Usually when an original creator walks away from a sequel, it is a good sign that maybe a sequel isn't the best idea to begin with. Well, that's exactly what happened with the follow-up to Neil Marshall's 2005 horror-hit, The Descent. But it is not all bad news because Shock Till You Drop got the chance for a set-visit, and by the sounds of things it's looking pretty good for our group of traumatized spelunkers. (You can read the about the full visit over at Shock.)

The sequel picks up where the first film left off (that is if you are following the events of the North American release of the original film). The story follows the return of a mute and unbalanced Sarah as she heads back down to the caves with a rescue party to locate the rest of her group. Of course, this being the ricketiest cave on earth, the group is soon trapped and left to deal with the nasties down below.

During the visit, Shock spoke with writer James Watkins (My Little Eye) as well as the production designer Simon Bowles. Watkins told Shock that they went to Marshall to "get his feedback and discuss which direction he wanted the story to go, what he thought was good, how we should develop the characters" -- not to mention there was the promise of plenty of more gore this time around, and in the end isn't that what we're paying for? Scott told us back in 2007 that Marshall hadn't completely washed his hands of the whole thing, and would still produce the flick. Well, I guess he's a little more hands-on than expected -- which is probably a very good thing, don't you think?

The Descent 2 will arrive in theaters in 2009.

It seems the entire comic book and film world "misread" Warner Bros' announcement that they were angling to make Superman's reboot a gloomier one. No one seems to have read the original article slowly enough -- not even MTV, Kevin Smith, Christopher Golden, Jeph Loeb, Steven T. Seagle, or Mark Waid.

The wonderful geeks over on MTV's Splash Page chased down all the above, and asked them what they thought about the studio's latest plans for the Man of Steel. The funniest and most extreme reaction isn't Smith's, it's Golden's! "How stupid is that? That announcement made my head spin . . . Making a dark and gritty Superman movie because Dark Knight made a ton of money is incredibly stupid." Oddly, Smith is actually more tempered in his comments, and that he was all for a reboot. "You always have to always keep Superman very distinct from Batman ... Superman is about the hope in people, the good in people, whereas Batman is about the more driven, hungry for justice angry side of us. [So] I don't know if doing a dark Superman is the approach."

The lone dissenting voice is Seagle, not surprising from the man who penned It's a Bird ... and feels that Superman has always been a dark character. "Heroic struggles are basically all dark in tone. The idea of 'villains' implies something bad happening to good people most of the time, and that's dark. Heroes look brighter emerging from dire consequence successfully." Ultimately, I think Waid's the man who speaks for the majority of us in arguing that you can make Superman's world darker, but not the character, who's "a creature of hope." If Warner Bros goes in that direction, I can get behind it. A bright and shining Superman against a depraved and unjust world might be just what the reboot ordered.

I'm not one of those waiting for Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen with a whole lot of anticipation. I feel bad about saying that, but let's face it, Transformers passed me right by as I was playing with Strawberry Shortcake. Many have tried to re-educate me on the awesomeness of Optimus Prime, and failed.

Nevertheless, even I have to admit it's pretty cool when a screenwriter drops in among their fans for a good sequel chat. That's what Robert Orci, one of the scriptwriters for Transformers 1 and 2, has done over at Transformer World 2005. The dedicated can sift through what is currently 82(!) pages of script Q&A, by the time you read this, it will probably be 182. Much of it is hints as to which robots might factor into the sequel -- including a tease that Arcee, the girl Transformer, might appear. On the other hand, he's careful to remind fans that anything you hear about the film is probably careful disinformation, but well meant. "It is fun to 'play' with fandom, not to toy with fandom -- I do not hand out disinformation."

But there's a few reliable sounding bits in here. According to Orci, the sequel will be more "global" in scale, and that there won't a lot of re-introductions. "The first movie is all about the mystery and reveal of the Transformers as a concept and a species, which means we had to hide them a lot in the first hour. In the second movie, now that everyone believes in the universe, we can jump right into the world of the Transformers." The movie will be firmly rooted in Transformers mythology, but will also maintain the "liberties" taken with it in the first film.

He insists they're listening to fan input, so anything you want to see, now's the time to demand it. I'm going to go ahead and demand Arcee, if only to ponder how Transformers can have gender, and whether she will be pink.

While my mother swears that Friday the 13th was responsible for many a nightmare in my six-year-old mind (thanks to sneak viewings at a friend's house), Children of the Corn has always been the flick to make my skin crawl. I don't know why. My memories of the film have faded, but the creepy feeling has never completely gone away. And now the kids are coming back to freak me out some more.

It's not like there haven't been rumors of a Children of the Corn remake for a while now. In 2007, Darren Lynn Bousman was said to be looking into the idea. But now rumors are intermingled with casting choices. According to Beyond Hollywood, It seems that instead of a big-screen version, the Sci-Fi Channel wants to whip up an original movie tapping an anti-Heroes player and a chick straight out of Battlestar Galactica. Should this rumor be true, it means that David Anders would take on Peter Horton's role, while Kandyse McClure would take on Linda Hamilton's.

Could Adam and Officer Anastasia pull it off? Does it bum you out that it won't be on the big screen? Sound off below!

Although we're chalking this up to the overeager and rarely reliable British press (England & Scotland, I love you, but your tabloids are crazy), it bears reporting anyway. According to The Telegraph, Cher is said to be in talks with Christopher Nolan to play Catwoman in the third Batman film.

Says some anonymous studio executive: "Cher is Nolan's first choice to play Catwoman. He wants to her to portray her like a vamp in her twilight years. The new Catwoman will be the absolute opposite of Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry's purring creations."

The same article also reports Johnny Depp as having signed to play the Riddler -- and we all know that isn't true. No one knows which villains will appear in the third film. Even Nolan's participation is still up in the air, despite all of this breathless casting speculation, fan art, and fierce "Will they work in Nolan's gritty real-world setting?" debate.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I actually love Cher and I think she could make a pretty cool Catwoman. But if Nolan does do a third film, and if he does include Catwoman, I want an actress that's closer in age to Christian Bale. I'm not trying to be ageist, it's more that I see Catwoman's career as being a parallel to Batman's, much like the Joker. I want that Batman: Year One story. But should they ever make The Dark Knight Returns (and there was much chatter after Comic Con that Frank Miller and Zack Snyder were at some kind of unofficial agreement on making it, so who knows), I nominate Cher to be the retired Selina Kyle. An older Catwoman deserves someone as awesome as Cher to play her -- not the broken down wreck she was in the book. What do you think, readers? Cher for Catwoman and Nolan, or do you prefer the Angelina Jolie fantasy casting?

I suspect that this trailer for Fast and Furious -- that's The Fast and the Furious, Part IV: Articles Result in Wind Resistance, or 2 Fast 2 Furious x 2 -- just made a wide number of gearheads moist over the triumphant return of Vin Diesel and Paul Walker as they drive fast and glare hard in a combined effort to save their careers.

Diesel and Walker find themselves reunited with Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster of the hollow but entertaining original, and the whole photogenic ensemble find themselves directed by Justin Lin, a.k.a. the guy they brought in to direct the hollow but tiresome three-quel that none of these actors were themselves a part of (okay, so Diesel made the briefest cameo, yippee for that). The stunts, though, appear to be more along the practical lines of the first two films, so perhaps a happy medium can be struck between their relative entertainment value and the numbing antics of Tokyo Drift.

Fast and Furious leaves skid marks in theaters next June.

The gang over at Collider got their hands on a new picture from Land of the Lost -- and as I'd like them to keep their scoop (particularly since the trades like ripping them off), you'll have to click on the bug-eyed lizard to see the whole photo. Devin Faraci has confirmed the photo is the real deal, and that it's the first look at Enik. If you adored the show (which I didn't, the Sleestaks scared the crap out of me), you might remember this kind fellow as the guard of a time portal. He's played by John Boylan, who's really quite handsome under that make-up.

Enik represents what the Sleestaks once were -- a proud civilization called the Altrusians, a race that could talk and wear clothes, and who eventually devolved into the mean and naked Sleestaks. (Humanity, take note.) I'm not sure how they managed to make Enik look friendlier and less soul-destroying than the other Sleestaks, but his black eyes don't scare me nearly as much.

Land of the Lost opens July 17th, 2009.

Now here's a fun little scoop from IESB.net: Turns out that not only will Jodi "Ariel" Benson be returning to the Toy Story series to reprise her role as the legendary Barbie (such a doll) , but this time she'll be dragging her boyfriend into the story. And according to IESB, that Ken doll's voice will be provided by none other than Michael Keaton. So that's why you cover the press junkets for video flicks like The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning -- so you can score cool information like this.

Best known as Batman, Beetlejuice, Johnny Dangerously, and Mr. Mom, the always-cool Keaton is no stranger to the voice acting business. He recently did some fine work in Pixar's Cars, and his pipes can also be heard in certain episodes of King of the Hill and The Simpsons. Anime fans will remember that Keaton also provided a voice for the U.S. version of Miyazaki's Crimson Pig (aka Porco Rosso) back in '92.

Mr. Keaton would be joining a very familiar crew: Returning for round three are Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles, Estelle Harris, Wallace Shawn, and (of course) John Ratzenberger. Toy Story 3 -- which apparently centers around our favorite playthings' misadventures at a day-care center -- won't hit theaters until the summer of 2010, but if that's how long it takes to make a worthy follow-up to two of the sweetest animated films ever made ... then 2010 it is. Obviously we'll bring you the latest on TS3 as soon as it pops up.

Dark Castle Entertainment is an odd little beast of a production outfit. Headed by uber-producer Joel Silver (Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, The Matrix), the company originally focused on horror remakes (House on Haunted Hill, House of Wax) and originals (Gothika, The Reaping). More recently they branched out to a wider variety of material (Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla, Dominic Sena's Whiteout). Their next two projects, however, will be solidly horror-based.

ShockTilYouDrop reports that All Cheerleaders Die, a horror-comedy, and "another chapter in the House on Haunted Hill saga," possibly a prequel, are under development. No writers or directors are signed at this point. Evidently the company is also mulling over other sequels to properties they developed at Warner Brothers.

In October 2006, Dark Castle entered into an agreement with finance company CIT whereby CIT would finance 15 feature films over six years with a projected budget of $15-$40 million for each picture. According to the deal, Silver has has sole creative control, and Warner Brothers would distribute. RocknRolla and Whiteout were made under that deal, but Silver has recently been shopping RocknRolla around to other distributors, reportedly because Warner Brothers thought the flick was "very English."

Dark Castle has some turkeys on its resume, but who doesn't? I like their past emphasis on dark, brooding, adult-skewing horror, even if the films didn't always succeed. (And, really, who can deny the genuis of Paris Hilton in House of Wax?) So I'm cautiously optimistic about their upcoming projects. Do you have any feelings, one way or another?

"Rules Remain The Same, Except Some Changes."

I recall first seeing that tagline attached to a billboard touting The Transporter 3 at Cannes last May (whether or not I actually saw the picture at JoBlo.com then, all that matters is they still have it now) and dismissed it as a clumsy phrase with something perhaps lost in the translation from the European investors into big, fat, shiny English.

And yet IGN has the first domestic teaser up for the film, and that tagline appears nearly verbatim. I probably shouldn't care, and you probably don't, but it's just a further indication that even the filmmakers -- well, their marketing team -- have barely half a heart in this puppy.

If it had any other title, Lost Boys 2: The Tribe wouldn't provoke any outrage. But if it had any other title, would anybody give it a second glance? I harbored a ray of hope, but it doesn't take very long to realize that Lost Boys 2: The Tribe was always destined for the direct to video garbage heap.

The 1987 original, photographed by the superbly talented Michael Chapman, was super stylish and jammed with juicy performances, cynical wisecracks, and post-modern tweaks to cinematic vampire legends. The best idea was placing fanged lords of the night in a sun-soaked California coastal town populated by aging hippies and freaks, not to mention a boardwalk, rollercoaster, and great, crashing surf.

As a budget sequel, LB2 has to make do with less attractive, less flattering video imagery and the rockier Canadian coastline standing in for "Santa Carla" * (actually, Santa Cruz, California). The script by Hans Rodionoff makes some half-hearted attempts to tie in the original (antlers and motorcycles, anyone?), but is bereft of any new twists of its own. Director P. J. Pesce makes certain to include the obligatory amount of gore required to justify the so-called "uncut" version, with notable attention to ripped throats and spilled intestines, along with bared body parts displayed by lovelies such as Moneca Delain. LB2 has precisely two good moments -- one in the opening scene, provided by Tom Savini -- stranded within 94 minutes of running time.

One of the few '80s remakes I can get behind is Highlander -- the original is something I always wanted to love, but couldn't. I know! It seems tailor made for me, what with Scotsmen, swords, immortals, and finest power ballads known to humankind. But there are levels of ridiculousness I will accept in film, and somehow Highlander just overruns my tolerance for it when a "Spanish" Sean Connery disdains haggis while speaking in a warm Scottish brogue. A remake has always topped my guilty wish list, and it shocks me that Summit went and green-lit it.

But news has been pretty scarce -- so scarce that the moment I saw this rumor on JoBlo, I took it. It seems one of their faithful readers heard Scottish actor Kevin McKidd on a Dublin radio show, and he mentioned that the producers had approached him about starring in the film.

I would actually love this to happen. McKidd not only has the advantage of actually being Scottish, but he's quite an ass kicker as well. If you have been good readers and rented both seasons of Rome like I've told you, you will have seen this for yourself. He also swung a sword in Kingdom of Heaven, but I'm not sure if you can really make him out in that blurry opening fight where everyone dies. So take my word for it. He's a badass -- and that's not surprising since he does hail from the land that probably invented the word.

If not McKidd, who? The Highlander has to be Scottish this time around. While you might expect me to favor Gerard Butler, I think he's dead tired of bulking up to kill people. So I nominate Dougray Scott, who deserves a nice big role after missing out on Bond and Wolverine, and he has the world-weary look of an immortal. McKidd or Scott, Summit. Listen to me, for I know my Scotsmen.

So much for Warner Bros really taking their time deciding what to do with the Man of Steel! Group President Jeff Robinov confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that they plan on rebooting the franchise, a'la The Incredible Hulk. "Superman [Returns] didn't quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to," says Robinov. "It didn't position the character the way he needed to be positioned. Had Superman worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009. But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all."

The plan is to release four comic book movies in the next three years -- including a third Batman (no word on whether Nolan is returning), a new Superman, and two other unnamed DC characters. Robinov also confirmed that Warner Bros plans to adopt the Marvel route of a single film for each character, and then building on those origin films to create crossover stories, rather than just jumping into the deep end of the Justice League pool. The only worrying part about Warner Bros new plan is that they are still drunk on The Dark Knight, and want their superhero films to follow that mold. Robinov feels that "exploring the evil side to characters" is the way to approach all the DC characters. "We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it." Including Superman.

As most of you noted in the comments, and as anyone distantly familiar with the character knows, a gritty approach is really not the one to take with Superman. He's the good old boy, an American icon, the complete opposite of Batman. He's also, arguably, one of the easiest characters to make into a family friendly comic book film. Superman is ideal for kids because he lacks the moral gray areas Batman revels in -- or should. I'm glad they're rebooting, but I'm wary of the dark direction they plan on taking.

[via SuperheroHype.com and thanks to Eli Gutierrez]

No one seems to know how to feel about Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes -- it has Robert Downey Jr. in the lead, and yet the buzz is curiously off. Of course, it's difficult to get too excited about a movie that dodges its source material in favor of a comic book that has yet to be released. It puts discussion in a bit of a nowhere land.

But, I'm going to try anyway. Ritchie talked a bit about the Victorian reboot to USA Today. "It will be a very big production, visceral and intellectual," Ritchie said. "His brilliance will percolate into the action. His intellect was as much of a curse as it was a blessing. He was a deeply layered character." And he's not particularly concerned about Sasha Baron Cohen's comedic version. "They don't even have a script yet. We are way ahead."

And how did they snag the Iron Man-of-the-Moment? Downey Jr. became involved due to his wife, Susan, who is one of RocknRolla's producers, and an early fan of the film. His English accent, Ritchie insists "is flawless." I hope it's improved since his Restoration days.

While USA Today says there's no word on the casting of the villain, Digital Spy was reporting (via Ritchie at Empire's BFI Movie-Con) that the honor was going to Mark Strong. But there has been no official confirmation of that, and Warner Bros refused to even comment. Casting is expected to be finished in six weeks. But what characters from the Conan Doyle canon will appear is a mystery. Ritchie hasn't confirmed the appearance of Professor Moriarty, but he has said there will be a love interest based on Irene Adler, who appeared in the original Holmes story A Scandal in Bohemia. Holmes' admiration for Adler is legendary -- and it speaks well to Ritchie and Lionel Wigram's take that they are including such well known characters.

Join me in being cautiously optimistic about this project. After all, the film world is always harping on Ritchie to break his gangster mold, so let's support him when he does.