Movie news: 'Surrogates,' 'Iron Man,' more on 'The Spirit'

* Bruce Willis has been cast in the film adaptation of "The Surrogates," based on the comicbook by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele and published by Top Shelf. Details here.

* A new teaser site has gone up for Marvel's "Iron Man" movie, due in May. No new trailer, but there's some fan art and the promise of more goodies to come.

* Last week, I had a chance to visit the set of Will Eisner's The Spirit for Matt Brady over at Newsarama. You can read the three pieces I filed on the visit here, here and here.

Here's a few minor bits and pieces, as well as impressions, left over from those reports:

* Overall, it was hard to get a sense of what the film is going to be like, as it was all being shot in greenscreen. The screens themselves ran 40 feet from floor to ceiling, and looking at them even for a short period of time created an interesting effect when you left the stage as everything took on a pinkish tint for a few minutes.

* The sets, such as they were, were very small, such as a patch of grass featuring some junk in what is likely Wildwood Cemetery but was being referred to on set as "the grassy knoll."

* As reported elsewhere, the largest chunk of "set" was a old-time truck emblazoned with a logo for "Ditko's Delivery Service."

* Samuel L. Jackson ate lunch with the crew, standing in line with everyone else — in costume, which consisted of leather pants and a purple turtleneck.

* Actor Gabriel Macht looks quite good in the Spirit costume, though there will surely be plenty of debate over his suit, coat, hat, etc., being black instead of the customary blue seen in the comics. That'll re-open the debate over whether blue in the comics means black or blue.

* The scene we saw being shot of Macht punching out The Octopus was very short and very Miller-esque, with the camera close on Jackson and Macht grabbing his shoulder and turning his face into a big right cross that came right at the screen. It all happens very fast and should play nice and quickly on screen.

* Producer Deborah Del Prete told an interesting story about finding a studio to make the film. Her company, Odd Lot, working with Batman producer Michael Uslan, sent out the script to every studio in town asking for partners in making the film. Making it clear they owned the film rights and had no intention of working with a studio on the content, they went with Lionsgate and have been very pleased with the relationship.

* We were told this is the first feature film to shoot at the new, eight-stage Albuquerque Studios, which were quite nice and still had that new-studio smell. It's a bit remote — the road ends at the studio gate — though our guides said there are plans to extensively develop the empty desert around the lot with all kinds of residential and commercial projects.

Photo by Lewis Jacobs/Lionsgate