"One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble..."
-Murray Head

Don't ask me what happened to the real Nicolas Cage, because I don't know where he is.

I don't know what happened to the man who left Las Vegas, or the man who made Donald Kaufman into such an endearing figment of imagination, or the man who stole diapers as he stole hearts. All I've seen of late is a face, a name, a profile, a character, the artist formerly known as Nic Cage, an entity on auto-pilot and damn near self-parody that knows what he looks like and sounds like and makes do with that alone.

In Bangkok Dangerous, a remake by the Pang Brothers of their own 1999 thriller, Cage-Or-Something-Like-Him plays an assassin, perhaps the most laconic one this side of Forest Whitaker in '99's Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and he is so reliably aloof throughout, so divorced from the proceedings that it almost becomes its own form of entertainment... which is certainly helpful once genuine entertainment refuses to show up to any other degree.

We've stayed away from all the Ghostbusters rumors these past couple days because last time we crossed this road, we were told nothing existed. Well, seems that's not at all true: Variety reports that Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky (The Office, Year One) have been asked to write a script for a Ghostbusters sequel (reported earlier today by Pajiba.com) that may or may not "pass the torch to a new group of ghost chasers." Funnily enough -- and even though he flat out told us he had nothing to do with it -- this is totally in line with those early rumors that "The Apatow Clan" would be involved in some capacity; namely Seth Rogen. When we asked him about it during the Pineapple Express junket, however, the man denied knowing a thing. Then again, he's an actor ... and he's paid pretty damn well to pretend.

The Apatow connection is also there in that these two writers are behind the Apatow-produced Year One, which, ahem, is being directed by Harold Ramis -- who, in case you forgot, played Dr. Egon Spengler in both Ghostbuster movies. No word from Columbia Pictures on the project, and Variety is simply throwing out all the same fluff that's been reported on other sites for months now. Could we see a reunion and a torch passing? Will the Apatow folks take over the Ghostbusters franchise? I'd certainly be down for it.

You?

(And now we shall continue to run circles around this monster until someone finally caves ...)

It is no secret that horror maestro Clive Barker has not had good luck lately with feature films. But to his credit, it hasn't made him bitter about seeing his work translated for the big screen. In an interview with MTV, Barker got the chance to weigh in on the upcoming remake of Hellraiser for Dimension Films -- and judging from his comments, he seems to be in a good place with the project. Barker told MTV, "I never get tired of revisiting [characters] if there is a good story to be told." He seemed genuinely excited about what he has planned for the story of a puzzle box from another dimension and the 'human pin-cushion'.

Back in February, Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton were hired to work on the re-write of the Barker-approved script. But the project had another setback when the French directing duo of Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (À l'intérieur) left the project due to "creative differences." So for now it looks like Pin-Head and the Gang are without a director. Hopefully, Dimension can get the ball rolling on the remake, because I don't think Barker could take another disappointment at the box office.

After the jump...find out what Barker really thinks about PG-13 horror.

Dark Knight Spoiler Warning ...

No more speculation, no more talk of ret-con and false funerals -- Harvey Dent is officially 100% dead. It comes straight from the mouth of Aaron Eckhart, who revealed his character's fate in no uncertain terms to ComingSoon.net "He is dead as a door nail. He ain't coming back baby!"

And lest you doubt that he knows the mind of Christopher Nolan, well, Eckhart asked him whether Two-Face would ever be coming back. "I asked Chris [Nolan] that question and he goes, "You're dead" before I could even get the question out of my mouth. 'Hey Chris, am I?' 'You're dead!' 'Alright, cool.'" There's no chance it will be rewritten or retconned, as he was never even contracted for a third film. "No, I'm not coming back. I think unfortunately, Heath [Ledger] was supposed to go on and that didn't work out. I'm nobody. I'm a cog. I have no say over this sort of stuff. I'm sure that there's so many other characters that they could whip together. I heard Angelina Jolie was going to be Catwoman or something like that. I thought that was a great idea. I'd like to be in that one."

Dent's death has now been confirmed via the novelization, the script, the actor, and the director. Though I would say that's as definitive as it gets, fanboys and girls across this great Internet refuse to accept it -- they just believe in Harvey Dent too much. But since we do live in a world where no comic character stays dead, where 299 Spartans can rise again, and Chev Chelios survives a fall from a helicopter, I guess you can hardly blame them.

Back in June we reported on a pair of upcoming films that deal with Greek Mythology in one way or another. One is the remake of Clash of the Titans, and the other is something very cool-sounding called Lords of War. And now it looks like we might have a third entry in the chariot sweepstakes. (Or four if you include the new Argonauts project!)

Details are sketchy at this point, but Variety indicates that writer-director Sheldon Lettich has been tapped by producer Alexander Nevsky to get to work on Hercules: The Beginning. I assume the "snake in the crib" story will be included, considering that we're starting at "The Beginning." (I further assume that a subtitle like "The Beginning" indicates a plan for sequels...)

Mr. Lettich is no stranger to the action section: He recently penned Rambo 4 and he's responsible for no less than FIVE Jean-Claude Van Damme movies! Five! Including the one where there's TWO Van Dammes!

Somehwere, Kevin Sorbo is waiting for his phone to ring.

Despite being seemingly obligated by demographic alone to enjoy it, I didn't particularly care for Michael Bay's Transformers, even after a recent second look on the small screen. Regardless, the people have spoken with their wallets, and Transformers 2: Revenge of the Ka-Ching is well underway for its release next summer.

Embedded above is the first of several behind-the-scenes videos that Wal-Mart will be providing in the coming months, and right from the get-go, the visionary Bay talks about not only making a sequel that'll make kids' dreams, but also sticking his custom-made Nikes up the collective ass of his crew. Watch as "Bay-os" and "Bay-hem" ensue in Bethlehem, PA, with fast bikes, nice cars, and big booms...

Heck, just about the only thing missing from this two-minute taste is some sweet hand-injury action.

There's an interesting trend going on in film right now -- everyone is grabbing up classic characters of pulp and adventure literature right and left. We've got Conan, Sherlock Holmes, John Carter, and now Tarzan. There's a sociological study in here for an aspiring student.

Tarzan has seen many a reboot, and there's always whispers of someone wanting to make a new version. This current project has been floating around since 2003 (the same year Warner Bros tried to bring Tarzan to television and the modern city), and once boasted Guillermo del Toro's name. Now, according to Variety, it has landed in the hands of Stephen Sommers, who is cowriting a script with Stuart Beattie. Beattie boasts some impressive credits, like Pirates of the Caribbean and Collateral, so the Lord of the Apes might be in quite capable hands.

But Sommers' movies tend to fall a bit short of expectation, to put it kindly. And I mean it kindly, from someone who does actually own Van Helsing -- I could write a long defense as to why, but it really just comes down to liking Hugh Jackman and David Wenham a lot. But, in my defense, I reportedly audibly booed the ending when I saw it at the theater, though I can't remember if it was because they so visibly CGI'd pants on a naked post-werewolf Jackman, or the floating head of Kate Beckinsale. I think it was the floating head, but knowing me, it may have been the pants.

So, while I want to think about how cool a new Tarzan movie could be, what hot dude they'll put in a loincloth, how feisty Jane will be, I can't. Because I'm picturing the whole thing saddled with the same CGI Sommers has used since The Mummy, a jungle peppered with apes that can stretch their jaws for miles. Am I wrong, readers?

In advance of its release last week, Disaster Movie was slammed for the insensitivy of its release date -- on the third anniversary of one of the worst natural disasters in history. (Hurricane Gustav narrowly avoided adding injury to insult.) Probably for a variety of reasons, audiences stayed away in droves, as Eugene noted. Now Bangkok Dangerous, the only wide release scheduled for this week, finds itself overtaken by current events. What else do the two apparent stinkers have in common? Lionsgate, their US distributor.

Lionsgate must pride itself on its highly-targeted slate being critic-proof, since it maximizes profits by skipping most advance screenings for critics and relying entirely on a blitkreig of advertising to fill theaters on opening weekend before word of mouth can spread. In fact, they informed publications some time ago that no advance press screenings for Bangkok Dangerous would be held. As Josh Tyler of Cinema Blend commented when reporting on the notice: "Not screened for the press almost always means the movie is so bad even the people who made it know the film is awful."

Cinematical will post a review later this week, after it opens. But advance word -- and current events -- make the movie sound like another disaster for Lionsgate.

It's definitely no secret that writer Mark Millar is a wanted man these days (or at least he wants you to believe he's a wanted man), what with his comic series Wanted doing very well in theaters and another series of his, Kick-Ass, about to start production -- not to mention all this talk of the guy possibly taking over the Superman franchise from a writing and creative standpoint. We'll get to the latter in just a second, but first up there's Wanted ... and Wanted 2 ... and, wait, Wanted 3, too?

In an interview with Newsarama, Millar spoke about how much he's participating in the Wanted follow-up ... and it would seem like he only gave the studio a "very small amount for a story, and that will be used as a basic story that they can build from." He adds, "It will be some of the stuff that we didn't utilize from the first book for the movie – like chapters three and four – there will be some stuff from that, so in the loosest sense it will be based on the book, but only very little." Millar also noted that both part two and part three are greenlit, and that James McAvoy is indeed signed on to reprise his role in both sequels.

Hear what Millar has to say about his proposed seven-hour, Lord of the Rings-like Superman trilogy after the jump ...

Well, darn! I no more than got to ponder this item from Australia's Herald Sun than it was debunked from England. The Sun was reporting that Russell Crowe was all set to play Dr. Watson in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, instantly making Watson ten times more interesting than he's ever been allowed to be onscreen.

But just as all movie writers began pondering how incredibly brilliant it would be to see Crowe and Robert Downey Jr. pair up onscreen, perhaps as the Riggs and Murtaugh of Victorian London, it was dismissed entirely by none other than Guy Ritchie.

Ritchie was out doing red carpet duty for RocknRolla in London, when Empire asked him all about it. I'm kind of imagining a funny exercise in time difference here, where premiere reporters were being texted "Russ. C 2 be in Shlock Hlms?" from their Oz cousins just as Ritchie got out of his limo. Ritchie denied it all. "I don't have a Watson. Somebody just told me that I have Russell Crowe lined up but that's news to me. I suspect that hasn't happened and I'm still looking for my Watson." (I vote Paul Bettany. I guess he's becoming a bit of a smart sidekick cliche, but he would be really good.)

Filming is set to start in a month, so expect an Inglorious Bastards-like flurry of casting news. According to Susan Downey, producer of RocknRolla and owner of Robert, the story is all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books, and yet none. "The world is within all the stories and it actually goes back to the books but the story is actually one that we made for the movie. What we can tell you is that he's a badass in this movie alright. That's what we're going back to, any Holmes fan that we've spoken to is getting really excited about this one."