* I’m not kidding about the pace of news from Deadline today. Just as I was starting to finish writing this, Mike Fleming broke the news that we have a “Superman” director who’ll be working with producer Christopher Nolan, and he is one Zack Snyder of “300,” “Watchmen,’ the “Dawn of the Dead” remake and that owl movie that’s out right now. Expect a fightin’ Supes. Should you expect a good Supes movie? Dunno. I never understood the grief that “Superman Returns” got. It was a nice, fun movie in the best senses of the words “nice” and “fun.” Will this one be all grimness and unnecessary darkness? I hope not.

*  Fox landed the film adaptation rights for apparently the hottest book of the moment, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter which is being produced by Tim Burton and directed by Timur Bekmanbetov (“Night Watch,” “Wanted“), who purchased the rights with their own money. And it’s not like they were afraid to show they really wanted it:

When Tim and Timur and their entourage of reps came to the Fox…they were met with a huge banner at the gate. It had the title treatment of the script and was emblazoned, “Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov present Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”. At their parking spot were signs saying “Parking For Vampire Hunters Only: park at your own risk,” and so forth. There were bloody footprints lining the walkway and stairs leading from their cars to the meeting in Building 88 with images from the book and lines from the script. As if that were not enough, there also were bloody axes strewn about, and a bugle player in a Confederate uniform playing “Taps” as the filmmakers walked to the meeting..

Yes, like Camelot, Hollywood is a silly place, and I sort of like it that way. I just wished I enjoyed Bekmambetov’s movies, because I didn’t.

* Re: silliness. Check out this promotion for “Jackass 3D”

* I seriously dislike writing about stories that say that so-and-so is “about to be” “offered” a part. There are simply too many items like that and too many “ifs” (maybe the studio will change their minds; maybe the star will say “no,” etc.) and I prefer to wait until the story is further down the road. Nevertheless, Mike Fleming has reported that Emma Stone is about to be offered the part of Mary Jane Watson in the Marc Webb-directed 3D “Spiderman” reboot opposite Andrew Garfield.

* Tony Gilroy has been a writer on all of the Jason Bourne installments thus far though, as a director, he has put out more sedate thrillers like the successful “Michael Clayton” and unsuccessful and decent, but oddly leaden, “Duplicity.” He’s also apparently complained about the borderline insane breakneck pacing of the Bourne films, says the Playlist. Be that as it may, Gilroy has won enough friends and influenced enough people to apparently have just about gotten himself a directing gig on “The Bourne Legacy”, though whether it’ll be a sequel or another reboot or whether it’ll even called “The Bourne Legacy,” no one seems to have a clue.

* Rumors have really been flying — and they’re really not much more than rumors, — about a new version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, to be directed by Baz Luhrmann. They lost me at “Baz.” (Okay, “Australia” and “Romeo and Juliet” weren’t bad..but the others, don’t get me started.) Anyhow, everyone’s having fun with names, the most common being “Leo,” “Tobey,” and up-and-comer Amanda Seyfried, whose very talented but a bit young for the part if Mr. DiCaprio is Jay Gatsby, I think. If you count a recent TV version from 2001, this would be the fifth film adaptation.

* Martin Scorsese’s documentary, co-directed by Kent Jones, about Elia Kazan and his own response to films like “On the Waterfront” and “East of Eden” airs tonight on PBS’s American Masters. Susan King has a very brief interview. This is a rare case where I think the tributer is a greater director than the tributee, though neither is exactly chopped liver.

* In the category of non-news news. Bruce Willis is talking like an “Expendables 2” might happen. Given the relatively low budget film is one of the most lucrative Hollywood projects in a while, it just might.

* I was guilty last week of failing to mention the ongoing imbroglio between Peter Jackson and SAG over employing non-union New Zealand and Australian actors on the not-yet-greenlit “The Hobbit.” One place you can keep up on the latest news there — from what SAG folks would probably consider to be a rather pro-Jackson perspective, is at a site run by revered film theorist and LOTR fan Kristin Thompson’s The Frodo Franchise blog, following her 2007 book of the same name.

* In related news, Sir Ian McKellan is waiting for his “hobbit papers” writes Roger Friedman. Presumably that’s not just a new line from the folks at Zig Zag. In I’m sure unrelated news, there was a fire on the Hobbit set late last week, because everything else happened, so why not that?

* Michael Nyqvist is apparently going down the path laid out by Max von Sydow and so many European male stars before him. A flawed hero in Sweden and a nasty bad guy in the States.

* More personnel changes at DC Entertainment, either lay-offs or people whose job was being moved West who didn’t want to move with the gig from New York, which is apparently enough of a directly Hollywood story that Nikki Finke passed it on. She thinks it’ll be good for business. Given the top story today, the ties between the movies and comics businesses have never been closer.

* Anne Thompson examines the increasingly turkey-plagued career of once mighty Renee Zellweger. Diagnosis: “Noble Actress Syndrome.”

* Great reviews and decent box office aside, people like Anne Thompson are reading the tea leaves of the Academy screening of “The Social Network” and see glad Oscar tidings, more or less. Bill Maher, however, is pretty sure “The King’s Speech” will take the most gold men. As quoted by Greg Kilday:

If they’re going to make a historical epic full of British actors in period costumes about Queen Elizabeth helping her father [King George VI] get over his speech impediment, why bother having the Oscars at all? You win.

Unless someone in America is making a movie where Meryl Streep teaches Anne Frank how to box, we give up.

* Marc Shmuger and David Linde are both now former honchos at Universal. As reported in the show biz paper of record, having a far better and busier Monday are Adam Fogelson and Donna Langley, from the marketing and distribution departments respectively. As for the why, I’m sure it can mostly be summed by a number of fairly expensive/high profile box office disappointments/flops including “Duplicity,” “Funny People,” “State of Play,” and the one that got almost no respect from anyone (except Roger Ebert), “Land of the Lost.”

Still, you can trust Nikki Finke to find a more down and dirty side (Shmuger was “‘The Schmuck'”! Poor Linde was “collateral damage”) while Anne Thompson provides her usual sober assessment and notes that the real killer might have been the lack of any apparent “tentpoles” coming any time soon.

* On a similar note, the Rich Ross ascension at Disney is starting to look like a sure thing amidst an overall shake-up — or at least that’s what they’re saying today at Variety. We’re told to expect “a greater emphasis on tentpoles and family fare.” Not a surprise…gotta have them tentpoles.

UPDATE: Ross’s promotion is official. Anne Thompson has the press release.

* Nikki Finke also has an item to gladden the heart of our own Chris Glotfelty. “Paranormal Activity” has had what the Finke terms “freakishly good” business with $15,000 per screening averages (matching the amount I’m seeing reported as the film’s budget…very spooky!) in a special midnight-only engagement in 33 cities Thursday through Saturday, which means some theaters were making those numbers not only at midnight but even on a day when most people had work/classes the next morning. The film will be expanding into a regular release in 40 cities on Friday.

After reading a few reviews and seeing some comments online in addition to what Chris wrote, I have to say that in the wake of so-called “torture porn” and considering that filmic horror has, long ago, sometimes gone to places so horrible and extreme an awful lot of us won’t even consider following (and I don’t just mean silly gorephobics like me), it’s nice to see you can still scare an audience, including hardy souls like Chris (and supposedly Steven Spielberg), to death with not much more than a big, slow build-up and some very inexpensive atmosphere and basic special effects. Is it possible that our filmgoing innocence still lingers?

* Work on the “Arrested Development” movie continues. Yay.

* Yesterday from Mike Fleming: I’ve never been Michael Mann’s biggest fan — in fact, the only two films of his I actually liked have been “Manhunter” and “The Insider.” However, I’ll be waiting for “Waiting for Robert Capa.” It’s a planned adaptation of a novel by Spain’s Susana Fortes about legendary photographer Robert Capa and his love affair with fellow photojournalist Gerda Taro during the Spanish Civil War, a historic tragedy and precursor to World War II that pitted fascists against leftists of various types and wound up installing a repressive regime that lasted until the death of dictator Francisco Franco in the 1970s. It’s a chapter of history that mainstream filmmakers have largely ignored, with the obvious exception being Guillermo del Toro in “The Devil’s Backbone” and “Pan’s Labyrinth.” I hope it comes out a lot better than the dreary “Public Enemies.”

* Today from Mike Fleming: Lionsgate and Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films have picked up a GQ piece called “Will You Be My Black Friend?” The article, surprisingly not written by Stephen Colbert, was by Devin Friedman:

Following a cocktail party epiphany that his entire social circle is the same color as he, the white writer made an unabashed attempt to make black friends, down to soliciting prospective pals in a Craigslist ad. The journo discovers that race aside, it is very difficult to make meaningful friends later in life.

This is being presented as a vehicle for Chris Rock, definitely one of my top five or so favorite living comics, who I presume will be playing the friend that Friedman finds so hard to make.  Rock hasn’t had the best luck with movies, but I’m here to say this: I’m the guy who liked “Head of State.” I’ve said it and I’m glad.

But who does Mr. Rock like?