SUPERMAN RETURNS

When it comes to the Man of Steel, there's only three letters you need to know: CBR. We've got a spoiler-free review of the film, plus a press junket interview with actor Kevin Spacey. It's so exciting that the Last Son of Krypton even went and got himself a MySpace page ... is he in your Top Friends? Oh snap, Lois and Lex have pages too ... Lex used Thomas MySpace Editor V3.6? Hm, whatever ...

Meanwhile, director Bryan Singer is quoted at Sci Fi Wire talking about a scene he had to cut for time. I shot a whole [scene] with the [return-to-Krypton] sequence," Singer said. He felt it didn't fit the film's theme and was too long, so out it went. "At some point you'll see it, I'm sure sometime ... no one told me to do it, to make these cuts. I had no restrictions. I had no time restrictions. There was no pressure whatsoever. I just felt, ... the movie doesn't need this. And I did something else instead. It could exist later, in this form. I think it would be coolest in 3-D, because of just stuff that's flying around."

Finally, Superhero Hype notes that actor Sam Huntington has been signed for two sequels.

FANTASTIC FOUR 2

Actor Ioan Gruffudd spoke to Comingsoon.net about the upcoming Tim Story-helmed sequel, and revealed that he does plan on seeing a Doctor soon.

TRANSFORMERS

Superhero Hype has a set report with some photos of members of the cast. Human characters, though.

HEROES

Jace of Televisionary (not Jayce of Wheeled Warriors) wrote in to point out his review of the pilot for the new network superhero series.

SPIDER-MAN 3Set reports? Are you saying you wanna see set reports with secret photos taken of things the production was hiding? All right, if you insist ...

SMALLVILLE

Speaking of TV shows, a reader named Maria emailed us to point out some high resolution set stills from the season finale, "Vessel."

MARVEL MOVIE MASH-UP

Movie mogul Avi Arad talked to If Magazine about some upcoming celluloid creations from the House of Ideas. About "Hulk 2," he said, "It's a 'do-over.' I loved the HULK movie, it was just a different approach, and it wasn't exactly the comic. We want to be much closer to the comic. It's what we would rather do." He also confirmed "Thor" is being written, "Black Panther" is waiting on an actor to be available, "Luke Cage" is stillborn, that "Nick Fury" and "Ant Man" are definitely going to be produced, and there's a new "Spider-Man" cartoon in the pipeline.

DC DIGITAL DATA

DC Comics institution Paul Levitz talked about a number of projects at the press junket for "Superman Returns," or so says Superhero Hype. What sort of projects? Of "Wonder Woman," he said, "It's coming along. Supposedly, Joss is turning a script in any moment now. I can't emphasize enough how normal it is for these projects to take forever. The gap between signing the project for 'Superman 1' and the film coming out was six years. The gap between signing the contract that led to the first Tim Burton 'Batman' movie was nine and a half years. The gap between the last, if you will, cycle of 'Batman' films and 'Batman Begins 'was nine years I think. It's been about nine or 10 years since we got the 'Superman' film rights back to Warner Brothers before we got this one going. An it's not just us. For whatever reason, 'Spider-Man' was the worst mess we'd ever seen in terms of the business maneuvers it took to get it done. By their nature, these are big and complex things to put together. You don't build them fast."

How about Watchmen? "Warners is looking at Watchmen right now. I believe they are looking for a director at the moment. I negotiated the 'Watchmen' film deal when the third issue of the maxi-series was coming out in 1985 or 1986. It's been through Fox, Universal, Paramount so far and now it's at Warners. God knows. I think it's an extraordinary difficult property to do right as a film. It is a creative property that is very specifically designed for the medium in which it is published. I think it's a real challenge to break out and do it. I think they had a very interesting script and certainly Paul Greengrass is a great director, so I had some hope for the Paramount one. I hope Warner will be able to put something great around it."

He also noted that the Aquaman pilot could be picked up at a later date, that David Goyer was still writing the "Flash" movie, Pete Segal is directing "Shazam" for New Line, alongside some other properties in development.

X-MEN 3

In our continuing coverage of the success out in Westchester, Box Office Mojo reports that the film has made over $200 million up to date with its third weekend in theaters, and is now the #1 grossing movie of 2006, being less than $14 million from the total gross receipts of "X2."

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION

Here's where you get in on the action. Did you see a link we didn't catch? Have you snuck into a closed movie set, and have inside data? Maybe your cousin is dating somebody who knows something, and they had to tell you? Whatever it is, we wanna know it all -- fire off an email and let us know whether you want your name used or your contributions to geekdom to go down anonymously. Broadcasting live from Los Angeles, this is novelist/karaoke host/all-around lunatic Hannibal Tabu saying thanks for your time and indulgence, Southern California readers should come check me out hosting a new weekly poetry open mic in luxurious Redondo Beach, and [tagline sent back to development hell until something hipper can be dreamed up].