Two days ago, Warner Bros. won the most-recent (and most precarious) case brought against them by the heirs of “Superman’s” creators seeking 50% control of certain aspects of the character’s mythology said to have been created “apart” from what he was when their (crummy) original deal was struck (it’s complicated.) Meaning that WB can now proceed to greenlight and start pre-production on any further “Superman”-related movie projects they choose. And they’ve wasted no time in making it official that they plan to have the “Justice League” movie out for a 2015 release date. That’s one year after “Avengers 2,” for those keeping track.

It makes sense for them to have been waiting for this case to shake out to make it official – I maintain that the people running these projects for Warners have very little idea of why these characters can and should work in movies, but they’re at least correct that Batman and Superman are both needed to make the thing work (Wonder Woman, too, but they’re in no danger of losing her rights and they still haven’t launched a successful modern franchise off of her.)

One imagines that this means we can expect some sort of worldbuilding to be going on or teased at in “Man of Steel,” but beyond that their plan is apparently to debut their new shared-universe versions of the other characters in “Justice League” and then spin them off from their (based on audience response and merchandise numbers, most likely.) If true, that move surprises me because it’s a really, really, really good idea: Unlike The Avengers, nobody needs to be introduced to Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman as characters or the basic “ideas” behind them; while most of the other likely prospects are self-explanatory – The Flash runs fast, Aquaman is a “boy mermaid,” Hawkman has wings, Martian Manhunter is a more overtly-alien Superman, Green Lantern is toxic as a live-action brand and probably won’t be in the movie, etc.

The biggest immediate change of this announcement, of course, is that – with apologies to Marvel – the three biggest questions in superhero movie speculation are now as follows (in order):

Who replaces Christian Bale as Batman? 
He’s said he’s done, and even if they could net him he’s proven much too volatile an actor for the long-term planning this is going to require (see: Norton, Edward.)

Who plays Wonder Woman?
She’ll have to be in there, since the Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman “trinity” is integral to the iconography as far as the mainstream culture (read: people who’ll wonder why this isn’t called “SuperFriends”) and because she’s the only female DC hero whose not the distaff-counterpart of a male hero that most people have heard of, and the pressure will be on this production to do better than “Avengers” did in terms of team diversity.

Who else is on the team?
As mentioned, diversity will be (and ought to be) a concern for this production. So while I’d lay money that, say, classic-Leaguers like The Flash are virtual “locks” (and I’m not kidding about Green Lantern – I’ll be surprised if they bother with him) expect to see a push for minority characters like Static, Black Lightning or Cyborg (who was part of the “New 52” JLA recently) to get in there as well.

Dank Aykroyd and Ivan Reitman have been trying to get “Ghostbusters 3” happening for so long that Generation X has already gone through the anticipation, denial, acceptance and “over it” stages of the “let’s sequelize everything we always wanted another of in the 80s!” mini-mania during the entirety of its “planning.”

But, whatever – it looks like it’s finally really happening. For years, the hold-up was trying to convince the original cast (well, okay, trying to convince Bill Murray) to star again; but now that it doesn’t look like that’s happening it seems they’ll be going with the pitch everyone kind of assumed they’d be starting from when they first started talking about this is in the late-90s: A new crop of young comic-actors being handed the mantle, with the originals in support roles (so, a live-action “Extreme Ghostbusters,” basically.)

I’d honestly be surprised if they didn’t find a way to get Murray back in at least some form – he’s not exactly known for consistent behavior, and he’s put the uniform back on at least twice recently for jokey cameo appearances; so if they could find a way to fit him in that only required a few hours of work and could be shot on his schedule (read: whenever he feels like doing it, wherever he feels like doing it, if he feels like doing it) I’d call it plausible. FWIW, certain early drafts of the screenplay supposedly featured Peter Venkeman returning only in a brief cameo… as a ghost.

But, yeah… apparently we’ve got to deal with this now. Fine.

UPDATE: Reports are now coming that Raimi is NOT directing the film yet, but is still onboard to produce. This is my sad face.

ORIGINAL POST: …okay, this just feels weird to type. I’m used to thinking of remakes as generational things – “new” talents doing an update of movies made by the father’s and grandfather’s era of filmmakers. Raimi is a few years younger than Tobe Hooper, but they were both coming up and into their own as “name” horror directors in roughly the same decade. I mean… it’s like if James Cameron said he was going to remake “E.T.”

Annoyed as I am with classic horror remakes… this actually excites me. Part of what made the original “Poltergeist” such a big deal at the time was taking the haunted house genre out of the “spooky old manor,” placing it in the contemporary setting of suburban sprawl (the entire premise hinges on the audience’s understanding that these bloated insta-neighborhoods really were springing-up rapidly and without much oversight) and the contemporary anxiety of suburban suffocation (for an interesting take on that, go HERE.) And it’s not like either of those things haven’t gotten more topical – “Poltergeist” in the aftermath of the Real Estate Bubble? Okay, sign me up.

Everything about “Jack Reacher” looks good… except Tom Cruise. He’s not a bad actor, he’s not an actor I dislike… it’s just that his whole “aura” – scrappy, intense, perpetually-youthful – seems like bad casting for a character they’re essentially selling as John Rambo: Consulting Detective.

Still, this new trailer makes the film a must-see by revealing Werner FUCKING Herzog as the villain(?) For a guy who’s spent so long being a movie maverick, it’s fun to see how enthusiastically Herzog has embraced present-day Hollywood’s overdue fascination with him:

Take ten minutes and watch this video clip of “Prehistoric Beast,” a 1984 homemade stop-motion short film from FX dynamo Phil Tippet and one of my favorite dinosaur-related things EVER. As you watch it, keep in mind that ’84 means this was done the old-fashioned way – frame-by-frame with NO computer effects… even those “hand-held camera” shots are artificially executed bit by bit.

I first encountered the short as incorporated into “Dinosaur!”, a 1985 “everything you wanted to know” documentary hosted by Christopher Reeve that I probably watched multiple times a WEEK as a child. I was obsessed with this thing, and as a science doc it still holds up today:

Busy night. May or may not post a longer debate-related thing, but in brief: Obama won but Romney still standing, Fox News will now spend a years trying to ruin Candy Crowley, Obama saying that low-skill jobs that’ve gone to China “aren’t coming back” and that high-end, high-skill tech and science careers are the future of the American economy is the first time a politician with something to lose has told the HARD TRUTH about jobs since John McCain said it four years ago.

However… for me, there was only one moment that stood out, and unlike a lot of people (so far) it’s not Mitt getting “live fact-checked” by the moderator about Libya.

I’ve been waiting to do this one since LAST Schlocktober…

This is one of those “remake of a classic” first-trailers whose first, last and only mission is to A.) “surprise” audiences with the reveal of what it is (even people who haven’t seen “Carrie” have “seen ‘Carrie” and B.) let lovers of the original know that this one is bigger but that they know their iconography (re: “don’t worry, we’re still going to dump blood on her and start a fire.”)

Fair or not, I think they’re kind of wasting their time if they think classic-horror fans are coming at this one with anything other than knives drawn, regardless of how good it looks or is. The original is known not just for being a good movie but for the “DePalma-isms” that a remake is either going to catch shit for ignoring or catch shit for imitating poorly…

For me, the big draw here is Chloe Moretz – or, rather, the innate interest in seeing one of the all-time high school horror movies executed with actors who actually look like high schoolers (the original, for all it’s merits, DOES still have that “obvious 30 year-olds playing children” problem.)

Sandwiched amid the expected announcements today that “Iron Man 3” and “Thor: The Dark World” will be in 3D comes official confirmation that Marvel/Disney are making it official for Edgar Wright’s long-gestating “Ant-Man” movie… and that it’s now dated to come out in November of 2015 – after “Avengers 2;” meaning that they’re already setting “Phase III” in motion before “Phase II” even officially gets underway.

What’s fun about this is that by announcing “You’ll see Ant-Man in 2015,” they’re making it feel VERY likely that we’ll in fact see him before 2015, too…

Here’s the thing: Wright and Marvel had a “test reel” of Ant-Man FX footage at Comic-Con which apparently felt an awful lot like something that would be the post-credits teaser of another Marvel movie – and while they haven’t cast the “official” Ant-Man yet, in the footage he was wearing a full-head face-obscuring helmet so it’s probably still extremely useable and I’d be very surprised for a penny-pinching studio like Marvel to not repurpose it at some point.

Also, they’ve been shooting (and then deleting) minor references to the character (who, for the record, can communicate with ants and also shrink down to tiny-size while retaining his full strength) for awhile now – there’s a clear references to “the guy who gets small” in the “Avengers” deleted-scenes, and the scientist Dr. Selvig emails in “Thor” was supposed to be revealed as (in an email handle) Dr. Hank Pym, aka Ant-Man.

That’s another reason he could be turning up before his own movie… or even before he’s been (fully) cast: Wright’s script is said to feature both original Ant-Man Pym and later mantel-carrier Scott Lang as characters, supposedly with Lang as the “main” protagonist. That’s interesting in and of itself (Pym’s character went to some pretty dark places in the comics and modern retellings tend to cast him as an antihero at best) but it also leaves the door open for Pym (and the Ant-Man abilities) to appear in “Avengers 2” (or “Iron Man 3,” or “Thor 2,” or “Captain America 2,” or “Guardians of The Galaxy”) and then for Scott Lang to become Ant-Man in the series-proper. FWIW, the Comic-Con footage depicted Ant-Man either breaking into or out of what looked a lot like a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility.

An interesting footnote to this is the question of whether or not – Pym or no Pym – perennial Ant-Man sidekick/love-interest The Wasp (same powers, but with wings) turns up for “Avengers 2” as well; given that she’s a fan-favorite character and given that the team is overall hurting for a more diverse lineup.