Will Joss Whedon Return for The Avengers 2?

With The Avengers having already earned over a billion dollars at the box office, it seemed like a formality when Disney CEO Bob Iger formally announced that The Avengers 2 was in the works. Marvel President Kevin Feige followed that by telling Bloomberg that Marvel has five movies in development — three that have been announced as well as "two beyond that that we haven't announced yet, but we're working on."

With Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 already set for release in 2013, and Captain America 2 to follow in 2014, that would seem to be the three that Marvel has announced so far. Logic would dictate that Avengers 2 would be one of the unannounced projects, leading to the question: Will Avengers writer-director Joss Whedon return for the sequel? Whedon hasn't said one way or another in interviews, at times remarking that he "hasn't thought about [returning]" or mentioning the "extraordinary experience" he had with Marvel. Talking to The LA Times, Whedon admitted that he is "very torn" about a return.

James Badge Dale Joins Iron Man 3 Cast as... a Villain?

One of the first cast members brought on board for Iron Man 3 (besides Robert Downey Jr., of course) was Ben Kingsley, who has been cast as a villain "involved in spreading a virus through nanobots." Some reports at the time claimed that Kingsley would not be the sequel's only villain, and, depending on what you believe about the latest cast addition, those rumors may be valid.

According to Deadline, James Badge Dale has been cast as the villain Savin, though further details are still forthcoming. Variety has speculated on the casting, claiming that Dale will play Eric Savin, a character from the Marvel Universe that eventually becomes the cyborg Coldblood. In the comics, Savin is a soldier in the Army who steps on a landmine and is turned into a cyborg as a result. And though, in the comics, the character fell prey to his cyborg side at times, he was not necessarily considered a villain, nor did he cross paths with Iron Man in the Extremis storyline which is serving as the inspiration for Iron Man 3.

Teaser Poster for Anchorman: The Legend Continues

While co-writer and director Adam McKay made it clear last month that progress on a sequel to 2004's Anchorman was at a stage where he and Will Ferrell will be "holing up writing for the next three months," a new teaser poster is already available online.

Seems that Paramount Pictures is finally getting caught up in the excitement after McKay and Ferrell spent years trying to convince the studio to greenlight the sequel, now titled Anchorman: The Legend Continues. It was only this March when Ferrell appeared as Ron Burgundy on Conan to announce that the sequel was official. Clearly response from fans has been substantial, because Paramount then released a teaser trailer running prior to showings of The Dictator.

This Tea-Time with Alan Rickman Is Truly Epic

Many thanks to Tor.com, which brought the most amazing thing to hit the interwebs in days to our attention. "Epic Tea-Time with Alan Rickman" is probably the perfect blend of the artistic, the absurd, and the needlessly overwrought.

The original video is simply several seconds of footage of Rickman preparing tea and then getting rather upset in high definition at 3000 frames per second; the footage is then slowed down to fill eight and a half minutes. The video was part of a project that artist David Michalek produced last summer called Portraits in Dramatic Time. For "Epic Tea-Time," the video was edited slightly, but what really makes it truly epic is the addition of part of the Inception score. It's probably the best example of intense music paired with mundane action since the Dramatic Chipmunk, himself.

What makes this video even more delightful is that we're pretty sure that this is how our favorite potions instructor, Professor Snape, would react if he were to catch someone spying on him as he was making some tea. (Or, as one of our delightful readers pointed out, perhaps the problem is that he was brought tea with lemon and not a drop of milk.)

Can Edgar Wright Shoot Ant-Man This Year?

First off, we should point out that director Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) is shooting a new movie this year for sure: The World's End with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The third in Pegg and Wright's Cornetto ice cream–inspired "Blood and Ice Cream" trilogy (which started with Shaun of the Dead and continued with Hot Fuzz), The World's End will see a group of childhood friends reunite for an epic pub crawl they attempted 20 years prior, only to find that their quest to drink their way to the World's End pub is interrupted by a possible end to humankind. Wright co-wrote the movie with Pegg.

Deadline reported last week that The World's End will start shooting this September, which leads to the question: How can Wright also shoot his long-developing Empire podcast.

Things are happening, and other things are happening on other things as well. There’s some interesting plates spinning and I ideally hope I’ll be shooting this year.

Sacha Baron Cohen Falls Victim to His Own Prank; Nick Stahl Reported Missing; Jennifer Lopez Tops Celeb List and Plays It Coy

ReelzChannel Celebrity Rundown

Sacha Baron Cohen nearly became the victim of his own antics today in Cannes. The actor almost fell off a camel during a publicity stunt to promote his movie, The Dictator, while at the Cannes Film Festival. The actor had planned to ride a camel through the city's famous Croisette promenade, but nearly tumbled backward when he tried to mount the animal. Luckily, he was caught and continued with his camel ride through Cannes.

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Nick Stahl, best known for playing John Connor in Terminator 3, has been reported missing, says TMZ. On Monday, the actor's wife, Rose Stahl, filed a missing person's report with the L.A.P.D. saying she had last seen him May 9th. The actor has been separated from his wife since January, and in February she filed court papers expressing that she was concerned that Nick was using drugs and that she wanted visitations with his daughter to be supervised. His wife is now reportedly concerned that drug use has something to do with the actor's disappearance.

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Singer/dancer/actress Jennifer Lopez was just named the number 1 celebrity on Forbes' list of 100 Most Powerful Celebrities. She was followed by Oprah Winfrey in the number two spot, with Justin Bieber, Rihanna, and Lady Gaga rounding out the top 5.

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In other J.Lo news, she was awfully coy about whether she would return to American Idol next season in a recent interview with Ellen DeGeneres. Lopez said, "I really do enjoy it" but continued that she also misses "doing other things. It really does lock you down." Sounds like someone is in contract negotiations. Also, it's interesting to note that in 2009, before Lopez was an idol judge, she didn't even make the Forbes 100 list. Just sayin'.

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In yet more Idol-related news, Ryan Seacrest just spent around $49 million for DeGeneres' Beverly Hills estate. The Idol host's new digs include a 9,200-square-foot main house, as well as 3 guest houses on 2.87 acres.

Channing Tatum to Protect the President in White House Down

Actor Channing Tatum has been toiling this year mostly in romantic dramas like The Vow and comedies like 21 Jump Street and the upcoming Magic Mike, but he'll return to action for one of his next roles. THR reports that Tatum is in talks for the lead role in Columbia's action-thriller White House Down for Independence Day and 2012 director Roland Emmerich.

The project is being described as "Die Hard in the White House" and the comparison is apt. Tatum will play a Secret Service agent who is a single father and finds himself with few resources to defend the President when the White House is taken over by a paramilitary group. (Who's next to be cast — Alan Rickman?) The studio paid $3 million for the spec script written by James Vanderbilt (The Amazing Spider-Man), and also faces competition from a similar project, Olympus Has Fallen, which will star Gerard Butler and will be directed by Antoine Fuqua (Brooklyn's Finest). However, Tatum is coming off of back-to-back hits and will test his action mettle with a (possibly brief) appearance in the upcoming G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which puts White House Down in an excellent position for Columbia.

Already scheduled for a November 1, 2013 release date, production on White House Down is set to start this summer.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Latest Featurette Focuses on Director Marc Webb's "Limitless Inspiration"

After putting the spotlight on Spider-Man's (Andrew Garfield) new movie nemesis in recent weeks — the latest still images, viral video, and featurette have all focused on Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) and his scaly alter-ego, the Lizard — Sony has decided to give the monstrous mutation a break and focus on the man behind the camera, director Marc Webb [(500) Days of Summer].

In the new "Limitless Inspiration" featurette, Webb briefly discusses his approach to making a complex movie like The Amazing Spider-Man, from his initial "feeling" about what the movie should be about to the selection of skilled actors like Garfield and Emma Stone, who can make "words on a page" into something "emotional" to the many artists he collaborates with and the state-of-the-art equipment and technology that allow for pretty much "anything you can imagine" to be made "real."