Variety reports that Cage is in talks to play a "gangster villain" in Gondry's film adaptation of The Green Hornet, starring funnyman Seth Rogen as a bumbling superhero. Presumably, this is the same villain Gondry described in earlier interviews: a "horrible" fellow with a double-cannon gun that lets him "shoot people in both eyes with one shot."

Cage's previous foray into comic-book films (the ill-conceived Ghost Rider) was anything but a success, and it is possible that, with Stephen Chow's departure from the role of popular sidekick Kato, the studio is looking to bring bigger names to the project (like Cameron Diaz, rumored to be playing the film's love interest). But I suspect that we're actually getting a glimpse of Gondry's Green Hornet master plan.

The central theme of this version of The Green Hornet is that the eponymous hero is severely outclassed by his more competent – and popular – sidekick, and Gondry might well be expanding that idea of mismatched characters across the entire cast. If Cage's particular brand of strange intensity seems at odds with Rogen's earnest persona, that's probably the point. Gondry may well be deliberately casting actors who normally wouldn't share screen time to create his won unique flavor of superhero stew.

It does seem a risky balancing act for Gondry, one made even more complicated by the difficult job of recasting Kato. But I, for one, am looking forward to watching him try to pull it off.

[Variety]

These films join 475 others in the National Registry, although only 13 others are science fiction, including everything from Alien to The Nutty Professor. Even Groundhog Day is in there, trapping Bill Murray for all eternity in a regressive time loop. The Library itself chooses a few of the films, and the public nominates the others, which means you've got films like Fast Times At Ridgemont High sitting alongside Citizen Kane, so we're not clear on how auspicious an honor this is. But at least future generations will have access to topless Phoebe Cates.

Check out some of the cool features of the National Film Registry's Film Vault/Bunker:

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• It's built mostly underground, so a nuclear attack won't stop us from having fresh copies of Dances With Wolves at hand.
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• There are over 90 miles of shelves inside, which make browsing a real bitch.
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• A below-freezing vault keeps film masters, as well as Walt Disney's head, perfectly preserved.
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• They preserve digital film at the petabyte (one million gigabytes) level. Cell phones will catch up to that storage level around 2015.
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• It is fully equipped to playback antique film formats, even movies on Beta tapes.
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• It has high-quality fiber optic connections to Capitol Hill for when your congressman needs to run out and catch a few minutes of Do The Right Thing.
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Wuthering Heights Among 25 Top Films [Yahoo]

• Before Charlton Heston entered into acting, he had to change his name to shed his connection to a science fiction classic. Born John Charles Carter, he shared a name with the hero of Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom series of books, which featured John Carter as an American Civil War veteran fighting mythical creatures on Mars. The first book, A Princess of Mars, was being developed into a film in the early 1950s as Heston began acting, although it later fell through.
• Planet Of The Apes: While first deemed too expensive, 20th Century Fox eventually shot a $50,000 test scene in the 1960s in order to show that the film had potential. This was Heston's first turn as Astronaut George Taylor, and his star power helped convince the executives to go for it. The resulting film was a success, and led to countless repeatings of Heston's line, "Take your stinking paws off me you damned dirty ape!" for years to come.
• Beneath The Planet Of The Apes: Heston agreed to appear as Taylor again in this film, but only in a small supporting role. He also wanted his character to be killed off, and he got his wish in a spectacular way when he was the one who triggered the Doomsday device that destroyed the planet. The series went on to have three prequel films and a television series, but suffered declining ratings. Who knows if Heston would have been able to save the series, but he'd had his fill of monkeyshines.
• The Omega Man: Heston played Robert Neville in this second film adaptation of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend novel in 1971. Complete with afro-wearing Rosalind Cash playing it to the nines as a Foxy Brown version of Lisa, Heston sported Ray-Bans and an automatic weapon throughout the film's Los Angeles setting. It's a bit campy, but still considered a classic by fans of science fiction and guns everywhere.
• Soylent Green: Is there anyone left alive in the world who doesn't know what Soylent Green is made out of? Based on the 1966 scifi novel Make Room! Make Room!, the Earth has become incredibly overpopulated and food resources are extremely scarce. The Soylent Corporation aims to tide hunger with their miracle foods, soylent red, soylent yellow, and the ever-popular new flavor, soylent green. Heston plays a detective who unravels the mystery behind the tasty treat, leading to another very popular Heston-quote, "Soylent Green is people!"
• Earthquake: While not exactly science fiction in plot, this Heston disaster flick featured a new process that Universal Studios decided to install in theaters in order to help pump the excitement during the movies earthquake sequences. "Sensurround" involved huge speakers and a 1,500 watt amplifier that could pump out "infra bass" — ass-rattling waves of sound. Supposedly the system caused nosebleeds, cracked ceilings, and destroyed china in nearby shops. The process was also used in the 1979 Battlestar Galactica theatrical film, and later relegated to the trash heap.
• Solar Crisis: Heston's return to science fiction films in 1990 resulted in this god-awful travesty of a movie that features an artificially intelligent bomb named Freddy and TV's Parker Lewis Can't Lose himself, Corin Nemec. The combined might and one-armed pushupability of Jack Palance and Charlton Heston couldn't prevent this $55 million dollar movie about dropping a bomb into the sun to redirect solar flares from flaming out.
• Planet of the Apes (2001): Besides a role on an episode of SeaQuest DSV and narrating Michael Bay's Armageddon, Charlton Heston last science fiction role was an uncredited cameo as a dying ape who hands a pistol to his son in this Tim Burton-directed remake. This film was so bad that I wouldn't have wanted my name in the credits either.

• The Starship Exeter: This Star Trek fan-made series comes from the heart of Austin, Texas, and looks like it was filmed alongside the original series. From the sets all the way down to the smallest props, its got the looks. The acting can be slightly hammy at times, but whoever said Shatner wasn't pure pork?
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• Time Distortion: If you can manage to build a replica of the TARDIS, then you've done 95% of the work required to make a Doctor Who fanfilm, mostly because the special effects budget for the BBC back in the day was probably about ten bucks. For the whole season. Kevin Hiley and buddy Jonathan Miles made an audio version of this story when they were both 13 years old, and 13 years later, they made a live-action version that captures the cheese, camp, and charm of the original Doctor Who.
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• Troops: 1977's Hardware Wars was the first-ever fan film that poked fun at the Star Wars universe but this one takes the cake as far as making something new out of something old. It's Cops with Stormtroopers, what more do you need to know? Oh, and it's hilarious. It helped spawn other Star Wars-themed comedy fanfilms like Trooper Clerks and Pink Five.
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• Batman: Dead End: While the Star Wars and Star Trek universes normally receive the most attention from aspiring fanfilmers, Batman has had some pretty decent entries as well. The best of the bunch is this 2003 short film that wowed director Kevin Smith and artist Alex Ross. It inspired other Batman fanfilms like Grayson, about an adult Robin trying to find out who killed Batman (excellent) and World's Finest, where Batman teams up with Superman.
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• Indiana Jones: The Adaptation: This is probably one of the most inspiring stories of labor, love, and fandom. Three twelve-year-old buddies saw Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981, and starting making a shot-for-shot remake with a camcorder. It took them seven years to finish it, and it premiered in Texas on the big screen in 2003. Producer Scott Rudin bought the rights to their story, and art house comic book favorite Dan Clowes is writing it.

Actually, The Brave One did way better than Kevin Bacon's competing revenge flick Death Sentence. Maybe the problem is with War-On-Terror gun porno?

You can spend hours dissecting Robinov's idiocy, but the fact is it's bad for science fiction. As Slashfilm points out, the danger is that we'll end up with characters like Sue Storm in the Fantastic Four movies, who's a bride and not much else. Science fiction needs well-rounded, interesting women in challenging situations — not just mindless fluffers for the male hero.

Warner Bros. Says "No More Female Lead Characters" [Slashfilm]