Fantastic Four

A quartet of high profile forthcoming fantasy flicks have been making headlines over the past couple of days:

- Will we be able to watch the Watchmen after all? The Warner Bros. superhero epic (directed by 300's Zack Snyder) has found itself in a nasty legal scuffle; seems Twentieth Century Fox is claiming distribution rights to the property. No worries though, for (as Entertainment Weekly's Jeff Jensen puts it), "Fox isn't actually interested in suppressing Snyder’s film — they just want affirmation of ownership and/or restitution, and there are many scenarios by which Fox could get paid, including a cash settlement or distribution rights to the film. Either way, look for Watchmen to be released, as scheduled, on March 6, 2009." Nevertheless, panicked fanboys are outraged over the whole thing, raising a ruckus the likes of which we haven't seen since, well, last week's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince release date fiasco.

- Speaking of which, Cinematical sits down and debunks all the myths/rumors surrounding that unexpected/ unpopular move, while star Daniel Radcliffe reportedly reveals that Broadway's Equus won't be the only time soon he'll be going the "full monty". Could we be seeing a lot more of Harry's, uh, "magic gifts" in the saga's final chapters, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?

- Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law -- who all stepped in to complete Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus following the accidental death of Heath Ledger earlier this year -- will donate their salaries for the film to Heath's three-year-old daughter Matilda. Furthermore, despite the movie's newsworthiness and four A-list leading men, it appears that it may have trouble finding a studio to distribute it.

- And finally: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens (the Oscar winning screenwriters of The Lord of the Rings trilogy) will indeed be collaborating with Guillermo del Toro on the upcoming Hobbit prequels.