We said goodbye to Robert Culp this week. Like most 70s children I only knew him as Bill Maxwell, Ralph's erstwhile handler on TV's The Greatest American Hero, but he had a long career in films and TV.

It's been announced Paul WS Anderson (the Resident Evil series) has been tipped to direct the big screen Buck Rogers remake. That sounded like bad news until I read he'd replaced Frank Miller - if you saw The Spirit you'll realise it was actually the best movie news in ages.

Much more palatable are the tidbits that Wes Craven is doing Scream 4 and Mike Myers had started writing the fourth Austin Powers film. Considering his post-Powers career outside the Shrek series, it was sort of a given.

There's also going to be a new Popeye, and a new Addams Family by none other than Tim Burton. I won't make a joke about how if Johnny Depp doesn't play Gomez Burton will spontaneously combust (oops), but what's interesting is that his version won't be based on the TV series or Barry Sonnenfeld's 1991 effort, but a series of conceptual drawings that predate them both.

In the most bizarre casting news in ages, John Malkovich and Frances McDormand are lined up for Transformers 3. Malkovich occasionally whores himself out for a paycheck movie (Mutant Chronicles, Johnny English, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), but that doesn't seem McDormand's style. After Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I can only hope the pair are playing hero Sam's parents.

But in just as bizarre news from the world of directing, Brad (The Incredibles) Bird is rumoured to be helming Abrams and Cruise's Mission Impossible 4.