Later this year, Jessica Alba will star in not one, but two different sequels for director Robert Rodriguez. 

These sequels, Machete Kills and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, are set for nationwide release within just weeks of each other, and even though they're both more than eight months away, Alba is sharing some exclusive insights on the Machete and Sin City follow-ups.

Another day, another [two] addition[s] to the already huge cast of Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For continues adding outstanding actors to its appropriately crowded cast.  Josh Brolin is officially joining up as familiar Basin City badass Dwight, and Christopher Meloni will play what Frank Miller would describe as a tough-as-nails cop in a city where the nails are always crooked.

Earlier this week, an inaugural theatrical trailer provided a first look at Oblivion, a science-fiction adventure starring Tom Cruise.  That trailer supplied lots of slick visuals and built up a sense of mystery about the desolate, post-apocalyptic setting.  While he's not exactly spilling all the beans on Oblivion, director Joseph Kosinski is talking about the movie's story, influences, and style.

Director Joseph Kosinski made his feature debut with TRON: Legacy, a big science fiction movie for Disney two years ago.  Now, he's working on his sophomore feature, Oblivion, a big science fiction movie for Universal Pictures.  Brewing even before the TRON sequel's release, Oblivion is currently in production starring Tom Cruise as a futuristic solider who gets mixed up in some serious shit.  That's my summation of the story, but today Universal issued the first official plot synopsis for the movie, which is actually based on a comic book by Kosinski, Arvid Nelson, and Andree Wallin.

After about seven years during which promises of an imminent Sin City sequel started making co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller seem sort of like broke dads promising their kids a rollercoaster in the backyard, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is actually happening.  Or at least, it's more likely than it has ever been.  Today, Dimension Films officially announced an October 2, 2013 release date for the sequel, and also confirmed that stars Mickey Rourke and Jessica Alba are committed to return.

So apparently a sequel to Sin City is actually going into production this summer, after seven years of seemingly endless promises and well past the point at which it seemed it would never happen.  The official announcement for Sin City: A Dame to Kill For was a week ago today, and with Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller set to direct again, there are plenty of questions, including, "Really?  No, really?  This is happening?"  Another is, of course, just who will return from the 2005 film.

It's been seven years since Sin City set a new standard for fidelity in adapting a comic book, with co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller basically using Miller's influential hyper-noir comics as storyboards for the audacious, green-screen intensive production.  Talk of a sequel taking on more of Miller's work began almost immediately, the directors have been promising that it will happen almost ceaseless for the better part of a decade with nothing to show for it.  But it's actually going to go down now.  Really.

Morgan Freeman is a gravitas machine, capable of making anything seem hugely important or especially wise in his own easy way.  It doesn't matter if he's in classy picture like The Shawshank Redemption, unapologetic nonsense like Wanted, or a massive blockbuster like The Dark Knight, it's just what Freeman does.  And it's apparently what he'll be doing alongside Tom Cruise in the science fiction actioner Oblivion, as the Oscar winner has apparently joined the cast of the film, which has also been widely referred to as Horizons.

2005's Sin City set a new precedent for faithful comic book adaptations, with co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller essentially using Miller's hyper-noir black and white books as storyboards for the outrageously violent interconnecting tales from Basin City.  Of the many strange characters populating Miller's world, perhaps the most over-the-top and popular is Marv, an unstoppable simpleton played by Mickey Rourke in the segment titled "The Hard Goodbye."  Though Marv met his end in that story, the fractured chronology of the first film would allow Marv to have another adventure in Sin City 2, the sequel that Rodriguez and Miller have been promising for the last six years.  Rourke, a notoriously eccentric and forthright actor, isn't so sure he'll back, however.