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It's kind of cute to see DC Comics and Warner Bros. getting all excited about making superhero movies again now that The Dark Knight has been established as the greatest, most important film in the history of mankind. This comes after a decade of almost every DC-based movie being a failure while most of what has come from rival camp Marvel Comics has been successful. Now the tables have turned -- or they have for one movie, anyway -- and DC is emboldened. The next step? Find a way to ruin Superman again!

Word came last week that DC and Warners will reboot the Superman franchise, similar to the way Marvel rebooted the Incredible Hulk. (And gee, look how great that turned out! This summer's The Incredible Hulk did just as well at the box office as 2003's supposedly disastrous Hulk did.) Warner honcho Jeff Robinov said they plan to "reintroduce" the character -- but reboot, reintroduce, whatever you call it, are they forgetting that that's what 2006's Superman Returns was? How many times do they think they can redo this character before audiences just give up altogether?

Plenty of questions remain. A reboot probably means an entirely new cast, and possibly a new director. Word on the street before last week's announcement was that Bryan Singer could stay on board if he was willing to go in the new direction, but that's not very helpful right now, since no one knows what the new direction is yet.

I never would have thought I would see the day that moviegoers and critics would praise the heck out of Jean Claude Van Damme -- unless they were all in the midst of a discussion about awesome crappy martial arts movies from the '80s. But the critical praise has finally come with his work in J.C.V.D. which means that the sucker has to hit screens soon so the rest of us can see what the fuss is about. According to AOL Money, Peace Arch Entertainment bought all the North American rights to the film, with plans to release it shortly after it screens at TIFF. Okay, so the exact date is not set, but the wait for Jean Claude's latest could be as short as a month. Stay tuned! (We'll have a review and mayyybe an interview with the man himself later next month.)

Meanwhile, Cabin in the Woods, which started whipping up buzz back in July, is going to make us wait a little longer. Ace Showbiz reports that MGM has scheduled Drew Goddard's film for an October 23, 2009 release. That'll slide it into theaters a week before Saw VI. Now this is assuming that the production goes according to schedule -- it hasn't started yet and there hasn't been any big casting announcements.

"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.

I have a confession to make. I used to be a rabid fangirl of Quentin Tarantino -- so much so that I went all sorts of nuts when introduced to my first college poster sale. My poor roommate ... she had to deal with one half of a room adorned with posters of John Travolta, Tim Roth, Samuel L. Jackson, and more. My guns and bad guys were balanced by her posters of funky black and white photos and art prints.

It wasn't that I was a huge fan of ultra-violent films; I just couldn't get enough of a film laden with insanely catchy conversations and even catchier music. I especially loved Pumpkin, and Honey Bunny. So, in honor of bad girls and guys who love each other while wreaking havoc on the world, I give you two Tarantino flicks from 1994 -- Pulp Fiction and Natural Born Killers. (Well, to be fair -- he disowned the latter, but he's still a part of it.)

This is Tarantino we're talking about, so these clips might not be suitable for wee young things and work environments.

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.

One of the more interesting comic book projects in the pipeline is an adaptation of Mark Millar's Kick-Ass (title likely to be changed?), directed by Matthew Vaughn. We previously covered the action comedy -- about a high school dork who decides to become a superhero despite not possessing any of the gifts normally associated with superherodom -- here and here.

Perhaps hinting at the tone of the eventual film, the first bit of casting was Superbad's Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Though he may seem like the perfect choice to play a dweeb with delusions of grandeur, Mintz-Plasse was cast in a supporting role. A week later, they've cast the lead: it'll be 18 year-old Aaron Johnson, whom you may remember as little Ed Norton in The Illusionist. Joining him will be Nicolas Cage and TV vet Lyndsy Fonseca. Fonseca will play the love interest, while Cage will play the father of Elizabeth Rappe's future daughter, "a vicious, foul-mouthed 11-year-old who chops down criminals with a katana." Apparently he's trained her to do that as part of his quest to take down a druglord.

Mark Millar, by the way, is the dude behind Wanted, a comic that was about 250 times crazier than this summer's movie adaptation. I'd like to see Shoot 'Em Up's Michael Davis get a crack at a Millar project, but I'll settle for the ultra-talented Vaughn, who can do both over-the-top violence (see Layer Cake) and elegant movie versions of difficult source material (see Stardust).

Medical science tells us that there's a portion of the brain called the R-complex that, nestled low and close to the spinal cord, governs simple, automatic brain functions like respiration and reflex and heart rate; other outlying, larger brain structures cover language, culture, memory and art. I mention this because Death Race, writer-director Paul W.S. Anderson's re-visitation of the 1975 trash-classic Death Race 2000, is wholly, entirely and perfectly designed to appeal to the R-complex portion of your brain. Death Race roars, rages and races down the track, all velocity and visceral violence, unencumbered by logic, sense, reason or dignity. My more evolved brain structures kept objecting to Death Race's more ludicrous contortions as it whipped around its curves, but my R-complex didn't want to hear the high-pitched whining voice of logic and reason; it simply grunted, settled into a soft cushion of popcorn topping and said "Shut up, bigger brain; bald man who talk cool killing now."

In what appears to be part of a most thorough campaign to botch Entertainment Weekly's Fall Movie Preview, a recent press release wholly admits that the North American opening of the 22nd James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, back from November 7th to the 14th marks an effort to capitalize on last week's sudden Harry Potter shift.

Although the removal of the 007th from any coming marketing blitz sure is a shame, it does place this film closer to the release of its predecessor, Casino Royale, which opened on November 17, 2006 to the tune of almost $600 million worldwide. Solace will still premiere in the United Kingdom on October 31.

For those keeping track at home, this now leaves Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa and the just now shifted Paul Rudd comedy Role Models on November 7th, and the 14th is now between Bond, Baz Luhrmann's epic drama Australia, and Bernie Mac's final film, Soul Men.

Now, think fast! When does Something of Boris open again?!