The Dumb Are Mostly Intrigued By The Drum

I've been raving & ranting about the awesomeness that Kick-Ass (the graphic novel) for a while now and although they announced some of the cast before, today they rounded it out by bringing out the big guns: Nicholas Cage. Meh. Yeah, not very impressed as I'm not a huge Cage fan but whatever gets the investors money to get the film made, right? So the word is the script was so violent that none of the studios wanted to touch this hard R-rated film involving kids beating each other and killing everyone (reminds of why Battle Royale never got a proper release here) hence the search for independent funding which they found. Keep your fingers crossed that Castor Troy doesn't mess this one up. Head on over to Slash Film here to see the full cast lineup with the characters they're playing, pretty cool. For the official story, The Hollywood Reporter has it here. Production is slated to start this Fall in Canada.

So this weekend was completely seized by our swede. Spending all weekend in front of the computer or behind the camera really wears a person down on you but it's all for a good cause, right? Yup, indeed our 1st Swede Festival is right around the corner and the entries we've received so far are phenomenal! Can't wait to see what tonight's deadline will bring us tomorrow. (If you look hard enough, you can find the entries online but I'll hold off posting them here in order to keep it spoiler free for those who rather wait) Now, let get into the weekend:

• Seems like those Batman rumors continue to swirl around (Jolie as Catwoman? Philip Seymour-Hoffman as Penguin?) as the film continues to dominate the box office. Well SlashFilm has an excellent article dispelling all of those Dark Knight sequel rumors and what might actually happen (if it happens) when we see the caped crusader on the big screen again.

• And speaking of The Dark Knight, the Batman curse has struck again and this time, it's put Morgan Freeman in the hospital after a car crash and left him in serious condition. Man, if I were Michael Caine, I'd be watching my back right about now.

• A photo from Evil Beet gave us a chuckle this morning as a movie theater marquee was switching from Hancock to The Dark Knight. Reminds me of another incident with a Hancock sign.

• SuperHeroHype has some cool ass hi-res images of the character posters that were shown at Comic Con for Watchmen. They'll make some cool desktop images to decorate with!

• So the last Spider Man film sucked donkey balls, right? Well, it looks like Sony is looking to head in another direction with the franchise and give Venom a chance to star in his own film, The Hollywood Reporter is reporting. As long as they recast Topher Grace (sorry, that was one of the most horrible casting fuck ups in a long time) then that might be cool...

So Soderbergh & company are really having a hard time selling this film. The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that even after a somewhat mixed showing at the Cannes Film Festival, no studio has stepped up to distribute. I hope that the film eventually sees the light of day but these days, everyone is cutting back I guess. Check it out while it lasts!

Update: A slightly better version has popped up at Yahoo! Check it out here if you must.

Bad News: Yup, they're making another Robocop. Good News: Darren Aronofsky has been tapped to helm the production. (Robo Ass-to-Ass?) Aronofsky is a great choice to take on this franchise, I believe. If he can jump into this and take what Paul Verhoeven did with he first film (yeah, lets try to forget the two Frank Miller penned sequels....except for the bad ass robot from part 2....awesome!) we might have something cool in our hands here. Supposedly, the story takes place 20 years after the Robocop program was terminated in Detroit and now it a similar program is about to get started....in Los Angeles. Hmmmm....Check out The Hollywood Reporter here for all the details. So is this a good or bad thing that Robocop is coming back into our cinemas?