May 7, 2010 is so far away. But so far, it all looks really, really good. Except Mickey Rourke's Whiplash costume...

[Via Entertainment Tonight]

Johansson is auctioning off the chance for you and a friend to attend next May's LA premiere for Iron Man 2, meet Johansson herself and also "receive a free glam session" at upscale LA salon Christophe, with proceeds from the auction going to Oxfam America. The actress, herself an Oxfam Ambassador, explained in a statement,

I'm so thrilled to be a part of this eBay charity opportunity, again raising funds for Oxfam. Oxfam is an incredibly worthy organization that I'm most passionate about.

While that doesn't sound like something a sexy Russian superspy would say, we're holding out hope that she's just working undercover. The auction runs until September 24th.

Meet Scarlett Johansson at the premiere of Iron Man 2 [eBay]

We got a few precious minutes with Iron Man 2's new red-headed beauty, Scarlett Johansson, at the Comic Con round tables. We grilled her about the sexy suit, and her character Black Widow. She remained stubborn about revealing anything about her character at all — even whether she has a few scenes with Sam Jackson (as we know they have had dealings in the comics). Still, the possibility of Black Widow returning in the Avengers is enough of a spoiler to let us know that we may not have seen the last of ScarJo's curves in Paramount's new Marvel-verse.

We're you nervous about the catsuit at all?

I knew what to expect, because I had seen the later incarnations of the character, so I knew it was a catsuit of some kind. So I had a freak-out moment , but that only lasted about half a day — but then I was like suck it up, just do it. And I never turned back after that I just went full force, and just did it.

Can you talk a little bit about filming action scenes with the catsuit?

The idea of so many millions of people watching what I'm going to do, I'm used to that, kind of thing. But as far as the action scenes and how the costume relates to that. One thing obviously important to my character is that the costume moves. My character is an expert in hand-to-hand combat, she's a mixed martial artist, she comes from a dance background, there's some gymnastics thrown into it, it's kind of everything all thrown into one big fighting machine. So a big part of me wondered: Can I move in this, can I run in it, can I curl myself up around things with this? I think you just have to put in the hours. Putting in the the hours, and repetition, training — basically befriending the stunt team. Spending all day, everyday, just over and over and over, until you sell it.

What is your relationship to the other characters in the film?

Well I'll tell you that um, my character... there are two sides to my character. She's a bit of a shape shifter, I suppose. There's a side of the character that's kind of demure and covert — I wouldn't say that she's submissive, but she's blending in to the Stark Industries [team, as an assistant]. Then the other part of the character is a really aggressive, bad-ass character, that is sure of herself and is going to kick the shit out of you if you get in her way. So that's as about as much as I can tell you, and how that relates to the other characters.

Do you wear the catsuit?

Out and about? No, it's kind of an attention grabber. I try to stay under the radar. But no, I have to say after the last time I had to wear that catsuit I was like, "Begone, catsuit." Hopefully I'll see that catsuit again, and be able to bring that character back, maybe some slight flaws will have been worked out, like some kind of ventilation.

Are there any truth rumors about the cat fight between you and Gwyneth Paltrow?

No, nothing could be further from the truth. I have nothing but wonderful things to say about working with her. Well, she's very much out of the loop. She's very much out of the loop, you know — she's got a wonderful family whom she spends a lot of time with. So for her, she's like, "What's going on? What?" And of course Jon [Favreau] who's on his Twitter, he's crazy about any kind of news about anything. He's like "You haven't heard? You haven't heard?" And he comes onto set and we're both like, "Oh god." Every time I would say to Gwyneth, "Oh yeah, that was on the seventh," and she'd say, "Are you sure it wasn't on the sixth?" He'd [Favreau] yell, "what? It's a cat fight! It's breaking out."

The last thing they were saying is that she was in New York purposely snubbing Comic Con because you were going to get all of the attention.

Believe me she's worthy of plenty of attention and I know that that fans love her and they are going to love to see her in this movie, because her character kind of comes into her own. I know she would love to be here as well, but she's with her family.

Your character's background revolves around Communism — is that updated in this movie? How does your character deal with that?

The character remains quite mysterious in this film. This movie is not about revealing the Black Widow's identity. Hopefully, if the character continues on, whether that is through the Avengers or something like that, we'll be able to explore more of her past. Obviously the film is in the present day, so to bring in that whole Communist perspective to the character might be a little dated. Well, it would be very dated, to say the least. But there are a lot of ways we can bring in different elements of her history.

How daunting is it as an actor signing on with Marvel, when they usually sign an actor to a multi-picture deal?

Obviously we have a vested interest in our character as well. I didn't go into this thinking, "Oh, this is the last I ever want to see of this character." I want to see this character come back, and reveal more about herself. I loved making the film and working with Jon, and I loved working with Robert. For me, as an actor, oftentimes we have a beginning, middle and end. And it's often a one-hour or two-hour segment, and we're done with it. So for me to be able to bring something like this back, and kind of do all of the character, is exciting and something we don't normally have the opportunity to do as actors...

I'm curious as to how your character balances out Whiplash and the other villains. A lot of people are saying two villains is too many, what does your character bring?

We don't know whether the character is villainous. She does have a dark past, and she is very seductive and distracting. We are not sure exactly where she's coming from, and what her intentions are, I'm not saying that will all be revealed. But there are a lot of characters in this movie, and a lot of new characters. And it is a balancing act. I think that between the huge explosive action, the romance, the battle of good versus evil — even within one's self — there's a nice balance between all of us. And I think fans will be excited to be taken down all these different journeys. They all really play into one another, and it doesn't feel like a lot of different films coming together. It feels like an ensemble. And you know, who can have too many villains?

In the comics your character works with Sam Jackson, do you have any scenes with Sam?

Um, I have worked with Sam Jackson.

First Showing's eagle eye picked up the first ever images of ScarJo in Iron Man 2, which flashed past on Entertainment Tonight. The images will appear in higher resolution in Friday's Entertainment Weekly, but even in this format, ScarJo is already doing a better job of representing the film than Mickey Rourke's weird bondage harness. The roughed-up pictures of Tony Stark are also sort of intriguing.

Here are the new high res pics thanks to EW.

The curvy actress has signed on to play the dangerous Black Widow in the next Iron Man movie. Scarjo in a slinky skin-tight fighting suit, that's a beautiful thought. Scarjo, with a fake Russian accent....hmmmm, not so sure about that. Either way, I'll see it - for some reason, her eyes have some sort of weird spell over me.

And Mickey Rourke has finally come to an agreement with Marvel, and will be busting out the cybernetic whips to fight Tony in the sequel as Whiplash. Just the idea of seeing a nunchaku/whip wielding Rourke, buzzing around on a jet disc, fills my heart with joy.

Good decisions, team Iron Man, just make sure to give RDJ the most screen time, as my heart is still dedicated to him and his awesome witticisms.

[E News and Variety]

It's not just that Johansson may be the acting equivalent of Benjamin Button, getting worse with each subsequent film she appears in (Or maybe she just did "disaffected youth" really well. But still; compare Ghost World to The Spirit to see what I mean), but even if Scarlett could, you know, act, we'd be hard-pressed to believe that she could pull off cynical Russian superspy femme fatale opposite Robert Downey Jr. - or, for that matter, not be acted off the screen by Gwyneth Paltrow, and just let that one sink in for a second. Gwyneth Paltrow, people.

Between Eliza Dushku nominating herself for the role and this news, we're even more hopeful that Fox will work out the schedule problems that threaten original Widow choice Emily Blunt's involvement - or, at least, that director Jon Favreau will display more taste in leading ladies.

Emily Blunt out, Scarlett Johansson in as Iron Man 2's Black Widow? [SciFi Wire]

The Spirit hits theaters on December 25.

This collection of pop-up sounds is so ridiculous, we're left wondering if any of our intrepid readers could make our dreams come true by creating an overly sexy song, voiced by The Spirit's sirens. Trust me it's quite enjoyable — my filthy giggly mind spent minutes running the mouse over Jamie King and hearing her do her phone-sex impression. This is trying so hard to be sexy, it's comedy gold. What's next Miller, a car wash in white t-shits to promote The Spirit? Please submit your sexy Spirit sounds in the comments below, either in a URL or embedded youtube. We'll pick the best one and post it later in the week. Check out the ad at Yahoo and roll your mouse over each poster to hear the reactions.

Looks extra shiny, menacing, and awesome, and I'm excited that the effects are shaping up to resemble those in Sin City, the slick, CGI-treated film based on Frank Miller's comic book of the same name. 300, also based on a Miller book, featured similar stylized treatments. I love this trend of making movies look like comic books, since for decades comic books have tried to look more like movies. At last, the tides have turned! Mwhahaha!

First Look at The Spirit [FirstShowing]

Miller's dark designer's eye made the movie version of Sin City look like beautiful slag, and I can't wait to see what else he's got in store for us in The Spirit. The Eisner comic ended in the 1950s, right after the Spirit went to the moon. Let's hope the moon trip is in the film, because I'd love to see the Miller-ized version of Luna.

The Spirit is currently slated for release in January 2009.

Leaked pics of sexy Scarlett [Hollywood Newsroom]