Some movies seem compelled to arrive in pairs, a bit like the animals on Noah’s Ark. I’m sure there are many good reasons why two studios might release films with a similar plot or theme at the same time, and I’m almost certain they don’t all involve conspiracies and dark dealings. It could be just coincidence. Perhaps it’s simply the right time for a movie, say, about an obscure Roman Legion that passed out of history into legend some nineteen hundred years ago…?

Word is that Universal has pulled the plug on a sequel to Timur Bekmambetov’s Wanted. Apparently the studio had wanted Angelina Jolie to star in the sequel but she pulled out, and without her (very bankable) involvement Universal is not prepared to proceed.

Anyone familiar with Wanted will appreciate that having Jolie’s character Fox return for a sequel would require some pretty fancy pen work on the part of the script writer: at the end of Wanted, Fox killed herself with an unequivocal bullet to the head. Universal’s desire to bring her back strikes as a commercial decision not a creative one, and at a guess I’d say Jolie was not convinced by the fancy pen work. If so, good on her!

Valhalla Rising, the latest project by Danish filmmaker Nicholas Winding Refn (Bronson), first showed up on our radar back in 2008. Since then it's raised its bloody and battered head from time to time with a new trailer, snippet of news or film festival appearance, and quickly faded back into the mist without ever seeming to get any closer to a general release. Blood and mist as you'll appreciate if you've experienced any of the trailers, would appear to be two of the film's most distinctive features.

With a UK release finally approaching (26 March), Valhalla Rising has raised its head once again with a two minute long medley of scenes “showcasing” the film’s gore, set to the most bizarre choice of music: Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers, from The Nutcracker. It’s not a trailer so much as a mishmash of brutal scenes, and believe me when I say it’s not for the faint of heart. Frankly, I don’t see the point of it (beyond the obvious, though cheaply scored, marketing goal). The depiction of violence, brutality and gore is justified in the appropriate context, but this medley of scenes has no context and is basically gratuitous.

M. Night Shyamalan has had some spectacular movie successes, from the excellent The Sixth Sense (possibly the biggest plot twist in movie history) to the powerful and compelling Unbreakable (again starring Bruce Willis with a massive plot twist). There are few directors who have had such an outstanding start. The films that followed however have steadily trended downwards, both artistically and commercially: Signs, The Village, the Lady in the Water, and especially the dismal, The Happening, have illustrated that somehow, along the way, Shyamalan has lost his directorial mojo. Can his latest film The Last Airbender stop the slide?

The long wait is almost over for those of you in the UK who have been waiting for Solomon Kane to reach your shores. Friday 19 February is D-Day!

We've had a lot to say about Solomon Kane over the last year, including early reviews of the movie on its premier at the Toronto International Film Festival and a look at the stories by Robert E. Howard on which the film is loosely based: Solomn Kane, Redemption and White Supremacy. Now the guys promoting the movie have sent us a nice widget (below) and some words of their own, so we thought we'd let them have their say:

The first official trailer for Neil Marshall’s Centurion has found its way onto the web, catapulting this gritty epic into my short-list of most highly anticipated movies of the year. It looks very promising. Set in AD 117 during the Roman occupation of Britain, Centurion is the story of the Ninth Legion's final mission, one that has become legendary due to the Legion's mysterious disappearance in the hostile territory of the Picts.

Three decades have passed since Hollywood last treated us to a movie based on Greek Mythology in all its supernatural splendour. That was the original Clash of the Titans (1981) of course, and although we've had Wolfgang Petersen's Troy (2004) in that time, almost all of the Iliad's supernatural themes were removed from that adaptation. Well, the 29 year drought is about to break with two movies, a remake of Clash of the Titans due out in March, and Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, out on 12 February.

Michael J. Bassett's Solomon Kane is taking its good time to make its way to screens around the world. With a strangely staggered release since late 2009, it has so far only been shown widely in France, Russia and Spain, and is scheduled for a 19 February release in the UK. There's still no word about dates for the US, Canada, Australia ... the list goes on. Which is all the more peculiar because the audience reaction has generally been positive in the markets in which it has been shown: on its opening weekend in Spain, we're told, it came in just behind the monster hit of Avatar at the box-office.

After news reports revealed that Spider-Man 4 had been delayed because of script problems, Sony has dropped a Spider-Man bombshell, announcing that the film has been scrapped altogether and that star Tobey Maguire, director Sam Raimi and the rest of the cast, will not return for a fourth film. Believe it or not, they're going to try to perform a Star Trek type reboot of the Spider-Man franchise, with Spider-Man's Peter Parker returning to high school.

It's not often that we hear of a studio reshooting scenes of a forthcoming movie because it likes what it sees, but if we're to believe actor Sam Worthington, that's precisely what is happening with Louis Leterrier's remake of Clash of the Titans. At a screening of his latest blockbuster, Avatar, Worthington revealed to the LA Times that Warner Bros. were apparently so pleased with what they'd seen of Leterrier's work that they had decided to increase the budget. "We're going to be going back and shooting more scenes for it, they cut loose with some money so we can add to it."