I didn't get beyond the fifth Harry Potter novel, so I'm not familiar with what goes on in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I never would have thought, however, that it features an adorable version of Voldemort (which reminded our own Kim Voynar of the young Anakin of The Phantom Menace), nor would I have ever imagined, in my wildest years, that it is anything like Trainspotting. Yet that's what Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe told Empire regarding the upcoming movie adaptation. He specifically likened Half-Blood Prince to the heroin-heavy movie, admitting that it is indeed strange to mention those two films in the same sentence. He also stated that in his movie, "there's a fair amount of sexual energy and drug parallels."

Now, of course, that doesn't mean there's actual sex and drugs featured in the movie. And this wouldn't be the first time the Harry Potter films included suggestive imagery or content. One of the early installments (I think it was the original, Sorcerer's Stone) features a scene in which Harry experiments with his wand under the covers late at night. Like with a similar scene from Spider-Man, in which Peter Parker wakes up in his own sticky web, it's pretty obvious what real-world experience the scene is meant to parallel. So, I'm not surprised that as the Harry Potter movies get darker and the cast grows up that we'll be seeing other kinds of innuendo. And knowing the franchise so far, even if the suggestive imagery or content is easily deciphered, there's sure to be good messages tied in. It's not like Warner Bros. would permit improper subliminal encouragements.

Things are definitely afoot with Peter Parker. First, we brought you the exclusive news that Spider-Man 4 and 5 might shoot at the same time. Now Marvel's Vice President Peter Cuneo has confirmed that Sony has made their payment to Marvel to renew their rights.

According to Cuneo, "As far as Spider-Man 4, it's really up to Sony and it up to them, most likely scenario is 2010 or 2011 but we can't speak for them and I think that we don't know. They have given us their re-up payment for that film so you know they're going to make it within a reasonable timeframe. Sony may be looking at some issues with the cast and so on, I think they have to make some decisions."

IESB.net, who brought us this news (and have a bunch more, including stuff on the Spidey musical), argues that the tone of Cuneo's voice suggests that it all hinges on casting, and there's still no word yet on whether Sam Raimi will return to helm. Disappointment was rampant with Spider-Man 3, but I think it's safe to say most people want the old team. (Well, except Kirsten Dunst -- it seems like everyone wants her recast, and despite her complaints, I bet she would come back.) Certainly, Sony re-staking the property means there won't be any Marvel crossovers with this hero any time soon.

If I asked you to name a half-dozen Marvel characters besides Spider-Man, Wolverine, and The Hulk, you'd probably have no problem. But if I asked you to rattle off six DC Comics superheroes besides Superman and Batman, your response might sound a little like this: "Well, The Flash, of course. And Wonder Woman. Oh, Aquaman! Um ... Green Arrow and Green Lantern, I suppose..." and then I'd rudely interrupt you with mentions of Hawkman and Martian Manhunter before you started shaking your head in either confusion or disbelief in my nerdiness. (I can never tell which is which.)

I know all about the Justice League movie problems and the inability to get Wonder Woman flying, but really: After seeing how well-received Iron Man was -- and after hearing about Marvel's plans regarding The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers -- I'm starting to feel a little bad for DC Comics' movie division. But here's the thing: As a character of popular culture, Iron Man (born 1963) is not exactly a Spider-Man or even close to a Superman -- and still Marvel and Paramount were able to bang a really excellent blockbuster out of the guy. (And let's not forget that a relatively obscure Marvel character called Blade pretty much kick-started this comic-flick renaissance.) Does anyone doubt that a character like The Flash could have similar results? Given the right cast and crew, I'm thinking The Flash could be one hell of a fun flick. So let's get moving already!

Bahahahahahaha. Yesterday was chock full of huge, monumental movie news. A disproportionate amount of it involved the geek realm, with casting and sequel bites galore. For example, we reported that Christian Bale and Brandon Routh were headlining the new Justice League movie as Batman and Superman. JoBlo insisted that all the rumors are true and Jake Gyllenhaal is replacing Tobey Maguire in the role of Spider-Man. (On the other hand, maybe it's Nicholas Brendon, or -- dear god no -- Jason Biggs.) From GFR, we learned that the Cloverfield monster was going to be putting in an appearance in Transformers 2. IGN even created an entire fake trailer for The Legend of Zelda movie! In slightly less shocking news, it turned out that Iron Man might get an April release date after all, depending on where you live.

But my favorite piece of news announced yesterday? Slashfilm's bombshell that Daniel Day-Lewis was headlining a Peter Weir remake of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo -- the one about a man who decides to build an opera house in the Peruvian jungle. This version, however, will be set 50 years in the future and feature a soundtrack by Mick Jagger. Weird, subtle, and just plausible enough (at least until you get to the futuristic setting) to make you frown before remembering what day it is. (After reading the first paragraph, I did more than frown: I rushed to start a Cinematical post!) Well-played, gentlemen.

As Scott pointed out in his review, you need not fear that this week's Superhero Movie is another brainchild of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, whose satanic perversions of the parody genre -- Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans -- have been terrorizing unsuspecting audiences every year since 2006. Superhero Movie was actually directed by Craig Mazin, a protégé of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker dream team responsible for Airplane! and The Naked Gun, and produced by David Zucker himself. But it, too, is plagued -- albeit to a much lesser degree -- by what's turning out to be the problem with the entire modern generation of spoofs going back to Scary Movie: relentless pop culture specificity.

The basest incarnations of this, of course, are the Friedberg-Seltzer monstrosities, which may be worthless as comedies but which could prove valuable to historians because they indicate precisely what dominated the American zeitgeist in the few months before their release. It's too generous to call these films' vulgar spasms "jokes," but to the extent that's what they are, they depend entirely on either audience members' awareness of US Weekly-type factoids such as Britney Spears' shaving her head or their recall of particular scenes and characters in recent box-office hits. That's not to say that these kinds of jokes can't be funny -- the problem with Friedberg and Seltzer, as others have pointed out, is that they think throwing something current on the screen ("Look, Paris Hilton!") constitutes humor. But they do limit comedies' universal appeal and staying power.

I've made it no secret that I'm ridiculously happy that Christian Bale was picked to be the latest incarnation of Batman. Sure, other people might have done a good job, but Bale is flipping perfect. That being said, what would you have thought of, say, Joshua Jackson as the dark hero? And, if you didn't want him as Bruce Wayne, what about Peter Parker?

A few days after hearing that Chris Cooper almost got the role of Lt. Gordon in Batman Begins (I love Cooper, but phew!), MTV has posted a similar discussion with Joshua Jackson. According to the ol' Dawson's Creek actor, he was one of the "last four or five guys" up for the gig -- and it's not the only superhero gig he's been interested in. Jackson said: "You know, honestly, out of the big super heroes, the guy that I would most naturally be a fit to play is Spider-Man, but that one is pretty well locked up. And, frankly, I'm too old to play that character because the parable of Spider-Man is the teenager going through puberty."

Upon hearing that Tobey Maguire hasn't signed on for the future flicks in the works, Jackson continued: "Well then, yeah. That was really subtle of me putting my name in the hat." Of course, it's nothing more than a fleeting interest right now, but you never know what could happen. What would you do if Maguire hands his red tights to Jackson?

When Venom was finally revealed back in 2006, there were some apprehensions, but for the most part, anticipation was huge for the third Spider-Man movie. Then it came out, and even the die-hard fans seemed to be at least somewhat disappointed. What really sucks in these situations is when over-all disappointment tarnishes good bits. I imagine that Marvel is thinking the same thing. According to IESB, Eddie Brock and Venom are going to get their own film.

The site says that since the rights to Venom have reverted back to Marvel (New Line had 'em), they are meeting up with a number of "A-list writers" to work on a spin-off film. (They're not sure on how Sony fits into all of this.) IESB says: "We have to assume that since there is movement, and there has been recent meetings with writers, this property must belong to Marvel since they have made an interim agreement with the WGA."

It's not every day that we get the possibility of an evil spin-off. This could be cool, although a bit tricky with the whole Spider-Man part of it (even without the webbed hero as a star, the symbiote grabbed Parker first). But that's just me... What do you think?

No! It stings! It hurts! I'm melting! Yes, that appears to be Lindsay Lohan standing next to Batman on the set of ... just another weird photo shoot. Fear not, my JLA friends, the girl is not starring in the upcoming Justice League flick. But she is, for some odd reason, posing for a bunch of pics with Marvel and DC characters -- all of whom are dressed up in outfits you'd expect to find in the post-Halloween bargain bin at K-Mart. Dude! How can they disrespect Batman like that? And it's not only Batman -- wait till you see what they've done to Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk. It's beyond awful. The pics come to us via IESB's celeb site, CelebSkin, which, honestly, needs someone else to write for them. I barely made it through several grammatical mistakes before finally landing on these images.* Stick them both together and I'm literally scarred for life (which, to the commenter who took me seriously, is a joke). Nothing against IESB; they just need to proof and edit. Like, a lot.

So what's the deal here? Is Lindsay trying to tell the world that she wants a role in the next big superhero flick? Or did some hot Los Angeles club simply pay her half a million to pose with superhero models to promote their establishment? Don't know, don't wanna know and, honestly, I don't care. See Lindsay with Spider-Man and The Hulk after the jump ...

*The grammatical errors on the site have been fixed, so disregard my previous statement.

A while back, we told you that Zodiac scribe James Vanderbilt has been hired to pen the script for Spidey 4, but as of right now, the leads -- Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and James Franco -- haven't been confirmed yet to star in the film (though something tells me Franco won't be returning for "certain" reasons). That got us thinking ... what if Tobey Maguire decided to move on from playing the Webbed One? Who else could fill that Spidey-suit? Would it be best to go for someone close to Maguire in physical type, or try something completely different? From High School Musical hottie Zac Efron, to boy-wizard-and-more Daniel Radcliffe, from the "superbad" Michael Cera to the multi-talented Elijah Kelley ... who could you see taking on the role of Spider-Man if Maguire decided to retire from the role?

For ages now, Jake Gyllenhaal has been the superhero understudy who never gets called to the stage. Actor, after actor, after actor gets picked for the tights and hero lifestyle while his interest in the theme goes nowhere. From Shazam to Spider-Man, he's always been a possibility, but never a real contender who gets to save the world -- which is funny since he's found so much success in civilian clothes. Now it looks like the closest thing to a superhero we'll get from the actor is his strange, yet undeniably endearing Bubble Boy.

Jake talked with MTV recently about the tights, the capes, and keeping the world safe from villains. He said: "I have definitely wanted to play superheroes in the past. I've definitely been into [playing a comic-book character] but, for one reason or another, it hasn't ever worked out." So far, so good. He's had interest, but it doesn't work out. How does he appease himself? "I think of how a character, in reality, is like a superhero -- rather than actually being a superhero." So now his sights are turned to heroes who don't wear tights, and who don't come from the colorful pages of comic books; he wants something a little more real: "I'd love to play a really cool character like Jason Bourne, not necessarily a superhero, but definitely a cool character that does great, fun [real-world] action."

He still doesn't sound against the idea, but Gyllenhaal has definitely moved on from the dream. Perhaps it's for the best. Superhero flicks can be tricky, and I'm sure the last thing he wants is to get stuck in a stinker. If, through all of this, you're still holding out hope for him to take Spider-Man, he says: "No, it's been well done already." Then again, Spidey was only supposed to hit the screen 3 times, so news can always change. What would you rather see him doing? Action flicks, or superheroes?