Director Christopher Nolan spoke to Hero Complex recently and shared some thoughts on all things superhero, including his part as Warner Brothers new “Godfather” to the reboot of Superman, and of course the third film in his reboot of the Batman franchise.

When it comes to Superman, Nolan says “It’s very exciting; we have a fantastic story, and we feel we can do it right. We know the milieu, if you will, we know the genre and how to get it done right.” This is clearly a good sign for fans of the Man of Steel, and also a sign that Nolan has a fairly significant say in what goes and what dies. It will be really interesting to see how things go when there’s a director, and who will have the final choice there. They could always avoid this by hiring someone close to Nolan to captain the film, but who knows how it will all play out.

A big press junket for The Wolfman was recently held in Los Angeles, but the prime objective of anyone who could get to director Joe Johnston was to find out whatever they could about his contribution to the Marvel world, The First Avenger: Captain America.

The movie isn’t set to be released until July 22, 2011, but with no sign of even the first casting announcement, folks are beginning to wonder what’s going on. Two massive Marvel movies are primed for release that summer — the other being Kenneth Branagh’s Thor, which bows May 6 — but Thor has all of its casting well in-hand, hence the question marks. These two movies are the final two pieces before 2012’s The Avengers begins its epic descent toward our eyes.

So what exactly did Johnston have to share about his movie and where things stand? Well — a lot, to be quite honest. Johnston touched on the type of gentleman he wants to cast in the all-important role and when we should meet this man, how he’s handling the tricky-but-iconic costume re-invention, and what other known characters or maybe even villains we could see showing up in the movie.

It’s being reported that Peter Iliff has been brought in to pen a brand new feature film in which the world famous American Gladiators become superheroes. The movie is said to be based on the TV show we’re all familiar with that began in 1988 and recently came back for a short two-season run. No word on if Gladiators like Nitro, Malibu, Zap, Lace, or some of the newer ones like Crush, Wolf, or Titan will actually star in the film, or if they will cast new faces. It will be produced by Scott Mednick.

Iliff isn’t exactly a household name, but the man has brought us some decent titles over the years. He first wrote the popular action movie Point Break (and a possible future sequel called Point Break Indo), which starred a young Keanu Reeves and the late Patrick Swayze. He then went on to write Harrison Ford’s Patriot Games, the high school football flick Varsity Blues, and Under Suspicion with Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman. Mednick also has an impressive resume of producing jobs that includes Superman Returns, Beerfest, 300, We Are Marshall, and Where the Wild Things Are.

We all should know the story by now: Matthew Vaughn — director of Layer Cake and Stardust — decided that a movie based on Mark Millar‘s ultra-violent graphic novel Kick-Ass needed to be made, and brought it to the money. Unfortunately, none of the studios had any interest in making a movie that would include an 11-year-old girl who is deadly surgical with a Katana blade. Instead of giving in, Vaughn went down another path and pulled the unthinkable: he went and got the money all by himself…all $75 Million of it. Since this bold move, Kick-Ass has been growing into a very popular project with many itching to see this “outside-the-box” superhero movie. After some footage at Comic Con was universally praised, the studios that had passed were now battling each other for the very right to distribute the film.

Now, finally, we the regular folk of the world are able to get our first peek at this curious and intriguing little flick with the release of the very first official trailer, and it was surely worth the wait. Kick-Ass promises to be a funny, fully-entertaining movie for adults, and it is fair to assume that it won’t take long to acquire a massive fan-following.

Continue on this path to watch the new trailer for yourself!

The trades are reporting that Sir Anthony Hopkins is currently in negotiations to appear in Kenneth Branagh‘s adaptation of Marvel’s Thor. Hopkins would be playing the Norse god Odin, father of Thor, who exiles his son into the disabled body of a mortal doctor in order to teach him some useful virtues and humility in life. This news comes as a bit of a surprise as it was announced back in early June that Brian Blessed would be playing Odin.

The movie will tell the story of the cocky and spoiled hero whose lack of discipline re-ignites an ancient war, forcing Odin to banish him to the above-mentioned mortality without memory of his status as a god. While inhabiting this human body, he discovers his true identity and how to switch back and forth from the handicapped Dr. Donald Blake to the warrior Thor, God of Thunder. As with most comic book based movies, this is expected to be something of an origins story to set the character up for those who are not familiar with it. This is also necessary due to the fact that Thor will be part of the epic joining of superheroes in The Avengers, which will feature Iron Man, Hulk, and Captain America.