The film is a fantasy adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story of the same name. The plot involves a man named Benjamin Button who is born old and ages backwards. From a small and crippled old man, he becomes young and begins to enjoy life as he gets married, has kids, ends up in high school, grade school and even younger.

I’ve not read the story of course, but that is the main plot from what I gather. First Showing did a great little piece on this movie a few days ago and they had a lot of good information about it.

The trailer really caught my eye and the musical score that went along with it was beautiful.

The film just looks amazing and has some players that should make movie lovers drool. You get Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett as the main stars, but also Julia Ormond and Tilda Swinton. The film is directed by David Fincher of Zodiac and Fight Club (wow) and the script is written by Eric Roth, who also wrote a tiny movie named Forrest Gump, along with The Horse Whisperer and Munich (double wow).

According to Tilda Swinton, from the MTV Movie Blog, the transformations Pitt goes through will astound us. I have to say, if the teaser was any indication, the various stages of life looked remarkable.

“The programs they developed for that are just going to blow everything out of the water,� the recent Oscar-winner gushed of the technology involved in aging and de-aging star Brad Pitt, who will play Button throughout the nearly 80 years of his life. “I think it’s going to be extraordinary.�

Sadly, there is no real trailer out there yet, only a crappy pirated Spanish version, so I’ll make sure to pass it on when the real one hits the web.

So what do you think? Sound interesting? I always love a good fantasy, the most reason great one was Stardust, but this one is getting major buzz. It has a massive budget of $150 million. First Showing is talking Oscar already for the film itself and Pitt, but of course it’s so very, very early.

Yet…it’s set to release on December 19th and that is prime Oscar season. Who knows?

Set in the near future, the action film depicts mercenary forces whose soldiers wear Cyclops-like cameras in their helmets and broadcast in real time to both central command and living rooms. One mercenary chosen to lead an elite squad begins to realize he isn’t fighting for freedom and justice as much as for commerce.

Warner Brothers is putting the project on the fast track. They already have a short list of screenwriters who they will be talking with within the next few weeks. They plan to movie into pre-production right away for a presumably late-2009 release.

“It is an electrifying package you find in the best sci-fi: great action sequences combined with themes that are eminently foreseeable,” Mangold told Daily Variety.

Cyclops is actually a French graphic novel written by Matz (aka Alexis Nolent) which was published in 2006 by Casterman (if you read French you can check out the official site here).

This is the second graphic novel from Matz that has been picked up for adaptation recently; the first was “The Killer” which Paramount picked up for David Fincher to direct.

Star Trek fans everywhere moan.

Paramount has their reasons, of course. They apparently believe in the film so much they want to use it as a summer tentpole film and release it during the summer movie season where the blockbuster potential is larger.

Star Trek has no competition in its new slot – at least not yet, although it opens one week after 20th Century Fox opens X-Men Origins: Wolverine and one week before Sony is slated to bow the expected hit sequel Angels and Demons.

The Star Trek change was not the only shuffle Paramount made to its schedule and to the schedule of Dreamworks. Some of the other changes they made include:

• The Ben Stiller summer comedy Tropic Thunder is moving from July 11 to Aug. 15
• Martin Scorsese’s Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle Shutter Island…er…Ashecliffe will be released Oct. 2, 2009.
• An untitled comedy produced by Marlon and Shawn Wayans will be released on Feb. 9, 2009.
• The Eddie Murphy family film Nowhereland is moving from Sept. 26, 2008, to June 12, 2009.
• Renee Zellweger’s horror-thriller Case 39 is moving from Aug. 22, 2008, to April 10, 2009.
• David Fincher’s Brad Pitt starrer The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is moving from Nov. 26, 2008, to Dec. 19, 2008.

Still, it is the Star Trek news that is the most disappointing. It’s not that the studio doesn’t have a valid point and it’s not that it isn’t a smart business move. It just sucks that we have to wait another five months to see a movie we’ve already so excited about.

In case you’re doing the math in your head, we saw the teaser in January which means we saw the first trailer for Star Trek a full one year and four months before the film is set to open. That’s insane.