Top Cow is on a roll! I never actually thought a week would come in which I would have two stories about that publishing company -- but here it is. Who thought sexy, weapon wielding chicks were such a draw for the movie business? Not I! (Yes, that's sarcasm.)

The latest book to be optioned is Magdalena. It's rather similar to Witchblade except with a much more distinguished lineage. The Magdalena is descended from Sarah, the daughter of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. She's the supernatural defender of the Catholic Church, and can look into the human heart to show people the error of their ways. And because no heroine is complete without a weapon, she wields the Spear of Destiny (the spear which pierced the side of Jesus at the Crucifixion) against the forces of evil. Luckily, nothing in the Magdalena's Catholic contract stipulates that she dress conservatively, so she's allowed to wear the crop tops of a Top Cow heroine.

And according to The Hollywood Reporter, it's already further along in production than Witchblade. No director has been set, but the leads have been cast. Jenna Dewan is currently in talks to play Patience, the spear-wielding holy heroine. (There's been a few, it looks like they're going with the most recent incarnation.) Luke Goss is set to play Kristof, an agent sent by the secret organization that protects the lineage. In the comic, these are cardinals, but somehow I bet Kristof won't be one because that would require way too much chastity -- and the stars are way too hot. Both actors are going to be at Top Cow's panel at ComicCon this weekend. If you're going, you can ask them all sorts of pressing Magdalena movie questions.

I stumbled out of Hellboy II: The Golden Army feeling as if my imagination had eaten too much. In terms of sheer spectacle and visual invention, Hellboy II is an absolute knockout, frames stuffed with bizarre creatures and mystic runes and arcane weaponry and wondrous design. And yet, Hellboy II has more than a little heart to it; it's scrappy and self-aware, and never out of touch with what it is. Adapting Mike Mignola's post-superhero retro-styled comic series Hellboy for the second time, writer-director Guillermo del Toro corrects some of the mistakes of the first Hellboy, makes a few mistakes of its own, picks itself up, keeps going. And, on the way, knocks the back of your eyeballs for a loop. As our British friends say, Hellboy II: The Golden Army does what it says on the tin: It is a sequel about a character named Hellboy (Ron Perlman), and yes, an army of golden warrior-robots is involved, the mystical weapon of mass destruction that the elf-prince Nuada (Luke Goss) hopes to seize control of so as to wage war against humanity ... I know I'm getting ahead of myself. Then again, so does Hellboy II, right from the jump, and it doesn't slow down.

A whole crop of new Hellboy II: The Golden Army photos have popped up over at Yahoo Movies. Like, a lot of them. There's also the promise of a new trailer premiering tomorrow, so make sure you head back there for that. Hellboy II: The Golden Army, of course, is the sequel to Hellboy -- and it's directed by the always-nutty Guillermo del Toro. Starring Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones and Luke Goss, Hellboy II once again follows the planet's toughest, roughest superhero as he goes to battle against a merciless dictator and an unstoppable army of creatures. This just has awesome written all over it. You can check out another image below, then click on either to check out Yahoo's gigantic gallery.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army hits theaters on July 11.

The big-screen version of Namco's best-selling game Tekken has been kicked around Hollywood since 1992. At one point Jet Li was even involved. But, after numerous false starts it looks like we are finally going to get an honest-to-goodness movie. Hellboy II villain, Luke Goss, just announced on his MySpace page that he had signed to star as Steve Fox. The character's first appearance was in Tekken 4; Fox was a British boxer who was robbed of his memory and was on a search for answers about his past.

For a lot of fans of Tekken, the sum total of the storyline consisted of listening for "Fight"! and then mashing buttons frenetically for the next 90 seconds. The official story was about a group of fighters in a global competition to the death sponsored by some shadowy corporation. Michael Colleary's script takes a bit of a detour with the story and makes it a shade more sci-fi. This time they are rebels who are out out to overthrow the evil Tekken Corp.

Back in December, Monika gave us a few more details about the film, mainly that it looked like the story was going to be a one man show and focus on only one main character. I'm not sure if Fox will be that guy or if he's just part of a larger cast. Production is set to begin this month in Louisiana, so no matter what you think about video game flicks, I guess it's just about time we all just resign ourselves to the fact that until they run out of titles, just about everyone of them will be headed to a theater near you. Tekken is set for release in 2009.

If you stretch your memory back, you might remember that Cinematical mentioned an indie snow flick last year, which was going to star Michael Madsen. Yes, ear-chopper extraordinaire. The Mikey Hilb film, called Deep Winter, is a buddy sports film about a skier and snowboarder who want to ski a dangerous peak in Alaska, and Madsen plays a bad-ass helicopter guide. I always thought that people who ski those ultra-dangerous slopes were crazy, so I'm not too shocked that they have added a little Madsen madness to the list.

Now the film has been shot and has a nifty trailer which you can check out. It seems to have all the bits that make a classic winter sports film -- the naysayers, life-long dedication, snow, avalanches, the pushing coach, gorgeous mountain shots and a little sexy lip action to boot. Personally, I'm digging it for the darkness to the non-snow scenes. The indie feel to those shots really seems to strengthen the tone -- instead of a bunch of snow bunnies, bright colors and typical mainstream hi-jinx. The cast is also pretty solid, beyond the creepy Mr. Madsen. There's Kellan Lutz, who is starring in the upcoming Prom Night remake, and Eric Lively, who played the creepy voyeuristic perv Mark on The L Word. Topping that off, there's also Luke Goss and Robert Carradine. I wonder if we'll get some screen time with Madsen and Carradine together -- a Sin City meets Lizzie McGuire faceoff!

We're just a hop and skip away from the start of filming for Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, so naturally, curiosity is rising. Before heading off to Budapest for production, villain Luke Goss recently spoke to Shock Till You Drop about his bad-guy role. While he warns that he has "got so many restrictions from Universal [that] it's ridiculous," the actor has slipped a few details about Guillermo Del Toro's sequel. It's not much, but it's a start. To recap, Universal will only say that Goss is "A ruthless leader who treads the world above and the one below defies his bloodline and awakens an unstoppable army of creatures." His name is, simply "The Prince."

Now, according to the actor: "The great thing about him is he's not trying to take over the world, he's a rounded character that's not just driven by greed, and I think people are going to enjoy the depth Guillermo brings to him." What depth? Goss describes: "From Guillermo's script, without giving it away, let's just say I'm a big fan of internal pain and anguish. All of these things elicit a truthful direction rather than just greed or ego." But then he even goes a step farther: "This character, the Prince, his father's the King so... It's just a bloody great role." Just what was Goss going to say about the Prince and his King father? Will this tie into the Bible? Perhaps that's too obvious, but it certainly fits with the "Hell"ish theme. Ooo! Will Alanis play God again?! We're bound to get more tidbits as the actors try to talk around Universal's secrecy guidelines.

Of course, Ron Perlman is a no-brainer choice to play Hellboy, but would you ever think that the red tough guy would be pitted against half of a 1980's boy band? According to IESB, Luke Goss has been signed as the main villain in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Does the name not ring a bell? Lately, he's been in a number of movies, the most recent being One Night with the King, but twenty years ago, he and his twin brother Matt were the British boy band, Bros. If you missed them in the 80's like I did, you can check out a fan website called "Bros are the Boogie." Oh, if only I was kidding ...

Now that I've given a little bit into Goss' past, let's deal with the present. As Matt Bradshaw shared last month, Hellboy is up against: "A ruthless leader who treads the world above and the one below defies his bloodline and awakens an unstoppable army of creatures." This will be Goss. Rumors are running around that Spectral Motion is making a complete body scan/cast of the actor in preparation, which will probably mean that he'll get extensive prosthetics as well, to unfortunately mar that cute head of his. This also isn't the first time that the actor has worked with Guillermo del Toro -- he played Nomak, the original Reaper virus carrier in Blade II. So, now we have the hero, the returning cast and a British, hellish bad guy. We're sure to have more bits of news as the feature gears up for it's production start date of June 11th. Are you happy with the casting decision?