The last time we heard about Luke Cage, back in February, director John Singleton (Boys n the Hood) said the comic adaptation is developing slowly because of the main character's skin color. Sure, such a statement makes little sense after the popularity of the Blade franchise, but then again, for every Blade movie, there's a Spawn or Steel or Meteor Man to make studios wary about black superheroes. Apparently, though, it may be even worse for a black superhero movie that also deals with black issues. Black Panther, which for years was said to be in the works with Wesley Snipes (before he became Blade), is another project that couldn't seem to get the greenlight, possibly because its main character deals with problems in Africa.

The person most rumored to play Luke Cage in Singleton's pic is Tyrese Gibson, and in a new interview to promote Transformers, the actor has confirmed that he's set to fill the character's shoes. He also says the movie is continuing development, with the script (by Ben Ramsey) currently in a rewrite stage. Gibson will be meeting with Singleton and others soon, though, to present the project to Sony and see if they can move forward. Personally I was hoping the project would add Cage's old partner Iron Fist in order to widen the appeal, but otherwise I'm excited about the progress, and I hope Sony is into what they have. Between his Shaft remake and 2 Fast 2 Furious, Singleton is losing a lot of credit as a good filmmaker, but if he can at least make a hit with Luke Cage, if not a great film, then he might be able to save himself from becoming a hero director for hire in the future.

One of the first rules for an aspiring screenwriter is to never write a screenplay about vampires. I'm not sure why it's a rule or where it came from, but it's one I've heard time and time again ... even though Hollywood continues to pump out vampire flick after vampire flick. In an attempt to take hold of what went right with the Blade trilogy, as well as correct what went wrong, Phoenix Pictures and Mike De Luca Prods. have acquired Charlie Huston's novel Already Dead with an eye to adapt it for the big screen. Since it's the first book in a whopping five-book series, we're looking at yet another vampire-related franchise, should the first pic catch on. Huston's second novel in the series, No Dominion, just recently hit bookstores.

According to Variety, story includes all the blood-thirsty ingredients required to tell an entertaining vampire tale. Our main character is a vampire/private detective who's hired by a socialite to find her missing daughter. However, along the way he must battle a vicious virus that's transforming the city's vampires into man-eating zombies. Vampires, zombies and the perfect role for Clive Owen -- does it get any better than that? How about I tell you the guy who penned Kangaroo Jack is writing the script? Now, doesn't that have you all giddy with anticipation? To be fair, Scott Rosenberg did a wonderful job adapting High Fidelity for the big screen, but he's also responsible for such gems as Con Air and Gone in Sixty Seconds. Hmm, Nicolas Cage as a vampire private detective with an odd twitching problem? I can see it. Can you?

A few years back I wanted to do some coverage of the L.A. Screamfest, but was unable to fly out west to attend the outpouring of genre goodness ... so one of the (very cool) festival reps sent me a handful of screener discs! It worked out great: the festival got a little extra coverage, and I got to see some pretty cool horror-type flicks. The best of the batch was easily Den Osynlige (aka The Invisible), a Swedish thriller about a young man who gets killed, but comes back as a ghost (the very next morning) and tries to determine who murdered him.

As with many fine genre films from around the world, Den Osynlige was quickly commissioned for an American remake. David S. Goyer (Blade: Trinity) is the man behind the camera this time out. The new version was written by Christine Roum and Mick Davis, the guy who wrote the original flick. (And to be fair, both movies are actually based on a novel by Mats Wahl, so I'll let you argue as to what a "remake" truly is.)

The new Invisible comes baring a lot of newcomer-type faces, although I did notice a few names like Marcia Gay Harden, Callum Keith Rennie and Chris Marquette in the cast list. Disney's Touchstone is planning to unveil The Invisible on January 26th. Oh, and here's that trailer I promised you.

Odds and ends for today:

• According to a Marvel panelist at last weekend's Comic-Con, the studio hasn't ruled out a fourth Blade movie (Wesley Snipes is supposedly already signed for the project). As a shameless fan of even the horrible Blade: Trinity, I'm fully in favor of another installment. That said, however, since reports indicate Trinity actually lost money, one wonders how Marvel expects to profit from another try.

• According to an anonymous tipster to an Arnold Schwarzenegger fansite, the president of Warner Brothers is fervently hoping that The Governator is not reelected this fall. It's not, however, because he's embarrassed to have an action star for a governor - instead, he supposedly is desperate for Schwarzenegger to reprise his role as Conan the Barbarian in the character's return to the big screen. In the event of a Schwarzenegger loss, the film could conceivably be ready for release in December 2007. Can you handle the tension?

• Stacey Snider, the Universal chairman we told you last week was being courted by Paramount to run their newly-acquired DreamWorks division, has officially made the jump. According to the AP, Snider will share the "chairman and CEO" title with DreamWorks founder David Geffen.
  

Doug Herzog is rolling the dice early in his term as President of Spike TV. In an effort gain a larger audience, Doug has contracted the screenwriter David Goyer's Blade story. The two hour Blade-for-TV movie (I apologize for that terrible pun, but sometimes you just can't avoid them) was requested as a possible pilot for a full TV series. Some thought that the existence of the series would depend on the success of the movie, but the movie won't hit the small screen until June, and confirmation on the series became official as of today. Kirk "Sticky Fingaz" Jones will star as the title character in another 11 hours of Blade TV programming, in a sequence of one hour episodes. The network hopes to turn the series into a premiere drama title.

David Goyer will continue on as the show's executive producer, along with a handful of others, including Marvel's Avi Arad, who seems to be everywhere these days. It is presumed that the director and co-starring actors for the pilot movie will also remain in place.

Spike TV has finally gotten around to confirming what has been unofficially known for quite some time now: they are in the process of creating a two hour made-for-TV movie of Marvel's Blade character, and have strong hopes of turning it into a regular series. They also (finally) confirm that actor Kirk "Sticky" Jones will be playing the title character. Apparently, this will be Spike TV's first official attempt at creating scripted content television. David S. Goyer, who wrote the screenplays for the Blade trilogy, as well as Batman Begins, will be the executive producer and well as co-writer for the script (with popular comic-book author Geoff Johns). Peter O'Fallon is being tapped to direct.

Anyone out there have thoughts on this one? I enjoyed the Blade flicks – while they may not be the height of cinema, they were certainly fun and action filled. Which is really what Spike TV's male dominated audience is going to be looking for, right?

Here's the lastest from around the pages of comic book moviedom, distilled into happy little bullet points for your reading pleasure.

• A new picture of Kirk Jones in all his Blade glory has been unearthed by the good folks over at Comics Continuum. Spike TV hopes to turn the made for TV movie into a pilot for a new series about the Marvel character.
• Also in the world of images, a new shot of Kirsten Dunst gearing up for her next performance as MJ from People magazine.
• In other Web-news, actress Natalie McNeil's website currently indicates that Natalie has bagged a "co-star role" in Spidey 3.
• Comic Continuum brings you notes on voice actor Marc Worden, who will be voicing Iron Man in both upcoming Ultimate Avenger's films, as well as the upcoming Iron Man film (all three animated). You can also read the thoughts of Marvel staff on Worden and the part he'll be playing.
• Finally, you can scope this PDF to learn that a Candian company named PQ Systems is working on technical aspects of Ratner's X-Men 3.