The versatile actor Andy Serkis is a busy. busy man these days. Fresh from his appearances in The Prestige, Stormbreaker and the upcoming Longford for director Tom Hooper, Serkis has now booked yet another new role -- the villain Capricorn in director Iain Softley's upcoming family fantasy pic for New Line Inkheart. The film is based on the first novel from fantasy author Cornelia Funke and tells the story of a father who, in order to entertain his daughter, brings characters from books to life. Writer David Lindsy-Abaire, who also scripted the recent Robots, is handling the adaptation duties.

Serkis is not the only one jumping aboard Inkheart though. Also joining him will be Helen Mirren, of John Boorman's Excalibur and the recent The Queen, Rafi Gavron of Anthony Minghella's upcoming Breaking and Entering and the lovely Sienna Guillory, fresh from her role as Arya in the fantasy pic Eragon -- for director (and ILM alum) Stefan Fangmeir.

These new actors make fine additions to Inkheart's growing cast which already includes star Brendan Fraser, Paul Bettany and the terrific Jim Broadbent. With the addition of Serkis, Guillroy and an acting heavyweight like Helen Mirren to an already impressive roster of talent in front of and behind the camera who have experience with this kind of material, Inkheart may just find itself on my list of fantasy films to watch when it hits theaters. And who knows, if Inkheart turns out to actually be any good, maybe we can finally let Ian Softley off the hook for making us sit through Hackers.

Production on Inkheart is expected to begin next month in Italy. No word yet on a release date.

Those gore-lovin' knuckleheads over at Bloody-Disgusting.com spent a few days on the set of Resident Evil: Extinction (surrounded by women like Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory and Ali Larter, those lucky bastards) and while they haven't come back with their full set report (which, frankly, doesn't even interest me all that much), they've gleaned a few choice nuggets from the cast and crew members.

Oded Fehr will be returning for RE3, and he dropped a vague little tidbit regarding a certain looming sequel: "From what I know ... they're writing one that's totally different, in a different time. Brendan (Fraser) and Rachel (Weisz) are in it." Hmph. The Mummy Returns Again? We'll see.

Stopping by to chat with Ms. Larter, the BD.com boys learned that she will not be reprising her role in the upcoming sequel to House on Haunted Hill -- even though she signed on to star in the second sequel to Resident Evil. Oh well, moving on, the gorehounds hit the mother lode when they sat down to chat with producer Jeremy Bolt, a guy who's made a lot of movies with the fanboy-controversial Paul W.S. Anderson. (Anderson directed Mortal Kombat, Event Horizon, Soldier, Resident Evil, and Alien vs. Predator, if you must know.) The partners' next project will be a "less parody, more reality TV" remake of Death Race 2000, an NES-to-celluloid rendition of Castlevania, and a sequel to this movie, which looks so sinfully bad that I can't wait to see it.

BloodyDisgusting dot com is running with some casting rumors for the newest in the Resident Evil movie franchise. They affirm the popular belief that Sienna Guillory and Milla Jovovich will be returning to reprise their roles as Jill and Alice. They also report that Mike Epps is also returning, and that Paul Anderson, writer/director of RE1 and writer for RE2,  will be writing and directing RE3. Perhaps more interesting to fans (presuming there are any) of the movie series is the introduction of Leon Kennedy and Wekser, characters that gamers will remember from the VG franchise. RE:Afterlife is currently targeting for a 2007 release.

I am a sometimes fan of RE as a video game series (particularly the first and most recent titles) and a never fan of the movies. I know they weren't as terrible as they could have been- but they certainly weren't good, either. I'm not looking forward to the cinematic return of the franchise, although I think it's nice that Leon is seeing some screen time. Good for you, Leon.