Peter Suderman responds to my earlier post on Justice League Mortal and the rumoured casting of Hayden Christensen as Superman therein: I’m not sure the casting Christensen, if confirmed, would be particularly good news, but I don’t see why this project ought to be sunk. Yes, it’s low on star power, but the first X-Men film showed you could make a fine superhero picture without any A-list performers. (Hugh Jackman, an unknown at the time, was catapulted to his current... Read more

Click here if the video file above doesn’t play properly. (Hat tip to Amid Amidi at Cartoon Brew.) Read more

Life is busy and I’m going to be out of town for a few days, so I hadn’t really paid any attention to the fact that the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival is upon us again, but I was just informed that my mother will be co-presenting a screening of the documentary Praying with Lior on Thursday afternoon, and discussing the special harps she has been selling for the last few years, which were originally developed in Europe for people with... Read more

Variety reports: “Deadwood” thesp Ian McShane is headed to network TV, signing on to star in the NBC drama pilot “Kings.” Project, from Universal Media Studios, is a modern-day take on the King David tale. Christopher Egan will play the role of David. Michael Green (“Heroes”) wrote the pilot for “Kings” and is exec producing. Casting of McShane, and internal enthusiasm for the project from NBC U execs, increases the odds that the Peacock could decide to annouce a series... Read more

George Miller’s Justice League movie has reportedly been re-named Justice League Mortal. We should be so lucky. Recent reports in Variety and the Sydney Morning Herald indicated that the film would not be able to shoot in Miller’s native Australia as planned, because the government wouldn’t give the film a tax break — but instead of leaving this misbegotten film to die, Miller has reportedly begun scouting locations here in British Columbia. And now, Cinema Blend says it got a... Read more

A few more items have come up since last night. 1. The New York Times reports that the heirs of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel were recently granted co-ownership of the character, along with the Time Warner corporation, which owns both DC Comics and the Warner Brothers studio that has been making movies based on the legendary superhero: The ruling left intact Time Warner’s international rights to the character, which it has long owned through its DC Comics unit. And it... Read more

The question now, of course, is whether Lucas posed with a prop from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) just for old times’ sake, or whether, as rumour has long had it, the Ark of the Covenant really will be featured in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull — and, if so, in what capacity. See the Empire website for more photos, as well as a few videos of the photo shoots. Read more

Michel Gondry did not make the video below, but no one makes better use of cardboard in film than he does, so it is a delight to see that someone was inspired by Gondry’s latest film, Be Kind Rewind, to make this “sweded” version of the light-cycle chase in Tron (1982; my review): Click here if the video file above doesn’t play properly. (Hat tip to Jerry Beck at Cartoon Brew.) Read more

Time for some more brief news and review bits, I think. 1. Legion, the supernatural thriller starring Paul Bettany as the archangel Michael, just got a little weirder. In the middle of a story on all the actors who have joined the cast, Variety gives a little more detail about the plot: Scripted by Stewart and Peter Schink, the thriller casts Bettany as the archangel Michael, the only one standing between mankind and an apocalypse, after God loses faith in... Read more

Kyle Smith reports that The Ruins, a horror film that opens April 4, will not be screened for critics, at least not in advance. A publicist tells me there will be a screening at 10pm the night before the movie opens, at least here in Vancouver, but as we all know, late-the-night-before screenings “don’t count”. Read more