Its been a little while since I've done a movie news round-up so I thought I'd scrape together some of the hottest movie news and gossip currently breaking the internet in half. Let's get to it!

MARVELOUSLY MERRY MOVIE NEWS

Mike Judge, best known for Office Space and creating Beavis & Butthead and King of the Hill has announced his next project, Extract, starring Jason Bateman (Arrested Development, Dodgeball, Hancock). Bateman is hot property at the moment, so I can't wait to see what the teaming of these two comedic forces can create. According to Variety, the film will "explore what it's like to be the boss when everything seems to be shifting around you."

Another week, another Judd Apatow-related item: Superbad's Jonah Hill and Forgetting Sarah Marshall' Russell Brand are teaming up for Get Him To The Greek, which they describe as "a dirty Almost Famous". Jonah will play a fresh out-of-uni insurance adjuster hired to get an insane British rockstar (Brand) from London to an LA gig. Fogetting Sarah Marshall's director Nick Stoller will step behind the lens.

Sticking with Jonah Hill, he has reportedly also been cast in Transformers 2 as Sam's (Shia Lebeoufs) uni room mate, though there hasn't been confirmation yet. However, Aussie Teresa Palmer's (December Boys) addition to the cast is official!

Fan of Jason Statham's Crank? Some details have emerged regarding the sequel, Crank: High Voltage. The first film saw Statham's Chev Chelios constantly requiring adrenaline to save his poisoned heart; the ending of the film certainly suggested the possibility of Chev surviving. Apparently, an artificial heart may come into play... meaning this time round, Chev would be chasing electricity! Oh, the possibilities... Also, Corey Haim is in the film. LOL.

No news on this, but worth saying - a big screen edition of McGyver may be in the works. Richard Dean Anderson fans say yeah! Whether he'll be the man with the plan, no one knows...

Check out this hot, hot photo from the set of Wil Ferrell's remake of Land of the Lost - yes, true nerds and nostalgia fans, those are Sleestaks in all their glory! You can't beat lizard-men-in-rubber-suits. You can try, but you can't.

News on Terminator 4 has been erratic, but two pieces came to light this week, one good, one bad. The good? Rapper Common (Wanted, Smokin' Aces) has been added to the cast as John Connor's confidant. The bad? The film is aiming to be PG. Like, wha'?! You can't have a PG Terminator movie man, c'mon!

Mel Gibson is set to return to the big screen for the first time in six years in Edge of Darkness, an adaptation of a '90s BBC miniseries of the same name. Casino Royale director Martin Campell will helm the film while The Departed's scribe William Monahan will pen the screenplay. That, my friends, is some serious talent; I'll be following this one closely.

Thought I'd post this here for you all to have a gander at, the first poster for The Mummy 3 or, as I like to call it, Big Mummy In Little China. The Mummy films have always been a fantastic romp so I'll be catching this for sure.

Russian director Timur Bekmambetov continues to go from strength to strength, having already lined up his next feature before Wanted has even hit screens! The Nightwatch director will next turn his hand to The Knights Templar, where the titular knights must defend the empire from - wait for it - vampires. Oh, that's not what you learned in history class? Well, apparently mirrors aren't the only things vampires don't capture.

And finally, the news I've been waiting for all my life...

Iron Man is a huge success; there's no doubt about it. As the first release from Marvel Studios, the comic book giant's film department couldn't have led with a better foot forward. Currently, The Incredible Hulk is their only set release, though Ant-Man continues to move forward with Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) directing. Fortuitous timing meant that Marvel announced it's earnings for the year on Monday... as well as their plans for the next three! Anyone who has seen Iron Man knows that the sequel is inevitable, but no one could've seen this coming:

• Iron Man 2 - April 30, 2010
• Thor - June 4, 2010
• The First Avenger: Captain America (working title)- May 6, 2011
• The Avengers - July, 2011

Ok, I'll back up and fill you in. Up until Iron Man, all Marvel films were released by different companies, meaning the characters could never exist in the same universe. Iron Man changed all that, as the intention is to have as much cross-over between the films as possible.

Like what, I hear you ask? How about the unheard-of move of introducing the character of Thor in Iron Man 2? Rumours are flying that Robert Downey Jr will be in July's The Incredible Hulk, but that is very different from launching a character in one film, then having that character film a mere two months later!

But the part that has this nerd worked up into a lather is The Avengers' pincer-attack on winter '11. By introducing Captain America as the first Avenger, they can not only take care of his origin story within but also that of The Avengers themselves. For those not in the comic-book-know, The Avengers is Marvel's premier superhero team with an ever-changing roster; the original line-up consisted of Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Wasp and Ant-Man, with Captain America joining four issues in. Notice those heroes? I don't think it was just a flippant idea that all Marvel actors signed for multi-pictured deals!

Can you imagine a superhero team movie starring Robert Downey Jr, Ed Norton, Simon Pegg (rumoured for Ant-Man), Matthew McConaughey (rumoured for Captain America), plus whatever gigantic beast of a man to play the Norse God and more? Excuse me, I think I may have shattered my jaw on the floor.

SUPER SHORT SUCCINCT REVIEW

My review of Iron Man requires only two words: SEE IT. Actually, scratch that, three: SEE IT NOW!

If you've ever enjoyed a superhero film, you will love this movie. Robert Downey Jr IS Tony Stark/Iron Man; in the same way that Captain Jack Sparrow made Johnny Depp a super-dooper star, look for this film to do the same for Downey Jr. He handles Tony Stark's realization that he needs to change his life, and world, for the better so pitch-perfectly that I couldn't find a single fault.

Gwyneth Paltrow does a brilliant job as Pepper Potts, Tony's assistant, and miraculously avoids what I call The Pit of Useless Movie Girlfriends by going toe to toe with Downey Jr in the charm stakes. Terrance Howard knocks it out of the park as best mate Jim 'Rhodey' Rhodes, who holds great significance to Iron Man's later mythology. And Jeff Bridges, oh man... The Dude rules the screen everytime he's up there.

Major credit has to go to director Jon Favreau, who has used every trick he's ever learned to pull off the, for my money, best adult-aimed superhero film yet. The Iron Man suits, Mks I-III, are truly incredible and the scene of Stark suiting up in the Mk III shows Transformers how they should be building robots. Favreau's greatest achievement though is the way he found the perfect people for the job and then stepped back, letting them be the experts. Apart from the top notch cast, the physical effects were done by Stan Winston Studios (Star Wars, Jurassic Park) while the digital effects were handled by ILM (Star Wars). This incredible team-up of super-talents means that you'll have one tough time picking whether the suit is real or not in each and every shot.

The US summer season could't have kicked off with a better popcorn flick; if this is an indication of the high quality of blockbusters we'll enjoy this year, I might as well set up camp at my local cinemas!

Take off that vest, you look like Aladdin.

~T