[Robert Downey Jr. on the set of his new 'Sherlock Holmes' movie, directed by Guy Ritchie; image via Bauer-Griffin]

In an appearance Saturday on NPR's Weekend Edition, Terrence Howard interrupted his discussion of his new album with a Zen meditation on his recent departure from the Iron Man franchise. And if it seemed unusual last week that Howard might bow out of the blockbuster's sequel, leaving his role as Tony Stark confidante Jim Rhodes (and his own heroic alter-ego War Machine) to the capable, cheaper hands of Don Cheadle, the scenario didn't get any clearer as the actor wavered between the high road and calling Marvel Studios a scandalous gang of thieves and pimps:

· In what's being labeled as an effort to snag iTunes marketshare, Dell will give PC buyers the option to preload Iron Man on its new computers. Before you laugh: That incursion is being led by a man with whom Apple settled a wrongful-termination lawsuit in 2005. Never underestimate a software-wonk scorned. [THR] · And if you act now, Paramount and Marvel may throw in five more co-releases — including Thor, Captain America and The Avengers — at no extra charge through 2011! Operators are standing by! [Variety] After the jump: David Gordon Green gets animated, Robert Duvall ponies up and Ellen Burstyn does serious drugs with Tim Robbins.· Finally, at age 77, Robert Duvall is bravely venturing into the uncharted career territory of Westerns, attaching himself to star in an untitled drama about the Pony Express. From AMC, of course, which makes him a likely Emmy front-runner in 2010. [Variety] · Talk about dodging a bullet: By going straight to TV with his animated Fox surfer comedy Good Vibes, a relieved David Gordon Green won't be forced to follow Matthew McConaughey's recent beachgoing high-water mark Surfer, Dude. [Variety] · Jesse Ventura's predictable career arc will continue ever-skyward when he hosts an untitled "conspiracy theory" reality show for truTV, in which the ex-wrestler/actor/politico will "hunt down answers, plunging viewers into a world of secret meetings, midnight surveillance, shifty characters and dark forces." Or, as they call it in Minnesota, running for reelection. [AP] · Ellen Burstyn will join fellow Oscar-winner Tim Robbins for his Showtime pilot Possible Side Effects, a drama set in the pharmaceutical industry — kind of like Mad Men, but with scores of exquisitely photographed pills in the place of cigarettes. [Variety]

Click to viewBoomp3.com America has spent much of the summer of 2008 falling in love all over again with Robert Downey Jr. It wasn't only his acting prowess, mind you, but also his fantastic facial hair. However, the changing of the seasons means that it's time for him to shave off his beloved goofy mustache. The Iron Man debuted his (mostly) clean shaven look at the UK premiere for Tropic Thunder. Downey Jr. said, “I think the mustache had ran its course. It tickled my wife when we kissed. It was an excellent flavor saver. For a while, it smelled like a Robeks and I loved it. Now, I have to go to work and become an adult all over again.” [Photo Credit: Getty Images] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

The 'stache-tastic Robert Downey Jr — along with Japan's very own Iron Man, Hal —went off on a few barrels before the premiere of Iron Man. According to Downey Jr, the barrels were asking for it and got what they deserved. Downey said, "Those barrels were mouthing off. Saying some nasty things about my performance in The Shaggy Dog and now they're going to pay." After having such a blast demolishing the barrels, Downey and Hal agreed to team up on a live action version of Donkey Kong, possibly to be helmed by Wong Kar-Wai.

Appearing before throngs of adoring Japanese movie fans accompanied by his ever-present quartet of Ironjuko dancers was the inimitable Robert Downey Jr., whose upper lip appears to have crossed the point of no return since last we checked in with the unabashedly facial-hair-curious actor. But the look has grown more severe now—the furrowed brow, the unkempt hair, the dark glasses, and constipated pout all seem to suggest another man's superstar aura entirely. Help us, won't you, get to the bottom of this Robert Downey Jr. mini-mystery, by voting in yet another of those Defamer reader polls you love so much. All aboard for mustache rides after the jump!

The soul-deadening imposition of commercial brands on your moviegoing experience got even more shameless this morning when the oft-overlooked ring of Hell know as "brandcameo" unveiled the winners of its fourth annual Product Placement Awards. You could probably guess at least most of the heavyweight competitors — your Apples, your Fords, your Manolos — from a glance at the last year's worth of releases, but that doesn't make the year's findings any less remarkable in context: The surveyors counted an average of 22.1 brands in each of the 20 films this year to have a No. 1 weekend at the box office. That number is down from 2007, when an average of nearly 25 brands were counted among the year's 32 top releases. The dollars aren't disclosed, but follow the jump for a depressing if fascinating array of blockbusters for sale, the brands that bought them and the ultimate recognition of their unholy unions:

Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. will not be jumping from Marvel to D.C. anytime soon. In an interview with MovieHole.net to promote Tropic Thunder, the dashing actor fearlessly tore the ass off The Dark Knight and the comic empire behind it. "Didn't get it," he said, "still can't tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. I'm like, 'I get it. This is so high brow and so fucking smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie.' You know what? Fuck DC comics. That's all I have to say and that's where I'm really coming from."

Ironman was cool and everything, but some Hollywood limousine liberal film editor-who presumably was paid for his or her services!-cut out the most awesomely synergistic scene of all: the meeting of Tony Starks (Robert Downey, Jr.) and the other Tony Starks (Ghostface Killah). The full deleted Ghostface-Ironman-Dubai party scene is after the jump. I guess Raekwon was in the other room or something: Click to view

Hints abound today that the wheels may be coming off the souped-up Dark Knight bandwagon — and not just at the box office, where some estimates have Tropic Thunder usurping the top spot this weekend. TDK's sweeping cultural influence may be in jeopardy as well, with its Greatest! Movie! Ever! status now reduced to a nonsensical three-way tie at IMDB and a pair of formidable opponents shaping up across town at Camp Iron Man. In case you missed it, Robert Downey Jr. has already resorted to dramatic efforts of Batsabotage ("Didn't get it, still can't tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. ... You know what? F-ck DC comics"), and now jealousy-inspiring actor/screenwriter Justin Theroux has enlisted exactly the kind of metaphorical bitchslap we'd expect from his soaring geekcake talent:

Kate Beckinsale displayed a bit of political wishful thinking as she set up decorations for a party on Sunday. Beckinsale believes that a Obama/Clinton ticket would be the perfect ticket to ensure that Democrats once again control the country. Beckinsale said, "They seem like the kind of politicians that you want to go on vacation with and those are the kind of leaders I want to support. If I was happen to vote." Beckinsale then set up up a standee of Iron Man dunking over a standee of Zac Efron.

Three months is apparently an eternity in comic-book years: Just when we thought we'd gotten our heads around the impact of Iron Man's smashing success, it looks like that The Dark Knight's Batrocket into the box-office record books (another $24.6 million on Monday!) necessitates a whole new flurry of comics-centric development around Hollywood. And while Wired has a roundup of movers and shakers basking in collective geek glows of summer hits also including Wanted, Hellboy II and The Incredible Hulk, newly flush Warner Bros. handed off a chunk of the spotlight to slumping Bryan Singer just for the hell of it:

Like most celebrants of cinema's smoldering, dangerous geek-stud archetype, we've been following actor Justin Theroux's career arc for a while — mostly in front of the camera, obviously, where his roles in Mullholland Drive, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Six Feet Under and elsewhere yielded a batch of performances we presumed would catapult him to the A-list sooner or later. But now it's just getting ridiculous, as we're learning that Theroux just nabbed one of the most desirable writing gigs in Hollywood: Iron Man 2.

We’ve given Gwyneth Paltrow some flack lately for her sudden determination to vamp up her prim and proper image using everything from dominatrix footwear to bizarre backless jumpsuits but, with the need to promote Iron Man no longer an issue, the mother of Hollywood’s most promising cross-dressing duo is back to basics. And as it turns out, all those goopy mascara-drenched lashes and see-through mini-dresses pale in comparison to the makeup-free, covered up version of Gwyneth 1.0. In these photos, taken over the weekend at a party in the Hamptons, see why the Madonna make-out partner should give up the hooker heels for good and stick to (painful as it may be to admit) her lucky genetic makeup-free makeup:

A Foot Locker referee assisted Robert Downey Jr. in finding a pair of running shoes on Thursday. While the Iron Man star was browsing a section of more affordable pairs of shoes, the referee insisted that Downey check out another section of running shoes. The ref added, "Come on, you're Iron Man. Live a little. Let's take a look at the executive line. It's like you're running on fluffy bags of cotton candy when you go with the executive line."

Our borderline obsession with Gwyneth Paltrow’s new look as a S&M fetishist during her Iron Man promotional Tour of Transparent Minidresses may have rubbed off on lookalike daughter Apple. But not the way you’d think. Rather than doing the typical copycat routine most little girls go through when their mom is hot, the 4-year old papier-mache donkey fan is not turning herself into a fashionista, but using little brother Moses as her muse. As Paltrow says, “She makes Moses cross-dress.” The question is: how far is Apple taking the tranny toddler theme, and does this mean little Moses is destined for an adolescence of boy-curious desires like his dear old Dad?

The Earth is easing back on to its axis today after a full month of panic that Jon Favreau might skip out on directing Iron Man 2 — not that he threatened to, mind you, though all it took was one candid MySpace entry to fertilize fanboy concern that money, ego, release-date controversies or all of the above might conspire to shatter the fragile bond between the director and the cheap-ass overlords at Marvel.

Jon Favreau isn't the only one haunted by release dates these days, though the execs polled recently by Claudia Eller and Josh Friedman aren't necessarily worried about having less than two years to write all the product placement into Iron Man 2. No, their fears hinge on the surplus of new releases reaching theaters annually — 517 titles in 2007 by the authors' counts (most others put it above 600), up 49 percent from '06. And while the glut has been essentially played out elsewhere, it is kind of rare to see such a studio-friendly perspective on the "crisis," even from the pushovers at the LAT; after all, it's the specialty labels of the world — your Warner Independents, not your Warner Bros. — really battling for life in the cluttered market.

We're receiving our first signals this week that the Jon Favreau Power Index has irrevocably entered "player" levels of awareness. While the global $550 million take for Iron Man says pretty much all the industry needs to know about the viability of the franchise itself, director Favreau bristled recently (and publicly to fans on Iron Man's MySpace message board) at Marvel Studios' sequel announcement — especially that troublesome part about Iron Man 2's scheduled April 30, 2010, release date. Or, as Favreau might say it these days, "Nobody asked Jon Favreau!":

Browsing the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly, we came across Steve Daly's survey of the modern spoiler, never more epidemic in the Internet age than on exterior shoots. And while some studios conceal their films' secrets by burning the entire set and even the movies themselves to smoldering rubble, we tip our cap to the more creatively minded subterfuge happening on sets from Indiana Jones 4 to Gossip Girl to Sex and the City. That's not going to stop us, though, from giving away everything that happens in Daly's piece after the jump.