Let the Spider-Man recasting rumours begin.
Spurred on by Spider-Man 3's opening, Internet speculation is intensifying as to who will replace Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst if they don't return for a fourth film. (Read: Sony doesn't meet their salary demands.)
At cinemablend.com, sources insist possible future Peter Parkers are Jake Gyllenhaal or Joseph Gordon-Levitt. And for Mary Jane? Try Mandy Moore, Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls) or Camilla Belle (When A Stranger Calls).
CALL HER: Dunst isn't exactly hard up for work. One future project is a Debbie Harry biopic which would see her play the Blondie lead singer. Dunst confirms this, but adds, "It's too early to talk about it." In the meantime, she's hankering to do a horror movie. "I really want to make a Roman Polanski-esque Repulsion or Rosemary's Baby. But there's nobody making those movies."
LESS OF MORRISSEY: What does British actor David Morrissey remember about 2007's Razzie winner for worst film, Basic Instinct 2?
"It was cold, and I had my clothes off most of the time," he says. Morrissey had a brief nude scene in another flop, the horror flick The Reaping. He has finished filming a completely clothed role in The Other Boleyn Girl, with Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn, wife No. 2 of Henry VIII (Eric Bana), and Scarlett Johansson as her sister Mary, whom Henry also bedded.
"I play the Duke of Norfolk, who was Mary's and Anne's uncle," Morrissey says. "He was also Catherine Howard's uncle, and she lost her head as well. So he gave great Christmas presents, but there was a downside," he quips.
"It's the political story we all know and love, brilliantly told, with lots of sex. And it's one of the few movies (in which) I don't take my clothes off."
The Other Boleyn Girl is due early next year.
HOP DOGS: With his IRA drama The Wind that Shakes the Barley finishing its run, director Ken Loach's next film is about immigrant workers in East London. Time to cast another three-legged dog. A wobbly pooch on a farm in TWTSTB marked the 12th straight Loach movie with a three-legged dog cameo, dating back to a walk-on in Riff Raff.
"It's an inside joke, really," Loach says. "We got our first three-legged dog by accident, so we contrived to get (more) in. There are a surprising number of them about, actually. England's full of three-legged dogs."
GRACELESS THIRTEEN: "There will be no closure of the character of Topher Grace," says Grace of his cameos -- as himself -- in Ocean's Eleven and Twelve.
He was too busy with Spider-Man 3 to return to Ocean's Thirteen, which opens in June.
BEAM THEM UP: Matt Damon as Capt. James T. Kirk? Adrien Brody as Mr. Spock? And Gary Sinese as crusty Dr. McCoy?
That's the online buzz regarding director J.J. Abrams' reboot of Star Trek, due Christmas 2008. Also rumoured: Jennifer Garner as Spock's love interest. Now that's illogical.