Random News of the Week (March 16, 2009 - March 22, 2009)

Jon Favreau let it slip this week that he is interested in directing THE AVENGERS movie. This is probably why he agreed to do the collapsed timeline for IRON MAN 2 so he could finish it in time to do the AVENGERS. Also, that makes sense with the scheduled release date changes we saw last week in regards to AVENGERS.

The bad news is that Forest Whitaker had to drop out of the cast of Stallone’s THE EXPENDABLES because of scheduling conflicts. I’m not sure if this is good news but 50 Cent has now replaced him. Stallone claims that a “player is only as good as his coach.” And I have faith in Stallone after the most recent RAMBO.

Linda Hamilton has already recorded her voice-overs for TERMINATOR SALVATION. This is a pretty quick turn-around from not 2 weeks ago when she said she had not even seen the material yet. Supposedly, her voice work will set the stage in the introduction of the film.

Tom Cruise has started work on a 4th MISSION IMPOSSIBLE film. He is currently working on the story.

A DTV sequel to the absolutely terrible LOST BOYS 2 is on the way. Corey Feldman will be back as one of the frog brothers. This will also be DTV.

Out of nowhere, Renny Harlin is now talking about trying to get a sequel to THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT off the ground. Harlin claims “I do have a story line for it, that I worked out and I know exactly what would happen and I think it would be fantastic and I can reveal as much as saying it would be Sam Jackson to his misfortune crossing paths with Geena Davis's daughter from the first movie who in the first movie was about six years old and who would now be about 19 or 20."

Sam Raimi gave some more information on the upcoming SPIDER-MAN 4 (please stop it Sam…). “The writers, producers and I are working out what the story will be, but we haven’t been talking in terms of Part 4 and 5. I’ve read that [about 'Spider-Man 5’] also, but right now we’re just working on the story for ‘Spider-Man 4,’ just that one film."

Warner Bros. may be looking to the new Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) to also play the Green Lantern in their next super hero film. No deal has been signed yet.