Warner Bros. apparently just got the news that superheroes have the potential to make money. Despite the fact that Marvel Comics characters Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four and the Hulk have been doing gangbusters in theaters over the past few years, it took The Dark Knight grossing over $800 million worldwide to convince Warner that maybe they should be doing more. So they're finally going to move ahead with a new Superman film in the wake of 2006's disastrous Superman Returns, only this time, they're going to emulate TDK and -- you guessed it -- go dark. Because as we all know, what's good for the goose who watched his parents get murdered is good for the gander who was rocketed to Earth as a baby.

If there's one thing I hate more than dolls, it's talking dolls. I'm not afraid of them; I just loathe them. For two days in a row, there was news in the Moviefile about talking dolls. And I'm counting those garden gnomes, because, well... shudder. So, clearly the universe hates me. And just to kick me when I'm down, now comes news from Hollywood Elsewhere that the Powers That Be are trying to screw around with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The problem? The director and the producer are now arguing over the "look" of the movie. Hasn't most of it already been filmed? They showed footage at Comic-Con, for crying out loud, and now they're arguing about how they want it to look? I guess I should just be glad they haven't changed the lead character into a talking Wolverine doll.

Warner Bros. is not making friends in geekdom. Even as comic fans are slowly realizing that WB may very well be at fault in the Watchmen rights dispute, Harry Potter fans are casting Cruciatus curses at them for pushing back the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The studio is getting such huge backlash, in fact, that Warner Bros President and COO Alan Horn had to issue a public response to all the complaints.

After viewing the Watchmen trailer, this Watchmen purist said that Zack Snyder deserved a torch enema from the Columbia Pictures lady. Miss C. politely declined, but the folks at 20th Century Fox are more than happy to use their spotlights on the director. Fox is attempting to enforce their prior (and apparently current) "settlement and release" rights on the Watchmen property, which they acquired in 1991 from Larry Gordon's LARGO company, and the matter now resides in court. Adding fuel to the fiery panic of the fanboys, who drool over every aspect and detail of the film, is the judge who refused Warners' request for dismissal of Fox's lawsuit. This could get ugly, folks. Who watches this Watchmen? The answer could very well be nobody.

The wires today were clogged with news that Christina Applegate had a double mastectomy after being recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Get our schpiel on the matter over at the Telefile.

Why can't Terry Gilliam catch a break? As a former member of Monty Python, Gilliam should receive whatever he wants for life, a system Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and John Cleese have worked out with the British government, I believe. And yet the group's lone American still has to struggle and stretch to make his projects reality. Okay, so Gilliam makes strange movies. 12 Monkeys? Strange. Brazil? Stranger. And he has some bad luck, like when his movie about Don Quixote imploded (as documented in the film Lost in La Mancha), and when Heath Ledger, the star of his latest film, died in the middle of shooting. But he still managed to finish it, so why doesn't anybody want to distribute the thing?! Don't they know how important this man's work is? He was in Monty Python!

Perhaps the folks at Entertainment Weekly should read Movies Without Pity more often. As reported here, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince has been moved from November 2008 to July 2009. Usually when this happens (see Valkyrie -- if you can find out when it'll be released), it means the movie is in deep trouble. No such fate befalls Harry, which will be an enormous hit no matter when it's released. EW's "mistake" was putting Harry on their fall movie preview cover, which my mailman balled up and shoved into my mailbox while I was away on business. Looks like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing over at Time Warner! (To be fair, Empire magazine did the same thing, but they're British -- they'd put Harry Potter on the cover of every issue if they didn't have to worry about selling copies to us Yanks, as well.)

Hell hath no fury like comic book fans scorned. A recent post at LatinoReview.com caused all manner of angry response and controversy. Seems Lionsgate Films were continuing their current trend of pissing off gorehounds by forcing the director of the upcoming Punisher reboot to deliver a PG-13 rated cut. This after the folks at Comic Con got a decidedly R-rated preview of the upcoming film. Rumors flew like tennis balls at a Williams sisters match: director Lexi Alexander had been fired, the movie was horrible, the movie was butchered by the MPAA, etc. The one thing that appears to be true is that the film exists. After two previous misfires, I question why people are hoping this movie will give them what they finally want. Is the third time the charm?

Since I was outnumbered 4 to 1, I had to watch whatever my younger siblings wanted to watch on TV. This meant being tortured by The Dukes of Hazzard and, later on, by Voltron. At least Hazzard had Daisy Duke and car crashes. Voltron had nothing but tiresome repetition and the exact same ending every single episode. My brothers and sister thought this show was Heaven-sent. They even had the (admittedly cool) toy robot that came apart into the five pieces that created Voltron. I dredge up these painful TV memories from my adolescence because, thanks to the Transformers (robots I actually liked), Voltron is now becoming a slightly less expensive CGI-encrusted movie. New Regency has put the Voltron movie in turnaround, and it's getting taken over by developer Relativity Media to be made into a more moderately-budgeted film. (Yeah, that should work out well.)