sony

According to Variety, Sony is looking to outbid Lionsgate on the rights to the Terminator franchise later today. The rights are a steal at their current starting price of $15 million dollars, and there's a big part of me that wishes James Cameron would just come out of left field with a bag full of Avatar coin and buy back the series that he created. I don't think that's going to happen, but there are certainly worse ways the man could spend $15 mill.

Personally, I'd rather see Terminator at Sony than Lionsgate, strictly because Sony has better experience in franchise-handling. Compare James Bond and Spider-Man to Transporter and The Punisher. No contest, really. If either company get their hands on the rights, you can expect another Terminator movie soon, but where could the series possibly go after Terminator Salvation? They seem to have painted themselves into a creative corner. Are there more Terminator stories left to tell?

What would you do with the series if you won the rights to the Terminator? Check out our poll below ...

This one should be taken with a grain of salt folks, especially with Rachel McAdams now denying those previous rumors about her being courted for The Black Cat in Spider-Man 4. But Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily is reporting that Anne Hathaway has been approached to star in the forthcoming Spidey flick.

In the news brief, Finke verifies the following: that Hathaway has been sought for a lead role and that she will not be replacing Kirsten Dunst. Since we already know Bryce Dallas Howard is on board as Gwen Stacy and hence, will also not be replaced, it would seem that all signs point to Black Cat for Hathaway.

Frankly, I think it's perfect casting, if the rumor is indeed true. Finke is usually pretty on the ball with all things industry related, so there's no reason to doubt the credibility of the reporting or Finke's anonymous sources. It's more a matter of "let's not get all excited" in case Hathaway does not pan out. After the blind-siding travesty that was Spider-Man 3, the next installment sort of needs to have everything going for it and Hathaway would certainly be one more count for the win column, but let me re-stress -- Finke says Hathaway has only been approached by Sony, not cast, so treat the news appropriately.

Take THAT Roland Emmerich! The problem with these end-of-the-world movies, like 2012, is that when they come out people sometimes freak because they actually believe the world is coming to an end. The marketing strategy for the upcoming Roland Emmerich film doesn't help either, since it seems the studio wants people to believe the 2012 Mayan prophecy -- so much so that they've gone and created a whole slew of fake websites and Facebook pages tied to the film and tied to the Mayan legend. Of course, this sort of fluff may help the film's box office take when it hits theaters, but it certainly doesn't help the folks at NASA who've been fielding thousands of emails from people who, thanks to the movie and its marketing plan, think the world is ending in 2012.

Says NASA scientist David Morrison, "I don't have anything against the movie. It's the way it's been marketed and the way it exploits people's fears." To dispute some of these claims, Morrison has taken to a new online column where he's been answering questions about 2012 and the mysterious planet Nibiru.

So what does he really think about the Mayan calendar ending on that specific date in 2012? In his column, Morrison says: "Calendars exist for keeping track of the passage of time, not for predicting the future. The Mayan astronomers were clever, and they developed a very complex calendar. Ancient calendars are interesting to historians, but they cannot match the ability we have today to keep track of time, or the precision of the calendars currently in use. The main point, however, is that calendars, whether contemporary or ancient, cannot predict the future of our planet or warn of things to happen on a specific date such as 2012. I note that my desk calendar ends much sooner, on December 31 2009, but I do not interpret this as a prediction of Armageddon. It is just the beginning of a new year."

(Looks like Sony finally found a way to weave that much-discussed two-film arc for Spider-Man, which was a story Cinematical first broke wayyy back in May of 2008. Here's Elisabeth Rappe reporting)

The Spider-Man franchise might just be heading down the road for a divorce from Sam Raimi and all his players, if I'm interpreting Variety and its sources right. Sony has "quietly" hired screenwriter James Vanderbilt to pen the fifth and sixth installments of the web-slinger franchise. Nothing wrong with that at all, of course. Vanderbilt has good work to his name, and a superhero franchise could do a lot worse than hiring the Zodiac screenwriter. However, Raimi didn't care for Vanderbilt's take and replaced him with David Lindsay-Abaire. He's currently having Gary Ross rewrite that script. However, Sony / Columbia and Marvel Studios loved Vanderbilt's ideas, in part because they form a big, interconnected storyline. (I can see Marvel all over that, can't you?) In fact, that was the original plan for Spidey films 4 and 5 which were to be shot back to back, but the idea was scrapped.

But here's where things could get really ugly. Raimi, Tobey Maguire, and Kirsten Dunst are reportedly not signed to installments 5 and 6, and with Raimi boarding World of Warcraft, the studio is even more uncertain that he'll return. So Vanderbilt's scripts are being eyed not as sequels but as a blueprint for a franchise "reboot." Obviously, there's no further details on what that would mean beyond a new cast and crew.

Read the rest at Cinematical

Last night Comic-Con was put on pause while we attended a screening of the Peter Jackson-produced District 9. We were prepared for massive amounts of CGI, but we were definitely not prepared for the huge amounts of awesome that were dumped into our eyes and brains. Honestly, I haven't been this moved by a film or a performance in quite some time. Lead actor (and relative unknown) Sharlto Copley brings such a dynamic human performance to the role while going through an extremely satisfying character arc. And in a sci-fi movie to boot.

This movie has flown under the radar for a lot of people, and Jackson himself said that no one contacted them during filming to try and get interviews and set visits, so they just quietly worked on churning out a movie that you'll definitely want to see when it opens on August 14.

Read on for some impressions, and expect a full review from us closer to the opening date.

This might be one of the strangest videos you'll ever see on Cinematical. Over my several short years of movie coverage, I've witnessed some strange things: I actually saw Crispin Glover's "What in the hell is this" film experience What Is It?, watched Kevin Smith double over in pain from a leg cramp during an interview, and kicked Jim Carrey in the foot.

However, nothing beats Michel Gondry free-form rapping to the sounds of his son Paul beatboxing. Oh, and he's rapping about the Green Hornet's car, Black Beauty, which Sony had just unveiled after Preview Night at Comic-Con. Truly bizarre. Plus he gives us a short preview of the movie's opening scene ... and maybe the theme song?

Head after the jump to watch the video, and you'll probably understand a little bit better why this guy was so qualified to direct Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.