There's currently a crisis in the theater industry and apparently it's all Steven Spielberg's fault. According to Variety coverage of Sunday's National Association of Broadcasters Show's Digitial Cinema Summit, the filmmaker was named as a constant obstacle in the transition to digital cinema.

Spielberg's insistence against releasing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull digitally was overruled last month when Paramount announced that it would indeed open the summer blockbuster on some digital screens, but the fact that it won't be a full digital release, coupled with the fact that Spielberg still doesn't "get" the fact that digital is superior to film, is a problematic issue for an industry having difficulties installing a necessary amount of digital projectors by 2009.

I rarely participate in roundtables, but I was glad I did the roundtable at AFI Dallas for Battle in Seattle, the fest's Closing Night film, because Michelle Rodriguez, there in town to promote Battle, got in a few words on Avatar while she was there. I don't know about you, but I'm more excited about Avatar than I have been about any sci-fi film since I don't know when.

I attended the roundtable with Mark Bell from Film Threat and Reelzchannel.com's Heather Huntington. Our time was very compressed -- we had about 15 minutes with Rodriguez and director Stuart Townsend, and they'd already given the "last question" call, but the three of us had talked briefly beforehand about what we wanted to ask, and all of us were hoping to hear something about Avatar while we were there.

Huntington managed to sneak the question in (the trick to that is, avoid eye contact with the PR person at all costs, pretend you didn't hear them, and get your question in ... if the talent is into answering the question, they're not going to tell THAT person to stop talking, right?) Rodriguez was enthusiastic and talked quite a bit about the film, and I typed as fast as I could to keep up with her.

Before I even start, I just want to say that at no point am I going to take any cheap shots at Michelle Rodriguez about her driving habits -- and believe me, it isn't easy. Instead, lets just focus on what she does best, playing bad a** chicks. Coming Soon.net reports (via Rodriguez's web site) that she will be returning for the latest installment of The Fast and The Furious franchise.

For those of you out there who don't know your cheesy car flicks, Rodriguez starred in the first film back in 2001as Letty, the girlfriend to street racer Vin Diesel. Like most of the original cast, she was nowhere to be seen in the later sequels. But this time around, it looks like director Justin Lin is going back to the beginning and reuniting Diesel, Paul Walker, and Rodriguez.

The story will focus on Brian (Walker) and Dominic (Diesel) teaming up to stop a drug kingpin known as Braga. So where do the cars come in, you might ask? I mean, this is a Fast and Furious movie after all. Well, our two heroes vie for a spot on the criminal's team, in a snazzy Nissan, with a plan to catch the man red-handed. (Just a couple of weeks ago, we got our first look at Diesel and Walker on set.) Rodriguez is also still doing some post-production work on James Cameron's Avatar, so I would guess that it won't take long to wrap up her part as Letty before she heads back to finish up the sci-fi blockbuster. The Fast and the Furious 4 is scheduled for release summer, 2009.

In a forthcoming interview with Premiere conducted by yours truly, Sigourney Weaver talks at length about all her various franchises, and even has a few words to say about the recently resurrected hoopla over a possible Ghostbusters III. When I pointed out that the film industry's renewed focus on next-gen 3D imagery and CG-rendered worlds means that perhaps a third Ghostbusters adventure is still feasible, Weaver looked at me a bit like I had just given her a toothache. She then took a big breath and said "Well, I just saw Ivan Reitman at this dinner, this lunch for his son, and, ummm, there's no way." Perhaps responding to the look of sadness on my face, she quickly added "You could 3D Ghostbusters. You could pay for that. I think they're fantastic movies for that time, and I think, if anything, Be Kind, Rewind is kind of a Ghostbusters for this time." Since I haven't seen Be Kind, Rewind, I have no clue what that last part is supposed to mean. Does Slimer make an appearance in Be Kind, Rewind or something?

It's not like any of this is a great surprise -- to my knowledge, Weaver has never expressed any enthusiasm for returning to the franchise and rumor has it she declined to participate in the upcoming video game that will feature voices from the main Ghostbusters and will cannibalize Dan Aykroyd's never-in-development Ghostbusters III: Ghostbusters Go to Hell script. Most of the recent GIII talk stems from Ernie Hudson, who was quoted as saying that he hoped the success of that particular game would renew interest in creating a third film, and that Ramis and Aykroyd still wanted a third film, too. That would be fine with me as long as it starts with a fresh concept, as opposed to the whole 'Manhellton' crap. I've heard Aykroyd describe his 'hell' script at length -- to a radio DJ on a country music station, no less -- and, frankly, it's the opposite of impressive. It sounds like a recipe for a studio-killing flop with a $300 million budget. But with Murray and Weaver and (apparently) Ivan Reitman not even down for a third go-round, don't hold your breath. To read the interview, which mostly centers on Avatar, check out Premiere.com on Thursday.

According to the Italian website BadTaste, they have the first official promo artwork for both James Cameron's Avatar and Ice Age 3. They say these are "totally authentic" and "from a 2009 Fox line-up." Both definitely seem in line with what we've already seen (artwork, etc), so I tend to believe these are official, though obviously scanned and not in a great resolution. The Italian text for Avatar says (according to the tipster who sent it to us) that the film is "the story of an injured ex-marine who finds himself involved (against his will) into men colonizing an alien planet. Finally, he chooses to change his battle array, leading the alien race in a battle for life." Though I took nine years of Italian in junior high, high school and college, I'm of no use in this area -- so feel free to translate for us in the comments section below. Both films are due out in 2009.

Yesterday we told you that Ricky Gervais was in talks to reprise his character from the first Night at the Museum for its sequel, now titled Night at the Museum 2: Escape from the Smithsonian, and that whether or not he joined the film depended upon his very busy upcoming schedule. I told him he has to do it (seeing as he was the best part of the first film), and he definitely wants to do it, but we'll see. Now Variety tells us today that Night 2 will take Avatar's release date of May 22, 2009, with the highly-anticipated James Cameron 3D film shifting over to a December 18, 2009 release. This kinda sucks, as I'm sure a lot of you were looking forward to Avatar kicking off the summer of 2009 with a bang. Instead, it will arrive shortly before Santa does. (Am I the only one who would rather the big films come in summer? December is always so ... hectic. Shopping, lists, fat men in suits ... I could go on.) Then again, Avatar will now be released on the same weekend that saw Titanic back in 1997. So perhaps it's a lucky weekend for Cameron.

Now that Night at the Museum 2 is swapping locations, they can also include some more historical figures. Variety tells us that Reese Witherspoon has been approached to play Amelia Earhart. The trade also indicates that other cast members from the first film might return (like Gervais), but we won't hear about those moves for another few weeks. Ben Stiller is already attached to reprise his role from the first film. As a straight-up kids film, I kinda enjoyed the first Night at the Museum. While the plot was cruddy, and the bad guys weren't all that scary, the flick was very alive and entertaining ... for kids. I'm curious to see what they do with the sequel. On another front, Fox also announced that it will release Ice Age 3 in digital 3D on July 1, 2009.