Gemma Arterton. Andrew Garfield. Tom Hardy. Aaron Johnson. Emma Stone. Yes, this year's BAFTA Orange Wednesdays Rising Star Award candidates are all rising and/or mostly risen.

The excellent Edgar Ramirez is in talks for cinema-goers to feel the Wrath of his Titan. Which could be a nice new name for his penis after Little Carlos kept popping out in Olivier Assayas' five hour epic.

Toby Kebbell and Bill Nighy are also being linked to Jonathan Liebesman's sequel. I don't know what they call their manly parts. But I bet Liam Neeson's Mighty Zeus is bigger.

If you want to see more of Little Carlos, the DVD is still available in shops.

So apparently Warner Bros are gunning for James Franco and Javier Bardem to join the forces for Jonathan Liebesman's 3D sequel, Wrath of the Titans.

Yes. Wrath of the Titans. That's what Clash of the Titans 2 will be called. And it's a terrible name. Here's why:

TITANS. WILL. WRATH.

That tagline doesn't make any sense at all now. Another epic fail.

With Inception out of the way, Christopher Nolan can return to his babysitting duties for the Man of Steel. Charged with overseeing the restart of the Superman series, Nolan (along with producing other half Emma Thomas) has put together a shortlist of directors for the project. At the top of that list? Duncan Jones and Matt Reeves.

Nolan's already met with most of the men, but he's keeping a wide range of names open - the list also includes Tony Scott, Zach Snyder and Jonathan Liebesman. But some of the helmers have already got a packed slate, for example Battle: Los Angeles director Liebesman, who has already signed with Warner Bros for their Clash of the Titans sequel. 

While the big names keep circling David Goyer's script, ComingSoon.net scoped out some quotes from a couple of the candidates. They reported that Reeves (who would be a great pick for the job) was "surprised" by the news. He told JoBlo: "I really have no idea if any of that is true. It's certainly an amazing project, but I would be surprised..."

Jones, meanwhile, apparently tweeted his thoughts: "About Superman... I'm going to say something really cheesy; Can't talk about it, but an honor to be on the list. Interesting times!" As for Snyder, he spoke to USA Today a couple of years back after Warners offered him Superman then. He turned them down, commenting: "He's a tricky one nowadays, isn't he? He's the king daddy of all comic-book heroes, but I'm just not sure how you sell that kind of earnestness to a sophisticated audience anymore." 

With Christopher Nolan at the helm, Warner Bros clearly think they can sell Clark Kent's earnest superhero back to the cinema-going public. And with the Moon director's enigmatic tweets on the subject, it looks like they might have a director to do it. 

Ridley Scott has approached Gemma Arterton about appearing in his prequel to Alien. After standing out for all the wrong reasons in Prince of Persia and Clash of the Titans, the British actress impressed the director with her turn in The Disappearance of Alice Creed.

After seeing her raw performance in the indie thriller, Scott is arranging to meet Arterton to discuss the 3D sci-fi horrors. As she put it: "He wants me to meet for Aliens: The Remake or something."

Ridley is not the only person won over by Arterton's acting: she's also just been cast in Christopher Nolan's upcoming adaptation of The Keys to the Street. Based on the Ruth Rendell novel and scripted by Nolan himself (although since subject to some dubious rewrites), the screenplay has been sitting around since his debut, Following. The Inception director, however, will no longer be at the helm.

Arterton will play Mary, a bone marrow donor who enters into a relationship with the man whose life she has saved. Talking again to The Times, she voiced her surprise that the film had been sitting around for so many years.

Gemma Arterton will next be seen in Stephen Frears' Tamara Drewe (out this week) - a step up in quality from Quantum of Solace. You've got to admit, her slate is shaping up pretty nicely for the near future. Except for Clash of the Titans 2, of couse. 

When Warner Bros booked next February up for production on their Clash of the Titans sequel, rumour had it that Jonathan Liebesman was on the studio's shortlist for possible directors. Now it's official: Liebesman will be making sure Titans Will Clash once again for the (over-)paying public.

Ever since that pinnacle of modern cinema dazzled the world with its lazy post-conversion 3D and epic crapness, Warner Bros have been desperate to make a sequel. Box office takings of $491 million tend to have that effect. But when Louis Leterrier dropped out - happy to stop work after ruining the 1981 original - the studio started hunting for a replacement.

Liebesman will be heading to the project fresh from Battle: Los Angeles, the alien invasion flick that impressed the world (as well as Warners) at Comic-Con. The Black Hawk Down-style visuals, coupled with the intense visual effects, convinced execs that he was up to the task of helming a Titans follow up.

Sam Worthington and Gemma Arterton are expected to return to the franchise's second outing, which is already being scibbled by Greg Berlanti, Dan Mazeau and David Leslie Johnson.

The good news? It will definitely be shot in 3D. Because that makes us all feel better about the whole thing.

Following his happy reaction to Piranha 3D's box office performance and plans for a sequel, producer Mark Canton has found himself in bloody waters. Not due to killer fish or Kelly Brook, but thanks to Pandora's chief 3D spokesman, James Cameron.

The Avatar director, who previously slammed Clash of the Titans and Alice in Wonderland for their sloppy post-conversion work, turned his powers of the dark side onto Piranha 3D during his Avatar press tour.

He told Vanity Fair: "It's exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3D. Because it just cheapens the medium and reminds you of the bad 3D horror films from the '70s and '80s, like Friday The 13th 3D."

Outraged by Cameron's derogatory comments, Canton retorted by citing Piranha 3D's 82% Rotten Tomatoes rating and the fun experience audiences are having in the cinemas - including filmmakers such as JJ Abrams. 

"Mr. Cameron, who singles himself out to be a visionary of movie-making, seems to have a small vision regarding any motion pictures that are not his own," the producer wrote to journalists. "It is amazing that in the movie-making process - which is certainly a team sport - Cameron consistently celebrates himself as though he is a team of one."

Cameron, who started his career with a brief directorial stint on 1981's Piranha Part 2: The Spawning, reiterated his belief in the current "renaissance" of 3D cinema. Referring to both Disney's Tron and Martin Scorsese's 3D project, he dismissed Piranha 3D as "bottom of the barrel".

Canton concluded by describing Cameron's comments as "ridiculous, self-serving and insulting to those of us who are not caught up in serving his ego and his rhetoric."

Avatar (Special Edition) was re-released in UK cinemas in 3D last week and contains eight additional minutes of new footage.

We all heard the rumours, but now it's official: the long-awaited sequel to Louis Leterrier's Clash of the Titans is set to start production next February. Clash of the Titans 2: Epic Fail has been on the Warner Bros. to-do list for a while now, ever since that ridiculous box office total of $491million. And now they've pencilled in a starting date.

Not that they have a script yet. Or a director - Louis Leterrier is, smartly, staying out of this one. But hey, maybe this sequel will wind up an epic win? It will have learned from the mistakes of the first film, with its last-minute 3-D conversion jobby, the constant rewrites and the in-out-in-out hokey cokey with The Gods.

Then again, maybe not.

Matthew Vaughn has found himself another X-Man for Fox's upcoming prequel First Class: Nicholas Hoult, who will play Beast. Benjamin Walker (from Flags of Our Fathers) was originally lined up for the part of Hank McCoy/Beast, but after a massive bout of indecision, he dropped out. 

Hoult, of About a Boy fame, outgrew his baby face last year, storming to full-on sex-bomb status in Tom Ford's A Single Man. Further manly grown-up action came when a 2-D Hoult turned up in Clash of the Titans, proving his macho mettle when it comes to running about in skimpy clothes - he's definitely a perfect fit for the intelligent mutant.

He joins Vaugn's other stars, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, alongside other youthful mutants Banshee (No Country for Old Men's Caleb Landry Jones) and Emma Frost (Alice Eve).

The other rumour going round thanks to AICN is that Vaughn has also secured a reunion with Kick-Ass star Aaron Johnson. If it's true, he'll be playing Scott Summers/Cyclops - a nice match of talent, and clearly a better choice for Johnson compared to that Spider-Man film that Sony keep going on about. As it stands, X-Men: First Class is far more exciting.

We all know Titans Will Clash. But now Potter Will Clash too. In 3-D. Thanks to Titan's positive testing, the final two instalments of Rowling's wizard franchise will be bumped into third dimension as well - something fast becoming standard practise for big summer blockbusters.

Warners Bros haven't officially confirmed this, but rumours have been rife (over at MarketSaw) of their tentpole releases being converted to cash cows (at a cost of $5 million apiece). Knocking Titan's release date back by two weeks is a direct casualty, but Potter has time to recover from the blow: he'll continue to uncover the Deathly Hallows in November this year and July of next. Now he just needs some snazzy glasses - Luna's already got some.