USAToday had the first trailer for Rise of the Planet of the Apes coming to theaters in the United States on August 5th, 2011. James Franco, John Lithgow, Andy Serkis will be among the cast with Serkis voicing Caesar as well providing motion capture for the character.

Marvel.com had news that Rhys Ifans will be joining the cast of the forthcoming Spider-man film from Sony. He will be playing the part of the villain, but it is not clear just who that is currently. You may remember Rhys as the kicker from the Replacements among many other films.

From the article:

The filmmakers prefer to not reveal which character Ifans will be playing in the forthcoming film.

Webb added, “What sets the Spider-Man villains apart is the complexity of their relationships with Peter Parker. Rhys’ incredible ability to embody both warmth and rage makes him the ideal choice for this character.”

Based on this clue, I’m taking a wild stab in the dark and calling that the villain is going to be one Dr. Curt Connors. Have a guess of your own? Leave it in the comments below!

Here’s the current line-up for who’s on board with this film so far:
Spider-Man/Peter Parker: Andrew Garfield
Gwen Stacy: Emma Stone
Villain: Rhys Ifans
Screenplay: James Vanderbilt
Director: Marc Webb (punny Webb of Spider-man jokes go here)
Producers: Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin

The film is expected to start production in December and release to audiences on July 3rd, 2012.

In this week’s PowetCast, we referred to a news article on i09 suggesting that Emma Stone was likely to play Mary Jane Watson in the rebooted Spider-man film. The more I thought about this casting, the more perfect I thought it was, especially after the poor casting of Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane in the former Spider-man films. In a complete reversal of this news, though, Marvel.com has announced that Emma Stone will, in fact, be playing GWEN STACY, and not Mary Jane Watson. Emma will be playing opposite Andrew Garfield, who will be portraying Peter Parker/Spider-man. You may be familiar with Emma Stone from Easy A, currently in theaters, and the fantastic Zombieland.

It seems that they are doing things right by getting Gwen Stacy in the story first, but I’m disappointed Emma Stone won’t be playing Mary Jane. I think the part fits her quite well. Also, my mind keeps asking the question why they casted a blonde for redhead Mary Jane in the previous films, while casting a redhead for blonde Gwen Stacy? Kind of a moot point, but I needed to type that out loud, or whatever I just did there.

Let us know what you think in the comments!