Movie Minesweeper - The Online Opinion Maker Edition

- Atonement is to open the Venice fest with I'm Not There, There Will Be Blood, Cassandra's Dream, These Times, Planet Terror and Lust, Caution all looking likely to screen also.

- Antonio Banderas is eyeing a deal that will make him an animation producer.

- Annete Bening is going Broadway next spring, taking a starring role in Joanna Murray-Smith's The Female of the Species. That will make for a nice round 20 year gap in her Broadway career.

- Ashton Kutcher vehicle Father's Day is set up to go at Columbia. So far, it is only a pitch from scriptwriters Ian Deitchman and Kristin Robinson, but one day it will be a 'comedy'.

- Elijah Kelley is to star in Party Up, a comedy about teenagers going to great lengths to have a party. Hmmmm.

- Elizabeth Kostova's Vampire yarn The Historian is at last making moves towards the multiplex. Caleb Kane is to write the screenplay adaptation. The book's reputation appears to be somewhat uneven, but if Interview With the Vampire can make for a film as good as it did, there's always hope.

- Spain is to be hit by a one-day cinema strike next Monday. It looks as if the protest is aimed at a new draft law that cinema owners say has failed to take their needs into consideration.

- Grayson T. Boucher is to star in Ball Don't Lie, a drama about a teen basketball player and his tough life. The law of averages has so far kept films about teen basketball players with easy lives away from the silver screen, but sooner or later, their day will come. Losts Emili De Ravin is also to appear.

- Neil Labute has cast Patrick Wilson in Lakeview Terrace.

- Danny DeVito's next is to be No Place Like Home. He'll play a retired Fireman (really? Isn't there a minimum height mandate?) who kidnaps his wife so that his twenty-something sons will have to fend for themselves and become discouraged from living at home. If she doesn't divorce him after that I'm gonna throw popcorn at the screen. What's the odds on him getting bedbound and needing her to wait on him hand, foot and finger?

- Matt Madden and Tom Hart are re-enacting The Five Obstructions with comic strips and not short films. I found the link at The Beat.

- Two Can Play That Game is to get a sequel called... Three Can Play That Game. Saucy. Vivica A. Fox is to star and produce.

- Disney defecter Nina Jacobson now has her first Dreamworks project on the calendar. Dominion is about the human leader of the world's first robosoldier platoon. She said "It's a film that will require a real visionary director, and it's a project that has a lot of big-movie elements" - I'll swing with the 'elements' but there's a good chance she won't get anywhere near a visionary director with this one. Not a real one, anyway.

- The Occasionally Interesting Anti-Adventures of an Unnamed Girl is a) a Wizard of Oz derivative set up at Disney and b) due a name change. This title seems like a producer-grabbing tactic like Untitled Teenage Sex Comedy That Can Be Made For Under $10 Million That Most Readers Will Probably Hate But I Think You Will Love, the original name on the American Pie frontcover.

- The IESB have a deal with Doug Jones. You send them your questions, he'll answer some of them.

- Mikael Halfstrom is expecting his entire back catalogue to get American remakes.

- Shatner.

- War Inc. is only War Inc. outside of the US. In the US, it will be called Brand Hauser. Is that tantamount to calling all Americans thick? Or just many Americans? Or not at all?

- MovieWeb have spoken to Gianni Nunnari about Ronin and Silence. I'll place my chips on neither of those ever being produced.

- Rumer Willis, Bruce Willis and Mischa Barton have been cast in The Sophomore. It revolves around a sinsiter conspiracy at a Catholic school. In my experience, Catholic schools are sinsiter conspiracies, given form in stone and flesh - so this must be doubly sinister.

- Mike Myers has told The Telegraph that his Keith Moon biopic will start shooting in January.

- Four old Rko creepy-crawlers are to be remade by Evolution Entertainment.

- Robert Mark Kamen is to write the upcoming Gatchaman film.

- Nurse Laverne of Scrubs is to return as... Nurse Shirley, her twin sister. Boom boom.

- Eli Roth is taking the rest of the year to write a pile of scripts, and Cell won't shoot until next spring. At least then he'll have a series of screenplays ready to go.

- Jeff Lieberman's brilliant Blue Sunshine is returning to DVD in August but, this time, the disc will be hosted by Elvira. Why? To promote her upcoming find-a-new-goth-glamour-girl reality show.

- Spy Kid Alexa Vega has been cast in Repo! The Genetic Opera. Will it really be an opera?

- Godzilla 3D.

- A trailer for Control has turned up on YouTube.

- Al Pacino has recorded a podcast for Time in which he answers readers' questions. How Doug Jones.

- Kellogs' movie tie-in marketing may be approaching the final curtain.

- Pat Eaton-Robb tried out to be an extra in Indiana Jones 4.

- Angelina Jolie's lawyer has been blamed for the recent attempts to stifle freedom of the press around A Mighty Heart.

The Voice Of The Clouds

Variety have announced that Larry Fishburne's voice will be going to the Silver Surfer, not Galactus, in the second Fantastic Four film. More interestingly, they note that "the studio hasn't decided whether Galactus will even speak".

At this late stage? With the film in the can and much of post production completed? That's craziness.

I assumed that any dialogue given to Galactus in the film would have some kind of impact or relevance - indeed, any dialogue given to any character. And that would mean that it can't just be slotted in or removed. A well structured film is a house of cards, everybody knows that. Just remove all of the lines of dialogue given to one character.... either your house of cards falls down or, frankly, you're dealing with a film that hasn't been so well structured in the first place.

Obviously, in the case of Fantastic Four films and their sequels, we're dealing with the second option: a film that hasn't been so well structured in the first place.

So argue all you like about Galactus being a cloud, but don't overlook the bigger point - this is already revealing itself to be a film just bundled together, where something as potentially purposeful as all of the dialogue given to one lead character can hang in the balance so late in the film's post production.

As a footnote, I think David Hyde Pierce did a great job as Abe Sapien in Hellboy and am very doubtful as to Doug Jones' chances of turning in a comparable performance in the sequel.

What's It All About, Hellboy?

Coming Soon have updated with the official synopsis for Hellboy 2 - how could I not bring it to you?

With a signature blend of action, humor and character-based spectacle, the saga of the world's toughest, kitten-loving hero from Hell continues to unfold in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Bigger muscle, badder weapons and more ungodly villains arrive in an epic vision of imagination from Oscar®-nominated director Guillermo del Toro.

After an ancient truce existing between humankind and the invisible realm of the fantastic is broken, hell on Earth is ready to erupt. A ruthless leader who treads the world above and the one below defies his bloodline and awakens an unstoppable army of creatures. Now, it's up to the planet's toughest, roughest superhero to battle the merciless dictator and his marauders. He may be red. He may be horned. He may be misunderstood. But when you need the job done right, it's time to call in Hellboy (Ron Perlman).

Along with his expanding team in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Development--pyrokinetic girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair), aquatic empath Abe (Doug Jones) and protoplasmic mystic Johann--the BPRD will travel between the surface strata and the unseen magical one, where creatures of fantasy become corporeal. And Hellboy, a creature of two worlds who's accepted by neither, must choose between the life he knows and an unknown destiny that beckons him.

Doug Jones Reveals Hellboy 2 Juice To VH1

In a new interview with VH1, Doug Jones has revealed a whole heap of interesting Hellboy 2 bits and pieces.

Firstly, it seems that David Hyde Pierce will not be providing the voice of Abe Sapien this time around. As per the animated films, Jones will be speaking the role himself. I'm not so sure about this being a good idea.

Secondly, Abe isn't Jones' only character this time round. He'll also be playing three other make-up jobs:

The Angel of Death - "It's another eyeless thing with huge wings, and he's got a weird little ribcage. He's beautiful. I'm going into my fittings this week."

The Chamberlain - "His head is way up here, and he's very, very cylindrical in shape with these arms that just hang down to the side."

And a "befuddled old wizard" - "He's the closest to human. He's this old-looking, saggy-skinned, weird-eared sort of fella that I'll be showing up as. I'm not sure if there's dialogue for him yet. He was a recent addition."