Zimmer, who composed the scores for Nolan's Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Inception. The news was revealed at a recent DVD release party for Inception and Zimmer discussed reinventing the sound for such an iconic character in an interview with NBC San Diego's PopcornBiz.

We're well seasoned when it comes to suspending disbelief and buying into a fairly incredible premise. But as technology becomes more advanced, it seems movie storylines are becoming even more implausible and outrageous. Disney's Tron: Legacy follows an abandoned son (Garrett Hedlund) who is transported into a computer world in order to find his missing father (Jeff Bridges). Digitizing a human being and placing him in a cyberworld could be a difficult plot for audiences to swallow ... if they hadn't already bought it in the 1982 original.

But Tron isn't the only movie to proclaim that "technology can do anything." We look back on 10 movies that take technology to the limit — and then kept going and going.

Is your favorite on the list? >>

Early next Tuesday morning — 5:30 AM ET on January 25 — the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce the nominees for its 83rd annual awards. If you don't plan to be up at that time, we'll have a complete list posted shortly after the announcement on our site.

Who will make the Academy's cut. We bravely posted our predictions for the 10 Best Picture nominees back in November. Today, our Richard Roeper weighs in with his movie predictions, as well as those for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Director.

The nominations for the 83rd Academy Awards were announced this morning. Nominated for Best Picture are:

The Social Network

The King's Speech

Winter's Bone

Toy Story 3

Black Swan

The Kids are All Right

Inception

True Grit

127 Hours

The Fighter

How did we do in the Oscar predictions we made back in September 2010?

Now that the Academy has expanded the number of Best Picture nominees to 10, and the other main Actor/Actress nominations include five other movies, it's nearly impossible to keep up without working concessions at a multiplex. Especially when there's a new Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, and The Bachelor. Every. Damn. Week. So when that Oscar party invite comes in the mail, don't panic. We've created a cheat sheet of top talking points.

Oscar Cocktail Party Conversation Guide >>

No surprise, we love the Oscars. But ... well, even we have to admit that the show always goes on too long and you can really only count on one good joke per hour. Enter our annual Oscar Bingo Cards, a sure way to get you through the duller moments. Or to help ignore that blowhard at the party who you know only saw Iron Man 2 and Inception, yet somehow has an opinion on every award.

This year we've put together a set of 10 Cards — one for each of the movies up for Best Picture. (Hint: Check out the FREE SPACE icons.) While we can't guarantee every one of these events will happen, we're pretty confident a game of Blackout Bingo will prove possible with several of the cards in the mix.

Play Oscar Bingo >>

The MTV Movie Award nomination were announced yesterday, and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse garnered the most nods. Eclipse received eight nominations within twelve categories, including being nominated twice for the categories of Best Male Performance (for Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, of course) and Best Kiss (for Kristen Stewart's smooches with the aforementioned Best Male Performance nominees).

Inception received a total of seven nominations, with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 following right behind with six. Inception was the only one of the top three nominated movies to get noticed for the unconventional categories of Best Jaw-Dropping Moment, Biggest Badass Star, and Best Scared-As-Sh-- Performance. Deathly Hallows was the only one of the three to be singled out for Best Villain, but surprisingly, not for Ralph Fiennes' Lord Voldemort, but instead for Draco Malfoy played by Tom Felton.

We love movies and we especially love movies with great ensemble casts. There's nothing better than seeing our favorite actors and actresses sharing screen time with one another, feeding off of each others' performances and upping each others' game. With a decent script and the right director, a great ensemble cast can create cinematic gold.

It's because of our love for movies with great ensemble casts that we are eagerly anticipating writer-director Martin McDonagh's (In Bruges) new black comedy, Seven Psychopaths. The plot is a bit out there, but with a cast that includes Colin Farrell, Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson, we're sure to be treated to some combustible onscreen chemistry. Seven Psychopaths doesn't come out until next week, so help us pass the time until its release by rating the Top 10 Great Ensembles in Good Movies.

Rate the Top 10 Great Ensembles in Good Movies >>

"A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality." — John Lennon

Some of the most imaginative films in motion picture history are inspired by, based on, or even take place within, dreams. This is not really that surprising considering comparisons between the two have been made since the birth of cinema, with Hollywood often referred to as the "dream factory." Psychologists have long noted that the collection of sounds and images that comprise both movies and dreams are heavily steeped in symbolism and latent content and that both experiences arouse similar psychological mechanisms in the participants.

Even the most pedestrian of movies are akin to dreams in the way that they transport us away from our everyday lives and allow us to experience people, places, events, and even emotions that might otherwise be foreign to us. But, the similarities between the two are never more apparent than when dreams are represented on screen. Pour yourself a nightcap or nice cup of chamomile tea, put on your PJs and help us rate the best movies about dreams.

"Never send a human to do a machine's job."

When Star Wars (now titled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) debuted in May of 1977, it forever changed sci-fi — and Hollywood’s perception of the genre — with its epic fantasy story and groundbreaking technology. It quickly became the highest grossing movie of all time and garnered numerous accolades, winning six of the ten Academy Awards categories for which it was nominated. Star Wars continually ranks near the top of just about every movie list category out there, including our own recent Best Sci-Fi Movies of the 1970’s and ‘80s, as voted by you, the Reelz.com readers.

The long-awaited prequel trilogy that was launched in May of 1999 with Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was a huge success for Lucasfilm, but, even though it boasted far superior special effects, it failed to make the same sort of impact on moviegoers as the original. Was Jar Jar Binks really the source of the ambivalence that many fans felt toward The Phantom Menace or was it that they had already had their minds blown by The Matrix, which opened two months prior? And how do the Star Wars prequels and The Matrix trilogy stack up against other sci-fi movies with next-level special effects like Avatar or more cerebral movies like Donnie Darko? Sit down, jack in and upload your choices of the best sci-fi movies from 1990 to today.

Rate the Top 10 Best Sci-Fi Movies (1990s - 2010s) >>

From playing a homeless teen on Growing Pains to becoming late nineties' definitive heartthrob to starring in the Oscar-winning Django Unchanined, Leonardo DiCaprio has had one heck of a career. This week, a 3D movie adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby opens in theaters with DiCaprio taking on the role of the hottest host in West Egg, Mr. Jay Gatsby himself. We decided now would be the perfect time to rate the top ten movies starring the three-time Oscar nominee, so head over to the list and vote for your favorite Leonardo DiCaprio flicks.

Rate Leo's Top 10 Movies >>