Overshadowed by last year's biggest movie, The Dark Knight, Marvel's Iron Man was also a huge box-office smash - which is why plans for a sequel are already in the works. Villains are now being lined up to star opposite Robert Downey Jr, who will reprise his role as Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. The two names that have been attached to the project by Empire magazine are Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell.
Currently winning applause for his lead role in The Wrestler, speculation is rife that Rourke will play Crimson Dynamo, an armoured Soviet agent from the comic-book series. Rockwell (Frost/Nixon) is expected to portray Stark's multibillionaire rival, Justin Hammer, an arms manufacturer who funds supervillains.The movie is slated to be released in spring next year.
A trailer for the upcoming remake of the classic horror film The Last House on the Left has arrived on the internet, and the footage has thus far elicited a positive reaction from fans. The horror guru Wes Craven, who wrote and directed the 1972 original, has returned to produce the remake, in which the parents of a murdered teenager take bloody revenge on her killers. Despite a large helping of violence in the trailer, the movie is expected to be less shocking than the original, which was banned in several countries. Watch the clip at @email:www.apple.com/trailers/universal/thelasthouseon theleft.
Walt Disney Pictures has announced plans for a live-action remake of the nautical tale 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and signed the director McG to helm the production. Best known for directing 2000's Charlie's Angles, McG, who participated in Abu Dhabi's Circle film conference in October, has recently completed work on Terminator: Salvation, which is due to hit cinemas this spring. The upcoming Captain Nemo story will be based on the 1870 Jules Verne novel about a European-educated 19th-century Hindu prince who fights oceanic menaces in his submarine. The novel has been filmed several times, most notably in 1954 with Kirk Douglas and James Mason.
Fans of the British director Shane Meadows, the man behind This Is England and Dead Man's Shoes, will be glad to hear that he is readying his next project.
Titled King of the Gypsies, it will feature Paddy Considine (The Bourne Ultimatum) piling on the muscle to portray the bare-knuckle champ Bartley Gorman. Between the years of 1972 and 1992, Gorman, an Irish Traveller, held the title of Bareknuckle Champion of Great Britain and Ireland, and was often called the King of the Gypsies. Despite legal problems surrounding the script, Meadows said a chance to make the movie would fulfil a long-held dream.
News that the cult 1980s bonanza Tron will be making a big-screen return has been circling for some time, but now the production has a leading man.
Best known for playing Brad Pitt's doomed cousin, Patroclus, in Troy, Garrett Hedlund has signed to play the lead role in the Joseph Kosinski-directed sequel.
Hedlund will star alongside Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski) and Bruce Boxleitner (Babylon 5), who will both reprise their roles from the 1982 original.
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