So The Avengers is in the middle of post-production, meaning you can no longer rely on set photos and the like to provide your fix of Marvel crossover smack.  Today, though, we have an info nugget that will not only give a little dose of The Avengers news, but will also delight fans of Iron Man and Iron Man 2.  Specifically, fans of Tony Stark's snarky artificial intelligence program J.A.R.V.I.S.  Apparently the auditory sidekick and convenient deliverer of exposition will not only have a part in Marvel's big ensemble, but Paul Bettany confirms that he will again be voicing the character.

For a long time before its release in 2008, Iron Man was seen as Marvel Studios mining the second-tier heroes in a long-shot attempt at comic book movie glory after the Spider-Men, Dark Knights, and Merry Mutants exhausted the cinematic potential of the genre with its heaviest hitters.  Director Jon Favreau and star Robert Downey Jr. surprised everybody by delivering a bona-fide blockbuster with a well-told origin story.  The third installment of the Iron Man franchise will be the first not directed by Favreau, with Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang writer-director Shane Black taking over.  Apparently, it might also be the first shot principally outside of Los Angeles, where the Tony Stark lays his head and his armor.

When investment bank Lehman Brothers imploded in 2008 and became an opening act in a global economic clusterfudge of truly epic proportions, Lehman headquarters must have been absolutely fraught with drama, including stuff like rampart scapegoating, merciless backstabbing, and general horror.  The upcoming drama Margin Call is inspired by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brother, taking place at an investment bank in a single 24 hour period during which a whole lot of people are presumably thrown under the bus.  In the case of Lehman, that bus was not a bus, but a debt of over $700 billion.  A new poster for Margin Call gets across the financial goings-on while wisely showcasing the tremendous cast, including Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto, Demi Moore, Mary McDonnell, Paul Bettany, Aasif Mandvi, Simon Baker, and Penn Badgely.

Because the financial implosion of 2008 did not involve shoplifting celebrities,vajazzling, or a freeway closure, it remains an event, or rather an immensely complex series of events, that is underexplored in the popular consciousness.  The upcoming Margin Call appears to cleverly avoid much of the overwhelming complexity by focusing on a single period of 24 decisive hours at a single investment bank.  A first trailer for the film promises plenty of cutthroat maneuvering, scapegoating, and craven self-interest, all of which should get audiences rightly riled. 

The last few weeks have seen big summer movie debuts, with Fast Five pre-emptively cracking open the season and Thor following up with a respectable opening for a an arguably second-tier superhero.  With very little competition from other beefy superheroic types, Thor held on to the top spot for a second week, earning an estimated $34.5 million.  The big surprise this weekend was Bridesmaids; the raunchy wedding-themed comedy from Kristen Wiig exceeded all expectations in second place, with a projected $24.4 million opening gross.

Actress Maggie Q first gained a reputation for playing kick-ass characters in popular films like Rush Hour 2, Mission: Impossible III, and Live Free or Die Hard. She’s since moved her ass-kicking act to the small screen with her hit TV show Nikita, but now the actress will be kicking ass on the big screen once again when her new film Priest, hits theaters on May 13^th.

The film, which was directed by Scott Stewart (Legion), takes place in an alternate world where humans and vampires have waged war against each other for centuries. After the last Vampire War, the veteran Warrior Priest, played by Paul Bettany, lives in obscurity with other humans inside one of the Church's walled cities. After vampires kidnap the priest's niece (Lilly Collins), he must break his vows to hunt them down. The Priest is joined by a former Warrior Priestess played by Q, who helps him on his quest for redemption.

Scott Stewart may have begun his career working in visual effects on such films as Sin City, Superman Returns, and Live Free or Die Hard, but it was his directorial debut with last year’s supernatural thriller Legion, that put him on the map as a successful Hollywood director. Now Stewart returns, and once again reunites with actor Paul Bettany, in his latest supernatural film entitled Priest, which is based on the popular Korean comic of the same name and opens in theaters on May 13th.

The movie focuses on an alternate world where humans and vampires have waged war against each other for centuries. After the last Vampire War, the veteran Warrior Priest (Bettany) lives in obscurity with other humans inside one of the Church's walled cities. After vampires kidnap the priest's niece (Lilly Collins), he must break his vows to hunt them down. The niece's boyfriend (Cam Gigandet), who is a wasteland sheriff, and a former Warrior Priestess (Maggie Q) ultimately join him on his quest for redemption.

The last time writer-director Scott Charles Stewart and actor Paul Bettany got together, Bettany played a renegade angel employing a truckload of automatic weapons to defend humanity from a heavenly apocalypse in Legion.  In Stewart's upcoming Priest, Bettany is a renegade cleric who uses crucifix ninja stars and slo-mo kung fu to fight vampires in a postapocalyptic wasteland.  A brand-spanking new, second theatrical trailer for Priest features no shortage of killer-crucifixes and vampires.

San Diego Comic-Con may be geek mecca, drawing more than 100,000 fans from around the world to Southern California every July, but WonderCon, Comic-Con's neighbor, is growing more popular every year.  Last year, the convention saw a spike of nearly 10,000 additional attendees, and given the comic and fantasy gathering's prime position just before summer, WonderCon is attracting increased presence from the genre-friendly film properties that now dominate Comic-Con. This weekend's WonderCon will include panels with Ryan Reynolds on Green Lantern, Jon Favreau talking up Cowboys and Aliens, and newly minted Superman Henry Cavill on Tarsem Singh's upcoming fantasy epic Immortals.

Based on the latest trailer for Priest, Scott Stewart's ostensible adaptation of a Korean comic by Hyung Min-woo, it seems like Stewart put a heaping of genre elements into a blender and turned it on without capping the thing, spewing forth a nasty spray of mulched post apocalyptic deserts, vampires, wire-fu, a Blade Runner-style overcrowded metropolis, 3D, speed change action, slow-mo, and warrior monks.  The film has an impressive cast, though, with Paul Bettany, Christopher Plummer, Maggie Q, and Karl Urban.  There's another trailer online now, ready to remind you of other, probably better movies.  Give it a looksie: