Legendary Superman director Richard Donner recently teamed up with Geoff Johns to write a Superman story in Action comics – a story that came is still coming out at a glacial Civil War-like pace. This summer, Donner and Johns are teaming up again, to put out a 5-issue sequel to another nostalgia-ridden film property that Donner directed – The Goonies. The story picks up only a few years later for the characters, with the story centering on Sloth’s disappearance … on the exact same day those evil genius Fratelli brothers escaped from prison. Expect the book to be finished sometime around spring, 2012. (I kid, I kid.)

Wizard has the full story here.

…He’s a demon on wheels. In the upcoming Wachowski film, Speed will be played by Emile Hirsch. You may have recently seen him in “Alpha Dog” or “Lords of Dogtown,” if you happen to watch movies that I don’t. But to me he’ll always be the “Girl Next Door.” Not that I saw that either. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve actually seen him in anything.

Want to know the best response I’ve read to this? “Well, he’s got the eyebrows.“

Shaun Toub has been previously announced as a cast member of the upcoming Iron Man movie, but news sites are now saying that he’s been cast specifically as Mandarin, Iron Man’s enemy in this movie (much like in the recent animated feature). For those of you who don’t know, Mandarin’s super-powers involve being Chinese and wearing rings that shoot crazy beams (ranging from “ice blast” to “matter rearranger” – I’m betting they don’t keep “matter rearranger” one for the movie). Personally, I’m just surprised James Hong wasn’t cast for the role. I thought it was his job to play every Asian character in every American film.

The third (and final?) Hellboy Animated movie hasn’t been officially greenlit yet, but big man Tad Stones (what a manly name! – Er, I mean, the supervising director and co-writer on the previous two movies) decided to start talking about it on the Hellboy Animated blog. The blog post is largely about the process of deciding on and planning the story when it comes to creating these movies. Over the course of the discussion he gives us this delightful quote: “If Sword of Storms was the folklore side of Hellboy, Blood and Iron the vampire/Hammer Films side then The Phantom Claw is the mad scientist/weird technology aspect of Hellboy stories.”

He also shares the name The Phantom Claw, and he discusses Mike Mignola’s suggestion to use Lobster Johnson (see image to the left) in the movie. I’m guessing “The Phantom Claw” refers to him. (Please note: Lobster Johnson is not an actual lobster, nor does he have actual claws.)

EDIT: Its also worth noting that the second Hellboy installment, Blood and Iron, will air on Cartoon Network this Saturday at 7 PM EST.

Everyone should know by now (because we already told you) that Katie Holmes is too busy making babies and bad career moves to reprise her role from Batman Begins in the upcoming sequel, The Dark Knight. Taking up the mantle of Rachel Dawes will be the excellent Maggie Gyllenhaal who, having recently seen her in the glorious Stranger Than Fiction, should do an excellent job in the role.

Today’s the big finish for WonderCon, and the upcoming animated DVDs from DC were the highlight of the day. Read on, OR ELSE…

DC:

• Superman/Doomsday is due to release on September 18th, 2007. Superman will be voiced by Adam Baldwin, Lois Lane gets Anne Heche, and Lex Luthor is James Marsters.
• The next film to be released will be DC: New Frontier.
• The third animated feature they’re working on – Teen Titans: The Judas Contract – is in pre-production, and will have a different animation style from the recent Teen Titans cartoon. They’ll also stick more tightly to the comic, to differentiate themselves from the similar arc on the series.
• Each movie will have its own ‘pocket’ continuity, where they’re not beholden to each other, or to the previous cartoons. Also, the movies will have more freedom in what they can do (read: they’re going to corrupt our youth with violence), as they aren’t made specifically for TV.
• The DVDs should have a decent amount of special features, like behind-the-scenes featurettes and other extras and games.
• After these three, they’re looking to do films for Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Catwoman in the future. (The OTHER Big 3 of DC, right?) Bruce Timm’s wishlist for the future includes: The Question, Jonah Hex, New Gods, Kamandi, and Challengers of the Unknown.

IDW:

• For Transformers books, we have an upcoming Spotlight on Kup and one for Galvatron, a Megatron Origin mini, and two “Best Of” books – one for Don Figueroa and one for Simon Furman.
• There will be a Star Trek: Original Series mini which will have two versions of each issue – one in English, one in Klingon. And I was just wondering what could be nerdier than merely mating Star Trek and comics…

GROO THE WANDERER:

• Like we said yesterday, the prognosis on the Groo/Conan crossover looking good.
• Also, Mark Evanier has completed a script for the “Groo the Wanderer” movie, and Sergio Aragonés has completed some art, but at the moment it’s still tied up in negotiations.

It won’t be out on this side of the ocean until June 22nd 2007 but this movie was released in Australia and many parts of Europe last year. Here’s a look at what we can expect from what will surely be this summer’s greatest blockbuster.

If you really can’t wait to check out this great movie you can go ahead and import the Dead or Alive DVD from Amazon UK. Note that this movie is region 2 and PAL encoded so it won’t work in all DVD players. If importing’s not your thing then you should just get yourself in the mood by buying a Dead or Alive video game from the normal Amazon and help support the site.

Learn about how Hitomi is technically a guy and other trivia about this movie after the jump.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

Because we can never have enough animated series starring Spider-Man, Kids’ WB! has just announced a brand new Spidey cartoon, tentatively named The Amazing Spider-Man, set to debut in early 2008.

So far we have Greg Weisman as supervising producer – whose previous credits include Gargoyles, one episode of Ben 10, one episode of The Batman, one episode of Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, one – you know, you get the idea (don’t forget one episode of Jem!) – and we also have Victor Cook as producer/supervising director – whose recent credits include Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron, W.I.T.C.H., and various episodes of Tarzan, Lilo & Stitch, and Buzz Lightyear. Hurrah for Disney?

The show will feature a 16-year-old Peter Parker, so I imagine this will be a ground-up telling of his story, much like the Ultimate books. In fact, if they’re smart, they’ll make Ultimate Spider-Man the series bible. I hear that book sells pretty well.

We’ll keep you updated with more news as it trickles in!