Get ready for more Swedish-made penis enlargers (if that's your bag) to come to a theater near you. Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood reported today that Mike Myers is currently in the middle of writing Austin Powers 4. With The Love Guru having tanked at the box office, Myers looks to be getting back into his most successful franchise, and is teaming up with old collaborator Mike McCullers, who worked with him on Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Powers 3: Goldmember. It's rumored that the film will revolve around Dr. Evil and his son, Seth Green's Scott Evil, in an homage to Myers' own father.

Gag. In the interest of full disclosure before I even get into this story, I will admit to you right off the bat: Howard Stern, with his raunchy humor and more than a little misogynistic style, is not my favorite person. In the same spirit, I must also admit that like many, many other people in the greater Los Angeles area, I am one in a long line of people who has worked for Roger Corman, and being that he's a really nice guy and also gave me my first job out of college, I have a soft spot for the man. So imagine my surprise this morning upon finding out that my two worlds of like and hate have collided: Stern announced this morning that he will be producing a remake of the 1979 Corman classic Rock 'n' Roll High School.

If you're anywhere near a computer, television or another entity drawing breath, you know that movie villains are kind of hot right now. Hoping to cash in on a little of that Batman scratch is Sony, who just pushed into development a project that would bring back Venom, Spidey's gooey black nemesis from Spider-Man 3.

You hear about them all the time -- awesome Hollywood props going for big bucks and then getting locked away somewhere where no one will ever see them again. Isn't it time we took back these historical treasures? And by "take back," I mean shouldn't we buy them ourselves, and lock them away somewhere where only we and a handful of our friends will ever see them again? Well, now's our chance -- online site liveauctioneers.com is hosting a big Hollywood auction, with tons of film-used superhero costumes (Superman, X-Men, Daredevil, Batman, Captain America and both the movie and TV Spider-Men), as well as a ton of items from Terminator, Jurassic Park, Blade Runner, Highlander and Conan, and it ends August 1st, which means we have to move quick.

For those of you that were around in 1973 and old enough to watch a primetime TV movie, let me firstly offer you my congratulations on finding the internet -- good job, you! Secondly, you'll have to tell me about the ABC telefilm Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, which I've learned has since turned into a cult classic. All joking aside (I'm giving myself until I turn 30 to make ageist remarks--eight more months and you old farts won't hear a PEEP out of me), I probably wouldn't know about the program anyway, because I'm a giant scaredy-cat who can't handle creepy movies. One man who can handle the creep, however, is Guillermo del Toro, who has just signed on to produce a remake of the ABC special for a theatrical release for Miramax.

If you didn't already know, I'm sure some of you probably suspected that I am one of a--probably growing--population of people whowould pay 20 bucks at a theater on a Saturday night to watch Johnny Depp, even if it was just film of the man sitting in a chair for 90 minutes and reading from the phone book. He could even read from the lawyer section of the yellow pages and I'd be there happily forking over a Jackson for the pleasure. So, great news for the likes of me: It looks like Depp has signed on to play the Mad Hatter in Timothy Burton's upcoming Alice in Wonderland.

Apparently, I'm crazy. At least, that's what Odie Henderson thinks, since I found the trailer for Zack Snyder's Watchmen movie to be awesome, and Odie thinks it is worthy of a torch enema. I personally think Odie is a little crazy, but I understand why people are protective of the classic graphic novel. Which is why I may have just the thing for Mr. H. and others of his mindset: a Watchmen movie that exactly follows the comic book -- to the word, and to the line.

With news of comedies suffering at the box office, Disney must be sweating over releasing Kevin Costner's Swing Vote on Friday. The film stars Il Costino as a good ol' boy whose single vote will determine the Presidential election. That alone should file this under "Suspension of Disbelief the Size of Jupiter Needed," but when the trailer reveals that Costner has to choose between Dennis Hopper and Kelsey Grammer, we're talking universe-sized pretending here. Whom would you vote for? I can't decide, and the only pull for me to see the film is to discover who actually wins.

A few weeks ago, the TSA confiscated deodorant from my carry-on bag because it was 0.2 ounces over the 3 oz. limit. They didn't want me to underarm the pilot to death, I suppose. Jerry Lewis suffered a similar fate of confiscation. The TSA and the Las Vegas police wanted to disprove that famous Irving Berlinpenned Annie Oakley musical number, "You Can't Get a Man With A Gun." Allegedly, Lewis had one. When his luggage went through that airport scanning contraption, I hope the machine screamed "LAAAAAAAA-DY!!!!!"

Dear God -
Thank you so much. I know you don't go in for the whole magic thing, it being in direct contradiction to your laws and all, but I just want to say how swell it is of you not to smite anybody involved with making the Harry Potter movies. (Well, except Richard Harris, but he had it coming.) Because I just saw the new Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince teaser trailer, and it is the most beautiful thing I have seen in several days -- which reminds me, I never thanked you for The Dark Knight! You rock!

Finally some good news from the set of the latest 007 movie. Alicia Keys and Jack White are set to record the theme song for the 23rd James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the duo will make history by performing the first Bond song duet. It's not as impressive as Sheena Easton's history making appearance in For Your Eyes Only -- she remains the only singer to appear onscreen to serenade Mr. Bond's credits--but it'll have to do. I'll reverse that opinion if Jack White delivers a credible Shirley Bassey imitation. After all, she's the queen of Bond themes.

Martians should be very cross with us Earthlings. First, we send that probe up there to dig holes in their planet in a vain search for signs of intelligent life in the universe. Now Warners has cast Mars' most famous denizen in a film beneath his talents. Marvin the Martian, whose regulator demodulator pistol and other big guns failed to cause an "earth-shattering ka-boom" in several Chuck Jones Looney Tunes, will try his hand at destroying Earth by actually coming here. Variety describes the pitch as "a Christmas story, with Marvin coming to Earth to destroy Christmas but being prevented from doing so when he's trapped in a gift box." Sounds like somebody needs to aim a rip-off demodulator pistol at this plot. Angry green creature wants to stop Christmas from coming? Sounds like that story by Dr. Seuss, the guy who once wrote Warners' WWII-era Private Snafu cartoons.

We all have our pet issues here at Movies Without Pity. Zach likes to talk about comic book movies and his love of that terrible Watchmen trailer, the one that proves that Zack Snyder should get a torch enema from the Columbia Pictures lady. [Odie, I'll chalk that one up to jet lag. - Zach] And I like to bitch and moan about the resurgence of 3-D and how I can no longer perceive it. Well, to acknowledge the 5.4 earthquake that shook the City of Angels yesterday, I'm going to talk about another theater gimmick I'm pissed I can no longer perceive: Sensurround. No, I didn't have a freak butt-numbing accident; I can't perceive Sensurround because it no longer exists. But when it did, it first accompanied a cheesy, Oscar winning Chuck Heston movie called Earthquake.

I have a confession to make: I went into The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (or as we've nicknamed it in the office -- Temple of Doom Rush Album, for obvious reasons) wanting to like it because well, I genuinely feel sorry for it. I like Brendan Fraser and I love to see him in something successful, and I'm actually a fan of the first installment of the franchise for what it is -- a silly romp with good-looking actors and some fun special effects. It's also not the movie's fault that it has a ridiculous title and the unfortunate circumstance of being released after amazing action flicks like Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Wanted and even superior archaeologists-kick-some-ace movie The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. So all that being said, I do have some positive things to say about the movie, but the sad truth is it is as big a disaster as you'd think.

In Ridley Scott's reimagined version of the Robin Hood tale, it's the guy in the green tights who's a bit dodgy. (Perhaps even dodgier than Kevin Costner's accent in Prince of Thieves.) The Sheriff of Nottingham, as played by Russell Crowe, is supposed to be the sympathetic bloke. Even still, the good ol' sheriff didn't have the angels on his side when production on Nottingham was shut down this past weekend. According to The Hollywood Reporter, filming, which was to have begun in mid-August, "has been postponed indefinitely." It's not a tights famine or a dearth of merry men that's holding up things, but the triple threat of a possible SAG strike, lack of cooperation from Mother Nature, and a script rewrite. Such adversaries don't seem terribly exciting, considering the swashbuckling subject matter, but these days they're far more formidable than anything with a bow and arrow.

A sequel to The Invisible Man is in the works, according to ShockTillYouDrop.com. I'm not talking about the similarly-titled Chevy Chase movie from 1992, or any of the series that have been popping up on TV every few years since the 1950s. No, this is going to be a sequel to the original movie based on the H.G. Wells story that your great-grandparents saw in the theaters three-quarters of a century ago. Man, and I thought twenty-five years was a long time to wait for a Tron follow-up.

I swear to God that this is my last blog post about vampires, werewolves or Witchblade for a while. I know, I talk about one or the other pretty much every day in the Moviefile, but they're all pretty awesome, and we just happen to be living at the right time to be fans of these things. And since I just happened to stumble across a couple of news items involving werewolves and vampires, I thought I'd clue you all in. If you're not interested, scroll down and read about Jennifer Lopez; if you are, then read on...if you dare!

Chalk up another Cinderella-style role for Jennifer Lopez, aka "Jenny From the Block." Just the headline from Variety announcing her starring role in The Governess was enough to give me a flashback to another Lopez vehicle, Maid in Manhattan. Sure enough, both movies were penned by the same scribe. Aside from that, though, the stories could not be more different. One movie has her character pretending to be someone she isn't and landing herself a Prince Charming, while the other movie has... her character pretending to be someone she isn't and landing herself a Prince Charming. But one of them takes place in Manhattan and the other doesn't! Probably. Maybe. Well, the titles are different, at any rate.

It's been easy to forget that a possible Screen Actors Guild strike is looming over Hollywood like a cloud of L.A. smog. We haven't even talked about it in almost a month. But just because no one is paying attention doesn't mean it's gone away. Quite the contrary in fact.

The latest development (really more of a non-development) was on Saturday, when the SAG board backed its negotiators' efforts to gain more control (and money) from web content that features SAG actors.

Geeks everywhere are freaking out because director Sam Raimi, who has somehow not lost a drop of geek cred after the musical dance extravaganza that was Spider-Man 3, mentioned Burn Notice darling Bruce Campbell and "another Evil Dead" in the same sentence at Comic-Con. Now, as a result, geeks are reporting that Evil Dead 4 is in the works. Well, let's take a step back now.

If Shia LaBoeuf crashes his car and no one is there to see it, will it make a sound? The answer to that is yes, and the sound is that of another young star hurting his career. Oh, and the video cameras (at the scene in time to catch his car upside-down) and media buzz, of course. We wouldn't want to forget that.

Will Ferrell, did you read my review of your latest moviefilm and feel that you needed to redeem yourself in my eyes? That is so considerate of you, you big lug! Why else would you and Adam McKay announce you were in the midst of creating a follow-up to the dumb-larious Anchorman just after I made the assertion that of all your various cinematic man-child incarnations, Ron Burgundy was the bestest?

Because of their non-budget-restrained storylines and striking visuals, comic books have begun to rival real books and old 1970s TV shows as the top source of ideas for movies nowadays. For the same reason, comics are also the number-one source for stories in which one type of visually striking creature (aliens, cowboys, robots) fights another type of visually striking creature (pirates, demons, ninjas). Which is why, after being given movies where vampires fought werewolves (Underworld), Alaskans (30 Days of Night) and Coreys (Lost Boys 2: The Tribe), we can finally look forward to seeing vampires fight zombies.

When I saw the news that the graphic novel Red was being adapted into a movie, I was thrilled -- after all, it was one of the most straightforward, action-packed comic books I had ever read, and it seemed tailor-made to be a movie. Sure, the filmmakers seem to be taking some liberties with the storyline, but some of the changes sound interesting. And then I saw that a movie called Red was coming out next week. What the...?

The Dark Knight didn't just win its second weekend at the box office, it made another $75.6 million. That's more than twice what the No. 2 movie, Step Brothers, could muster, with its $30 million opening weekend.

Right after I learned that Robert Rodriguez would be producing a Red Sonja movie starring his live-in starlet Rose McGowan, I heard that the two had split up, and immediately panicked. What would become of the film? Would there be a new actress? Or a new producer? Or a new, dead film in the gutters of Hollywood? Well, apparently, nothing has changed; furthermore, my prediction that this movie would be worth it just for the chain-mail-bikini promotional artwork has totally come true.

Cue the distinctive strains of the Twilight Zone theme! According to The Hollywood Reporter, "Warner Bros. and Leonardo DiCaprio's production company Appian Way are in the early stages of seeking material for a feature take on one or more episodes from the classic TV series." They mean the classic classic series with the smooth intros from writer and Zone mastermind Rod Serling, and not the more recent attempts to revive the show for TV. Nor are they "seeking to remake an episodic movie," referring to the 1983 film that comprised four separate stories and made me a just little bit scared of ambulance drivers. And Dan Aykroyd. And Creedence Clearwater Revival.

No, I'm not having gastro-intestinal problems. Well, I am, but that's a story for another time. No, by "G.I. Woes," I mean that the G.I. Joe live-action movie, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, is seemingly going down a very strange, woe-begotten path. (And I don't mean the path to pornography that the film's subtitle implies. Apparently, "Arousal of Python" was already taken.)