This just in to Cinematical headquarters: American Psycho, based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, is being turned into a stage musical! Seriously. We're not joking. According to a press release, "The Johnson-Roessler Company, The Collective and XYZ Films have partnered to acquire, develop and produce the live stage version." Most folks remember the 2000 film starring Christian Bale as a wealthy New York investment banking executive whose sick, twisted, murderous alter ego exposes itself in the most delightful and imaginative ways. While Bale had been acting since a very young age, it was his role in American Psycho that catapulted him into the spotlight.

There's no word on who they'll get to play Patrick Bateman on the stage (though I'd personally love to see Bale reprise the role for a limited run -- heck, we know he can belt a tune or two; just watch Newsies). As far as music goes, it will "revive the nostalgia of the 80's alongside celebrated hits from the era." Look for tunes from Talking Heads, Genesis and Huey Lewis and The News to make an appearance. Okay ... can I buy tickets now?

Did I just make your day, or what? Now tell us: Which scenes absolutely need to be included in the musical? And if not Bale, who would you choose for the lead?

In a combined effort to boost its box office receipts enough to become the highest-grossing film of all time (which it won't) and boost its awards profile enough to garner some Oscars (which it might), That Juggernaut Which We Call The Dark Knight will be re-released this coming January, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

It's the month when the awards rush is high and the mainstream competition is low, and any chance to see it in the IMAX format (had ye missed it, for shame) should be relished regardless of the DVD's December arrival.

And no, even if it doesn't best Titanic, director Christopher Nolan and the Brothers Warner are still looking at the cusp of a billion bucks worldwide. Yeah, so far as consolation prizes go, I've actually heard of worse. Hell, with numbers like that, maybe they could still sway Phillip Seymour Hoffman to climb aboard -- or at least help Michael Caine get his story straightened out...

It's the end of the world as we know it ... and I have a good feeling about Chris Pine.

Terminator Salvation: Will the Governator show up in the new Terminator film? While Arnold won't be officially reprising his role in the flesh, word has it the legendary action star turned Governor of California was on set providing voice work so that those Hollywood effects wizards could take his old face and put it on someone else's bulked-up body ... and still have the Arnold we all know and love. Latino Review is currently hosting a photo that shows Arnold talking to Christian Bale behind the scenes. Is it a real photo? A photoshop job? We can't tell, but I wouldn't put it past McG to have more than a few surprises up his sleeves. Terminator: Salvation hits theaters on May 22.

Star Trek: While we won't be getting a brand new re-booted Star Trek movie for Christmas (thanks for nothing Santa!), the new look Trek will eventually touch down next May. However, one filmmaker has seen the almost-finished product and he's spilling only one or two of the beans. Speaking to MTV, Kevin Smith said "It's really strong. [J.J. Abrams] was rejiggering the opening few scenes. It's one of those things where you first heard about it and were like no they're not going to redo 'Star Trek'! And then you see the movie and you think, wow he did pull it off! He turned it into a viable renewed franchise." According to Smith, Chris Pine steals the show as the young Captain Kirk and Zoe Saldana is "really great" as Uhuru too.

After the jump: Paging Dr. Watson, a cocky Irish chain-smoker is waiting to see you in the lobby ...

The tale of the battling Pablo Escobar flicks is still going strong, but despite the bad news that Javier Bardem has officially dropped out of Joe Carnahan's Killing Pablo, all is not lost for his true-life crime tale. CHUD recently received an email from the man himself, and Carnahan tells them, "I spent the last week in Colombia with Edgar Ramirez talking 'Pablo' and he has every intention of portraying Escobar and I couldn't be more fired up by the prospect. He's coming at it with boundless enthusiasm, conviction to the role and the understanding that he's going to have to pack on anywhere from 35 to 40lbs." Seems a shame to cover up all that 'handsome', but what can you do?

This is all quite a change from last February, when Collider had reported that Ramirez was the front-runner to star in Antoine Fuqua's version of the life of the drug baron. So, I can only assume that the casting switch won't be helping matters in the ongoing feud between the two projects. The only other cast that we were aware of was Christian Bale signing to play Major Steve Jacoby, but who knows what could happen between now and whenever Carnahan finally starts production.

Carnahan's film is based on Mark Bowden's book, Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw. The story claims to be the true tale of how Escobar was assassinated and his Medellín cocaine cartel was dismantled by US special forces. Of course no good conspiracy theory is complete without a few extra players, so some of the blame was also placed on the Colombian military and a vigilante gang controlled by a competing cartel.

Stay tuned to Cinematical for the official word, and sound off below on Ramirez picking up where Bardem left off...

Helena Bonham Carter gave a few hints on her surprising Terminator: Salvation role to Sci-Fi Wire -- and surprise surprise, it's not a cuddly one! "I kind of play a baddie, definitely a baddie. I don't know how much I'm allowed to say, but I'm a very bad person."

Now, I know there's readers out there who are more up on their Terminator mythology than I am (and it feels weird to even refer to it having a mythology), but were there bad humans? Turncoats who helped the machines? Evil scientists from Skynet? I feel certain this was discussed somewhere in a Kyle Reese monologue, but I may just be filling in gaps. Of course, Bonham Carter could be playing a Terminator (Summer Glau has proved you can be tiny and lethal), but I'm trying to keep all options open.

Given Bonham Carter's late in the game casting, it turns out she was replacing another actress -- Tilda Swinton, who I now want to pop up as a Terminator at some point. (I think I would instantly surrender.)

As for Bonham Carter's own interest, it turns out it was all due to her other half. "Tim [Burton] would have killed me if I hadn't done it, because he's such a Terminator fan. I've been in big movies before ... but I've never been in this kind of big popcorn action movie, a male one, an action one." And honestly, I like that she is in one. I continue to be amazed at the talent who has been attracted to this film, and like the rest of the world, I'm excited to see what becomes of it.

Terminator: Salvation opens May 22, 2009. We must try not to get overdosed on it ... and that's going to be really hard.

This was one of the panels I was most looking forward to because I desperately wanted to walk away from it with even more good vibes than I already had. Though I still chuckled every time someone prefaced a question with "This is for McG ...," the guy definitely "brought it" to Comic Con. You could tell this dude really wanted to sell the audience; he wanted to sell them on another Terminator flick, he wanted to sell them on it being directed by a dude named McG and he wanted to bottle up his enormous energy and sell that too. The guy was amped up to a level just beneath "Okay this is uncomfortable," and the panel audience was virtually high-fiving him the entire time.

The Footage

I wasn't sure what we'd be seeing as far as footage from the film went, since they were still right in the middle of shooting and, well, you wouldn't expect anything too polished. But to my surprise they managed to throw together an enticing little two-or-so-minute teaser that was gritty, grimy, familiar and --pardon the language -- pretty f**king rad. I was too engulfed to write down every second of the thing, but it basically consisted of a number of quick snippets of gunfire, Anton Yelchin (as a young Kyle Reese) saying stuff like, "Come with me if you want to live," a little of Sam Worthington (who seems like the kind of guy that'd clock you for staring at him for more than three seconds), Moon Bloodgood (hot name for a hottie actress), Common (who I assume plays the obligatory post-apocalyptic black dude) and, of course, those T-600 robots (the film takes place in 2018, 11 years before Arnold's T-800 existed).

Gallery of panel below; more after the jump ...

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Look, I thought The Dark Knight had a lot of strong selling points: Combine a deft pace with thoughtful characterizations and a whopping IMAX design that turns the entire experience into a plot-driven theme park ride, and you've got one hefty dose of Batman adrenaline.

Still, comparisons to The Godfather Part II notwithstanding, The Dark Knight isn't foolproof -- in fact, no single movie in history is foolproof. The subjective experience of movie watching ensures that nothing can be universally liked by everyone, and rules of civility insist that humanity respect that truism. It's acceptable to feel passionately about a great work of art, and defend that perspective with rigorous argumentation, but much of the outrage over the minority perspective that The Dark Knight isn't any good has made such practical thinking impossible.

Deemed the first critic to pan the movie, New York's David Edelstein went out of his way to list the allegations against him sent along by various Batman fans. The House Next Door editor Keith Uhlich, meanwhile, fielded over a hundred rants in the comments section following his astute critique of director Christopher Nolan's questionable portrayals of violence. What's particularly shocking about this frightful deluge of negative responses is that many of these people began posting their disapproval before they even saw the movie.

Occasionally Hollywood cobbles together random members of the A-list to play family members on film, even if their genes obviously come from opposite ends of the earth. If the actors are good enough or if the chemistry is there, sometimes the combo can work, such as Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman as brothers in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead or Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor in Cassandra's Dream. Other times, it stretches credibility, such as Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman in The Darjeeling Limited. My all-time favorite oddball casting is in Sidney Lumet's Family Business (1989), with Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick playing grandfather, father and son. (Huh?) At the same time, there are actor combos out there who just scream to be paired up in a family capacity. Remember Julia Roberts and Kyra Sedgwick in Something to Talk About? Well, neither do I, but that pairing was perfect. Here are a few others that could work:

1. Helen Hunt & Leelee Sobieski

They're so similar it's spooky, from their hair and foreheads, right down to the tonal quality of their voices. Anybody check the hospital records for mixed-up babies? (Helen is about 20 years older.) Not too long ago, both careers hit a peak: Helen won an Oscar while Leelee was working with Stanley Kubrick and playing Joan of Arc on TV. Now they're both in decline. For some reason, whenever Helen's name comes up, I hear "I HATE Helen Hunt!" And Leelee's last movie was for Uwe Boll. Now would be the perfect time for these two to team up in a mother-daughter drama. If they cooked up something along the lines of Terms of Endearment, with a good, solid writer and/or director, it could be interesting. Or better yet, how about something really strange and kooky with Spike Jonze or Harmony Korine? (Note: apparently the two once went head-to-head on "Celebrity Death Match.")

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Here's hoping this whole "Christian Bale arrested for assaulting his mother" thing will go away soon (or at least be explained more) because I was getting excited for Terminator: Salvation next summer. And after absolutely adoring The Dark Knight, I really don't want to have to dislike this dude. I'm a big Bale fan, and call me a traditionalist, but I'd like it if my favorite celebs didn't assault their family members. So we'll see ...

But in the meantime, McG is back talking up Terminator: Salvation over on the official production blog. And in all honesty, I'm really starting to come around on this flick. I have faith in McG, I'm loving what we've seen and read so far and I have total confidence in this film kicking lots of ass. That said, McG talked a bit about the way it's all being shot; he says, "We're shooting the film on color stock but are using a method inspired by the Oz process which was developed at Technicolor by Mike Zacharia and Bob Olson. Basically we are adding three times as much silver. It creates a surreal texture that is in keeping with the notion of the entire picture - feeling detached from the world we know today."

It all sounds very trippy, and I look forward to the stuff we're shown at Comic Con later this week. Cinematical will be at the panel, and we'll be speaking with McG and his cast ... so stay tuned ....

Update #2: People.com says that Bale has been released this afternoon, and will return to the station in September.

Update: Christian Bale was arrested earlier today on allegations of assault. No, Batman. Bad Batman. Not when you do $158 million on opening weekend, Batman!

We try not to dwell on the tabloid fodder here at Cinematical, but considering the nature of the story and, more importantly, who's involved, this is a tough news nugget to let slip by.

According to the Associated Press, Christian Bale has been accused of assault by his own mother and sister just before the European premiere of the record-breaking The Dark Knight. Bale allegedly assaulted them at a London hotel on Sunday, and while the allegations were formally made on Monday, Bale was not taken in for questioning until Tuesday -- which leads some to theorize that the premiere was to proceed without interruption.

Naturally, Bale's various representatives are refusing to return calls at the moment, and while I have little doubt that Bale won't be charged, I also can't help but think that two members of his family would even suggest as much were there not an incident of some sort. What do you guys think?

Now that The Dark Knight has shattered box office records, it's only fair to start discussing the inevitable third installment. Of course, we hope Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale and their team will return for a third film, but we know that's not guaranteed. However, there's no way Warner Bros. is going to ditch Batman while he's on top, and so we should assume serious talk of another sequel will take place within the next month or so. In the meantime, that leaves us to talk and talk and talk and talk. Today, let's talk Batty's next enemy.

I'm going to leave the poll off today's post because there are just so many Batman villains through the years that it's impossible to narrow it down to four or five for a poll. I'd much rather give you my two cents and then open up the discussion in the comments section below. That being said, I don't think I'd like to see someone like Penguin or Catwoman (both are kinda boring in my opinion) -- buuuuuut, I wouldn't mind Riddler showing up to drive Gotham wild with all sorts of ridiculous riddles (and imagine that viral scene). But maybe he's too close to Joker, so perhaps we could go with Deadshot, Black Mask (who actually makes sense in the Nolan-verse) or The Mad Hatter.

How about you? Which villain would you like to see show up in the next Batman film?

On a cloudless January day in 1966, Los Angeles was such a dull small town that children could be alerted to something as small a skywriter at work. My parents must have been watching the Rose Bowl, as they did every New Year's Day. In those days we lived five miles or so away from the arena, on the heights over the Arroyo Seco. They saw the plane on TV buzzing the big game and urged me to go outside and have a look. Up in the sky, the small plane, low enough that you could hear the drone of the engine, spelled out the words in smoke B-A-T-M-A-N I-S C-O-M-I-N-G.

Because why the hell not?

With Christian Bale currently in theaters kicking ass right, left and sideways as Batman, we thought it'd be fun to take a look back at the Dark Knight when he was just a wee boy. In the clip above, watch as Bale sings and dances up a storm in the film Newsies as Jack "Cowboy" Kelly. Remember that one? It came out in 1992 (though it was set in 1899) and it followed Kelly as he organizes a newsboys' strike due to the raising of the distribution price per paper by the publisher, Joseph Pulitzer. These kids were pissed, poor and ready to put on their dancing shoes -- and who could blame them. In all seriousness, though, this was a fun little flick ... and the music wasn't even half bad.

What do you think? Should Bale take this Batman act to Broadway?

The first Brad Anderson film I saw was Session 9. (I also spent $27 on the out-of-print DVD, which I've watched at least three times in the last year. It's a great movie.) And then I saw his dark and twisted love letter to Alfred Hitchcock: The Machinist. Wow. Aside from Christian Bale's staggering performance, it's just a rock-solid, old-fashioned mind-bender of a noir thriller. Good stuff. Most recently I saw the director's train-bound and icy chiller Transsiberian at Sundance, which (shocking!) I also enjoyed quite a bit.

Which leads us to a logical question. What can Brad Anderson fans expect next? According to Bloody-Disgusting, the writer / director is not straying far from the genre fare any time soon. First on the filmmaker's plate looks to be All Lost Souls, which is a "serial killer movie," and then perhaps Vanishing, which Anderson describes as "a smart post-apocalyptic horror film." Sounds good so far.

But even further down the road, Anderson could be looking at a remake of the 1943 occult flick The Seventh Victim -- and a Cronenbergian thriller called Concrete Island, which just might reunite the director with two of his Machinist collaborators: screenwriter Scott Kosar and low-key superstar Christian Bale. And to all those projects, I say this: Cool. Get to work, Brad!

[ Thanks to Bloody-Dee for the cool info. ]

Right about here is where all the gushing and excitement and enthusiasm should begin, because I'll tell you right off the "bat" that Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight is cause for celebration indeed. But then you'll figure out -- after only one sentence -- that I pretty much loved this movie, and then you'll head off to another, more unpredictable film critic. But it's the WHY that interests me so much. What I enjoyed about Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Hellboy 2 could probably be covered in one lengthy -- and inevitably nerd-tastic -- conversation between the two of us. But The Dark Knight... Well, clearly we're approaching a whole new level here.

Several of the pre-release gushings are accurate. Some say "Scorsesian" and others reference Michael Mann. Many spend paragraphs on the (truly amazing) penultimate performance by Heath Ledger, while others will revel in the grown-up tone or epic scope of the film. What amazed me most about The Dark Knight, among several things, is that the flick's got more layers than an onion farm -- and yet it never loses touch with the idea of FUN. True that we're talking about a comic book fun that's decidedly more melancholy than the cinematic exploits of The Marvel Gang, but dang if TDK isn't supremely satisfying for about a dozen different reasons.