FILM NEWS: Aronofsky's Next Project, Damon's Directorial Debut, Bourne Villains, Saoirse Becomes "The Host," and more

• Michael Shannon has been cast as General Zod in the upcoming Superman reboot. He's been doing an incredible job of creeping us the hell out in HBO's "Boardwalk Empire," so I'm positive he'll due the alien tyrant justice. German actress Antje Traue has also been cast as  Faora, "a Kryptonian serial killer who targeted only men and was sentenced to the Phantom Zone for three centuries where she survived the destruction of Krypton. She knows a special martial art that made her an extremely dangerous foe for Superman to face in hand-to-hand combat."

• I'm excited to report that the young actor who played one of the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network, but wasn't visible due to the digital doubling of Armie Hammer's face, is finally getting his official big break. Josh Pence will play a young Ra's Al Ghul in The Dark Knight Rises. During a flashback, we'll see as the League of Shadows fail to bring down Gotham City. And I'm even more excited to report that Daniel Sunjata ("Grey's Anatomy" and "Rescue Me") has an unknown role in the film. Why? Because he's mega hot! Speaking of mega hot, Diego Klattenhoff ("Mercy" and "Men in Trees" ) has also been cast as a rookie cop. In disappointing news, previously reported rumors that Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon Levitt would play villains have been replaced with lackluster news that she'll play a board member helping Bruce with his philanthropic work and he'll play a beat cop. Of course...those could both be covers.

• Darren Aronofsky's (Black Swan) next film is the adaptation of the 1996 spec script Human Nature. George Clooney will star as "a man who is cryogenically frozen and wakes up years later to a world in which humans have become pets of another species." Sounds almost like Planet of the Apes.

• The X-Men sequels will reportedly take place during different decades/periods. The current film is set in the early 60s, so producer Bryan Singer is interested in exploring what happens to the mutants in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. But Director Matthew Vaughn believes that they're not done with the 60s yet. The early 60s were still very much set in the '50's ideals, which "Mad Men" viewers are aware of. Vaughn would like the next film to explore the late 60s, when America was fueled on flower power and every movement was scored by The Rolling Stones and The Beatles.

• The villain in the upcoming Wolverine sequel has been revealed as Silver Samurai,"a Japanese mutant with the power to charge almost anything with a tachyon field. This enables his katana blade to slice through any known substance, with the exception of adamantium (which covers Wolvie's skeleton and claws)." They should get that kid Rain from Ninja Assassin. He was so damn awesome!

• Matt Damon is looking to make his directorial debut with the crime drama Father Daughter Time: A Tale of Armed Robbery and Eskimo Kisses, where he'll play a man who goes on a cross-country crime spree with his daughter. Moretz! Paging Chloe Moretz! Dakota Fanning, please stand by.

• They've tapped Edward Norton and Oscar Isaac (Sucker Punch) to play villains in the next Bourne film, and Rachel Weisz will play lead Jeremy Renner's love interest. Hmm, I know he's no spring chicken, but she seems kind of mature for him. Either way, psyched to see more of Isaac.

• Sam Worthington is set to star in the sci-fi, crime thriller, comic adaptation of The Last Days of American Crime. In it, "America responds to a second major terrorism attack by developing technology that eliminates the impulse to commit crimes of any kind. [He] plays the leader of a heist team that plans to pull off a final job five days before the signal rubs out the criminal instinct." Sounds like it'll be a nail-biter. I'm secretly wishing Jason Statham will join, especially since Italian Job director F. Gary Gray is directing.

•  I know most ladies find Bradley Cooper smolderingly sexy, but every time I look at him I see a douchebag, which is why news of him playing Lucifer in the reimagining of the Paradise Lost poem adaptation sounds like Grade-A casting to me. In John Milton's poem, Lucifer falls from grace, he tempts Adam and Eve, and then they get banished from the Garden of Eden. This version will be a  modernized action film that might be filmed in 3D. Naturally.

• Another one of Stephenie Meyer's sagas, The Host, will soon be adapted and producers have finally found their leading lady: Saoirse Ronan (Hanna). I haven't read the novels, but considering that it's about alien love, I think Ronan is the perfect choice. Not only is she an amazing actress, but she looks ethereal enough to pass for an alien.

 • It's very possible that Paul Walker could be looking at a career revival if Justin Lin's reboot of the Terminator franchise with Walker as the new Kyle Reese does as well as Fast Five did.

• In yet another fairytale reimagining, Peter Pan, Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight) will play Captain Hook, a tormented former detective on the trail of a childlike kidnapper. AnnaSophia Robb (The Bridge to Terabithia) will play Wendy, the lone survivor who leaves an asylum to help in the hunt. And Sean Bean (The Lord of the Rings) will play Smee, a chief detective and Hook’s only ally on the force. I think the most shocking part of this reimagining is that Hook is supposed to be the good guy.

• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides may not be the best film of the summer, but it did act as a solid springboard for British actor Sam Claflin, who played the brave minister and anchored the romantic mermaid love story. Because of it, he's been cast as the Prince in the upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman, opposite Kristen Stewart (Twilight) and Charlize Theron.

• In other Pirates news, Johnny Depp is rumored to want Russell Brand to star in the next film. Let me guess: as his illegitimate son? 

• In other, more star-studded Snow White news, Tarsem Singh's (The Cell) less sinister fairytale adventure, The Brothers Grimm: Snow White,  "Lily Collins (The Blind Side) plays the exiled princess who battles Julia Roberts' evil queen for control of their kingdom and the love of Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer from The Social Network), who has come to the land in disguise looking for someone to love him for himself."

 • It seems like the new way to inject a saga with new life is to add a dose of The Rock. The producers of G.I. Joe: Cobra Strikes have tapped the wrestler-turned-actor to play Roadblock opposite Channing Tatum, who is the only actor reprising his role in the sequel. Meanwhile, Elodie Yung, the fierce fighter from District B13 Ultimatum, is being considered for the role of ninja and finance clerk Jinx, Adrianne Palicki (Legion and "Friday Night Lights") is playing the female lead Lady Jaye, and Ray Stevenson is playing the villain Firefly, "a member of the villainous Cobra Organization that is known as a saboteur, ninja master and explosives expert."

• I like Alex Pettyfer (I Am Number Four) best when he's being mischievous, so I'm glad to hear he's teaming up with Matthew Goode (Leap Year and Watchmen) for the action thriller Overdrive, where a pair of adventurous brothers and high-profile car thieves come across a tough local crime boss in the South of France.

• I really liked the main character and the love interest in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, even though the movie itself and all other extraneous characters were kind of lame. So I'm glad that they're going ahead with the sequel subtitled The Sea of Monsters, where Perseus will search for The Golden Fleece and free a captured friend.

• Ben Barnes is set to star in a Sorcerer's Apprentice-like fantasy adaptation of The Wardstone Chronicles book series, The Seventh Son, where he'll play "a young man named Tom in training to be the apprentice of a 'Spook' (Jeff Bridges), a fighter against evil magic, in the 1700's. Trouble begins when his friend Alice (Alicia Vikander) tricked into releasing the most sinister witch in the world (Julianne Moore)." I really do think Barnes should stop doing adaptations aimed at children. It never gets him anywhere.

• I like the plot of this sci-fi thriller The Passage. It's an adaptation of a Justin Cronin novel about a group of terminally ill cancer patients who are cured by an experiment with South American bat bites, but then they begin to mutate into indestructible, telepathic vampires and start to infect the others. It's interesting because mankind will go to great lengths to find cures for some of our most debilitating ailments, from cancer to AIDs, so it's completely plausible that in testing treatments they might create something worse. I'd read that book.

• There have been so many vampire films (*cough*read above*cough) that they've run out of angles, but the graphic novel Last Blood has an interesting take. In it, vampires must battle to protect the last surviving humans to keep alive the necessary blood supply after a zombie apocalypse. That's almost like humans curing mad cow disease so they can have a decent burger. Totally get their motivation. Still creepy.