Up until today we hadn’t heard anything from Robert Downey Jr regarding the Terrence Howard/Don Cheadle recast for Iron Man 2. Recently we heard that apparently Marvel weren’t happy with Howard’s performance in Iron Man and they wanted to reduce his salary (he was said to have been paid more than Downey Jr. for the first film, as he was the first cast member signed).

Downey Jr. spoke briefly to Splashpage about the situation, saying he didn’t make the decision and doesn’t know why it’s happened:

“I had nothing to do with that decision. I love Terrence very very much. That’s all I’ll say because I haven’t talked to him yet.”

“I’ve always admired Don [Cheadle],” said Downey. “It’s one of those situations where I still don’t quite know what happened or why. Here’s what happens too: things happen and you wind up commenting on them before you’ve actually talked to the people and it’s in poor taste.”

When Downey Jr says he loves Howard ‘very very much‘ he means it. Back in August when everything was fine and dandy Terrence Howard said he was excited about the sequel and looked forward to him and Downey Jr. getting personal trainers and bulking up together. Now it looks like Don Cheadle will be bulking with Downey Jr. instead.

The emotional pain Terrence will be feeling must be unimaginable.

Back in September is was announced that Johnny Depp would be returning as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean 4, however nothing else was revealed. Now producer Jerry Bruckheimer has given us a small update on the status of the film, along with how National Treasure 3 is progressing.

As far as approaching the sequels for “National Treasure” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” Bruckheimer says that both are having scripts written. “We’ve sat with the writers and we’re working up the story and plotlines right now. They’re in the process of finishing ‘The Lone Ranger’ so they’re working on both of those simultaneously, same set of writers, Elliot and Rossio, who did all three ‘Pirates’ and worked on ‘National Treasure (2)’”

“I think they’re pushing towards 2012,” Bruckheimer told us about the possible release date for this fourth “Pirates” movie. “Hopefully we can make it we’ll see.”

2012 is a heck of a long time to wait. They could be waiting for Gore Verbinski to finish work on Bioshock and Rango. If they are going to have the same writers they may as well have the same director too.

Those who stayed to watch the credits for The Dark Knight will have seen ‘in memory of our friends Heath Ledger and Conway Wickliffe.’ Well Conway Wickliffe was a stunt technician on the film and was leaning out of a car while operating a camera when the vehicle failed to negotiate a bend and hit a tree. The accident happened during a test run for a scene in which the Batmobile is blown up.

The BBC are reporting that a jury in the town of Woking have decided that his death was accidental.

Following the hearing, Mr Wickliffe’s partner, Dee Chase, called on the big movie companies to take health and safety seriously when filming stunts.

She said a health and safety person should be assigned to every stunt shoot to prevent similar tragedies occurring again.

“Warner Brothers are a huge multi-million dollar company - why are they cutting corners like this?” she said.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) may now bring a prosecution over the incident.

Here is another of those movie ‘what if’ scenarios. Quantum of Solace director Marc Foster revealed to New York magazine that he had one or two disagreements while making the film. The first was the product placement (he wanted it in the background not in your face) and another was a plot twist written by screenwriter Paul Haggis.

“Haggis had an idea they weren’t fond of, and I didn’t know if it would work or not,” says Forster. “The idea was that Vesper in the last movie, maybe she had a kid, and there would be an orphan out there. It wasn’t anything to insult the franchise. But they felt it wasn’t particularly Bond — him looking for the kid. I think Paul thought he just leaves the kid, he doesn’t deal with it. But [the producers] thought that would be really nasty, too, because Bond was an orphan himself. If he would find a kid, would he just leave it? They were so vehemently against it. That was the only time I saw, really, ‘No, we can’t do that.’ They said, ‘Once he finds the kid, Bond can’t just leave the kid. It’s not right.’”

Bond can never have a kid…never! This was one of the major complaints Superman fans had when Clark had a kid in Superman Returns. On the one hand you think he is cool because he is off fighting bad guys and saving the world, but then you think ‘he’s not looking after his kid, what an asshole!’.

It’s not good when people think the leading man is an asshole.

Over the weekend Quantum of Solace was busy breaking all kinds of records. In the UK Bond took £15.5 million ($25.3 million), breaking the three-day launch record held by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Meanwhile in France it took $10.6 million, topping the five-day mark of Casino Royale by 16%. And the $2.7 million Swedish opening was the fourth-biggest ever.

The reviews may not be as golden as Casino Royale’s, but it’s making a helluva lot more money! I wonder if it will break any records when it opens in the US on November 14th.

The ‘epicness’ that is Australia continues with the final trailer that has Youtubed it’s way online.

“Australia” is an epic and romantic action adventure, set in that country on the explosive brink of World War II. In it, an English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman) travels to the faraway continent, where she meets a rough-hewn local (Hugh Jackman) and reluctantly agrees to join forces with him to save the land she inherited. Together, they embark upon a transforming journey across hundreds of miles of the world’s most beautiful yet unforgiving terrain, only to still face the bombing of the city of Darwin by the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor. With his new film, Luhrmann is painting on a vast canvas, creating a cinematic experience that brings together romance, drama, adventure and spectacle.

After lots of negotiating, pulling out, and more negotiating, both Sony and Paramount are in talks to co-finance Steven Spielberg’s Tintin trilogy. Hurrah!

Universal backed out a few months ago, which sent Spielberg and Peter Jackson on an epic quest to get financing from another studio. Paramount eventually offered them $135 million, however the idea was to film Tintin in 3D with photorealistic performance-capture technology, so the pair held out for a better deal. After what I expect was a long uncomfortable silence, one of the parties suggested getting another studio in on the action, so along came Sony.

In the deal currently being negotiated, Paramount is planning to distribute in North America and some other English-speaking territories, while Sony would handle the foreign release.

If Universal didn’t back out then Spielberg would be busy filming the first instalment now, however the lack of financing has delayed production and has meant that lead actor, Thomas Sangster, can no longer play the role of Tintin, which sucks.

When all the deals are done Spielberg will most likely get to work on the first of three Tintin movies (firstly finding a new Tintin), with a planned release date of 2010. Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson will then take over for the second film, and then hopefully by 2012 they will have decided who will be directing the third film.