Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

So I’m out with Harry Lime today, takin’ care of binness, and as we’re walking out of a building, notes in hand, who should come sauntering towards us, sunglasses and smile fixed firmly in place? None other than Marvel’s preposterously, permanently happy head cheese, Avi Arad.

I ask what Avi’s there for, and he starts pointing at different parts of the building and listing off all the projects in development in all the different offices. We talk a little bit about THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, which is now shooting, and which Avi says has a “much, much better script” than the first film. He starts to describe a scene involving Doc Ock, then catches himself. “I can’t. I can’t tell you about it. But you’ll know when you see it... it’s one of the greatest scenes in anything we’ve done.” He tells me how hard Alfred Molina is working to master the arms, and describes one take where Molina, fresh from a Broadway run in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, actually broke into a li’l bit of “If I Were A Rich Man” with a full set of cybertronic arms moving in tandem to Tevye.

By that point, Kevin Feige, Avi’s second-in-command, had joined us, and the two of them went over a few quick points. One of the things they said is that they just closed the deal on THE PUNISHER, meaning it’s now official. We’ve got a Frank Castle, and it turns out AICN called it first, way back on January 12th. Marvel must love BOOGIE NIGHTS, because they put Molina in SPIDER-MAN, and they’re putting Thomas Jane in the Punisher’s suit. We joked with Avi that all he needed to do now was find a great bad guy role for Burt Reynolds.

He gave Kevin a look and murmured something about “Of course... we didn’t even think of Burt,” and then realizing that we were still standing there listening, they hurried off to their meeting, giddy with glee at all the stuff they’re up to, leaving Lime and I to our own devices.