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I have a major girl crush on Helen Mirren. I want to be her, and I simultaneously want her to take me under her wing, and turn me posh. Now she's set to make me geek out even more, because Screen Daily and The Hollywood Reporter report that she's just signed on to Red, Summit Entertainment's adaptation of Warren Ellis' bloody miniseries. Robert Schwentke is set to direct.

Mirren joins Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman in this cheerful tale of assassins. Willis plays black ops CIA Agent Paul Moses, who is enjoying the peace and quiet of retirement. But when there's a change of guard at the CIA, it's decided that Moses is too much of a liability. While Ellis' book pitted Moses against a single assassin, the movie will put Moses against a host of younger and more technologically adept opponents. It'll be the old school versus the new school -- and we all know who will probably win. I believe Freeman is playing the new CIA boss who decides Moses has seen and done too much to be anything but a liability, but nothing has been specified.

In her first comic book adaptation, Mirren will be playing an old associate of Willis, who has her own lethal set of skills. (Shades of Taken!) Don't be surprised if they're sexy skills. But you know what? It's Helen Mirren. If she wants to use her looks in order to dispatch a dictator or arms dealer, she can. Filming is set to kick off in January, and I count the days until I can see Mirren actually kick some ass onscreen.

Comics legend Warren Ellis is all over Hollywood these days. He has Red in development at Summit, Gravel was just recently optioned by the top-notch crew at Legendary Pictures, and Ocean is in the works with Hollywood Gang, for whom Ellis is also penning a King Arthur script. Now Variety reports that Ellis' miniseries Black Summer has been optioned by the fledgling banner Vigilante Entertainment. Ryne Pearson is set to adapt it for the big screen.

Black Summer kicked off in 2007, and walks some familiar Watchmen ground as it examines the darker implications of vigilante heroes. It centers around a superhero team called the Seven Guns, a group of ordinary humans who have willingly undergone severe surgery to become superhuman vigilantes. They take to the streets of a West Coast city to battle a corrupt city government, its equally sleazy police force, and greedy private security forces. But by the time we meet them, those days are gone. But one member, John Horus, decides to go after the man he feels is committing the biggest illegal act of all -- the President of the United States. His violent decision puts the rest of the Guns in danger, In typical Ellis fashion, the blood begins spraying and the bodies drop, and everything becomes very politically murky. If you'd like to see some previews or check out some interviews with Ellis, it's all been neatly collected at Avatar Press' site.

This project is in pre-pre production right now, so it's hard to get too excited as to how (or if!) it will end up on the big screen. But it's great to see more and more of Ellis' work being picked up for adaptations. Let's hope it meets better fate than most of Alan Moore's work.

There's big news from Asgard tonight! According to The Hollywood Reporter, the legendary Sir Anthony Hopkins has joined the cast of Thor. This isn't one of these tightly kept casting announcements either, as THR reports that he and no one else is playing Odin. (Incidentally, there's no mention of Robert DeNiro and Jude Law among the confirmed cast members, so I'm guessing that was just a fever dream of a rumor.)

If you're not up on your Thor or Nordic mythology, Odin is the father of Thor and the ruler of Asgard. He's your typical white-bearded god sort, fond of wine, women, and wisdom. He's not immortal (none of the gods of Asgard are), but ages slowly, and possesses amazing powers of strength and wisdom. He famously sacrifices his eye for the foresight to prevent Ragnarok, a sadly futile act, but you can't blame a god for trying.

While a lot of people were hoping that the Brian Blessed would be Odin (and my own money was on the recently signed Stellan Skarsgard), you can't really get much better than Sir Hopkins. He'll add just the right amount of gravitas, but he's an actor who can still have fun in a role. I can't wait to see him go up against Loki, and watching him smack down Thor for his arrogance is going to be pure theater. Cheers, Kenneth Branagh!

You kids today, with your Marvel Studios and your top-notch directors. Many of you are too young to remember just what ugly treatments comic books received in the 1980s and 1990s. Oh sure, there was Tim Burton's Batman, but treatments like David Hasselhoff's Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD were the norm. When a Thor movie was kicked around, the only requirement was muscles and blonde hair. In the 1990s, there was one man that fit that description: Fabio.

A funny little flashback has surfaced on Colleen Doran's blog, which has prompted a delightful trip back in time at Mania. In 1997, Fabio decided that he wanted to play Thor, so he approached animation director Seth Kearsley, and they cooked up a storyline with the help of Henry Gilroy. As Mania points out, this was not a Marvel movie , but it casually borrowed a few elements. The result, pictured to your right, was an unholy blend of Marvel's Thor and Captain Marvel / Shazam where Thor was punished for his arrogance by being shoved into the powerless body of a young boy. Despite its cheese and lack of Hollywood backing, it managed to recruit a lot of comic book talent for its designs, including Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. They were also desperately seeking Charlton Heston to voice Odin, and were in negotiations with Pamela Anderson to voice the Valkyrie Brunhild. But it died off, never to be seen again ... until the Internet could laugh about it.

If your calendar from here to Halloween isn't already filled with candy-fueled bacchanals, come to Meltdown Comics' Sunset Blvd. location in Los Angeles on Thursday evening for an in-store appearance by Clive Barker, Chris Monfette and Ray Zone, who collaborated on a new comic book entitled Seduth. Barker, who previously worked on adaptations of his own work and original material in the medium, enlisted Monfette's help to come up with a new, original story, while Zone expertly rendered images for it – in 3-D, no less.

Barker's public appearance just days before Halloween seems remarkably appropriate given his career-long commitment to the 'dark arts': in addition to his work in comics, he's not only a renowned novelist, but a filmmaker, having directed Hellraiser and Nightbreed, and effectively created Candyman. Monfette, meanwhile, is also working on an adaptation of Barker's short story Down, Satan, and wrote an original script entitled Deep Cuts that is being shepherded into production by American Originals producer Jeff Katz. And Zone is the "King of 3-D Comics," with hundreds of credits as an artist and producer of 3-D print work.

Barker, Monfette and Zone will be on hand for a question-and-answer session starting at 6PM, and then the trio will sign copies of the book after 7:00. If you can't make it but want an autographed copy, click here to purchase one in advance, and check out Meltdown Comics' official site for driving directions and more information about the event.

So here's some "less is more" comic book flick news* that may make you feel a little better about Spider-Man 4: Apparently A) there will be only one villain, which would be great, and B) that villain will (finally!) be Curt Connors aka The Lizard. And here's the best part: We don't have to wait for some gimmicky casting ploy, because the franchise already has the excellent Dylan Baker playing the role! Yes, Peter Parker's one-armed college professor will, after waiting patiently through three villain-packed films, get to shed his humanity and terrorize our favorite web-slinger with cold-blooded reptility. (Reptileness?)

Both MarketSaw and Collider have more information, but of course details are very sketchy at this early point. If these early reports are true, I offer a back-pat to Sam Raimi and his writing / producing team for trying to scale the next sequel back a bit, instead of trying to wedge six baddies into the flick just to sell a few extra Happy Meals. It's safe to assume that Mr. Raimi considers Spider-Man 3 the weakest of the series, and if the new goal is to simply deliver an old-school mano e mano face-off between a man-spider and a man-lizard, well I'm just fine with that.

Odds are you'll see more Spider-Man 4 news at this very website as it becomes available.

*MarketSaw.com seems pretty confident that their source is accurate on this information, but of course we should take it all with a grain of salt until we get word from someone on the production team, and on the record.

We love it when our heroes fall for the suspicious types: the wolves in sheep's clothing, the dangerous femme fatales. It happens often in film noir and a heckuva lot in comics, and provides some of the best last-act twists and turns as our hearts palpitate along with those of our protagonists... up until the bitter end. Can't that evil love interest turn out to have a heart of gold, so we can all have a happily ever after? Sometimes, yes. Most of the time, no.

What is it about these doomed romances that we love so much? Perhaps it's the futility of it all; you can't have your cake and eat it when you're a superhero or a (wo)man on a mission to right wrongs, even if you'd rather be kissing that beguiling bad guy than fighting them, arresting them, or foiling their evil plans. Turning down a chance at love is the ultimate sacrifice for a hero or heroine to make -- it proves their commitment to the side of good. Hence, loving a villain makes a hero even more heroic. How tragic!

In what will surely spur controversy, I've whittled my favorite villain-hero romances down to the seven best pairings in cinema. No, Phantom of the Opera didn't make it. That would have been too easy. Instead, find odd couples, would-be perfect pairs, star-crossed lovers, and yes, the world's most legendary bromance after the jump.

There are Supermen, and there are perfect men. Doc Savage belongs in the latter category. Bronze and buff, with a mastery of everything from martial arts to surgery, he can do anything or be anything you ask him to be. Except a movie icon. For years, Hollywood has been trying to get a Doc Savage movie up and running (there was a disastrous attempt in 1975), but now the strength of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman just might see it through. Ain't It Cool News reports that they're the latest names to become attached, and try to see it through to completion. Even better, they've hired my personal Jesus Shane Black to write a script. The news comes straight from the mouth of Black, who just happened to run into Harry Knowles at an Austin bowling alley.

Let me back up for a little biography on Savage. He's a pulp hero from the 1930s and 40s, an ordinary man who was trained from birth to achieve mastery of everything from medicine to music. Naturally, he uses his awesome abilities to punish wrongdoing, and his travels take him all over the world. He's usually accompanied by "The Fabulous Five": Monk, Ham, Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny. (Check out Wikipedia for exhaustive descriptions.) He also had a cousin named Patricia Savage who tagged along, but was no pretty little wimp, as she was a pilot and a skilled markswoman.

As Doc Savage scripts have come and gone, the temptation has often been to move him into the modern era. Black revealed that he fully intends to keep him in the 1930s, keep the Fabulous Five, and try to capture all of what made author Lester Dent's storywork so memorable. Thin news, but something to keep Savage pulp fans awake at night, as well as those of us itching to see Black return to the big time.

ETA: Ain't It Cool News has since run a correction that Orci and Kurtzman are not producing. Neal Moritz and Ori Marmur are for Sony Pictures.