It’s been five years since one of Hollywood’s most influential pioneers of the action screenplay, Shane Black, stepped behind the camera for his critically-praised directorial debut Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Now Black may be settling back into the director’s chair in order to revive the long-dead silver screen legacy of classic adventure hero Doc Savage.

Doc Savage was created in the early 1930′s by Street and Smith Publications and predominantly written by main author Lester Dent. He’s an adventure hero, most popular in the “pulp novels” of the 30′s and 40′s. Savage is a man trained from birth in all of the greatest skills of science, deduction, and physical prowess, all of which he uses to solve mysteries and fight crime.

The character has appeared in only one successful film adaptation, 1975′s bemoaned camp-fest, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, starring former Tarzan, Ron Ely.

In October of last year, Black told Ain’t It Cool News that he was hard at work scripting a Doc Savage movie for hotshot producers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman of Star Trek and Transformers fame, and that his film would  definitely be set during Savage’s heyday of the 30′s, and would include his ever-present team of sidekicks, The Fabulous Five. However, the property recently changed hands over to Sony, who have brought in screenwriters Anthony Bagarozzi and Chuck Mondry to co-write the feature with no word yet on how much of Black’s original, self-written screenplay will be retained.

Doc Savage has been enjoying a minor resurgence of popularity recently, as DC Comics has begun releasing a mini-series that links Savage to Batman, and that will expand into an ongoing series for the character soon.

Sony hopes to shoot for a 2011 release for the film under their Columbia Pictures banner.

So what do you think? Can a Depression-era action hero find a modern movie audience? Can Shane Black pull it off? And who would you like to see portraying The Man of Bronze?

With a planned reboot of Sony and Marvel’s hit Spider-Man franchise underway, it was only a matter of time before casting rumors began to swirl for the web-slinging lead. The first name to be thrown into the ring is newcomer Logan Lerman who will be making his big screen debut this year in another adventure franchise film, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.

Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush asked Lerman about the prospect:

“There have been a few discussions, it’s definitely something I’m looking into,” Logan told Billy on Thursday.

The 18-year-old actor said he’s been a hardcore fan of the web-slinger for years.

“It’s one of my favorite characters ever and I’m a huge fan of the series,” he continued. “I’d love to have more conversations about it. I’m definitely very interested in it.”

If selected for the role, Lerman would be stepping into the boots of Tobey Maguire (Golden Globe nominee for last year’s Brothers) who carried the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man over five years and three massively successful movies.

Acclaimed indie director Mac Webb ((500) Days of Summer) has signed on to helm the reboot.

Following the ever-growing trend of adapting novels for the screen, Sony is attempting to pick up the English-language rights to Swedish novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Dragon Tattoo focuses on an investigative journalist and a young computer hacker whose lives become intertwined and endangered as they seek to “expose institutions that pull the strings behind the scenes.” The story is the first of three novels in crime thriller series Millenium, by late author Stieg Larsson.

The first novel was turned into a Swedish-language film in February, and Sony became interested in making an English-language version fairly quickly, beginning to option for the rights this past summer. Due to a rights disputes between the author’s parents and longtime girlfriend, Sony has yet to seal the deal for the English version.

If Sony does get the rights to the film, Mikael Wallen and Anni Fernandez of Yellow Bird Films, the studio that made the Swedish version of the movie, will serve as executive producers. Steve Zaillian is in talks to write the script.

Although MGM may have recently found itself on the chopping block, other studios are continuing to thrive. In particular, Sony has been having a phenomenal year, especially overseas.

The studio revealed on Monday that this year’s films have earned Sony over $1.63 billion worldwide, making 2009 the highest grossing year in the studio’s history, as far as international sales go.

Sony lucked out by having several of the most-anticipated films of the year linked to its name. Among the biggest money makers were disaster flick 2012, which brought in $165.2 million from its international release, Michael Jackson concert film This Is It, which has grossed $155.2 million globally, and The DaVinci Code follow-up Angels and Demons, which earned $352 million.

The success of these films has made Sony a close competitor for 20th Century Fox, whose international box office earnings for the year were $1.79 billion.

Sony is also doing well domestically, with the opening of 2012 bringing in $65.2 million to put the film at the number one spot for the weekend’s box office sales. This Is It maintained a spot in the top five, giving Sony a pretty good hold on the box office.

Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie. Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire. John Travolta in Hairspray. These are among some of Hollywood’s big name men to let their feminine sides shine through on screen by playing the role of women (granted, Hoffman and Williams were both men playing men playing women…)

The next star to don a dress for a film? Adam Sandler.

Sandler has signed on to star in Jack and Jill, and romantic comedy from Columbia Pictures. The actor will be doing double duty in the film, playing the roles of both Jack and Jill, as well as producing the film under his Happy Madison banner.

Filming on Jack and Jill will begin early next year, to be ready for release by Sony in 2011.

Just four short months after Michael Jackson’s death, the Prince of Pop is giving fans one last chance to bask in all of his falsetto-note-hitting and moon-walking glory.

October 28th will see the theatrical release of This Is It, which shows the behind-the-scenes details of the “This Is It” summer tour Jackson was preparing for at the time of his death. With only two weeks until this release, theaters are already planning on a high demand response to the movie.

As of Tuesday, 34% of Fandango’s online sales were for This Is It, beating out sales for the much buzzed about Where the Wild Things Are which opens sooner (October 16).

In addition to its domestic release, Sony has also planned a foreign release of the film on the same date. While  This Is It might not be opening on quite as large an international scale as other American films have, it is still being released with a number of showings higher than the usual.

International showings of This Is It will begin three hours after the film premieres in Los Angeles, and European viewings also will feature a live satellite feed of the red carpet outside L.A.’s Nokia Center on October 27.

Despite the positive international response thus far, it remains to see if that response will translate into financial success for This Is It, given that one of the more recent concert films to go international, Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus – Best of Both Worlds, brought in less than 10% internationally than it did in the U.S.

This Is It was directed by Kenny Ortega, who also directed Jackson’s stage performances for the tour, and the lawyers overseeing Jackson’s estate executive produced.

Sony, in an effort to grab more of an audience with the Roland Emmerich/John Cusack disaster film 2012, will “roadblock” televisions with a two-minute advertising sequence from the film on October 1st.

Similar to what Universal did with Dawn of the Dead several years ago only on a broader scale, the advertisement will put footage of the film in front of a purportedly astounding number of people: 110 million North American viewers. Online, this number could increase by as much as 30 million, according to the studio.

Expect to see 2012 footage on a bunch of cable networks along with ABC, NBC and CBS “between 10:50 p.m. and 11 p.m. on the coasts” and other times throughout the nation on the first of October. Afterwards, an extension of the two minute sequence will be viewable online at Fancast.com.

The film will finally be released in theaters on November 13th, 2009.

Darren Aronofsky might not be the one to surge some life into this possible reboot of Robocop. For a little while now, Robocop has become one of many 80s cult movies to get the remake status, which is bad for most people who adore the movies. In this case though, it’s not just a mere matter of trying to find the right actor to play John Murphy before and after he’s made into a cyborg, but MGM who needs to find a director to hold onto.

Could this remake potentially go ED-209 and rip it to shreds?

Aronofsky has another project in development, which is the Natalie Portman starring film Black Swan. Although this film will most likely be filmed and readied up for sometime say around 2011, MGM also wants Robocop to be released within that same year. Meaning, he’s going to have to quickly jump from one piece to another lickety split. With the probability that Darren will be able to tackle both of these films seemingly low, MGM already is keeping their eyes out for possible replacement directors to fill the void of the action drama. Who will it be? Who do you think it should be? Do you think they should bother touching Robocop at all? Let us know, we want to hear your two cents on the topic.