1. In the nerd equivalent of heaven, James Cameron and Peter Jackson attended their first Comic-Con, and did a panel together where they talk about the future of film-making and Jackson reveals that a script for The Hobbit, his Lord of the Rings prequel, will be finished in a month. [Zap2It]

2. Lost isn't known for parting with information easily, but they did have some good tidbits at their panel. Characters Juliet and Daniel Faraday will be back for the final season. Also in season six: no more time travel, the return of Charlie and Boone, the backstory for the enigmatic Richard Alpert, and some allusions to what may be alternate timelines. Damn, that shit makes our brain hurt. [EOnline]

3. Warner Bros. tried to roll out the new Patricia Heaton comedy The Middle at their Mom-A-Con. No one showed for the counter programming. Everyone said, "Mom, stop embarrasing me!" [THRFeed]

4. Hayden Panettiere is going to get some girl-on-girl action for the new season of Heroes. Yeah, cause that is what is going to fix this show. [io9]

5. Two scenes from the upcoming Twilight sequel, New Moon, were screened. Lots of girls screamed. [CelebrityCafe]

6. Iron Man 2 is going to fucking rule. Fans were excited by footage that shows Samuel L. Jackson's return as Nick Fury, Mickey Rourke playing new villain Whiplash, and a bunch of awesome special effects. Robert Downey Jr, director Jon Favreau, and new additions Scarlett Johannson (who plays sexy spy Black Widow) and Don Cheadle (replacing Terrence Howard) were all in attendance. That's either an A-List Comic-Con panel or a night at The Waverly Inn. [EW]

7. Ok, Iron Man gets two entries because the sequel is laying the foundation for Marvel's much anticipated (among comic geeks) Avengers movie (not the crappy Uma Thurmond one, this one has Captain American and shit). [EOnline]

8. We haven't seen the last of Battlestar Galactica, Edward James Olmos' career to continue. [io9]

9. You're probably not going to see Family Guy's "Abortion Episode," at least on the air, but it will probably be on DVD. What? Fox suddenly has standards? [LAT]

10. Alien invasion drama Vis back and the geeks love it. Is there anything left from the '80s for us to bring back? Alf, maybe? [THRFeed]

Boomp3.com

Like the swallows returning to the missions of San Juan Capistrano, all of the women attending the Marc Jacobs fashion show flocked to quirky actor Elijah Wood. The Lord of The Rings star could not find a moment of peace in the tents of Bryant Park. Wood was startled by his newfound status as a hunk, but relished the experience all the same. Wood said, "I always thought that everybody loved Sean Astin from the movies, but I guess it was wrong. Shhh...don't tell my gal pal, but I'm loving this. It's going to make her super jealous and I love it when she's jealous."

[Photo Credit: Splash Pic]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Universal — which has a three-year first-look deal with the helmer inked in June ’07 — and del Toro are making a long-term commitment by setting up four directing projects, including remakes of Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Slaughterhouse-Five.

The fourth project is an adaptation of Drood, a Dan Simmons novel acquired by U that will be published in February by Little, Brown. ...

Frankenstein represents a longtime fascination for del Toro, who has made his home a memorabilia shrine to the Karloff monster from the 1931 U film.

"To me, Frankenstein represents the essential human question: ‘Why did my creator throw me here, unprotected, unguided, unaided and lost?’ " del Toro said. "With that one, they will have to pry it from my cold dead hands to prevent me from directing it."

Well, then. His involvement with Slaughterhouse-Five is slightly less intimate, with the director determined to explore the ways author Kurt Vonnegut "plays with and juxtaposes time" in ways that he says George Roy Hill's 1972 adaptation didn't. There are a few of his own screenplays in there as well — none of which del Toro is attached to direct, alas, which suggests that even he and his Uni bedfellows are anticipating the current trend in paranoiac, risk-averse rehash (See Exhibit A) to worsen before it improves. Fine with us! Whatever might keep The Hobbit to one movie is a cutback we can most certainly live with.

• Guillermo Del Toro booked thru 2017 [Variety]

And while we think that fantastic idea is a second film in itself, read on to see why Tolkien geeks and studio suits alike may be shuddering this morning.

"We believe there is a second movie," del Toro said during a discussion at the Majestic Crest. "If there isn't, there will not be. If we find it, we will shoot it, but by God, if we do not find it, we will not shoot it. I am anxious to shoot the book, and I'm willing and able to dedicate myself to shooting the [second film]."

Not very reassuring, we don't think — especially for MGM, which needs the prestige and profit of a Hobbit two-fer, like, yesterday. It's trickier than it sounds, though; the second film, which would apparently bridge the gap between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, can only draw on the novels to which Jackson holds the rights. The rest of the background or ancillary literature (and there's a lot) is off-limits. "In the four books that are in the domain of the copyright, there are appendices and ideas and things that can be traced without risk," del Toro said. "But I have to be careful not to overstep. We believe there is a way to create this film and make it interesting, but it's too early."

Whatever. With del Toro or without him, there's too much at stake not to shoot both films, but either way, the filmmaker later alluded to how difficult he'd love to make things for the establishment. "Look, if I hadn't been a filmmaker, I would have loved to be a bank robber," he said. "I hate institutions. I hate banks. I wish they'd burn to the fucking ground. I hate lawyers. I hate anyone who fucks us every day and wants us to thank them. I used to want to plan bank robberies. I was fascinated by Rififi or any bank-heist movies. You give me Ocean's 11 or Rififi or whatever you want — as long as they're fucking a banker.

"And in my mind, those [robberies] would be creative endeavors, you know?" he continued. "They would need to plan them like a movie shoot, and they would organize a crew, and they'd probably make more money. I do have antisocial impulses, especially toward institutions, but I channel them toward my movies. People who like my movies would agree." Great! We look forward to seeing what he does with his flamethrower.

[Photo Credit: Jeffrey Wells]

"No way. Sleepless in Seattle can go fuck itself," [Del Toro] said. "Monsters are the most beautiful creatures in the universe. I have no interest in everyday life, except through a twisted mirror."

Of course, slumping Seattle screenwriter Nora Ephron got to work straightaway, sensing an opportunity to rework her long-dormant third collaboration between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as the tale of a lovelorn, nocturnal minotaur and the elusive Fairy of the Dawn who fakes orgasms in his dreams. That, or Del Toro will just stick to his much cheaper, twisted-enough Ashton Kutcher/Cameron Diaz reunion entitled, naturally, Fuck Itself. Count on it.

• Guillermo Del Toro to Never Direct 'Sleepless in Seattle' Sequel? [/Film]

1. Alfonso Cuaron. Del Toro's close friend and (with del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu) one of the "Three Amigos" conveniently packaged by American press in 2006, Cuaron was Warner Bros.' surprising pick to helm 2004's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. But his indie chops came in handy in both humanizing the franchise and positioning it more dynamically against Chris Columbus and Mike Newell's entries that sandwiched it. He's a versatile guy who gets the marketplace but isn't beholden to genre interests; in that way, his similarities to Jackson, who jumped from graphic B-horror comedies like Bad Taste to Heavenly Creatures to LOTR, are almost uncanny. Also, he's just a better director than del Toro; Cuaron could have made Pan's Labyrinth in his sleep, but del Toro couldn't have touched Children of Men.

2. Neil Jordan. Another guy with tons of range, the Crying Game/Michael Collins filmmaker is also a grossly underrated craftsman who could save everyone a lot of time and money by shooting both Hobbit films over about four months in Ireland. Alas, Jackson would likely object to the requisite IRA subplot in which Bilbo Baggins is sidelined indefinitely by injuries sustained in a car bombing.

3. David Lynch. A natural short-lister for any film involving midgets. Plus we all know how well his previous would-be fantasy franchise went.

4. Woody Allen. While it's true that Allen has returned from his four-year European exile with a new project featuring Larry David and Evan Rachel Wood, he has made little secret of his availability to the highest overseas bidder. With this in mind, and seeing as Middle Earth's brow-furrowed humorlessness is perhaps its most annoying attribute, we'd like to see Allen invited to New Zealand for a comic run through Baggins' deeply embedded neuroses — not the least of which is his underage shiksa love interest, played by saucy new Disney cast-off Miley Cyrus.

5. Uwe Boll. Why not? He is the only genius in the whole fucking business.

I did feel the need to tweak (New Line co-founder Michael Lynne's) nose once, when he seemed to be trying to diddle the cast of LOTR out of their well-earned share of the profits. It was at a party in Berlin after the opening of The Return of the King. I said "That's for all the trouble you've been causing!" I don't know who was more surprised: Michael, that I had taken his nose in my finger and thumb and twisted it gently, or me for having dared do it! At least one of us enjoyed it.

And, in desperately needed response to "rumors" that Viggo Mortensen and his other male castmates were fraternizing during production, only to beard it up in public:

This gossip is all news to me. Elijah [Wood], Dominic [Monaghan] and Orlando [Bloom] introduced me to their girlfriends during shooting. I didn't ever meet Viggo's partner although his son visited a a few times. It would seem that none of my friends can be accused of hypocrisy. Probably the fevered imagination of slashers is to blame.

McKellen's acknowledgment of such whispers is itself a brave step forward in smashing the Hollywood closet — a classy, conscientious refusal to allow even the basest of speculation to go ignored lest the valuable, "not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-that" opportunity that follows gets away. Those incoming phone calls from Mortensen, Bloom and Co. are surely best wishes for a successful — and long — return to Middle-Earth.

• The Lord of the Rings [McKellen.com]

But breathe easy, hairy-footed-little-person enthusiasts, Fanboy-Pre-Approved Visionary Guillermo Del Toro is in talks to do both movies, a fact that should put to rest your recurring nightmare that a panicked New Line, turning to the only person the studio truly trusts when it's desperate for a blockbuster, were seriously considering Brett Ratner's pitch to do the back-to-back Hobbitses as "Lord of the Rings, but with, like, much more dwarves and shit blowing up. Chris Tucker's already really excited about stretching himself by playing Dildo Bagboy or whatever he's called."

• Del Toro doubles up for 'Hobbit' [THR]