This is probably some bullshit rumor laid out by nerds who have seen Dark Knight too many times. Oh wait, that would include me.

Anyways, this came form HollyScoop, and here’s the text:

Johnny Depp is reportedly going to be a part of the next Batman installment playing the Riddler. And not only that, but execs want Philip Seymour Hoffman to play the Penguin.

Them, plus Christian Bale…talk about an all-star cast!

The Dark Knight has brought in $440 million worldwide so far, so they have their work cut out for them for the next Batman to be just as successful.

Assuming this isn’t just some lonely wanker’s blog ponderings, I think Johnny Depp would make a good Riddler, but Depp has become such a huge name, that maybe it would distract from the kick-ass story I’m sure Nolan and Co. will come up with.

Hoffman as the Penguin? I could actually see that more.

But screw that! Bring on Catwoman! Wayne’s chick got fried so he needs some sexual tension! Can I throw out some names? Cate Blanchett proved she play nerd movie parts. (Rings, Indy, etc) And she’s a damn amazing actress to boot. Or what about The Watchmen’s Malin Akerman? She’s already half way there with that leather skimpy thing.

There has been a lot of news stories kicking around about the Ghostbusters. IDW is putting a new comic, as well as Tokyopop. The video game could possibly have been pushed back to next year for the 25th anniversary, etc.

One of the more recent (claimed to be reliable) rumors is regarding a third movie. Similar to the original script of the third movie, the original crew would be handing over the firehouse to some greenhorns. The original cast included Will Smith, Chris Farley and Ben Stiller. Yah, that long ago. The most recent cast?

The guys from 40 Old Virgin. Yah, seriously. Three white guys and a black guy worked before. Read about it here.

Swank-mo-tron: None of us saw this pile of radioactive dookie.  The trailer was enough to make me want to gouge out my eyes.

Humanjunk: Speak for yourself. I saw it and it was by far the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. It was like a dilapidating orgasm that rendered me to a puddle of goo in the theaters chair.

Swank-mo-tron: I don’t believe you.

The Hollywood Reporter is… well… reporting, that Sony is looking to do a spin-off of the successful Spider-Man franchise featuring Venom.

“The studio is developing the project, based on the gooey nemesis who appeared in ‘Spider-Man 3’ and is hoping the character could serve as an antidote to the aging ‘Spider-Man’ franchise in the way that Fox has used Wolverine to add longevity to its ‘X-Men’ franchise.

The studio had commissioned a draft of the script from Jacob Estes, a writer of the specialty film ‘Mean Creek,’ released several years ago by Paramount Classics. He’s also attached to the Plan B drama ‘The Gifted.’ But the studio is considering going in a different direction from Estes’ script and is seeking writers for a new draft.

Casting also is no simple matter. Topher Grace played the character in the film, but agents have been eyeing the role for their clients, as Sony is not yet convinced the actor can carry a tentpole picture.

Neither Sony nor Marvel would comment for this story.”

While this appears to be in the works, Sony is also still moving forward with a 4th installment of the Spider-Man franchise targeted for 2011, which is 9 years after the original Spider-Man film was released. Sam Raimi has stated in regards to a 4th installment that he will wait to see a script before deciding if he will be involved as director, producer, or otherwise.

Okay, time for my robot commentary. I really just wish Sony would leave well-enough alone, especially in regards to any spin-offs. This bot probably enjoyed Spider-Man 3 more (or hated it less) than the average geek/nerd/fanboy/human being, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think it was without fault (a lot of faults, actually) and I really wish Sony would focus on bouncing back with a strong showing in Spider-Man 4 before moving forward with a spin-off of a character that was poorly represented in the latest installment. With the quality of movies Marvel is developing on their own it’s really too bad that Sony has the rights to this beloved character (and even worse that Fox owns the X-Men) because I think Marvel Studios could really do some great work with ol’ Web Head now if they owned the rights.

I guess we will just have to wait to see what happens…

We’re back again today with coverage of the Watchmen and Spirit panel…

Before comic-con I was easily more excited for the Spirit, but the more I see of it the more worried I get. Whereas with the Watchmen the more I see the more excited I am to see it, except that I am skeptical because I don’t trust the director. The trailer they showed for the Watchmen looked really good. Dave Gibbons the co-creator of the comic book, said that he is really happy for the way things are turning out, which is really encouraging, but I am constantly reminded of how poorly 300 turned out. It looks good, but all I can say is we will see.

The footage for the Spirit doesn’t look very good, I am still going to give it a chance, but I am worried. I don’t know that first time director Frank Miller knows how to direct actors. I just hope what he knows about storytelling and dialog, make up for what he lacks as a director. (I don’t like the kid that they got to play the Spirit, he seems kinda like an idiot, mullet and all.)

During the panel they talked a lot about how true they were being to Will Eisner, but to be honest it doesn’t look to me that they are being all that true to the characters, and that it is definitely “Frank Miller’s The Spirit” and not “Will Eisner’s The Spirit” I hope it is good.

The last panel I went to was a Vertigo panel, that was semi-interesting. They announced a new line they are going to be releasing called “Vertigo crime” The whole line is going to be hard cover black and white books in the crime and noir genre. They are getting some best selling crime novelists to write some of the books. Brian Azzarello is kicking off the new line with a book called “Filthy Rich” I haven’t read to much of his stuff, but I liked his run on Batman, so I am definately interested in his work.

They announced some other cool things, but what I was most interested in was what Bill Willingham had to say about Fables. He said that the series is essentially going to be starting over after issue 75, and that issue 75 is going to be a mad man. 50 pages, all double page spreads. I assume it is all going to be the dirtiest part of the war. Since this issue is mostly about art, he said that he left some of the stuff that happened in the artists hands (Mark Buckingham), he also declared that Mark Buckingham is a sick man, and he shouldn’t be held responsible if everyone’s favorite character dies, and made it sound as if they would.

Well that’s all for my comic-con coverage, I wish I could have been there all week.

Let’s just say, I wasn’t disappointed. When I found out the Ghostbusters booth had a playable demo, I knew where I’d be spending a good portion of my time.

Up front were two laptops to sign up for news coverage (spam). But, the reason to do so was to get a free shirt, laniard, Ecto-1 license plate, and Stay Puft Marshmallow flavored Lip Balm. Seriously cool stuff.

The demo starts off in front of the New York City Library. You, Ray, Egon and Winston stand on the stairs to the Library as a crowd cheers your names. After taking it in for a few seconds, the boys in grey gather around one of the statues up front. They whip out their PKE meters and start scanning. The statue then explodes and two ghosts go flying into the library. The chase is on.

I’m not going to give you a play by play of the rest of the demo. If you want to watch it, Gamespot has a pretty sweet video with Ryan French talking about the game. I’m just going to go over a few highlights.

• Ryan told us they scripted the game so that every 15 feet something funny / fun / or scary would happen. Like in the movie, when you expect something scary to happen, you’ll end up laughing. When you expect to laugh, you’ll end up getting scared.

• In the game, Ray tells Egon he wishes Venkman was there to see help catch the Library ghost. This raises the question, where is Venkman? Did he quit? Is he back on tv with his psychic show? Maybe he ran away with Dana? Or perhaps it didn’t work out with her, so he’s the fallen hero? I dunno.

• The panel for Ghostbusters was cancelled due to a “scheduling conflict,” according to the guy in charge. He said it was their fault, but not his fault. He wasn’t very clear. So instead of having to sit through a panel, he just filled me in on the multiplayer. Probably one of the more exciting tid-bits. With the PC, Xbox and PS3 versions, you’ll be able to link up with 3 friends and playing exclusive co-op missions. You’ll meet up at the firehouse where Janine will take calls and send you out into the field.

There’s still lots more info coming in for the game. I’ll post more as I get it.

Imdb.com is reporting that apparently Angelina Jolie has been inquiring about the possible role of Catwoman in the third installment of the new Batman franchise. Julie Newmar, who played Catwoman in the 1960’s Batman television series was quoted as saying:

“Angelina would own the part. My industry friends tell me (she) has made inquiries about the role. I can understand how it would pique her interest. Catwoman is Batman’s one true love. She’s tremendously popular with women because she’s both a heroine and a villainess.”

Of course, there’s been no confirmation of who will be in the third installment, or if there there will even be one (okay, we’ve seen what The Dark Knight has made over the last 2 weeks, we all know there will be a third one), but if Director Christopher Nolan decides to resurrect the character, it sounds like Mrs. Jolie-Pitt may be vying for the part if this is true!

What do you all think? Would she make a good Catwoman? Do you even want to see Catwoman in a third Batman movie? Say your piece and be sure to vote on our “Batman Rogues Poll” on the right!

Yahoo has an almost four minute clip of The Clone Wars online in Quicktime HD and the more I see of this picture the more excited I get for it.

Click here to watch it.

Seriously, if I don’t get to see this movie soon, I think my neural transmitters leading to and from my pressurized geek-core are going to explode from strain.  Seeing The Dark Knight a couple of weeks ago certainly relieved some of the pressure, but seriously, this is too much.

UPDATED AGAIN: This site has it.

(As does this one, along with the Tron 2 footage as well).

UPDATE: It’s all gone now.  If anybody has a copy of the video, we’ll gladly put it up here.

Let’s see how long this lasts.

This looks interesting, but Jesus, Gambit sucks.

I went to the comic-con this year for two of the five days, but I got to see some good panels, and got some insight on some projects that I was interested in.

I was about 10 minutes late for the first panel I went into, it was for the movie “Push” all I want to say is that, what I saw of it,  it didn’t look that good. But I only saw one clip that somehow felt like the matrix, and heard Chris Evans talk about why he likes acting.

They cleared the stage, and Alex Proyas came out, for his movie “Knowing“. This movie stars Nicolas Cage.

(Thank god he wasn’t there. Two years ago I saw him there for Ghost Rider, and he is such a doped out rock star using narcissistic quotes such as “This is the part, I was born to play” and “I am Johnny Blaze”)

The trailer for this movie doesn’t look completely bad, but there is a frighteningly bad cliffhanger question that makes me worry a little bit. Alex Proyas talked a lot about the movie, and how that he focuses on quality over quantity when it comes to making movies. I am semi-excited to see this, but only because I trust Alex Proyas as a director. After the trailer, and talking about the movie they opened up the floor for a Q&A (There were only three people that wanted to ask him questions, I was one of them and the other two didn’t seem to know who he was.), I asked about his involvment in the possible Silver Surfer movie, and he confirmed that he was not going to be directing it.

The third part of this particular panel was for a new movie coming out called “Twilight” and so I left.

There were some cool things on the floor, the Warner Brothers booth had a full size owl ship from the set of Watchmen and Marvel had the Iron Monger.

The Capcom and Konami booths had some games I was really excited to try (but didn’t get to) Megaman 9, both of the new Castlevania  releases, and a giant Street Fighter 4 tournament area.

There didn’t seem to be as many costumes this year, but there were definitely some winners……….

I went to another panel with Jim Lee, Mike Mignola, Robert Kirkman, and Grant Morrison, They had some interesting things to say about the differences in comic book storytelling, and Movie storytelling. Mike Mignola had a bit of advice for people trying to get into comic books, which was not to create a character or do a book that you would not want to do forever, don’t do something you don’t want to do unless it is for a paycheck.

An attendee stood up in the panel and let loose on Jim Lee for not finishing the All Star Barman and Robin series fast enough. Mike Mignola jumped to his defense with the point that when he was working for DC with deadlines all his art sucked, because he was just trying to get it out there to fast, but now he does Hellboy when he wants to, and he always makes sure it is his best work before giving it to people. Jim Lee apologized but made it known he is going to give quality work, he also said that the Allstar Batman and Robin series, is going to be 20 issues, it sounded like he was joking but he predicted that it would take 5 years to get 2o done.

Robert Kirkman was asked a question about if his new position as a partner at Image was going to interfere with his work, his reply was that he thinks his work is going to get better because he is going to focus fully on his creator owned books from here on out, and that he is not going to write any more Marvel books, although there are a few series that he is going to finish out before completely dropping Marvel, and he said that his scripts for those are already turned in.

Stay tuned for Part Two which will post tomorrow, where I give rundowns of the Watchmen and Spirit Panels.   Also, we talk about the Vertigo Panel and some cool info about Fables.