One of the biggest, baddest Disney villains ever is getting her own live-action movie.

Maleficent, the evil witch from Sleeping Beauty, will be appearing on the big screen with a script penned by Alice In Wonderland scribe Linda Woolverton, according to Heat Vision Blog.

I had been sceptical but hopeful about the project’s future and up until now it had mostly been a rumour with Tim Burton directing.

Burton is circling a number of projects at the moment, one of them being The Addams Family, but perhaps now Woolverton is on board for Maleficent, she can persuade Burton to join her.

There’s no doubt that the dark, edgy style that Disney are going for with this project would be right up Burton’s alley but he’s a busy little bee right now. His pet project Frankenweenie is deep into pre-production and ideas for Dark Shadows are still simmering away in that gothic brain of his.

Never ones to pass up the chance to squeeze a few extra bucks out of cinemagoers, movie studios are pushing directors to jump on the 3D conversion bandwagon.

But some of them aren’t too happy about the effect that the conversion has on the look of the 3D, including Transformers director Michael Bay. Apparently he’s under pressure to put Transformers 3 into 3D and he’s not best pleased about it.

In conversations with Deadline Hollywood, Bay explained why he’s against conversion.

“I shoot complicated stuff, I put real elements into action scenes and honestly, I am not sold right now on the conversion process. I am trying to be sold, and some companies are still working on the shots I gave them.

Right now, it looks like fake 3D, with layers that are very apparent. You go to the screening room, you are hoping to be thrilled, and you’re thinking, huh, this kind of sucks. People can say whatever they want about my movies, but they are technically precise, and if this isn’t going to be excellent, I don’t want to do it. And it is my choice.

I’m used to having the A-team working on my films, and I’m going to hand it over to the D-team, have it shipped to India and hope for the best? This conversion process is always going to be inferior to shooting in real 3D. Studios might be willing to sacrifice the look and use the gimmick to make $3 more a ticket, but I’m not. Avatar took four years. You can’t just shit out a 3D movie. I’m saying, the jury is still out.”

Wow, harsh words from ‘Bayhem’ but he makes a good point.

James Cameron’s not too happy about it either, which is funny considering he’s converting Titanic into 3D for a 2012 release.

“After Toy Story, there were 10 really bad CG movies because everybody thought the success of that film was CG and not great characters that were beautifully designed and heartwarming. Now, you’ve got people quickly converting movies from 2D to 3D, which is not what we did. They’re expecting the same result, when in fact they will probably work against the adoption of 3D because they’ll be putting out an inferior product.

Sony says, we’re doing Spider-Man in 3D.’ The director doesn’t say, `Hey, I want to make the movie in 3D.’ The studio says, `You want to direct this movie? You’re doing it in 3D, motherf**ker!’ That’s not how it should be.

I’ve tried for the last seven years to get filmmakers excited, and they all hung back while Pixar and DreamWorks did animation and me and a couple of others did live action. We prove the point, and now filmmakers are being told to make their movies in 3D.”

You tell ’em, Jim. To be honest, they’re just saying what most of us are thinking and that if we’re going to be paying top dollar for our cinema tickets, we don’t want a half-assed attempt at 3D, let’s just hope Hollywood will listen.

They probably won’t given that there are several movies in line for 3D including Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Gulliver’s Travels and The Hobbit.

Zack Snyder recently caught up with Coming Soon and spilled the beans on the sequel to 300.

The director has been ridiculously busy since the success of 300, jumping from one heavy-duty project to another. His latest movie is a 3D CGI owl movie called The Legend of The Guardians as well as the action packed Sucker Punch, also in 3D.

Snyder seems to fit in well with the current trend of putting everything in an extra dimension and apparently he was very pleased when Warner Bros. showed him 3D converted footage of 300:

“I saw maybe like a ten-minute section that they’d just done. I haven’t seen the whole movie but they’re talking about doing the whole movie.”

Getting 3D spears shoved in our faces? Can’t wait.

But what about the sequel? Well technically it’s going to be a prequel that will focus on the God King Xerxes. Snyder will adapt a new unfinished graphic novel by Frank Miller that will be set 10 years before the events of 300.

“I’m waiting on Frank (Miller) for the sequel to ‘300′ and there’s a really good chance that will be the thing we do. He’s been working hard, so he’s supposed to show me something really soon; actually in the next few months, he’s going to show me something.

There was a big discussion about what we would do for the sequel to ‘300′ and I said, “I didn’t tell Frank what to write the first time, and I’m not telling him what to write this time. I’ll take it and I’ll adapt it and make it into a movie and I’ll write a screenplay, but I want him to do whatever he thinks.

You remember the rules. You know the game. You know the players. No it’s not Monopoly the movie, it’s the Scream series, and the game begins again this year when Scream 4 starts shooting in April.

There was some discussion over who would direct the fourth instalment but Wes Craven has confirmed that he’s returning to the series, as is Neve Campbell, David Arquette and wife Courtney Cox.

Cox previously dished on what could be in store for the characters but other than that there is very little known about the script. Many fans of the franchise are confused at to where the new film will take the characters as all the storylines were so nicely wrapped up in the third movie.

Dimension Films’ big boss man Bob Weinstein released a statement saying,

“Scream has been such an integral part of Dimension’s history, and I look forward to continuing the franchise.”

He’s back folks, the man with bigger forearms than a 14-year-old schoolboy, it’s Popeye!

Variety reports today that Spider-Man producer Avi Arad is getting the project together with Sony, the fellas behind the upcoming 3D semi-CGI Smurfs movie.

Relative newcomer Mike Jones is in talks to pen the script and has confessed that,

“I’m an unabashed, lifelong Popeye fan. Introducing this squinty-eyed sailor to a new generation also means reintroducing him to those who, like me, grew up with him.”

The decision to see Popeye, Bluto, Olive Oyl and the gang in 3D hardly comes as a surprise and love it or hate it, it’ll soon become the standard, especially for animation. To use CGI instead of live action isn’t a shock either – it’s just a lesson learned from the 1980 live action version with Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall.

If you’re looking forward to a Popeye movie or you need to refresh your memory, check out this video – it’s my favourite reason to love the cartoon.

Maybe I was just blinded by R-Pattz’s glittery vampire skin in Twilight but I never really noticed how cute Kellan Lutz is.

He could easily give any Hollywood hottie a run for their money but today I’m more interested in his CV. According to Heat Vision Blog, he’s just signed on for Tarsem Singh’s War Of The Gods.

The film follows the hero Theseus (Henry Cavill) as he battles to stop the ancient Titans from destroying the Greek Gods. Mickey Rourke will be leading the Titans as Hyperion while Lutz will help out Theseus as Poseidon, God of the sea.

If you’re looking for the movie’s details on IMDB you’ll find them under the old title of Dawn of War as this project’s been in development for a while now. It’s been through its fair share of writers but Jason Keller is the latest scribe to put pen to paper for the movie.

War of the Gods was intended to be a challenger to Clash of The Titans but repeated delays and re-writes have meant that shooting will just begin in Montreal next month. It’s also pushed the release date back to 2011, taking it out of the running for ‘best sweaty Greek warriors in skirts’ competition.

Lutz has been steadily been branching out from the Twilight series, even appearing in the upcoming Nightmare On Elm Street revamp.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog is a shining example of what Joss Whedon can do when the damn networks keep their noses out of his business. I’m talking to you Fox.

The series followed Dr. Horrible as he attempted to defeat his nemesis Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion), takeover the world and win the heart of Penny (Felicia Day). The wildly popular three-part web series garnered a huge following which has of course gotten the attention of the movie world.

MTV had a chat with Dr. Horrible himself, Neil Patrick Harris, to find out what he knows about the possibility of a movie sequel to the series.

“Apparently they’re making a Dr. Horrible sequel, a feature film I hope… I hope they cast me in it… We’ll see.”

I hope so too, but we all know that movie execs think they know best, which doesn’t always result in fans getting what they want.

“I don’t know what scale, they’re talking all options, because they made the first Dr. Horrible in five days on no budget at all…

You don’t want to make the feature film be an $80 million giant movie, because it defeats the purpose of what the first film was made to be, but then again you don’t want it to be so low brow that it’s not worth paying money to see as a movie.”

Fans of Whedon may still be grieving over the loss of Joss’ latest effort Dollhouse, but maybe one day the studios will realise that he actually knows what he’s doing. Buffy, anyone?

You don’t have a hit show for seven years and a spin-off for six by accident, you know.

As we wait patiently for the next film in the Harry Potter series, disaster strikes the set of the hit movies.

A fire ripped through the set of the Hogwarts castle, but luckily it looks like the blaze only burned down a mock-up version of the famous school of witchcraft and wizardry. The set at Leavesden Studios, near Watford, was attended to by six fire engines and burned for over 40 minutes before being extinguished.

According to the News of the World, an explosive scene was being filmed for the Battle of Hogwarts sequence – a key scene in the books and a fan favourite, when the replica set caught alight.

One source described the event, “We were shooting the scenes where Hogwarts gets blown up in battle, but fire managed to catch hold of the set and it went up in flames. It was completely out of control at one point.”

Thankfully, none of the principal cast members were involved and no-one was harmed, but the special effects team were reportedly very upset by the fire.

“The special effects guys involved are devastated. There’s always a risk when there’s shooting involving fire and explosives but this shouldn’t happen.”

Tony Smith, Watford fire brigade commander, told the Daily Mail, “There is a big battle scene involving a lot of pyrotechnics and explosions. There is a mocked-up castle made of timber, steel and plastic – somehow it caught alight.”

Though much of the replica set was destroyed, production will continue but will it affect the scheduled finish date?

As Pirates of The Caribbean 4 rolls along nicely towards production, I have a snippet of information to pass along to you.

MTV recently spoke to Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of the franchise, who dished on the role that will be played by Penelope Cruz, who was cast earlier this year.

“She plays the daughter of Blackbeard. She’s the daughter of the bad guy.”

The bad guy in question will be played by 44 Inch Chest’s Ian McShane who is confirmed as playing the infamous pirate.

“She brings a lot of humor to it. And the fact that she’s so feisty…[there’s] a little romance between [Depp’s] Captain Jack and the character that Penelope plays.”

Well there’s a huge surprise. The two best looking people in the cast will hook up – shocking.

My only problem with casting Cruz and McShane as father and daughter is that Cruz born and raised in Spain and has a very strong accent. Now this could mean that McShane will try a Spanish accent, Cruz will try (and fail) at an English one or it’ll be explained in the script that she was raised in Spain. Either that or they’ll just pretend that everything’s normal.

Well they might be able to explain away the accent, but how are they going to cover up the fact that Cruz could be well be a seahorse?

Well it was bound to happen at some point. Warner Bros have revealed their plans to release all of their future ‘tentpole’ movies (Superhero, Potter & CGI spectacles) in 3D.

According to SlashFilm, Alan Horn, President of WB, made the announcement at the ShoWest industry convention.

They’re hoping that they can prove how good an idea this is once Clash of The Titans is released in 3D after a conversion.

Horn also made it clear that due to the Harry Potter series coming to an end, they’re hoping to fill the void with DC comics’ library.

While Potter has been the franchise standard to beat, Batman movies are just as eagerly anticipated and now, as they’re WB property, this means the next time we see the Dark Knight himself, it could well be in 3D.