Cinematical

During Sony's panel for The Other Guys, Adam McKay dropped a nice bomb of a confirmation -- he finally signed (as of that day, too) to direct Garth Ennis' The Boys.

McKay has been in talks for the project all summer, and was still stressing the nebulous nature of that while doing press this month for Guys. He recently told CHUD that the decision would be definitive if he could get Simon Pegg to sign on as the book's lead, Wee Hughie. Ennis based Hughie on Pegg, and it's a given that he should play him. As of July 20, McKay and Pegg hadn't even entered in talks.

But it is ComicCon, and Pegg and McKay are both here ... did talks take place? McKay left no doubt that "the deal" for his directorial skills was made at ComicCon. If McKay has signed on, does that mean we'll have the ultimate example of dream casting ever? One can only hope. You can't exactly find another Simon Pegg, can you?

Don't be surprised if the next wave of ComicCon news -- and the Paul roundtables will probably be happening as you read this -- bring news of Pegg being officially on board for The Boys. Is it possible we'll actually get a Garth Ennis movie in our lifetime?

UPDATE: Marvel has released the first official image of the entire cast together on the Comic Con stage. See above.

The Marvel panel was packed, loud, opinionated and hungry. We'll have footage reports on Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor in a little bit, but first, as expected, the full cast for The Avengers was officially announced by Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Downey Jr. And they are:

Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark
Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson
Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow
Chris Hemsworth as Thor
Chris Evans as Captain America
Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye
Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner / Incredible Hulk
Joss Whedon, Director

Joss Whedon: "I have had a dream all my life and it was not this good." ..."This is The Avengers; a team is more than the sum of its parts -- this cast is more than I could have ever hoped for ... and I am going to blow it. I need your love; I need your support."

The espionage thriller Salt starring Angelina Jolie opened this weekend, and like so many other women out there, I was holding my breath that this time Jolie would show that when it comes to action, it doesn't matter if it's a man or woman, it only matters that they can kick some serious a**. So judging by some of the reviews (you can see Eric's take here), the movie may not be a surefire hit, but sisters, we may be able to stop holding our breath because Jolie could still do the impossible: she could be the head of the first female-led action franchise.

There is nothing more satisfying to me as a female moviegoer than to watch a fellow sister clean house. If movies are wish fulfillment, then growing up in a culture where I've been told I'm not as strong or as my male counterparts, the image of a woman who is smart and resourceful, and doing a little physical damage is a dream come true.

Recently, Wired Magazine put together a list of the 'Female Ass Kickers' that are near and dear to the heart of any geek, and it's a pretty comprehensive list of ladies. But I started to think about some of the other kinds of movies that contain some pretty cool chicks that don't reside (solely) in the 'geek ghetto'. So even though every big-screen tough girl owes a debt to Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley, I looked a little further to find the women who have wowed me by being some of the biggest bad-a**es around -- so let's get started...

On the small screen, she was the quintessential all-American cheerleader, both in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Veronica Mars. It was a role for she'd had plenty of real-life experience as a San Diego Chargers cheerleader in the early 90s.

But despite starting her TV career in 1995, with a guest spot on Baywatch, and seeing plenty of success in that medium, the 39-year-old actress has yet to properly crack features. That's all set to change this year. First up is a British horror film, Psychosis, which is what has brought her to London for an exclusive chat with Cinematical today.

And later next month she'll play Jason Statham's character's girlfriend in Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables. Despite a 15-year career, it's her first major Hollywood blockbuster. She sits down to discuss the film and update us on those rumours about big screen translations for Buffy and Veronica Mars...

Some would argue that a day of Comic-con doesn't really begin until the panels are over and the guests and attendees flood downtown San Diego. You never know where the night is going to take you or what you're gonna learn, these are the things I remembered when I woke up this morning.

1. Joss Whedon loves to dance, and no Comic-con is complete until you or someone you love has been caught up in the maelstrom of his sweet, sweet moves. As fluid as his dialogue and as inexplicable as his being hired to direct The Avengers, Whedon's soulful and sweaty gyrations are hypnotic, and he wants to share them with you, so always be prepared. He was as gracious with his rhythm as he is with his fans, posing for pictures and pairing lonely dancers with available partners like Felicia Day and Nathan Fillion. Just don't leave him hanging - the man is all too familiar with things being canceled just as they're getting good, so if you enter the fray you best be prepared to stick it out for the long haul. They shoot nerds, don't they?

2. Avatar was merely a fancy tech demo for Jackass 3-D. And I have the nausea to prove it.

3. Former reality TV star Adrian Curry is officially the greatest Slave Leia ever. I may not have the ultimate authority to make that claim, but I hold this truth to be self-evident. If you want to be a stickler about it, maybe the guy from The Guinness Book of World Records (who was here to give Stallone a plaque confirming Rocky to be the most successful sports franchise ever) is still here. I think I saw him dancing with Joss Whedon last night, having what was officially the greatest night of his life.

Bruce Willis was at Comic-Con Thursday, promoting his role in Sly Stallone's upcoming action flick The Expendables. When he was done with that, Mr. John McClane sauntered over to MTV where he dished on a few things -- the most impressive of which was a proposed fifth installment in the Die Hard series. Yippie ki yay.

Willis told MTV that "It's imminent. The coin is about to drop." The actor didn't offer much more than that, which is unusual since he's been pretty vocal in his demand that director Len Wiseman return to helm the next film for awhile now. The real question is, who can McClane fight this time around? No one's ever going to top Hans Gruber, but I could totally see McClane running around to thwart a terrorist attack by an Al Quaeda sleeper cell on US soil. That may seem a little cliche at this point, but it's not the story that really matters -- it's the idea of an iconic action hero like McClane stopping it that would put my butt in a theater seat on opening night.

Meanwhile, the actor took the time to discuss another project he'd like to be involved in, a sequel to M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable. "I think we'd have to hip-check Night [Shyamalan] into doing it," Willis said. I don't know about that, Bruce -- given Shymalan's recent track record, a return to Unbreakable might be just the thing he needs. I'm sure there's someone out there who would fund it based on Willis' involvement too.

What do you think? I'm not so sold on an Unbreakable sequel -- I'd like the original to remain untarnished in my mind, but Die Hard 5 sounds fine by me. Hit the comments section and share your thoughts.

"Welcome to Sector 2814," says the booming voice of Mark Strong. "The guardians have chosen you for enlistment. But first you must be tested." There was little more than an undulating green orb on the screens of Comic-Con's Hall H, but the capacity crowd sat in rapt attention as the very first footage was screened of The Green Lantern, Martin Campbell's forthcoming big screen adaptation of the iconic comic book series.

The clip was only two or three minutes, and featured just slivers of what one can expect will be epic storytelling. But what was there was nonetheless modestly impressive: Ryan Reynolds plays Hal Jordan, a human initiated into the Green Lantern Corps by Sinestro (the aforementioned Mark Strong). After a montage of images featuring other Lanterns, including some odd (or to fans, oddly familiar) aliens, Jordan seems surprised to discover that he's wearing an emerald-colored ring which, during a scuffle in a vacant lot, manifests a gigantic green fist and lays out three adversaries at the same time. Meanwhile, we also get a few snapshots of other characters in the film, including Peter Sarsgaard as Hector Hammpnd, and Blake Lively as Carol Ferris.

Sadly, there were no shots of Reynolds in the suit, which has thus far received mixed reviews from fans after being revealed on the cover of a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly. (We're confident that as director Martin Campbell later explained, it's a work in progress and will later turn out beautifully, but we hoped that our current concerns had been more immediately allayed.) But the only real problem with the footage was that it was just plain too short, especially since we're extremely excited to see the finished film.

Stay tuned for more specific information from the Green Lantern panel on Cinematical, but in the meantime let us know what you think of the film – whether or not you were lucky enough to join us in Hall H to see the footage!

I'll say one thing for the casting directors over at Marvel, Inc, and that thing is this: they know how to cast their movies. Generally it's the villain side of the equation that gets us all excited -- probably because villains are more interesting than heroes and character actors are more compelling than movie stars -- but the latest word regarding my all-time favorite Marvel character has me, well, pretty psyched.

Mark Ruffalo's "breakout" performance was a damn fine one in You Can Count On Me, and fest-heads / indie fans have long realized that Ruffalo is a rather versatile performer. The guy can do vulnerable, tough, frustrated, sweet, funny, angry, etc. with no trouble at all. Even casual fans who noticed Ruffalo in films like Zodiac, Shutter Island, and Blindness were quick to point out how quietly memorable his work was. And while I enjoyed Eric Bana's inscrutible Banner in Hulk and Edward Norton's angry loner in The Incredible Hulk, I'm also rather impressed with Marvel's third casting choice. Guys dig Ruffalo's wise-ass straight-shooter approach, the ladies seem to like his manliness ... all in all, a fine choice.

Mr. Ruffalo will be joining Chris Evans (Captain America), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye and Don Cheadle as War Machine. It will be up to screenwriter Zak Penn and director Joss Whedon to bring this massive crew together -- and personally I cannot wait to see what this flick looks like.

So on this lazy day of flipping through all the colorful Comic-Con coverage, my question is two-fold: A) What are your favorite Ruffalo performances, and B) What are your thoughts on him joining the Marvel team as everyone's favorite green beast?

One of my favorite games growing up was Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! on the original Nintendo. Taking control of perennial underdog Little Mac as he boxes his way through the Soda Popinski's and Glass Joe's of the fighting world on his quest to take on Iron Mike Tyson was one of those magical gaming moments that I still look back at fondly all these years later.

Developer Blockdot appears to have used that classic NES game as the template for their new iPhone and iPad title, Pilgrim's Punch-Out! -- a boxing game designed to cross promote Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World film.