Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen:

Michael Bay, Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox had a press conference in South Korea, and here's the whole thing. [TLAMB]

Deadpool:

Ryan Reynolds has a promise for you about his Deadpool solo film:

He's going to be the Merc with the Mouth, [we're going to give] all those answers that everyone wants. He's going to have the scarred-up face, he's going to be in the suit - and, it's going to be incredible.

Right now, he says they're just working out what the spine of the story will be, including what antagonists Wade will face, and whehter there will be flashbacks or flash-forwards or what. [MTV]

The Hobbit:

Not sure how much we're covering this franchise, but in any case Guillermo del Toro says the plan is no longer to adapt this book into two movies plus a "bridge" movie. Instead, the new plan is simply to adapt the book into two movies, adding in some subplot material. What subplots, you ask?

There is a whole other chapter, so to speak, which is the comings and going of Gandalf which are dealt with, people that know the lore know that Gandalf was delayed with a crisis… with a character that is very shady called the Necromancer that proves to be Sauron.

Also, he says Andy Serkis, Ian McKellen and Hugo Weaving are back in their roles from the earlier films. And he says he's definitely still directing Frankenstein, with Doug Jones playing the monster. But he says Blade IV and Hellboy III will probably never happen, and he's only producing Jekyll and Hyde, not directing. [Slashfilm]

Zombieland:

Here are the first official photos from this zombie comedy, which has the following storyline:

Jesse Eisenberg plays Columbus, a teenage who has made a habit of running from what scares him. Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) doesn't have fears. If he did, he'd kick their ever-living ass. In a world overrun by zombies, these two are perfectly evolved survivors. But now, they're about to stare down the most terrifying prospect of all: each other. The film also stars Emma Stone (Superbad) and Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine).

More pics at the link. [AICN]

Moon:

It's not just that the duplicate Sam meets on the Moon is a clone — the "original" Sam is a clone too, says director Duncan Jones. After he's injured in an accident, the robot Gerty activates an "energetic and irritable" copy of him. The older Sam is burned out and ready to go home, the newly activated Sam is still the guy who was eager to escape his wife and go to the Moon. They bicker and fight, until they realize that the mining company views both of them as disposable. [Wired]

Lost:

Shannon probably won't be back next season, but Charlie might turn up, you never know. And Rebecca Mader says she's eager to come back and play Charlotte for one or two episodes. [E! Online]

Torchwood:

The new five-part miniseries "Children Of Earth" pushes the Torchwood storyline forward, but leaves the door open for a fourth season, says Eve Myles. It starts with the gang still grieving their lost comrades, but then they have to put that aside and face a new threat, in a bigger storyline than the show's had before. It ends up with the team's relationships to each other, and to the world, greatly transformed. [Wired]

Battlestar Galactica:

Did we already show you this teaser for this fall's TV movie, "The Plan"? Just in case, here it is. There's more coming on Friday night, during Primeval.

Dollhouse:

So why will season two be better than season one? Joss Whedon explains:

We really understand the show now. We understand what works, and what didn't work so well or what we weren't so thrilled about. We don't have the onus of trying to be a big hit sitting on our shoulders. We can just be ourselves. And so the stories we're breaking are pure, and exciting, and everybody's on-board in the room, and it's never flowed better.

As for what will happen, he says the stories will expand on the second half of season one, and a lot of the plots are driven by wanting to have the most fun with these actors, and seeing all the stuff Eliza Dushku can become. Plus expanding the mythology of the Dollhouse. As for Alpha, the season won't pick up right away with "We've got to find Alpha!" Rather, the character will be used sparingly. As for Echo, here's her storyline in the new season:

Echo wants to find not just Caroline, but what's going on behind everything. She doesn't have all of the skills. [Laughs] But she does have this weird super power of becoming a different person all the time, so she might start using that more specifically to find out who Caroline was and what happened to her and why this place exists.

And surprise: Echo's past imprints may not be as wiped out as the Dollhouse would like to believe. [EW]

Supernatural:

Jensen Ackles says the Winchesters won't be calling the shots in the war between Heaven and Hell, but they may play a pivotal role. To some extent, the Winchesters will just be caught in the middle, but they will lend whatever help they can to Castiel and the other angels. And Ackles says Sam's demon blood addiction will remain a problem next season:

The demon stuff is still coursing through his veins, and he's got that to deal with. The season finale ended with the big, giant realization that he was being duped into becoming what he didn't want to be. So now he's got to deal with that and try to get back to neutral

Also, he says that a sixth season of the show isn't really all that likely. All he and Padalecki meant, when they talked about season six at that convention in England, is that they're signed up for six seasons. So if it happens, they have to be part of it. [E! Online]

Virtuality:

Ronald D. Moore talks more about the strands that run through this TV movie, airing June 26:

I think some of the fundamental questions on the show go to things like "What is real? What is not real in this story? What is manipulation? What is not manipulation?" If we went to series we would continue to explore that, and we'd play different characters starting to unravel different mysteries. What are they telling them from Earth, and is that true? Are they just being paranoid? Is somebody aboard manipulating their messages, the virtual reality? There are a lot of mysteries and certain interesting things that were set up that we would continue to play if the show went to series.

[Sci Fi Wire]

True Blood:

Sam Trammell and Rutina Wesley talk season two on a morning talk show:

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

1. Hyde is locked into a battle of wills with Jekyll.
What was missing from this version of Hulk, but not from many of the best comic books about him (including the recent and superlative Planet Hulk series), was a sense that Hulk hates Bruce as much as Bruce hates him. As Charlie pointed out in her review, this Hulk was too emo and dejected. He never challenges Bruce's right to take back his body, and never complains about how Bruce maligns him. Basically, we needed this Hulk to have more psychological complexity.

2. Hyde has goals.
We know as the Incredible Hulk flick starts that Bruce has been Hulking out for five whole years. And yet when Hulk comes out, he can barely talk and just rampages randomly. He hasn't developed any ideas of his own over the past five years? We know what Bruce wants, but what does Hulk want? The thing that's great about Hyde in the Robert Louis Stevenson novella, as well as the countless subsequent movies, is that Hyde has a plan. He wants to kill people who remind him of his monstrous status sometimes, but at other times he wants to drink, party, and make out with hookers. He's a bad boy who can't stand Jekyll's nice, upper-crusty doctor. The only time we ever know what Hulk wants is at the very end of the movie when he yells "Hulk smash!" Good, Hulk, good. You've expressed an opinion. Now we want more of that.

3. Hyde embraces evil.
Nearly every version of the Hyde tale, from the 1950s Kirk Douglas version to the 1990s Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde version with Sean Young, has the big guy embracing darkness. One possible exception is in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic books, where Hyde is something like Hulk was in Planet Hulk — a dark superhero for a dark task. Hulk has embraced evil in his time too, though generally he just wants to be left alone. But why not, for the purposes of this movie, fill out Hulk's character by having him flirt with evil?

4. Jekyll bears some responsibility for creating Hyde.
Perhaps the most bothersome aspect of the Hulk movie was that Bruce was so nice and upstanding. (And as I've already said, his Hulk was totally emo.) Even though he helped invent the scary juice that brought out his Hulk side, he's somehow been duped into it by the military? What? Does that even make sense? I mean, he knows he's working for the military. He knows the military makes weapons. What the hell does he think they are after, anyway? In the Jekyll/Hyde mythos, Jekyll bears full responsibility for letting loose his inner demons on London. He's whipped up this serum and takes it, exactly like Bruce does. So why don't we get more of Bruce angsting over how he basically turned himself in a super soldier? What I'm really asking for here is more development of Bruce's character. OK, so he's some kind of semi-ninja who knows how to evade authorities and slip from Mexico into the U.S. But doesn't he feel guilty for what he's done, too? Can't we get a little soul-searching, here?

5. Jekyll and Hyde make up two parts of a whole.
One of the reasons why the Jekyll/Hyde mythos has endured to this day is that it's easy for audiences to understand how Hyde is the dark side of Jekyll. Dr. Jekyll is a kindly person, usually a guy who wants to help the poor and leads a respectable middle-class life among other bourgeois types. Hyde is clearly his repressed Id: he's greedy, filled with hate and lust, and wants only to exploit the vulnerable for amusement. But what exactly is Hulk in the Incredible Hulk? Is he Bruce's repressed rage? His repressed excitement? What? I'm not asking for the whole problematic Ang Lee "my dad was mean" subplot — I'm just asking to get a sense that Bruce had the Hulk in him even before the experiments and gamma poisoning. I love Ed Norton and I know the guy can act up a storm, but honestly I got more feeling for the character of the mad scientist who helps Bruce de-Hulkify before getting dosed with gamma blood and starting to become the Leader.

The whole point of Hulk comics, and what makes them such compelling reading, is that Hulk is a character study. Sure, he's all about the SMASH, but he's also about human psychology. Just like Jekyll and Hyde are. If Hulk is to go down in cinematic history the way Hyde has, he's going to have to grow a psyche and fast. Pages from the Incredible Hulk #368, by Peter David.