The Avengers First-Look - An Exercise in Bad Photoshop

UPDATE: Now with non-shitty/non-photoshop pictures of the actors and helmer/geek god Joss Whedon on set in laughing and action-figure posing mode (in green-screen too!) Also via EW and seeing all this still doesn't muster up much of a reaction from me. I am a DC guy after all...

I want you kids to close your eyes, clear your mind and think back to when you first saw how Rooney Mara was going to look as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Andrew Garfield as the new Spider-Man and Henry Cavill as the new Superman. Those first-looks of them in character looked great, didn't they?

Now open your eyes to a big surprise this morning. Marvel/Disney has dropped our first glimpse of The Avengers, the big superhero team-up shindig that opens the 2012 summer movie season next May, in the latest issue of EW.

It looks pretty shitty, doesn't it? The wonders of bad photoshop at work here with those always-weird looking necks attached to the actor's heads and Marc Ruffalo playing Derek Zoolander as Bruce Banner.

Way to make a great first impression, fellas. For the first time (in quite awhile), it looks like Warner Brothers/DC might have bested Marvel at something.

Meet Superman's Latest Hot Mom

Filming's been going onward and upward for The Man of Steel since July. While fans wait to see if bow-tie wearing photographers or bald-headed billionaires suffering from contempt of Kryptonian superheroes show up, there's been a change of plans for one previously cemented role.

Lara, the birthmother of Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El (Henry Cavill), was originally set to be played by Julia Ormond. Reports "TOLDJA," she's out (No word on the reason for the last-second move) and Ayelet Zurer has taken her place next to Russell Crowe's Jor-El.

You may remember her best for having flashback sex with Eric Bana in Steven Spielberg's gripping Munich and Tom Hanks' sidekick in Ron Howard's boring Angels & Demons. She'll report to set this coming week as Zack Snyder and crew have moved up north to Vancouver for mostly interior shooting such as the planet Krypton material from the first act, the Fortress of Solitude, possibly more detailed Daily Planet stuff and who knows what else.

AKA: you can kiss all those out-in-the-open pictures taken from the set goodbye.

Jack & Jill One-Sheet As Lazy & Shitty-Looking As Trailers

You see, kids, the joke is Adam Sandler is playing both Jack and Jill.

Here's the one-sheet for the latest Sander/Dennis Dugan opus (courtesy of Coming Soon) that will, of course, be a big commercial success leaving the rest of us with taste wondering when did average movie-goers get so dumb. Sigh. Well whatever you do, don't tell George C. Scott!

Exclusive: Charlie Sheen in Negotiations for Scary Movie 5

It's OK to admit you were one of the twenty-eight million people who watched the Two & a Half Men season premiere. Hey, curiosity gets the better of us and Lord knows the Charlie Sheen-absent, Ashton Kutcher-replacing episode felt surprisingly less awkward than last night's The Office premiere with James Spader and Ed Helms taking over in place of the exiting Steve Carell.

While Sheen pretends to be nice and sober (as to convince networks he won't pull the same crap that got him fired from Two & a Half Men so they'll pick up the proposed Anger Management series), there's still movie work on the horizon, specifically a high-profile sequel to one of his more successful features. No, not Major League 4, but, Lord save us, Scary Movie 5.

Sources tell TMT that Sheen's taken up Harvey Weinstein on his public offer back in March and negotiations are underway for him to appear in the fifth Scary Movie installment due in theaters next April.

Cue more assholes spewing, "Winning!" jokes, references to tiger-blood and even more glorification of his self-destructive attitude. Because who cares that the man has parents watching in horror knowing there's nothing they can do to stop him for his own good or four small children who will one day have to read about all of this? Yeah, fuck that bullshit as long as you can joke about it on Comedy Central celebrity roasts.

The First Remake Wasn't Terrible Enough – New Scarface In Development

As someone who loves movies in general, the works of Brian De Palma and the gangster genre, I don't hold the 1983 version of Scarface to any high standards. It's a shitty movie. We got it, De Palma. It's about excess. So you decided to go overboard with everything and take it to 11; excessive running-length, acting, violence, language.

How Scarface caught on with the hip-hop community also escapes me. For all the worship of Tony Montana and those who claim to aspire to be like him, those idiots are aware the film ends with him being murdered in typically-violent De Palma fashion for living that lifestyle? I'm not even going to begin expecting those devotees to know that it's a remake of the 1932 Howard Hawkes/Richard Rosson film, also reviled upon its release for its violence but a commercial success unlike the '83 iteration.

Word has whispered to the ears of "TOLDJA" that a third version of Scarface is in development at Universal under the supervision of producers Martin Bregman (who produced De Palma's version) and Marc Shmuger. The studio is currently mulling through screenwriters to take on the job which will take on the basic spine of the story prevalent in both Scarfaces – the rise and fall of an outsider coming into the world of organized crime.

So get ready for douchebags saying, "Say 'Hello!' to my little friend!" again – a line I'm sure will be shoe-horned into the new Scarface.

First Official Look at Dark Shadows That Will Excite Your Parents & Emo Community

Obviously those pictures of Johnny Depp on the set of Dark Shadows caused some unease.

A week later and we've got a full-spread, puff-piece (via EW) displaying the first official looks at Depp's Barnabas Collins and the rest of the cast along with character breakdowns and quotes from Depp, director/Depp BFF Tim Burton, producer Richard D. Zanuck and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith.

The fair thing for me to do is wait for the theatrical trailer to drop (which will probably be around the holiday season) before I pass judgment. Even then, I'd have to be fair-minded and remember that we've seen great trailers to shitty movies and shitty trailers to great movies. Indeed, I should be fair and keep an open mind. But it's the well-oiled Depp/Burton machine at work again and I can't muster any feeling for them and/or this movie other than boredom.

Fanboys About to Lose Their Minds – Marvel Might Hire a Girl to Direct Thor 2?!?

Coming off the heels of Thor surprising everyone with its quality and commercial success this past summer, Marvel/Disney now are ramping up for its July 2013 sequel. In what is, no doubt, an attempt to create chatter (or "buzz" if you like that douchebag term), the House of Ideas/Mouse have also claimed victory once again in trumping DC in the movie-department.

Variety reports talks are underway for Patty Jenkins to direct Thor 2 - yet another intriguing, outside-the-box choice, a frame of mind that's worked pretty well for the studio so far.

Jenkins, you may remember, is responsible for 2003's Monster, known primarily for its Oscar-winning turn by Charlize Theron, although it's a very strong piece of work her performance notwithstanding. Surprisingly though, she didn't cash in her chips after Monster and instead opted for directing work in television including Arrested Development, Entourage and the pilot for AMC's hit The Killing.

Given the strong sexist (and at times homophobic...and racist) tendency of the fanboy community, it's of genuine surprise Marvel (who've gone out of their way to please those idiots time and time again) is willing to go with a female director for one of their big superhero properties. Its smarts and willing to take chances like that is why they continue to best DC with movies that don't have Christopher Nolan's name plastered all over it.

New Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Trailer Sets Mood & Promises Strong Performance from Rooney Mara

When Daniel Craig was cast as journalist Mikael Blomkvist in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, one could sense of how he'd play the role because we've seen lots of him in other films, the good (Casino Royale, Infamous, Munich) and the bad (Cowboys & Aliens, The Golden Compass, The Invasion). Similar feeling towards how this will be directed, under the guiding-hand of the great David Fincher. If you've read the novel or seen the 2009 Swedish film, you could already sense how he'd handle the material given his past association in the murder-mystery genre.

It's a different ball-game altogether for Rooney Mara as title character Lisbeth Salander. We've seen pictures of her in character, yes. But it's not the same as seeing her in motion as Salander. There's little to gage with how she'll do because we've seen so little of her. And what we've seen so far came last year in one of 2010's best films (The Social Network) where she was very good in what few scenes she was in and one of 2010's worst films (the Nightmare on Elm Street remake) where she was terrible in the lead.

So there's a lot of intrigue behind her given how far-and-wide the filmmakers looked for their Lisbeth and opted for the unknown Ms. Mara instead the bigger names who screen-tested. Some of that mystique is slowly getting chipped away as we near the film's Christmas release and more footage of her in character is being made readily available to the public. Such as the case with the second trailer just released.

Clocking in less than four minutes, it lays out the plot for those unfamiliar (As highly regarded as the afore-mentioned Swedish film is, not everyone has seen it and not everyone has the read the original Stieg Larsson-penned book as big a best-seller that it is) and, yes, lets us see and hear Mara as Salander interacting with her co-stars. But I'll shut up now and let you see for yourself.

Oh Look Another Muppets Trailer Lampooning Someone Else's Movie

The joke didn't fly over our heads the first time you did it or the second time either. We get it, fellas. You're lampooning big releases in your own Muppet way. The latest comes in the form a trailer riffing David Fincher's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

If this was the first one, I won't lie. I'd probably like it. But Jesus, people, The Muppets opens in two months and you're still stuck on "Look, we're making fun of new movies...but with Muppets!" instead of a straight-forward trailer to sell to the masses?

Like my fellow nerds online, I too am looking forward to The Muppets. But I'm pretty certain the general public (who will make this flick a success or failure and not us - unfortunately) don't find this as amusing as you do.

Warning: Diabetic Symptoms May Occur After Viewing We Bought a Zoo Trailer

20th Century Fox has released the trailer for Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo below your viewing pleasure.

It's been six years since Crowe laid a cinematic egg with Elizabethtown. Unfortunately when your trailer features "Embrace your wild side" as one of its tags, lines like "Sellers say we don't even need any special knowledge to run a zoo - what you need is a lot of heart" and "I like the animals but I love the humans" and that (admittedly adorable) little girl as Matt Damon's daughter, Crowe doesn't appear to have shaken off the schmaltz.

Hopefully the final film (due in theaters this Christmas) won't be up its own ass like Crowe's last film was.