Columbia Pictures

Webheads, let the countdown begin!

After taking a year to wrangle up the key players, Columbia Pictures has finally set May 5, 2011, as the worldwide release date for Spider-Man 4.

The first three films based on Marvel's acrobatic webcrawler combined grossed a massive $2.5 billion at the worldwide box office, so a fourth installment was a no-brainer for the studio. It was only a matter of locking down stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst and director Sam Raimi.

The summer of 2011 is shaping up to be a Marvel-ous season, with Thor due on June 17 and The First Avenger: Captain America on July 22.

And for all the Raimi fanboys out there, Evil Dead actor Bruce Campbell, who's had a cameo in the first three Spidey movies, recently said he's signed on for a major part, possibly even a villainous one, in Spider-Man 4.

Filming reportedly gets under way early next year.

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Can't get enough men in tights? Check out E! Online's Comic-Con 2009 photo gallery.

Blue Water Comics

The Harry Potter vs. Twilight battle is about to go another round. This time, it'll take a comic form…literally.

Bluewater Comics has announced a J.K. Rowling installment of its biographical Female Force series, set for release in December.

Unfortunately (for Potterheads, at least), Stephenie Meyer will beat her to the punch. Her vamped-up issue hits shelves in November, just in time for New Moon's arrival in theaters.

Both books will come in two forms: a standard 22-page release as well as a supersize collector's edition with undefined extras.

We just can't wait to see which writing wunderkind outsells the other.

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Given the subject matter, this round of the battle of the supernatural series may be a draw (ha-ha). See what other Stars Get Animated here!

Paramount Pictures

The Wrestler has traded in his staples for some far heavier metal.

Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau has released the first on-set photo of Mickey Rourke clad in the gear that makes him the nefarious Whiplash, just one of the villains Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man will be battling in the upcoming sequel.

So far, we seem to be looking at half an orange prison jumpsuit, leather-and-iron arm braces and a heart-protecting electromagnet in his chest, like the one Tony Stark uses to keep the shrapnel at bay.

Rourke's less mechanical alter ego being Russian tech whiz Ivan Vanko, the tats he sports include several Russian phrases.

The eagerly awaited second chapter of the comic-book saga is due in theaters May 7, 2010.

Axel/ZUMA Press;Hergé;Lisa O'Connor/ZUMAPress.com

Belgium's intrepid cub reporter will be breaking his first big-screen story in time for Christmas 2011. Paramount Pictures and Sony Pictures Entertainment have announced that Steven Spielberg's big-budget gamble The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn will hit theaters Dec. 23, 2011.

The two studios are coproducing the 3-D motion-capture event film, the first in a pair the E.T. director is doing with Lord of the Rings master Peter Jackson (who will helm the sequel). But in an unusual move, Paramount and Sony plan to roll out Tintin internationally up to two months before the U.S. release.

The strategy is the reverse of Hollywood's normal distribution pattern, but makes sense since it enables the partnering companies to capitalize on the comic book character's popularity abroad and build buzz, since Tintin is not well known stateside.

The film, which Spielberg started shooting in January, stars Jamie Bell as the titular hero and Daniel Craig as the despicable pirate Red Rackham. Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Toby Jones also star.

Tintin will face some family-friend competition during the 2011 holiday season, with Warner Bros. set to release Happy Feet 2 and Disney/Pixar unleashing The Bear and the Bow.

Marvel Comics

Between Family Guy and a comic book, it may be difficult for the real Slim Shady to actually stand up.

Eminem is on one of the most unusual promotional tours in recent history—an appearance on the popular Fox cartoon, a residency on Jimmy Kimmel Live and now a battle with the Punisher—for the May 19 release of his album, Relapse.

The rapper has teamed with Marvel Comics and XXL magazine for Eminem/Punisher: Kill You. Fans who buy one of the two June magazine covers featuring the star (on newsstands now) will score the first half of the special comic.

According to the press release, the tale takes place after a Slim Shady performance in Detroit. He teams up with the Punisher's nemesis, Barracuda, and things get bloody.

The second half is available for free now on Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited.

See what other celebs have been drawn into fictional versions of themselves in our Stars Get Animated gallery!

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James Fisher/20th Century Fox, AGStock

Wolverine is making a run for the border again.

Hugh Jackman announced via Twitter that X-Men Origins: Wolverine is ready to make its long-awaited, swine flu-delayed premiere in Mexico.

"I will bring Wolverine to Mexico City on May 26 to provide a moment of fun escapism and a treat for some of the loyal fans of the comic," the star tweets.

"My thoughts and prayers have been with all of those that have suffered directly or indirectly from the swine flu in Mexico."

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Twentieth Century Fox

It's official: The mutants are taking over Hollywood. And we're not talking about the freaks running the studios.

Following the monster weekend for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and a day after announcing that a Hugh Jackman-powered sequel is in the works, 20th Century Fox has confirmed to E! News that Jackman's costar Ryan Reynolds will be given his own spinoff and potential franchise-launcher as the Marvel Comics antihero Deadpool.

The 32-year-old Canadian actor, otherwise known as Mr. Scarlett Johansson, will again star as Wade Wilson, a wisecracking, cancer-stricken mercenary who's cured of the disease after undergoing the same Weapon X genetic alteration as Wolverine.

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Twentieth Century Fox

Forget Magneto, Sabretooth and Mystique. Wolverine's real nemesis is a bit geekier and harder to track down.

The FBI, Motion Picture Association of American and 20th Century Fox are continuing their probes into who exactly leaked a rough cut of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, vowing to go all out to find the perp and prosecute that person "to the fullest extent of the law."

The unfinished version of the prequel, dated March 2 and imprinted with the name Rising Sun Pictures, an Australian visual effects company doing work on the film, surfaced earlier this week, sending Fox into damage-control mode to minimize the leak's impact on the film's box office. Wolverine is set to open May 1.

For its part, Rising Sun is trying to deflect blame, insisting that it was never in possession of the full version of the Hugh Jackman-fronted flick.

"As we worked on individual sequences within the film, neither Rising Sun Pictures or its staff members have ever been in possession of a full-length version, so it would have been impossible for the movie to have been leaked from here," chairman and cofounder Tony Clark said in a statement posted on the company's website.

Meanwhile, Fox has found an group of unlikely allies: fanboys. Many of the movie's targeted audience are boycotting  the bootleg Wolverine.

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Marvel

Thor is going to be thundering into movie theaters a little later than expected. Ditto some of his franchise-worthy crimefighting buddies.

Marvel Entertainment has pushed back the release dates of comic-book bonanzas Thor, The Avengers and The First Avenger: Captain America, delaying the films by up to a year.

As for why...well, it's all about building the buzz.

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Warner Bros. Pictures

The Dark Knight is getting mothballed.

With Watchmen moving into megaplexes, Warner Bros. has pulled the Christopher Nolan-helmed Batman film from theaters after a 33-week run that saw the superhero epic gross $553.3 million domestically, per Box Office Mojo, a haul second only to Titanic's $600.8 million.

Officially, The Dark Knight is still playing in about 50 theaters across the country, but Warner Bros. has stopped tracking the film, essentially sending it into retirement. With Nolan taking a break before commencing work on another Christian Bale-fronted sequel, Batman won't be back in theaters until at least 2010.

But the latest Gotham City go-round put several notches in the old utility belt.

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Hugh Jackman's a favorite of movie fans, and The X-Men's Wolverine is beloved by comic-book nerds. So what could be better than the two of them together again?

Well, this trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, for one. Maybe it's just us, but any movie that features the hero clinging to the top of a moving vehicle (even if it is a helicopter this time) is highly suspect. That move was old when Starsky & Hutch were doing it.

We have other issues. For starters, throwing playing cards isn't a cool power, it's 52 pickup. And the trailer's ratio of Ryan Reynolds to Liev Schreiber is way out of whack. Then all that dream-sequence-looking stuff—Civil War Wolverine and so on—seems silly out of context. We could go on.

In short, this looks bad. We want it to be good. What do you think?

Courtesy Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark; Mark Wilson/ Getty Images

Broadway's Spidey senses are tingling.

Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the hyped stage musical directed by Julie Taymor (The Lion King) with music and lyrics courtesy of U2's Bono and The Edge, will kick off what its producers hope will be an amazing run along the Great White Way beginning with previews on Jan. 16, 2010, and a Feb. 18, 2010, opening night.

The $40 million effort, reportedly the most expensive Broadway production ever, will make its debut in the Hilton Theatre, the only venue big enough to allow the superhero room to spin his way around the sprawling skyscraper sets while duking it out with various bad guys.

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