Hopefully the spoiler warning is loud and clear enough here, and, yes, I still take them seriously. Even if a fancy scientific study shows that we like things that are familiar, there’s still no replacement for being surprised or awe-struck with the wonder of newness. So if you’re avoiding information about Superman: Man of Steel, you can stop reading now. And if you keep reading, simply know that all of this might be untrue – it’s the work of an “insider” with the production that scoop site Comic Book Movie trusts. Their track record is pretty stellar, but nothing is confirmed until it’s truly confirmed.

That headline should really say that Laurence Fishburne has been cast as the first non-white Perry White for Man of Steel, because it’s not like there’s been a Chinese or Puerto Rican version of the character either. The LA Times is reporting that the veteran actor will suit up (hopefully with suspenders) for Zack Snyder to play the iconic boss at The Daily Planet. Speaking of which, with a scoop this close to their doorstep, you think The Daily Planet would have broken it. Digressions aside, Fishburne brings years of dramatic experience to a cast that echoes his talents. In one way, it’s historic that this production (in a long line of television and film adaptations of Superman) will have the first African-American White, but in another it’s not such a big deal at all. The casting makes sense, no matter the actor’s race. Unless they put him in White Face, which would be horribly, horribly racist. Otherwise, there’s not much else to say beyond how over the top Fishburne could be in this role. Just don’t call him Chief.

What is Movie News After Dark? It hasn’t been around for an entire week, so to be honest it’s not really sure. It knows that its primary function is to collect movie news links, but then what? Is there some sort of witty commentary that must be placed before and after said links, or can it just dump the links below? In the haze following its ruckus celebration of America and the death of colonialism, it seems to have forgotten how to do this. Maybe its like riding a bike… with no hands… while holding sprinklers and drinking from a beer helmet… Lets hope so, because that’s all it knows how to do at the moment. Perhaps one of the most overlooked and delightful animated films of the last decade, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs has earned its place atop my Netflix Instant watch queue. I watch it what feels like weekly. And rightly so, as it’s a vibrant display of Sony Pictures Animation’s ability to carve out own unique place inside the shadows of Pixar and Dreamworks. So the fact that Cloudy is getting a sequel makes me happy. Time to go watch it again.

We’ve been planning hard for nine months, eating entire sheet cakes by ourselves, and now the fruits of our labor will burst forth onto the internet in just a few weeks. It’s Comic-Con season, and we plan to give birth to some incredible content and coverage. Then, we’ll wipe off the afterbirth and hand it to you with a bow on top. We’ll be tackling interviews aplenty, getting the inside information on movies we won’t see for another 3 years, and covering Hall H like pickle sauce on ice cream, but it’s a big job, and we won’t be doing it alone. Fortunately, Jordan Hoffman (champion Reject Radio Movie News Pop Quizzer and Editor over at UGO) has organized a handful of the best movie sites to share coverage. Here’s what we’re all excited for the most and what you can plan on seeing…

When it was recently mentioned in Movie News After Dark that Christopher Meloni would be joining Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman film Man of Steel I was left struggling with an overwhelming mix of emotions. There was joy at what an awesome actor Meloni is, whether he’s fondling sweaters in Wet Hot American Summer or looking grim as a detective on Law & Order: SVU. But there was also pain at being left in the dark about exactly which role he would be taking. Would he be playing a big role in the Superman mythos that we hadn’t hear the casting for yet, could he be doing a super secret cameo as a character we’re not supposed to know appears in the film, or would he just be playing a guy in a hard hat who looks up and says something like, “it’s a bird …”?

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly round-up of movie news and informational links that will marry whomever it damn well pleases, male, female, alien or otherwise. Except /Film’s Page 2, that bitch never called it back. She thinks she’s so cool because she’s on a “legitimate” film site that “people actually read.” Bitches be trippin’. Our most photogenic story tonight, a first official look at John Cusack in The Raven (working title) as the tormented Edgar Allen Poe. Lets face it, if that hair (facial and cranial) is real, we should be impressed. Also impressive is the expansive amount of Cusack-related news included in tonight’s edition of Movie News After Dark, so stick around.

At this point it’s starting to become a certainty that Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman movie Man of Steel is going to be mostly about a young Superman developing an Oedipal complex. First came the news that super sultry Diane Lane was on board to play Superman’s kindly, old earthbound mom Martha Kent. And now it appears that super sexy British actress Julia Ormond is close to signing on as his spacemom Lara. That’s a lot of MILF for one superhero movie. I’m jealous of Superman’s dads, who happen to be Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe.

There’s no reason to list them all, but there are a lot of similarities between Marlon Brando and Russell Crowe. According to Variety, there’s about to be one more. The trade is reporting that he’s taking the role of Superman’s father, Jor-El, for Man of Steel. With another origin story, it gives Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan an opportunity to bring Kal-El’s parents into the mix, but they will most likely have relatively small parts. However, as Brando proved, it doesn’t take a large part to make an impact. Oddly enough, Latino Review is also reporting that Connie Nielsen has been offered the role of Superman’s mother, Lara, meaning that if she accepts, she’ll reunite with her Gladiator co-star Crowe. The pairing will make more than a subtle nod to that film, which of course was more than a subtle nod to the film Witness (or just a massive love letter to wheat fields). Thus, the new Superman reboot is a giant, long-form tribute to Harrison Ford and Peter Weir. Layers! But, seriously, all of this casting sounds phenomenal. It also means that an Australian is siring a British alien that becomes a symbol for the American way.

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, we talk with stuntman legend Vic Armstrong (who brought to life Indiana Jones, Superman and James Bond). We also chat with camera operator/cinematographer Peter Simonite (Skateland, Tree of Life), and we dig deeper into the monster-making world of effects master Shannon Shea. Plus, Matt Razak from Flixist spars off with Mike Smith from Examiner.com for our Movie News Pop Quiz, and we all learn an important lesson. By that, I mean a lesson about re-imaginings, reboots and re-re-re-makes. Listen Here: Download This Episode

A while back we were hearing rumors that in addition to General Zod, the evil Kryptonian revolutionary that Superman fought in Richard Donner’s Superman franchise, Zack Snyder’s upcoming Man of Steel would also be featuring a new female Kryptonian antagonist named Faora. Don’t expect any sort of Batman/Catwoman sexual tension to be going on with the announcement of a female villain though. There are a couple of versions of Faora floating around in the comic verse, and neither of them are as friendly as a sexy jewel thief. The first version of Faora, who debuted in “Action Comics #471,” is a man hating serial killer whose killed 20 some dudes back on Krypton. An updated version, who first appeared in “Action Comics #779,” is an aid to General Zod who has the ability to create a destructive mutagenic virus. It remains to be seen which version of the character is being used for Snyder’s film; perhaps we could even be getting a combination of the two or a take on her that is completely new. But any way you look at it, she doesn’t seem like very much of a warm personality. So what do you do when you have to cast a character that is cold and abrasive? Duh, you cast a German. That’s why Snyder and company are close to signing Pandorum actress Antje Traue to take on the role. She’s so German that I don’t even know how to pronounce her name. I’m not really familiar with [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Recent comments by Diane Lane pointed to the fact that Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman reboot Man of Steel would be yet another origin story of the Kryptonian cast-off turned farm boy turned big city reporter; and I and others like me instantly started whining. Well, to add to this story, The Latino Review says that they have a shadowy source involved with the film, and they’ve beaten some more specifics about what we’ll be seeing out of him. Possible spoilers that will be revealed in the film’s advertising eventually anyway below. According to Deep Throat, we will in fact be seeing the planet Krypton, and we will get scenes with Superman’s birth parents Jor-El and Lara. And not only will we be seeing them, but they seem to be meaty enough parts that Snyder is going after big actors to play them. He’s even been hounding the greatest living actor Daniel Day-Lewis to play Jor-El. In addition to Superman’s parents and the already cast General Zod, we’ll also be getting another female Kryptonian. Her name is Faora and she was a man-hating serial killer who offed 23 dudes back on Krypton before she was trapped in the Phantom Zone. The source also says that the crystalline look of Donner’s Superman films will be changed, and this time Krypton will have more of a futuristic cityscape look like Coruscant from the Star Wars prequels. So people complaining that this Superman movie looks like yet another retread of Donner’s films now have [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Diane Lane is all set to become to most buxom and vivacious Martha Kent of all time in Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman film Man of Steel, but she’s echoing something the future General Zod Michael Shannon has already publicly said: nobody seems to have a copy of the script. Lane told E Online that, “I read the script under lock and key. I was locked in a room with the script and was only allowed three hours with it. I nailed it into my memory. I’m really excited. I’m really not allowed to talk much about it, I think, but it does cover the entire range of years, from infancy on.” She may not be able to talk much about it, but already I feel that she’s said too much. Lane’s comments seem to confirm that this new take on Superman is going to be yet another origin story, and if there’s anything I know to be true in my heart of hearts, it’s that nobody wants to see another superhero origin story. At this point Superman is such a part of Americana that our kids are born probably already knowing the tale of the baby jettisoned from the planet of Krypton and his new home on Earth where he finds he has strange powers. Do we really need to see the story “from infancy on” yet again? Can’t we finally just get a good movie where a grown-up Superman battles a bunch of giant robots or something in the [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Michael Shannon recently spoke to an audience at the RiverRun International Film Festival, and since he was just cast as General Zod in the now officially titled Zack Snyder Superman movie Man of Steel, talk of course turned to that. What sort of a rigorous casting procedure did Shannon go through to land such a big role in such a big movie, you might wonder? Shannon describes his meetings with Snyder; “So I go meet him and he’s seriously sitting there and he’s telling me, he’s like, ‘You can’t read the script, so I’m just going to tell you what happens.’ And he spent like a half hour telling me every scene in this movie. And then it’s a month later, it’s like ‘Okay, you’re General Zod.’” Whoa, that sounds easy. Maybe I should be an actor.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve long been a fan of Crazy Michael Shannon. This person bares a striking resemblance to Actor Michael Shannon, but one can only assume that they are two different people. When Actor Shannon slips into one of his many wonderfully insane roles, he becomes a new man entirely. This will help him in the near future, as he has signed on to play the villain Zod in Zack Snyder’s Superman: Man of Steel.

Amy Adams has just been cast as intrepid reporter Lois Lane for the new Superman reboot being directed by Zack Snyder. In what must have been an exhaustive search, Hero Complex is reporting that the production landed on the three-time Oscar nominee who brings an enormous amount of acting talent to the project as well as a trademark pluckiness to a plucky, iconic character. This is outstanding news, and a great casting choice not only because of the fit, but because of Adams’s skill level. Snyder has insisted that this will be his most realistic movie yet, and to that end he commented on the casting, saying, “It goes back to what I’ve said about Superman and making him really understandable for today. What’s important to us is making him relevant and real and making him empathetic to today’s audience so that we understand the decisions he makes.  That applies to Lois as well. She has to be in the same universe as him [in tone and substance].” If seeing yet another superhero adaptation (especially the same old superheros) is tired, this production just got a little life to it, and I for one can’t wait to see Snyder dress up Adams in a pin up girl outfit, and have her fight Lex Luthor with a samurai sword in slow motion, realistically. Jokes aside, this is a hell of a great casting call.

Now that Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman film has found it’s Clark Kent, it only makes sense that they would begin testing for a Lois Lane that works well with him on screen. What’s Playing got the ball rolling by releasing a list of names that were in the running. The list included Kristen Stewart, Malin Akerman, Dianna Agron, Jessica Biel, and Rachel McAdams. The speculation began. Which of these girls has the right mix of brunette and feisty to pull the part off? Stewart was taken off the list pretty early, mainly due to having too many commitments, but probably also do to a complete lack of feistiness. Akerman was dismissed as being too old for the role, because that last Superman movie worked so well with casting high school kids as decades seasoned reporters with a six year old kid. So that left the choice as being between Rachel McAdams, Jessica Biel, and some girl I’ve never heard of. Decisions, decisions.

So that one guy from that one show is going to be playing The Man of Steel, and it’s big news. However, since we live in a beautiful age of information, we can also daydream about the movies that might have been if only that one other guy had been cast instead. In the case of the new Superman, Henry Cavill is taking on the tights, which happens to leave four other actors back out looking for work. Who are they, and would it have mattered who got the job?

Mixed-up hip-hop lyrics aside, Henry Cavill (who you may remember from The Tudors, Stardust, and Tristan + Isolde) has scored the highly coveted role of Clark Kent who (spoiler alert) is Superman. Superman: Man of Steel, directed by Zack Snyder, now has its star. The positives are clear: he’s a young actor who’s just well known enough to be recognizable, but not nearly well known enough to overshadow the role with his stardom. Plus, he’s just about as square-jawed as they come. The negatives are really just questions. He does a strong job as Charles Brandon on The Tudors, but it’s a radically different role from Supes. It’s unclear what kind of job he’ll do, but he clearly showed something to the casting team, and he’ll be surrounded by the Warners machine, Snyder, and Christopher Nolan. Not a bad group to have in your huddle. Thus, Jon Hamm has been passed over for the role and a 27-year-old will be playing an ace reporter that’s risen through the ranks in the big city. Also, Nicolas Cage will yet again not be playing Superman. Rejoice and lament in equal measure. [Deadline Missionville]

The prize fight of breaking comic book movie related news has begun. The punches are being thrown from the corners of both Marvel Studios and DC Entertainment, from bloggers Nikki Finke and Latino Review. Earlier, I broke down the 6 contenders for the role of Captain America, as reported by Deadline’s Mike Fleming. Now, the folks at Latino Review have word from their inside source that David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight) is joining the oncoming production of Man of Steel, the next Superman movie, at Warner Bros.

Start grinding the rumor mill and put on your thinking caps. Could the men of The Matrix really bring us The Man of Steel?