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.

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!

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.

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.

Ferocia stupenda! Christian Siriano is debuting his couture line in the forthcoming movie Eloise In Paris! Get all the pertinent deets over in the Telefile, mkah?

Sony Pictures Animation has announced a new project in the form of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this will be SPA's first release in stereoscopic 3-D digital. Bob Osher, president of Sony's Digital Production division, described it as a movie about "food weather" and says that "food falling from the sky lends itself so well to 3-D." I'm sure this is supposed to be a kids' movie, considering that the article also makes mention of Open Season and Surf's Up, but I think this sounds like it has the makings of a Saw-like horror movie. [It's actually based on a kids' book, but I want to hear this. - Zach]

A while back we reported on how the producers of the Witchblade movie had released a teaser poster before a writer or director had been chosen. Since no actors had actually signed on, a generically sexy female was shown on the poster wearing the Witchblade gauntlet. But once the teaser site went up spotlighting the scantily clad superheroine, the film quickly gained a director and a writer -- so why hasn't that worked for Conan?

The meerschaum pipe, that is. As in, that's the kind of pipe Sherlock Holmes smokes, and Robert Downey, Jr. is going to play Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie's upcoming movie about the fictional English detective. ...Was that too obscure a reference to make in the pursuit of a cleverly suggestive and potentially scandalous headline? Maybe, but I have no regrets.

This is what happens when Odie goes on sabbatical: Angelina Jolie's birthing gets treated like an M. Night Shyamalan movie, Will Smith makes Wild Wild West 2, and Sherlock Holmes turns into Superbad. As we gleefully await Wanted Woman's coochie-centric press conference, due this afternoon, let's talk about why Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is doing somersaults in his grave.