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.

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.

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!

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.