For whatever reason, the story of adult film legend Linda Lovelace has proven to be particular enticing material as of late, with Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman’s Lovelace only the first of two Lovelace biopics to hit screens this year. Epstein and Freidman’s film is the one that stars Amanda Seyfried as Lovelace (or Boreman, or Marchiano, depending on the particular period of her life you are referring to) and Peter Sarsgaard as her bastard husband/Svengali, Chuck Traynor (because, really, who better to play the necessary bastard/Svengali role than Sarsgaard?). A generally straightforward and uninspired biopic (beyond a somewhat interesting storytelling conceit that pops up about midway through the film), Lovelace tracks Lovelace’s unlikely rise from regular girl to America’s most famous porn star, thanks to her starring role in 1972’s seminal hardcore pornographic film, Deep Throat. Like a lot of porn, Lovelace is often aimless, basically boring, and dead unsexy.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s your nightly dose of what’s hip and happening in the world of entertainment. It’s also the friend who brings top shelf beer to the party, rather than a six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon. It’s not that hip. In anticipation of a new trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man to be released this Thursday, iTunes has put up a few new images that show the hoodlum known as Peter Parker in action. He’s in a lab. He’s getting arrested. The kid is always in some sort of trouble. He probably could go more subtle with the outfit.

I’m not one to report on celebrity gossip, so I’m not going to get too much into what’s been going on with Demi Moore lately, but suffice to say, the lady is having some issues that have caused her to drop out of the Linda Lovelace biopic Lovelace. She was set to play Gloria Steinem, who was a high profile feminist writer and political leader of the women’s lib movement in the 70s. Over the course of her career Steinem spoke out pretty regularly against the porn business, and in 1980 she wrote a piece for “Ms. Magazine” titled ‘The Real Linda Lovelace’ that acts as a framing device for Lovelace’s storytelling; so this should be a small but important role that’s going to require an experienced actress.

In a recent E! article about the nudity that’s going to be on display in the upcoming, Amanda Seyfried-starring biopic of 70s porn star Linda Lovelace, Lovelace, one of the film’s producers, Patrick Muldoon, made some hilariously hypocritical comments that were clearly designed to drum up interest for the film based on promising Seyfried’s boobs, but which still try to paint the people making the movie as serious artists who would never do such a thing. He starts off the interview by promising that the film is going to be“very risqué,” but then adds out of the other side of his mouth that it’s also “not about the nudity.” It’s not about the nudity because, according to Muldoon, “it’s profound, the performance that she’s giving…she’s doing such an amazing job. We’re about two weeks into filming, and the movie’s going to be incredible.” If that’s the case, then great, but why are we talking about the nudity at all? Don’t worry, it gets better. Muldoon shows what deep thinkers they are over at Eclectic Pictures by saying, “thematically, it’s talking about how abusive the porn industry was to Linda Lovelace.” He then goes on to clarify, “yes, there’s a lot of nudity, but it’s a message movie about respecting women.” So in order to make a movie about the exploitation of women that goes on in the porn industry and to send a message about how we need to respect women, you’ve hired a hot young actress, paid her to be

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column born exactly one year ago today. And it’s very happy to still be around and well on its way to taking over the planet. It is convinced that it will have a very productive 2012 in that area, especially once humanity’s reign of terror ends later this year. In the mean time, it would like to thank you all for reading. Now enough of that mushy stuff, lets do the news. We begin this evening with an image of biker Jemaine Clement in Men in Black III. He’s playing an alien biker who turns out to be the villain in this time-traveling storyline…. And we wonder why that movie has had so many production problems? Either way, I’ll watch Jemaine Clement eat soap if I have to, as that guy is quite funny.

There are a couple biopics about famed porn actress Linda Lovelace in the works, so let’s not get confused. Lovelace isn’t the one that was supposed to star Lindsay Lohan but then picked up Malin Ackerman because Lindsay Lohan is Lindsay Lohan; that one is the Matthew Wilder-directed Inferno. Lovelace will be directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (Howl), and has Amanda Seyfried replacing the originally-rumored Kate Hudson as the titular performer. I’ve seen these two movies have actors that are appearing in one being attributed to the other or downright get referenced as being the same film before, so I want to be clear. Now that we got that out of the way, let’s look at the casting news. Way back during this project’s humble beginnings, James Franco was rumored as being the choice to play Chuck Traynor, a pornographer and Lovelace’s longtime husband. That probably had something to do with his experience working with the directors in Howl. That bit of casting didn’t work out though, and the role eventually went to the equally-as-sleazy-as-Franco, Peter Sarsgaard (see An Education, yuck). Apparently that wasn’t the last of the Franco on Lovelace rumors, however, because Variety’s Showblitz is now reporting that the actor may be making a cameo in the film as Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. That sounds like the sort of fun, low commitment gig that I could see Franco being into, so I’d say the chances of him appearing in this film are once again good.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a thing that happens every night, bub. And it will deliver unto you the best of the entertainment-related things that happened today. Also, there will be mustaches. We begin tonight’s late late edition of News After Dark with an epic mustache. No, not this column’s author’s epic mustache. It’s an image of what Burt Reynolds looks like in his cameo on Archer, one of the better shows about animated spies to hit cable television since… okay, I ran that into the ground. It’s really good. Burt Reynolds makes it even better.