In an interview with print magazine DVD & Blu-ray Review, Raimi said,

I think having so many villains detracted from the experience. I would agree with the criticism... I think [with Drag Me To Hell] I've learned about the importance of getting to the point and the importance of having limitations, and I'm hoping to take that into a production where I'm actually allowed to explore with more of the tools to pull it off with a little more splendor. I hope I don't lose that edge that I've just found. That would be my approach to Spider-Man 4: to get back to the basics.

If this means one villain per movie (and, hopefully, less alien entities pretending to be clothes), then we're entirely on board with this new, leaner and meaner Spider-Man being promised.

Sam Raimi promises Spider-Man 4 will 'get back to basics' [Coventry Telegraph]

Here's a list of all the movies with production budgets of $170 million and over, for the past ten years. (We chose the threshold of $170 million because there were a ton of movies clustered around the $150 million-$160 million mark.) Movies that failed to make back their budget at the U.S. box office are underlined.

2009:

Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince: $250 million

Avatar: $237 million (according to AP)

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen: $225 million (according to NY Post)

Terminator Salvation: $200 million

G.I. Joe: The Rise Of COBRA: $175 million

Up: $175 million

2008:

Quantum Of Solace: $230.6 million

Prince Caspian: $225.6 million

Iron Man: 186.5 million

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull: $185.5 million

The Dark Knight: $185.5 million

Wall-E: $180.5 million

2007:

Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End: $317.4 million

Spider-Man 3: $272.9 million

The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials: $213.4 million

Rush Hour 3: $187.4 million

2006:

Superman Returns: $295.3 million

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: $223.1 million

X-Men: The Last Stand: $209.3 million

Poseidon: $171.3 million

2005:

King Kong: $232.5 million

Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion The Witch & The Wardrobe: $197.6 million

Sahara: $176.8 million

Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire: $150 million (2005 dollars)

2004:

Spider-Man 2: $232.2 million

Troy: $199.9 million

Van Helsing: $182.8 million

The Polar Express: $186.6 million

Alexander: $175.4 million

2003:

Terminator 3: $238.4 million

The Matrix: Reloaded: $176.7 million

Master And Commander: $175.6 million

The Matrix: Revolutions: $175.6 million

2000:

The Perfect Storm: $175.6 million

1999:

Wild Wild West: $221 million

The World Is Not Enough: $173.3 million

The 13th Warrior: $206.8 million

Notes: All figures are in 2009 dollars, adjusted for inflation. These figures are just production budgets, and are based on the most accurate figures we could find. They don't include marketing budgets. And of course, many of the films which failed to break even at the U.S. box office did make a profit when you factor in international box office.

Conclusions:

There hasn't been a movie as expensive as Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End since 2007, so you could argue that, over all, movies are not getting more expensive. However, after a few years where there were four mega-budgeted movies per year, the last two years have each seen six movies with budgets over $170 million (in inflation-adjusted dollars.) And as we mentioned above, this year had the most movies costing $200 million or more of any year, with next year likely to see even more films over $200 million.

And the listing above doesn't reflect this fact, but we also found a steep rise in the number of movies costing around $150 million every year — this seems to be the safe point for a film that is expected to do well, but may not be a blockbuster. Films like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Batman Begins, Star Trek and many others all have production budgets in the magic $150 million zone.

At the same time, Hollywood seems slightly better at picking winners lately. We haven't had a year where most of the hugely expensive movies failed to make back their budget at the U.S. box office since 2004, when two historical epics, The Polar Expressand Van Helsing all bombed. Or 2003, when one of two Matrix sequels underperformed, along with Terminator 3 and Master And Commander.

One thing jumps out at me: There were apparently no budget busting movies in 2000, 2001 or 2002. Apparently the first X-Men movie, which came out in 2000, had a budget of only about $75 million. And the Star Wars prequels, hideous though they were, were apparently on the cheap side, costing around $120 million each (in non-adjusted dollars.)

Why would this be? Well, look at the three big-budget movies from 1999. Notice anything the three of them have in common? Hmmm... Other mega-expensive bombs in the late 1990s include Speed 2: Cruise Control, Lethal Weapon 4 and, of course, Waterworld. The only mega-budget movies to make money in the latter half of the 1990s were Armageddon and Titanic.

Sources: Know Your Money, Forbes.com, Listphobia, The Numbers, IMDB, Box Office Mojo, Wikipedia, and other sources as cited.

After yesterday's list of sequels that don't suck — and I still cling to RoboCop 2, although maybe I should watch it again — people asked for a list of threequels that do suck. Which seemed kind of pointless, because that would be the same as a complete list of threequels. Search For Spock? Sucked. Return Of The Jedi? Blew. Spider-Man 3? Superman III? RoboCop 3? X-Men 3? It's making my head pound just to list them. Alien³?

In the non-"this movie is melting my pituitary gland" category, there's... Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade. Which isn't science fiction, and for my money isn't quite as good as Raiders. But it's way better than Temple Of Doom. There are also some movies with numbers higher than three that were decent, like Star Treks IV and VI.

So why are so many "threequels" so horrifyingly bad? Here are some possible explanations.

There's no ready-made formula.

Talking to Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman about Transformers 2 drove something home for me: there's a standard formula for the second movie in the series, just like there is for the first. In the first movie, the young hero discovers his (usually his) heroic destiny and learns from a father figure, who frequently dies or transcends somehow. In the second movie, the hero rejects his heroic mission and tries to return to a normal life — just like Superman in Superman II, Spidey in Spider-Man II and Sam in Transformers 2. Even in Star Trek II, you could argue that Kirk is questioning whether he's too old to keep adventuring.

But what happens in the third movie? Uhh... The hero gets a new hairstyle? There are more bad guys than before? What? There's no road map.

Studio interference.

Sam Raimi blames Sony for the disaster that was Spider-Man 3, and I sort of believe him. Once a movie series becomes cash-cowy enough for the studio to want to do a third go-around, I guess the suits get a bit antsy. They start insisting on shoe-horning Venom into a movie where he and his giant alien tongue just don't belong. Or they demand random rewrites of a perfectly good script, or weird stunt casting. (Hello, Richard Pryor!) The same execs who might have been willing to let a film-maker have a long leash the first couple times start tugging at that leash more, and choking the director and writers, because there's more at stake.

Just google the phrases "third movie" and "studio interference", and you'll see what I mean. Terminator 3, Alien3, X-Men 3... all blamed on studio bigshots stepping in and meddling.

Creative attrition.

Sam Raimi's presence on Spider-Man 3 was, in itself, an aberration. Normally, after directing two awesome movies in a series, someone like Raimi would have stepped out to do a serious Nazi epic or cop drama, leaving Spider-Man in the hands of Brett Ratner or Joel Schumacher. I'm actually not the world's biggest fan of Tim Burton's first two Bat-films, but compared to the Schumacher films that followed, Batman and Batman Returns look like Citizen Kane and Citizen Kane's Big Score. (Now I'm picturing Citizen Kane In Africa — sorry, in-joke.)

For some reason, very few writers and directors are willing to stick around for a third ride on the blockbuster-mobile, even if they're up for a second.

Creative exhaustion.

And even if any of the original creative team do come along, it's entirely possible to get a bit burned out after spending years of your life working on one saga. (It's probably a different matter if you're filming a trilogy all in one go, like Lord Of The Rings.) As much as any studio nonsense, I'm willing to bet that Sam Raimi's Spider-fatigue was a big reason for Spider-Man 3's problems. Raimi needed to go work on a smaller, less mainstream project, like Drag Me To Hell. (And here's hoping that his return to low-budget horror has cleansed his palate a bit, so he can come back to Peter Parker with a fresh eye.

And finally, there's always...

Problems in the source material.

A lot of these big movie series are based on comic books, television shows and older movies, which started out with a clear premise and a simple format: a guy dresses up as a bat and fights crime with the aid of fantastical tech. A guy gets bitten by a spider and gains fantastica powers, which he uses to fight crime. Etc. etc. So if your first movie is based on the early issues of the comic, or the early episodes of the TV show, you're golden. But the longer the source material goes on, the more convoluted and confusing it gets. The guy who dresses as a bat teams up with a circus acrobat and a girl librarian, plus he's got an imp from another dimension following him around, and so on. The more simple and pure the concept starts out, the more confusing and ridiculous it gets. So if a movie series tries to stick to the original, it'll run into similar problems the longer it goes on.

That's one huge problem with X-Men 3, for example — the need to include cameos from dozens of random X-people who were big in the 1980s and 1990s. Ditto with Venom in Spider-Man 3, and Robin and Batgirl in the Schumacher Bat-scursions. It doesn't really excuse those films' wretchness, but it's really true that the longer a serial goes on, the more baggage it tends to accrue. Movie-makers have be very careful to avoid shouldering that baggage as well.

So Raimi told Empire that he didn't have creative control over the third Spider-Man movie, and that Venom and other elements weren't exactly his decision. But do you care? Let's see:

FakingThroughLife: "Yeah, being forced to include Venom doesn't explain the rest of the movie - such as signing and dancing and emo-Parker. God awful movie when compared to the first two."

edosan: "I don't buy it. It was still a lousy movie from beginning to end, and you'd think the director could have helped with that."

OW-Holmes: "That movie was truly awful. I couldn't stop laughing when Peter accidentally hit MJ. Everyone in the theater looked at me funny, but I think they were just jealous that they didn't get the joke."

Evlsushi: "Even if he hated Venom, what sense does it make to produce a shitty movie? Take Venom, tweak him, and make a great, somewhat original story. Like the brilliant X3. Just kidding. But seriously, Raimi didn't even try to make the Venom story work. Or "spooky panel of Studio Execs" as he would have us believe. Yes, studios are controlling, but he was coming off of a critically acclaimed sequel, so that excuse sounds fishy."

LouisHaeru: "'Wow, the fanboys sure hated Spiderman 3, I guess I'll just join the flock and pretend I hated it, too!' C'mon, Raimi, it surely wasn't the best of the Spiderman flicks (probably the worst, but not by much), but seriously? Stick to your guns. Lame."

Kell06: "All through the movie release, Sam Raimi was talking about how happy he was with the movie, how good it was, etc etc. I strongly disliked a lot of the movie, but either way, what a cop-out. To try and have it both ways like that, pretending to support it to ensure plenty of publicity, then to cover his ass after the critical and fan slag-off - talk about a lack of integrity from someone who I thought stood on his own two feet."

What's the world coming to when a man can't publicly disown a shitty movie by pretending that someone else put him up to it? Sure, I'll grant you that he didn't go all the way and claim that the movie was actually directed by his evil twin, Flim-Flam Raimi - Like you wouldn't want to see an interview where he tried that one - but, come on. He's just admitting that it wasn't the greatest of movies and trying to wash his hands of the whole affair before embarking on a sequel to it. We've all been there.

It has to be said, though; I'm with the fans of the campy dance numbers:

Spideyrex: "Hey I liked them! It was silly and fun. People forget that Peter Parker is still a dorky little kid, that was his version of being bad-ass. Yes it was embarrassing to watch, but that was the point."

kelz: "I think people took it too seriously and didn't understand that it was a dorky kid's attempt to look cool. I found it funny and campy."

Quilt: "It really was the only part of the movie where I genuinely enjoying myself. It was just so stupid and ridiculous."

FrankSinister: "I still stand by Raimi despite the eye-raping awfulness of Spiderman 3. Its obvious that it was a warning to Sony to keep their retarded mouths shut when telling him what to put in his movies. 'Oh yeah? You're gonna tell me what to do? How about I single-handedly decimate your largest franchise and USE YOUR OWN MONEY TO DO IT?' Well played Sam. Stand your ground."

Well, wait a minute. I'm not sure I buy this whole "He meant to make something crappy" theory... That's like saying that Enterprise was subpar to make people excited for the new Star Trek movie (says the boy watching reruns on HDNet and kind of enjoying them)... But at least with him agreeing that the third one wasn't any good means that the fourth one will be better, right? Unless we end up with the clone saga...

Raimi told Empire magazine that it was the studio that took his voice out of the picture:

They really gave me a tremendous amount of control on the first two films, actually. But then there were different opinions on the third film and I didn't really have creative control, so to speak.

The main sticking point? Including Venom in the third movie, which was largely a studio decision, with Sony hoping to spawn a massive spin-off movie. But as we all saw, that didn't really work out for everyone.

Still, Raimi did allow this to happen, so we have to question your decision-making faculties. Even the production assistant fetching the donuts during this scene must have thought this was a terrible idea:

Raimi has high hopes for the next Spider-Man movie:

"The best way for me to move forward on films," Raimi continued, "is that I've got to be the singular voice that makes the creative choices on the film."

Nikki Finke reported that Maguire and Raimi will be returning to make Zodiac screenwriter Jamie Vanderbilt's script of Spider-Man 4. Even a few weeks ago, Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal was talking about possible Maguire replacements with casting agents, becuase Maguire was holding out for more money.

Great, but what about the great mistake that was Kirsten Dunst? Finke claims that Sony would "never recast her" no matter what. But I say take a page from Dark Knight, and keep upgrading your girls. I'm expecting an even better actress in the next Batman.

As for the even bigger mistake of SM3, the effort to create a darker Peter Parker through musical comedy? It sounds as though the studio has learned an important lesson there. Spidey will be back in his original red and blue union suit. Writes Finke:

Gone is the black costume from Spidey 3, even though "dark" is all the rage in superhero movies right now given the enormous success of The Dark Knight. But I'm told the filmmakers won't be borrowing from the latest Batman installment because "Spider-Man is its own thing," one insider tells me. "Sam Raimi made the first serious superhero movie, and others followed. The difference between Spider-Man and Batman is that Batman is duelling with a dark side of himself, and that's not what Peter Parker's struggle is. Peter Parker has no dark side himself. In Spider-Man 3 it was the black costume. Peter Parker's struggle is about sacrifice."

In my opinion it's only a matter of time until all of those "Lizard is the next bad guy" rumors come true, but still there is plenty of speculation on who the new villain will be. And finally Sony is moving full steam ahead on the Venom spin-off flick, but still no word on whether or not Topher Grace is going to slip into his old Venom skin to star in the film.

[Nikki Finke Deadline Hollywood]

First, try abstinence.

The absolute best way to avoid sequel-itis is to avoid sequels. Just say no. Don't succumb to peer pressure — just because everybody else lets go and greenlights a fourth Spider-Man movie and a second Wanted movie doesn't mean you have to. Tell everybody you're saving yourself for the right original project.

If abstinence fails, at least don't be a story slut.

So you had a story that worked really well in the first installment, and you want to go back to the well. At least try to expand on the story that worked the first time — don't go hooking up with every stray idea that comes along. Look at The Matrix: The first film had a perfectly excellent set of ideas, dealing with the nature of reality, and whether you can be sure you're not living in a virtual world created by evil machines. The Wachowskis even wrote a sequel script that dealt with those same issues (a copy has been floating around for years, and I think it's genuine). But then they decided to go off in a million other directions, dealing with fate vs. free will, cyclical history, rogue computer programs, evil ghost Rastas, etc. etc. etc. Now we can't even watch the original Matrix without thinking about all the layers of crud the Wachowskis added to it. Like orgasm cake and the keymaker and stuff.

Don't get caught up in trying to chase a bigger and bigger rush.

It's understandable — you want your sequel to be bigger and crashier than the original. If the original had one great chase scene, the sequel needs five great chase scenes. If the original had a poignant soliloquy about the hero's burden, your follow-up novel should have a 500-page treatise on the burdens heroes must bear, and whether it helps for the hero to have lumbar support. Etc. etc. This is how we get movies, with numerals in their titles, that are five hours long and feel as though you've always been watching this movie, since before you were born. (It's not science fiction, but the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie made me feel like I was keeping vigil over the melting of the polar icecaps.)

Along those lines, skip the villain crowd scenes.

Villains are like giant missiles. You know how when you shoot two giant missiles in opposite directions, they can cancel each other out? So that it's almost like you didn't fire any missiles at all? Villains are like that. Two villains are almost like no villains in a movie. Three villains are like half a villain, according to a complex mathematical formula that I will be happy to sketch on a napkin at Comic-Con for anyone who asks. More than three villains in a movie, and you actually have a villain implosion that leaves your movie completely mellow and sort of peaceful... like laying in the grass watching the clouds explode in the distance.

Avoid the "We won! What now?" subtext... or at least do something with it.

When you make one of the biggest movies of all time, it can be kind of overwhelming, and the pressure to craft a sequel that matches — or tops — that accomplishment can be pretty intense. It's almost like you, the filmmaker, are the hero who's vanquished the ultimate evil, and you're left wondering what you're supposed to do with the rest of your life. So it's tempting to play out those anxieties in your story itself. Like Spider-Man 3, for example, which is clearly partly about the creators' anxieties about the success of Spider-Man 2. How else do you explain the fact that Spider-Man has gone from being publicly reviled to becoming everybody's favorite hero, with people celebrating Spider-Man Day? And suddenly the story is about whether fame will go to Peter Parker's head. Wha huh?

If you have to play out the "What next?" anxiety in your story, do what The Dark Knight did: make Batman's success part of the problem. Batman has done too good a job of pushing out the mob, and he's opened up a power vacuum that can only be filled by a mofo as crazy as Bats himself.

Don't do a three-quel.

Just don't. There's no need. Or if you're doing a book thing, maybe do a trilogy and stop there. Don't go back to the well until it's a brackish puce color. We'll all thank you.

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The 1970s: 1975's Jaws is widely considered the first summer blockbuster. The original Star Wars came out in May 1977 and grossed about $307 million domestically in its first run. The other big summer blockbusters of the late 1970s were Jaws 2, Animal House and Alien, according to this site.

The 1980s: Science fiction scored about one summer blockbuster per year, or maybe two in a good year. Except for the late 1980s, when science fiction had a bit of a slump. Here's the roundup, by year. (A year with an asterisk is one where no science fiction film hit the top 10 movies of the year, box-office-wise.)

1980: Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back ($209 million)
1981: Superman II ($108 million)
1982: E.T. ($359 million) and Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan ($79 million).
1983: Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi ($252 million), Superman III ($60 million) and War Games ($80 million)
1984: Ghostbusters ($260 million) and Star Trek III: The Search For Spock ($76 million)
1985: Cocoon ($76 million) and Back To The Future ($211 million)
1986: Short Circuit ($41 million) and Aliens ($85 million)
* 1987: Predator ($60 million) and Robocop ($53 million)
* 1988: None. (Although Big and Willow were big summer hits.)
1989: Batman ($251 million), Honey I Shrunk The Kids ($131 million)

The 1990s: The number of science fiction movies in the summer's biggest movies increased slightly, with some ups and downs. Some years, the biggest blockbusters included films with a lot of special effects and action-adventure themes, but no overt science fictional elements.

1990: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ($135 million), Total Recall ($119 million), Back To The Future Part III ($88 million), Flatliners ($61 million).
1991: Terminator 2 ($205 million)
1992: Batman Returns ($163 million)
1993: Jurassic Park ($357 million)
* 1994: None. (Although True Lies, Speed and The Mask were in the top 10, and non-summer films Stargate and Star Trek: Generations were in the top 20.)
1995: Batman Forever ($184 million), Apollo 13 ($172 million), Waterworld ($88 million)
1996: Independence Day ($306 million), Phenomenon ($105 million)
1997: Men In Black ($251 million), The Lost World: Jurassic Park ($229 million), Face/Off ($112 million), Batman And Robin ($107 million)
1998: Armageddon ($202 million), Deep Impact ($140 million), Godzilla ($136 million), The Truman Show ($126 million)
1999: Star Wars Episode 1 ($431 million), Wild Wild West ($114 million)

The 2000s: It's really just in the last five years that we've seen more than two or three big science fiction movies dominating the summer pretty much every year. A lot of these have been franchises, comic-book movies and sequels, or some combination of the three. The box-office take of the top 10 movies has increased dramatically, with every year's top 10 movies each grossing well over $100 million.

2000: X-Men ($157 million)
2001: Jurassic Park III ($181 million), Planet of The Apes ($180 million)
2002: Spider-Man ($404 million), Star Wars Episode II ($302 million), Signs (228 million), Men In Black II ($190 million)
2003: The Matrix Reloaded ($282 million), X2: X-Men United ($215 million), Terminator 3 ($150 million), Hulk ($132 million)
2004: Spider-Man 2 ($374 million), The Day After Tomorrow ($187 million), I, Robot ($145 million)
2005: Star Wars: Episode III ($380 million), War Of The Worlds ($234 million), Batman Begins ($205 million), Fantastic Four ($155 million)
2006: X-Men: The Last Stand ($234 million), Superman Returns ($200 million)
2007: Spider-Man 3 ($337 million), Transformers($319 million), The Simpsons Movie ($183 million), Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer ($132 million)

Note: Data is from BoxofficeMojo.com. Dollar figures aren't adjusted for inflation. I left out movies like the original Indiana Jones trilogy, which is clearly fantasy. (Unlike the new Indiana Jones movie, if all reports are to be believed.) I also left out spy movies that might have a few science-fiction touches aren't really about a science-fictional premise. Feel free to bitch at me in the comments.

Star Wars:

Natalie Portman will do a nude scene in the Star Wars prequels, and she sings a special ballad.

And hey — this site has the scripts for Star Wars episodes 7, 8, and 9! It also has a "rumors page" for Revenge of the Sith, which states "You won't be disappointed" by the film. Also, the prequels feature Grand Moff Tarkin heavily, and he forms part of a triumvirate of evil with Anakin and Palpatine. Tarkin's hatred for Bail Organa, Leia's adoptive father, is a major theme of the films. And the Phantom Menace features the Republic's versions of those giant robot elephants, the AT-ATs. Unfortunately, Liam Neeson teaches the young Anakin "unethical Jedi practices." But at least Episode 3 will be narrated by Alec Guinness.

Oh, and Obi-Wan is a clone of the original Ben Kenobi. And the two Kenobis fight in Episode 2.

And we get to see an 18-year-old Senator Leia confronting the Emperor, as he presides over the Imperial Senate. Meanwhile, Quentin Tarantino is directing Star Wars: Episode II. (If only!) But don't believe those rumors about Darth Maul, Jar Jar Binks, Watto, and the planet Naboo appearing in Phantom Menace: they're fake leaks, designed to throw you off.

Spider-Man:

Bruce Campbell will play Mysterio, the evil illusion-making former special effects expert, in Spider-Man 3.

Star Trek:

Captain Picard dies in Star Trek: Nemesis! And Patrick Stewart helped write his own death scene. And Robin Lefler (Ashley Judd) turns up as Wesley Crusher's wife! Also, Alan Rickman is playing the Viceroy and Jude Law is playing Shinzon. Really!

And Star Trek XI won't be a prequel featuring Young Kirk at Starfleet Academy at all. Instead, it'll be about William Shatner's Captain Kirk, teaming up with Captain Picard and Scott Bakula's Captain Archer... in the evil alternate Mirror universe! And maybe the evil Kirk and the good Kirk will fight, because Kirk's not dead in the evil universe, and therefore the rules of continuity don't apply! Yeah!! Or rather, no.

Actually, Matt Damon is playing Captain Kirk in the new movie, which is about the time/space donut from the "City on the Edge of Forever." No, wait, Tom Cruise is playing Kirk. And George Takei has a cameo as Captain Sulu. Oh, and Leonard Nimoy plays Spock's father Sarek.

Doctor Who:

In the new Doctor Who series, the Daleks will have legs, to help them get around better. The legs may look like R2D2s, or they may be nice "Hobbit-like tootsies." Can't you totally see the Daleks with Hobbit feet? Me too! Too bad the show is being canceled again.

Season three ends with the Doctor revealing that he has a son, from a doomed love affair with an alien woman. Meanwhile, Joan Collins will play The Rani, an amoral Time Lady, in season four. And Ben Kingsley will play Davros, creator of the evil cyborg Daleks. Oh, and Britney Spears will appear as a whole host of sex-mad creatures, with special effects creating multiple Britneys.

Season three's big bad is the Ice Warriors, those green scaly cold-loving creatures.

Also, Paul McGann (Withnail And I), who played the Doctor in a TV movie, will reprise the role for a big-screen film.

And Peter Davison, the early 80s New Wave Doctor, will pop up for at least one multi-Doctor storyline. Meanwhile, 1970s Doctor Tom Baker will come back... as the Doctor's arch-enemy, the Master!

Also, David Bowie will totally appear in Doctor Who playing an "evil alien abductor.) Meanwhile, Jason Statham is the Doctor. Meanwhile, the 2007 Christmas special, "Voyage of the Damned," featured Woody Allen as Albert Einstein. Wasn't he awesome?

Thanks to Nivair Gabriel for research help.

But chances are Topher won't actually don the slimy rubber-fetish outfit again. He said last April that he wouldn't be on board for a Venom movie because spin-offs starring Elektra and Supergirl have bombed. He thinks a Venom vehicle would do similarly badly. [IESB]

The musical will be "a cross between a play, rock 'n' roll and circus," Taymor says. If it does well, it could spawn imitators, and even help drag superhero films back to the era of Batman and Robin. Taymor wants the musical to be based on the severely dated sixties comics, not the movies. It may also be bad news that Bono and The Edge from U2 are scoring the thing. If only the Julie Taymor who directed the bleak, jarring Titus would take charge of this thing, instead of the Lion King helmer.


Spinning A Spectacular Web With Spider-Man Musical [Daily Mail]