Deadline Hollywood recently reported that the hunt is on for a director for producer Christopher Nolan's Superman reboot. According to reports, the list has been narrowed down to a select group of up-and-coming indie vanguards and established blockbuster mavens, with a major announcement coming in the next few weeks.

With Nolan in the producer's chair, hopes are high that the reboot can bring the Man of Steel back to big-screen glory after the divisive Superman Returns. Now that we know the contenders, let's take a look at some of the pros and cons of the six directors looking to follow in the super-footsteps of Richard Donner and Bryan Singer. Choose wisely, Christopher Nolan. (And choose Jon Hamm for Superman.)

Zack Snyder
The Watchmen director is the most controversial choice of the bunch. Fans know that Snyder can handle action (see the trailer for his upcoming babes-and-dragons extravaganza, Sucker Punch) but are concerned that his hyperbolic style might be too much for the red-and-blue Boy Scout. (It's safe to assume that there would be plenty of slow-motion punching.) After Watchmen and 300, does Snyder have anything new to offer the comic-book genre? Warner Brothers would be wise to bring in someone with a fresher take -- and a leaner editing style.

Matt Reeves
Reeves is a hot commodity right now, thanks to Let Me In, his upcoming remake of the Swedish vampire flick Let the Right One In. So far, Reeves has proven an able hand at genre work and large-scale action sequences. (Expect plenty of buildings to fall in the upcoming Cloverfield sequel.) Ironically, Reeves's producing partner, J.J. Abrams, penned a script for a Superman flick way back in 2002. If Nolan's Superman involves an alien attack of any sort, Reeves is definitely the man you want in the director's chair.

Guillermo del Toro
Now that The Hobbit is languishing in the pits of Mordor, its director's name has been bandied about for Superman. A fan favorite for Blade II and the Hellboy movies, del Toro's eye for stunning visuals could bring a unique look to Metropolis. (Plus it would be interesting to see him tackle something that doesn't involve monsters.) Unfortunately, the visionary director recently confirmed that he's too busy for the Man of Steel. For now, a creepy del Toro version of doomsday is just a pipe dream.

Tony Scott
The elder statesman of the group, Scott has become one of Hollywood's top action directors thanks to his work on everything from Top Gun to any movie where Denzel Washington runs around barking orders while brandishing a handgun. Though Scott is a capable director (True Romance still holds up), he also has a rather spotty track record. (The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 remake is the definition of forgettable summer action fare.) The Superman reboot needs a director with a light touch and visual flair. While Scott has the flair part down, his leads haven't cracked a smile since sometime around 1987.

Jonathan Liebesman
Primarily a horror guy, Liebesman (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) is branching out into large-scale sci-fi with next year's Battle: Los Angeles as well as a Clash of the Titans sequel. But future work aside, there's nothing in Liebesman's filmography that would suggest a knack for character-driven super-heroics. With his next two outings looking like blockbusters, Warner Brothers may want to attach Liebesman to the franchise while he's still hot. Let's just hope he doesn't turn Jimmy Olsen into a creepy serial killer.

Duncan Jones
A relative unknown before making a splash with the moody indie gem Moon, Jones is set to enter the big leagues with the Jake Gyllenhaal sci-fi thriller Source Code. Though he's the greenest of the contenders, the eerie, Kubrick-ian Moon proved that Jones is a director to watch. Handing him the reins of a major franchise would be a risk, but then nobody expected that the guy behind Memento would end up reinventing Batman for the modern age. Plus maybe Jones's pop David Bowie will turn up as Brainiac.

From Robert Downey Jr.'s victorious return in the clanking monster of a summer blockbuster that was Iron Man 2 to Russell Brand's rock-god stylings in the comedy Get Him to the Greek, here's a gander at what's coming out this week on DVD and Blu-ray.

Iron Man 2
The all-but-inevitable sequel to Jon Favreau's breakout superhero film starring Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, the weapons mogul turned all-American hero in the indestructible suit, shows Stark in a kind of mid-hero crisis. He's got some business rivals with fewer morals than he, a vengeful Mickey Rourke on his tail, and a frayed friendship with his best buddy (Don Cheadle) to contend with -- and many explosions ensue. The secret to Favreau and Downey's success, our critic contends, is that they understood that Iron Man "is far more interesting outside of his metallic suit than he is in it."

Get Him to the Greek
Once upon a time there was a comedy called Forgetting Sarah Marshall, in which a cute story about a guy having a hard time getting over his ex-girlfriend got hijacked by the British glam-comic blitzkrieg that is Russell Brand. This semi-sequel to that film stars Brand as faded rock god Aldous Snow, who is being dragged to a comeback concert at the Greek Theatre by hapless gopher Aaron Green (Jonah Hill). Although the film comes up with a good number of entertaining obstacles for them along the way, our writer thought that the "premise can't stretch enough to cover an entire film."

The Killer Inside Me
Booed at its Sundance screening and lambasted for its apparent misogyny, Michael Winterbottom's adaptation of the Jim Thompson novel is a brutal story of murder, greed, jealousy, and sadism in a small Texas town. Casey Affleck plays against type as the dark-hearted sheriff, while Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba are the unlucky women in his life. Because Winterbottom "so directly translates the brutality of Thompson's original novel that the film becomes an endurance test," our writer thought, the director has "delivered the ultimate journey into the heart of darkness, and few viewers will make it through unscathed."

Videocracy
Imagine if the American president also ran Fox News and just about every other tabloid-media outlet worth mentioning. That disturbing premise seems to be the everyday reality for those living in Italy under the reign of media-mogul prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, according to this disturbing documentary about the country's devolution into thrill-seeking political apathy. Although the film "exerts a primal fascination," we thought, it ultimately "fails to fully immerse the viewer in his country's hunger for the pleasures of fame."

Frozen
In this (literal) chiller, a trio of friends get stuck on a ski lift high in the New England mountains. The power is turned off, and they are forgotten about -- for five days. What happens next turns into a nail-biter of a clever low-budget film, which our critic called "tight, terrifying filmmaking marked with confidence and smarts."


The Thin Red Line
Terence Malick broke two decades of silence in 1998 to produce this epic treatment of James Jones's classic novel of combat in the Pacific during World War II. Sean Penn and Nick Nolte headed up a cast of thousands (Adrien Brody, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, George Clooney, and so on) in a three-hour-long story that our critic found "thick and dense" and that "meanders about like a lazy river." Now available in a special edition from Criterion (DVD and Blu-ray) that includes outtakes and cast interviews.

Barry Munday tells the quirky story of a socially inept playboy who learns he has fathered an illegitimate child after he has his testicles chopped off. Yet in writer-director Chris D'Arienzo's hands, the potentially controversial material comes off as remarkably hilarious and sweet, thanks to dark comedic performances by Patrick Wilson, Judy Greer, Chloë Sevigny, Malcolm McDowell, and Cybill Shepherd. As Barry struts into theaters, Wilson and Greer sat down with AMC FilmCritic to talk about genital mutilation, puka shells, and how love does not make you beautiful.

Q: Patrick, you almost had your genitals removed by Ellen Page in Hard Candy. Are you worried about being typecast?

Patrick Wilson: [Laughs] You know, I could actually look at the situation and say that this is the first time that my genitals have physically been removed in a film. Emasculation does seem to be a theme in the roles that I choose.

Q: Even in Watchmen, there were issues with your reproductive system.

PW: Sure, and in Little Children. But you know what's interesting, in a funny-ha-ha kind of way? When you are talking about characters, you always are looking for an arc, for what they gain or learn. And now I feel like I have done every variety of the emasculated man, so I am kind of over it by now. [Laughs] Yet if I have done that many films, it's obviously prevalent in a lot of writers' minds: "If you are going to be a man, let's take away everything and see what it means to be a man." I'm actually really lucky to have those kinds of characters to play.

Q: What inspired you guys to play these characters.

Judy Greer: For me, it was just the ability to tell a story about two normal people who were neither beautiful nor perfect. It was just a fun way for me to do a romantic comedy. You know we obviously have been talking a lot recently about Patrick's character having his balls cut off, but I kind of forget when I think of this movie -- and it has been a while since we filmed it -- that this [incident] starts the story. For me, it's just a story of two people who eventually fall in love.

Q: And yet the humor is very dark and offbeat. Were you concerned that the jokes might not connect with a mainstream audience?

PW: Honestly, we just had to keep going with, "Well, it makes us laugh. So if nothing else, the four people who are like me will enjoy it." We ruined a lot of takes and a lot of film because we were laughing at each other.

JG: I couldn't not laugh at Patrick.

PW: But at a recent screening, during the genital-mutilation scene -- which sounds like a hilarious scene -- the audience didn't laugh. And here it's Kyle Gass of Tenacious D and Michael Rivkin and all of these guys who are really funny. Yet they play it so straight, and you've never really seen a scene like that, so you're sort of wondering, "Is this going to be funny?" And the audience didn't laugh until my character, Barry, laughed onscreen. So it was cathartic. But it would get to a point where I was cracking up in every scene and ruining good takes. I'm saying to myself, "Hold on. You are a good actor. You do good work."

JG: You are a professional.

PW: Right.

Q: And yet we assume so much about these characters because of the way they dress and carry themselves in social situations.

JG: Well, a lot of times in movies, you see characters go through a physical change. I didn't want it to be about that and neither did Chris. I didn't want her to fall in love and go, "Now I'm going to be beautiful because I'm in love." Life's not like that. Barry doesn't make her beautiful; he makes her happy, and that's why she falls in love with him. It's who she is. She never changes who she is. I think my makeup artist allowed me to use the cherry ChapStick for some of the later scenes. But really that's about the extent of it.

PW: Yeah, it was really important to us by the end of the movie to hold on to who these people are.

JG: Right. Love doesn't make you beautiful. It makes you happy.

Q: How much influence did you have on your hopelessly dated physical appearances?

JG: I didn't want to do too much. The wardrobe and the glasses were enough, I thought. I didn't want to make her wear weird makeup and have strange hair. Because this girl really just doesn't care, and that was what I wanted to convey. She wasn't trying to force this look on herself. She just didn't give a shit.

PW: And you know we just started building from the outside in. They were such strong characters on the page. But I knew right away that I would get along with Chris when he was like, "I think you should wear puka shells." And I'm like, "Fantastic! How about a braided belt?" Once we established that Barry was hanging onto the early nineties because that was the last time he felt cool, we were all set. Physically, I also based him on a couple of people. And I would never tell them, because they would deny it. [Laughs] Plus the people who would notice haven't really seen it yet. So I'm safe.

Posters and trailers are so twentieth century. Nowadays movie marketing is all about online word of mouth. Even slam-dunk blockbusters benefit from viral campaigns and social-media inventions like Facebook and Twitter. In anticipation of David Fincher's Social Network, here's a list of the top ten movies whose social-media campaigns gave them major box-office boosts.

10. Avatar
There was a lot of built-in buzz leading up to Avatar, and what better way to capitalize on this buzz than to disseminate trailers and other goodies to eager Facebook and Twitter users? Sure, the groundbreaking visual effects drummed up plenty of audience love on their own, but Cameron's behemoth owes some of its $232 million opening-weekend success to a smart social-networking campaign.

9. The Passion of the Christ
Studios didn't want to touch Mel Gibson's violent portrayal of Christ's last days, so Gibson financed the movie himself and relied on word-of-mouth marketing in the most old-fashioned sense: he got church leaders to exhort their congregations to see the movie. It's primitive social networking but social networking nonetheless. And with a $370.2 million domestic gross, it worked smashingly.

8. The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan's sequel to Batman Begins had one of the most elaborate marketing campaigns of the decade. Warner Brothers launched a succession of Web sites that engaged users in gimmicks like scavenger hunts and photo submissions. The ploys were a hit, enthusiastic fans gabbed about the movie on their respective social networks, and, $533.3 million later, it seems to have paid off.

7. The Last Exorcism
The unexpected success of this sleeper horror pic stemmed in part from a clever marketing campaign that tapped into the uncharted territory of Chatroulette. Marketing whizzes circulated a video on the site of a coquette who morphs into a freaky devil creature, then compiled a montage of the best panic-stricken reactions. It went viral and helped catapult the movie onto radars nationwide.

6. The Expendables
The Expendables surprised pessimistic box-office prognosticators when it earned $34.8 million its first weekend, and social-media buzz deserves the credit. At one point The Expendables was a top trending topic on Twitter. Then there was Sylvester Stallone's YouTube interview, in which he turned the YouTube page into a war zone and ordered, "Don't forget to share." What Sly wants, Sly gets.

5. Snakes on a Plane
Snakes on a Plane would probably have languished in relative obscurity if not for the power of social media. The film's Web site solicited musicians to submit music for the film, and fans created an entire canon of parody trailers and films that circulated on YouTube. People could also send customized Samuel L. Jackson voice messages to their friends. Sure, the movie underperformed, but the hype will forever be remembered.

4. The Blair Witch Project
This low-budget horror hoax is one of Hollywood's seminal examples of effective social-media campaigning. Facebook and Twitter were still years away -- not even YouTube was around yet -- but Blair Witch relied on retro social-media tactics like fan sites, message boards, and newsgroups, many of which sprouted long before the movie opened. Some sites urged fans to rank Blair Witch on IMDb and Ain'tItCool.com. The rest is history.

3. Watchmen
Armed with elaborate Facebook and Twitter profiles, a YouTube channel, and a Flickr page, Zack Snyder's comic-book adaptation disseminated an impressive wealth of promo content. The strategy directed a lot of eyeballs to items like a fake news clip of Dr. Manhattan's history and a Web site that allowed people to copy their own photos onto Watchmen's characters. Some called it overload, but others called it brilliant.

2. Cloverfield
It takes guts for a marketing team to withhold a movie's name until a month before the opening date. The Cloverfield campaign, however, was all about mystery. The secrecy spurred audiences to vent their curiosity on social networks and in online forums. At one point, a five-minute clip was released in a widget that people could embed on their blogs and social-networking profiles. By the time Cloverfield opened, the anticipation was almost as dizzying as the movie.

1. Paranormal Activity
Shot for a mere $15,000, Paranormal Activity is the ultimate case study in successful social-networking campaigns. Paramount studio created a "Demand it!" button on the movie's Web site, allowing visitors to request midnight screenings in their towns. Thanks to online word of mouth, the demands hit one million within a week. With nearly $107.9 million in domestic box-office grosses, that was a mighty profitable campaign.