Movieline is reporting that if all negotiations go as planned, John Malkovich will be playing the bald and pissed off Vulture in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4. All right, fine, another bad guy in the mix. But wait they're not done yet. According to the site, Anne Hathaway is not in negotiations to be the Black Cat, as we'd previously heard. Instead it's much, much worse.

The 27-year-old actress is currently the top choice for Felicia Hardy, who'd been long-rumored as one of the new characters in this installment. (Other names bandied about for the role included Julia Stiles, Rachel McAdams, and Romola Garai.) However, unlike in the comic books, this Felicia Hardy doesn't transform into the Black Cat. Instead, Raimi's Felicia will become a brand-new superpowered figure called the Vulturess.

Well, I think it's safe to say "no thanks," to that idea. While we like the idea of getting Anne Hathaway in a comic book movie, turning the Felicia Hardy character into the Vulture's distaff counterpart is a sacrifice we're just not willing to take. But take solace in this fact, it's still merely a rumor at this point. And the rumors for this film have been spreading like untamed symbiotes.

The single, from the duo's new CD Junior, tells the sad tale of a lonely woman who apparently finds physical but not emotional solace from her android companion. In the Michael Baldwin-directed video, the robot appears opposite Robyn as a cross between Hellboy's limpid-eyed Abe Sapien and a Dyson vacuum cleaner. Watch for that final narrative twist at the end of the clip, below.

Apparently anticipating the io9 take on this song, the Röyksopp boys have beaten us to the punch and helpfully compiled their own list of the top 5 girl-and-robot pairings in movies. Check out their list, and let the arguments begin over who was left off (how about Ann Magnuson and John Malkovich as Frankie and Ulysses in Making Mr. Right?), or whether Ally Sheedy's Stephanie Speck and Johnny Five from Short Circuit even deserve an honorable mention on this list.

Headline: "Stardust Evidence Points to Planet Collision"
Movie Title: Armageddon II: Are you Gettin' It?
Director: Michael Bay
The Set-Up: For reasons that defy logic, Venus has jumped its orbit and is headed towards Earth. Back at the farm, scientists determine that they must detonate the rogue planet before it obliterates the motherland. So NASA turns to a grizzled, retired explosives expert (the best in the world, natch) for an assist. One catch: They must first find a way to pry him away from The Bottle and rekindle the curmudgeon's will to live. Perhaps a visit from his saintly kindergarten-teacher ex-wife will do the trick?

Headline: "U.K. experts say Stonehenge a place of healing"
Movie Title: How to Get to 11—The Nigel Tufnel Chronicles, Vol. 1
Director: Akiva Schaffer
The Set-Up: It's 1973. Having recorded five albums with his band Spinal Tap, guitarist Nigel Tufnel is in a creative funk. Seeking spiritual inspiration, he makes a pilgrimage to Stonehenge, "where a man's a man and the children dance to the Pipes of Pan."* He soon lands in a hospital after contracting a VD from this chance encounter with a Tap groupie who happened to be part of his tour group. (Hey, she looked clean.) And it is there, hopped up on antibiotics and whatnot, that Tufnel starts writing Spinal Tap's no-so-seminal album 1974's Intravenous de Milo.

*Note: The track "Stonehenge" ended up appearing on the band's 1975 release, The Sun Never Sweats.

Headline: "Scientists demonstrate how to make a hidden portal"
Title: The Being John Malkovich Prequel (working title)
Director: John Grisham, in his directorial debut
The Set-Up: Before the employees of LesterCorp got wind of the portal, an oblivious John Malkovich was making troubling career decisions, like starring in Mary Reilly or Con Air or The Man in the Iron Mask. You see, for a brief period of time, his consciousness was inhabited by a schizophrenic. Trapped in the eccentric actor's consciousness by a mad scientist, the mental patient is ruled missing until a perseverant psychiatrist tracks him. A lost cause? Hardly. Ignoring her skeptical colleagues, she embarks on an interdimensional adventure to liberate her fragile patient from the mind of Malkovich, all the while giving him hope with her tough-love maternal instincts.

Mutant Chronicles takes place in a dried-up Earth. The world was destroyed by warring companies: the Capitol, Bauhaus, Mishima and Imperial. When a fight opens up a sealed underground world, the world becomes overrun with the underworld inhabitants, necrmutants. The mutants all have long bone-blades protruding from their sides, which they use as weapons.

Instead of fleeing, Major Mitch Hunter (Thomas Jane) and his gang of sexy soldiers journey to the depths of the planet to end the mutants once and for all, saving the Earth. John Malkovich plays Capitol's CEO, who can abandon Earth at a moments notice, leaving its human inhabitants unprotected and vulnerable to the mutants. Ron Perlman is Brother Samuel a man who believes that he is the prophesied "deliverer" of man. It's Samuel who convinces Hunter to lead the battle and save the world. Also make a mutant appearance is katana wielding bad-ass butt-kicker Devon Aoki.

Event Horizon writer Phillip Eisner is penning this screenplay, which means it should be scary as all hell. Note to Eisner: please reprise characters going crazy and ripping out their eyes, still number one scary moment in my scifi books.

The on-line script writing challenge will allow others to be inspired by John's initial chapter and decide for themselves how the story should unfold. Having submitted their chapter to the www.vaio-john.com website, both John and visitors to the site can vote for their favourite entry before it is linked to the master script. Over a period of 4 months one scene will be selected each month from entries all over Europe. VAIO with John hope to create a seamless story-line, albeit one we will not know the final conclusion to until the last chapter is added.

The project is something John is excited by; "Conventional wisdom says you can't do science fiction with say...period drama. Or maybe you can?"

Sony creates an opportunity like no other with John Malkovich [Design Taxi]

Be Like. No. Other. [Vaio-John.com]