"The Matrix"

Remember 1999? It was a more innocent and naive time; Honey Boo Boo had yet to be born, the Harlem Shake was still more than a decade away, and movies like "The Matrix" were tops at the box office.

Yes, in 1999, as far as most movie fans were concerned, “The Matrix” was just a fantastic one-off action/sci-fi film from the directors of the low-budget crime thriller "Bound." "The Matrix" was a breakout film for the Wachowskis ("Cloud Atlas"), and transformed star Keanu Reeves into an even bigger star. The science fiction actioner worked very well as a standalone movie, and, despite the open ended final shot, wasn't really begging for a followup. Of course, sequels did come in 2003, and they were mostly terrible. "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions" pretty much sullied the good reputation of the first movie, erasing whatever good memories moviegoers had from it in the process.

20th Century Fox

Sorry, "Simpsons" fans, but the Oscar-nominated short "The Longest Daycare" may be the closest you'll get to a new big screen adventure from America's favourite animated family any time soon.

At least, that's according to "Simspons" creator Matt Groening and series producer/director David Silverman, two people in charge of the future of the franchise. The pair gave a talk at UCLA's annual entertainment symposium over the weekend and revealed that a sequel to "The Simpsons Movie" in probably not in the cards for a few reasons.

"It took us four years [to make] and it killed us," Groening said of the 2007 comedy film, adding that the feature length movie "stole" animators and other resources from the also in production TV show.

Robert Carlyle, Ewan McGregor, and Jonny Lee Miller in "Trainspotting" (1996).

Just because English filmmaker Danny Boyle has an Oscar on his mantelpiece (a Best Director award for 2010’s “Slumdog Millionaire), that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten his roots as one of Brit cinema’s most boundary-pushing directors.

Before films like “Slumdog” and “28 Days Later,” Boyle was best known for the darkly comic drug caper “Trainspotting.” Based on author Irvine Welsh’s novel of the same name, the 1996 film chronicling the lives of a rag-tag gang of Scottish heroin addicts put Boyle -- as well as stars Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, and Kelly Macdonald -- on the Hollywood map. Now, almost 20 years after the film first hit theatres, Boyle sounds like he’s ready to return to the scuzzy side of the U.K. for “Porno,” the long talked about adaptation of Welsh’s sequel to “Trainspotting.”

Chevy Chase and Ed Helms. (Getty Images)

When news emerged last year that funnyman Ed Helms ("The Hangover") was set to star as Rusty Griswold in a sequel to National Lampoon's long running "Vacation" series, most fans were thrilled.

Helms' everyman charm, combined with his trademark passive-aggressive humour, makes him basically perfect to play the son of rage-prone all-American dad Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase). Speaking of the elder Griswold, it's still not clear if Chase will even be involved in the project -- although it's hard to imagine a "Vacation" movie without him.

In a recent interview, reboot directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (writers of the upcoming "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone") revealed that the "Vacation" reboot will echo the original 1983 National Lampoon comedy, focusing this time on Rusty (Helms) and his own family's ill-fated road trip to theme park Wally World.

Before computer generated visual effects became the norm in Hollywood, there was really only one way to convincingly bring fantastic creatures to life on the big screen: animatronics. And as seen in the video below, it was animatronics technology that was responsible for bringing the live-action versions of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the big screen in three theatrical adventures between 1990 and 1993.

Instead of CGI, actors donned electronics-filled reptile heads, while puppeteers off camera controlled the character's facial expressions using complex remote controls. And don't forget the use of then-state of the art software like Windows version 3.1!

Andy Kropa/Getty Images

While details regarding the upcoming “Star Wars” sequels are about as tightly guarded as any secret in Hollywood, it seems that the pieces are slowly but surely moving into place for the J. J. Abrams-directed “Episode VII.”

Rumours of the original trilogy cast’s return have been swirling ever since Walt Disney’s high-profile buyout of Lucasfilm late last year, but beyond some speculative “Star Wars” sequel comments from Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) and Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), and conflicting reports over Harrison Ford’s return as Han Solo, there hasn’t been much to go on. Until now.

Photo by Screen Gems

Love 'em or hate 'em, there is no disputing the staying power of director Paul W. S. Anderson's "Resident Evil" movies.

Based on the Capcom survival horror video game series of the same name, the zombie apocalypse movie franchise has been going strong ever since 2002's appropriately titled "Resident Evil." After five big screen outings, there seems to be no end in sight.

According to the horror movie buffs over at Shock Till You Drop, Sony has set a Sept. 12, 2014 release date for the as-yet-untitled sixth "Resident Evil" movie. No details beyond that, but the news of another sequel would seem to indicate that Anderson and wife Milla Jovovich (who plays series protagonist Alice) still have plenty of zombie slaying fight left in them.