Viggo Mortensen "Person of Interest" for Zod in Superman

What's that? General Zod isn't the big baddie in Superman: The Man of Steel? Why's that, you say? Oh because its director Zack Snyder gave a non-denial last year and as we all know, filmmakers never, ever lie when the details of their projects leak out. Thank God, I was worried for a minute...

So the power-hungry Kryptonian general will be duking it out the newly-cemented Man of Steel Henry Cavill in the next year's epic superhero reboot. Heat Vision says director Snyder and producer Christopher Nolan have mutually locked in on a "person of interest" to swing superpowered punches against Supes: Viggo Mortensen.

Intriguing choice, I'll give them that. I was always leaning towards Eric Bana myself.

But will they be able to secure the Lord of the Rings alum? Well for one thing, they haven't even met with the guy. He also remains in negotiations for Snow White & the Huntsman for Universal. An even bigger issue is that White will be one of Superman's main box-office competitors as both tentpoles are set for December 2012 releases.

So despite the optimism of both productions arranging to have their fair share of Viggo – it's going to be one or the other who gets him: not both.

The Bourne Casting Couch

As much as I've been belly-aching about Andrew Garfield being afflicted by "new guy" syndrome, it's not like he's playing Ben Reilly in The Amazing Spider-Man. Whoever takes over for Matt Damon in The Bourne Legacy, on the other hand, won't be Jason Bourne. They'll be some other assassin, possibly on the run we don't know.

The details are scarce except to say its set after The Bourne Ultimatum and Tony Gilroy is in the director's chair this time around. Normally, I'd say not playing Bourne himself, especially following immediately after Damon, was a good thing and would make it easier for the audience to accept him. But this feels like being one of those replacement Duke cousins on The Dukes of Hazard.

The Bourne Legacy, as a film, might work. But I'm hard-pressed to think the general public will be accepting of a movie with Bourne's name in the title, and you can bet money they'll use clips of Damon either in the actual film or its marketing, but no Bourne.

Nevertheless the search is on for the "new guy" and via three outlets (Variety, TOLDJA and What's Playing – in the order that the info got out) are the actors in contention for the unnamed lead *Deep breath*:

• Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood)
• Joel Edgerton (Animal Kingdom and soon to appear in The Thing prequel)
• Luke Evans (Clash of the Titans)
• Michael Fassbender
• Jake Gyllenhaal
• Josh Harnett
• Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy)
• Oscar Isaac (Robin Hood)
• Taylor Kitsch (Battleship and John Carter of Mars – both hitting next year)
• Shia LaBeouf
• Kellan Lutz (Twilight series)
• Tobey Maguire
• Alex Pettyfer (I Am Number Four and Pain-In-The-Ass)
• Michael Pitt (HBO's Boardwalk Empire)
• Benjamin Walker (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter)

This list ranges from names being thrown around the production offices to some who've recently met with Gilroy.

Filming is expected to start this coming spring for an August 2012 release. So a sizeable portion of those guys won't be available and why some of them were even reported given that reasoning, and the fact they're already booked for other gigs, I don't get. Hit-whoring, I guess.

But I'd lean more on the cheaper, lesser-known actors among that group (Evans, Isaac, Lutz and Pitt stick out), assuming others won't be thrown into the mix.

The Hangover Part II Teaser

You heard remarks from some, by no means all, saying how Warner Brothers missed the boat during the Superbowl with the absence of TV spots for Green Lantern, Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows – Part II and The Hangover Part II.

I'd say in the case of the first, those complaints are legit. A big-budget comic-book property centered on a superhero not that well-known by the general public, starring an actor yet to make his mark commercially solo and a concept that, on paper, sounds silly. Yeah, that needs to be pushed hard as soon as possible.

But the final Potter installment sells itself (that franchise has been in that luxury position for years), and the Hangover sequel has that delicate balance to walk between letting the audience know it's coming but also making sure not to give practically every joke away in its marketing.

Apple has the teaser in glorious Quicktime and a one-sheet featuring a monkey, which I'm always a sucker for. Noticeably no feces slinging though. Or Mel Gibson. To be fair, that might be intended as a surprise. You can also check the teaser out below. Don't expect much though.

Titans Will Clash in Post-Conversion Once Again

Remember when the producers of Clash of the Titans, after cashing their checks amid a lot of pissed-off movie-goers, acknowledged how bad the post-conversion 3D was and how they'd learned their lesson and were going to use 3D cameras next time?

Fuck that noise.

Director Jonathan Liebesman tells Cinematical the 2012 sequel Wrath of the Titans is going to be another post 3D conversion after all.

Now thanks to my super-duper bullshit translator technology I'll take this quote he gave...

"I didn't want to convert, but Warner Brothers showed me how far conversion's come"

...which actually means...

"It's stupid, but Warner Brothers is making me because I don’t have the clout to say, 'Hell no!'"

Way to listen to complaints from your buyer, WB.

Sucker Punch Goes into Diabetic Coma with Eye-Candy on Trailer #3

Here we are with the newest trailer for Sucker Punch, Zack Snyder's latest, courtesy of Yahoo! Movies.

We're about a month shy from its release and upon our third trailer. Yet this latest is 100% dialogue-free, does no attempt to sell the actual plot outside title-cards and instead goes for hard-core, visual eye-candy that'll cause nerdgasms from some. But I imagine for most (those who will make this a success or failure commercially) this will conjure up a "What the fuck is this?" response.

I remain unimpressed. Thank God, Snyder has his "Get out of jail free" card with Superman.

Prometheus or How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Watch the Damn Alien Prequel

If it's connected to Alien like Jackie Brown is to Out of Sight, then fine. Still being able to follow a narrative and tell a story that just so happens to be in the same universe/continuity of another movie.

But who am I kidding? I'm going to see Prometheus even if it turns out director Ridley Scott, screenwriter Damon Lindelof and crew were bullshitting us with those "We swear it's not an Alien prequel!" quotes from awhile back. I'm just looking forward to Scott returning to the science fiction arena for the first time since Blade Runner. However more info is suggesting that in fact we’re looking at a full-on Alien prequel.

According to Sky Movies, the space jockey from Alien (and long said to have a role) will play a part in Prometheus. Adding to the coolness factor is the revelation it's being designed under the supervision of H.R. Giger and will be done as an eight-foot animatronic.

Then there's this spoilerific comment from their source(s):

"By the way, people are going to be in for a shock when they sit down to watch Prometheus and there’s an enormous semi-human head piloting a spaceship."

Considering those rumors of forced male-on-male action from awhile back, a giant head isn't that weird an idea.

Glee the Movie: Coming to Theaters Before Everyone Turns 30!

Doing a film-version of a television series with the principle cast while it's still on the air. Has that ever worked? Only thing that comes to mind is The Simpsons Movie, and that's debatable. Many, myself included, would argue they waited fifteen years or so too late.

I remember back during the summer of 1998 a lot of the pre-release/Internet hype (besides Godzilla and the competing asteroid productions Armageddon and Deep Impact) centered on the X-Files film Fight the Future. It opened relatively strong, but petered out by its second weekend in theaters. That's because the movie felt like a bigger-budget, two-hour episode of the series.

The problem is simple yet complex. You have to convince people to pay $10 for something they already get to see for free on a weekly basis. It's a bizarre proposition, but if you do it while the show is in its ratings, and pop-culture, prime, the argument could be made in its favor. On the other hand, if you wait too long and do it when the show's on the outs, if not off the air by that time, it's come off as "Too little, too late." Such is the case of the 24 movie 20^th Century keeps talking about – I'm sorry, Kiefer. I know you just said this morning, as per Coming Soon, that it was definitely happening. But I don't buy it at this point.

Which brings us to the point of this post (I apologize if I give detailed ramblings here and there), What's Playing (Still riding high from their big Terminator 5: The Search for Arnie's Dignity scoop) happened to have some brief words with an unnamed member of the popular musical/comedy series Glee. As you can guess, a Glee movie is in the cards "before the majority of the cast is 30."

I guess that isn't in the near-future since I don't know the actual ages of the actors let alone their names beyond Jane Lynch obviously – just their faces like the cute brunette who's the lead. Hell for all I know they could twenty-seven or something, but you get the idea. Again this goes back to the situation with 24. They just waited too damn long, and now we’re stuck with endless, and meaningless until proven otherwise, quotes from people like Sutherland swearing a movie is coming.

Isn't Glee already getting a quasi-backlash too? If Fox is gung-ho for the movie, go ahead and do it now while the show is still in the pop-culture zeitgeist.

The Amazing Spider-Man Isn't Completely a Reboot?

Some of you old enough (like my twenty-six year old elderly ass) recall Untold Tales of Spider-Man back in the mid-1990s?

I remember it cost a buck and change, and served as the sole salvation for us comic-fans having to endure the dreaded Clone Saga. What was interesting was how it was written and drawn like the original Stan Lee/Steve Ditko run on The Amazing Spider-Man comic-book series and set within its continuity. So everything gelled with events that happened, but they still found ways to have fun with the period.

According to this week's issue of Entertainment Weekly, that might be the plan for The Amazing Spider-Man, a film we all thought was going to be a 100% Grade-A certified reboot of the franchise:

"Exec producer Avi Arad says the film won't erase what came before but will try to weave a narrative that could take place within the framework of the earlier films. 'It's not a comeback,' he says. 'You have to look at it this way: Do you want to know more about Spider-Man? This movie is going to tell stories that you didn’t see in movies 1, 2, and 3."

That's an intriguing way to go. It could certainly explain decisions made like taking the web-slinger back to high-school, no Mary Jane-Watson or J. Jonah Jameson in the cards, Gwen Stacy as the love-interest (But then again...didn't he meet her for the first time in Spider-Man 3 or what that a little up-in-the-air?) and having the Lizard when he was noticeably sitting on the bench during the Sam Raimi/Tobey Maguire/Kirsten Dunst films.

It also sounds overly-complicated when it isn't necessary and kinda defeats the purpose of starting over this franchise. I always thought the best route going forward without Raimi/Maguire/Dunst was keeping the supporting players like J.K. Simmons, Rosemary Harris and Dylan Baker and treating the film's continuity in a vague fashion like the pre-Daniel Craig James Bond films and Batman Forever.

Henry Cavill Talks About Being New Superman; Joe Manganiello Was the Runner-Up!

Earlier this morning, Entertainment Weekly gave a tease of what to expect from their latest publication pertaining to our new Superman (Henry Cavill) including the British thespian's first comments since being cast.

It was only a matter of time before somebody got their hands on the magazine and threw up what was said. I guess that’d be us this time. Among the highlights includes director Zack Snyder almost encounter casting Cavill for his highest-profile film (That is before helming the Superman reboot) 300:

"Snyder says he would have cast Cavill in his 2007 film 300, except the actor was holding out for another job: becoming the next 007. ‘I came very close,’ says Cavill. 'The choice was between a younger Bond and a Bond closer to his 30s, which is to say, Daniel Craig.'"

On who else was in contention to stand for truth, justice and the American way, Snyder was mum. But let one name outta his tongue – one we’d already known was up for it: True Blood's Joe Manganiello:

"'Joe's a great guy. I really liked him, says Snyder, adding that it came down to a gut decision. 'It was about seeing a quality that inspires the inexplicable, mysterious, cool emotion that says, 'That's my guy.'"

As for Superman himself, Cavill reconfirmed the now-infamous story of his candidacy under the McG incarnation back in 2004 and how it’s come full circle now (“But here I am, seven years later. Got ya! It was wonderful to have a second stab at a job – and as a wiser, older, more experienced actor.”), denied those claims of his being up for Batman Begins and his frustration of not being able to contact loved ones like his girlfriend and parents after the eventful phone-call from Snyder confirming he'd gotten the gig.

For the remaining time between now and the start of production (Scheduled for sometime this summer), Cavill will be busy getting into Superman shape and readying himself for wearing the iconic red-and-blue suit:

"'Even during the audition, even amid my anxiety while wearing the older model, I had this extraordinary feeling: ‘Wow. I’m wearing the cape. I'm wearing the S.' Extraordinary,' he says. 'I can't wait to do it for real.'"

Everyone sounds pumped to get going and enthusiastic. So that's a good thing, especially amidst those reports of script problems. Curious to see how long Warner Brothers actually takes until we get our first full-fledged look at Cavill as Superman and Clark Kent.

Sherlock Holmes Solves the Case of the Missing Title

How important is the title of a movie?

Depends on the movie in question. In the case of something like say Cowboys & Aliens, the filmmakers, and more importantly, the marketing department, will have to make that extra effort to sell the film in spite of an admittedly silly title. Win people over their knee-jerk reaction of, "That sounds stupid!" and, from what I've gathered off conversations with non-nerds (i.e. real people) it's working on director Jon Favreau's front. We'll see how that ultimately pans out this July.

On the other hand if it's a sequel to a big money-making popcorn crowd-pleaser, it's not as big a deal.

In this case, Warner Brothers could call the Sherlock Holmes sequel Sherlock Holmes & the Case of the Divine Secret of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood Electric Boogaloo Ecks Vs Sever and it'll still be the top-grossing release this Christmas. If you can still be a blockbuster hit and co-exist alongside Avatar (the biggest movie of all-time) and Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, then something like Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is a cake-walk.

E! Online reports WB has settled on the title for the sequel - Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

The reactions I've read are mixed-to-negative. But I'm indifferent. No, it's not great. But it's better than just slapping on Sherlock Holmes 2. But like I said, it's irrelevant. Regular folks aren't going to care because they dug the Hell outta the first film, and Robert Downey Jr. continues to be a popular draw at the box-office.