A car-chase scene gone awry during the filming of Nicholas Cage’s new film The Sorcerer’s Apprentice has left two innocent bystanders injured.

In what seems a twisted homage to Gone in 60 Seconds, a Ferrari and a Mercedes went careening down 7th Avenue in Times Square for the scene when the stunt driver lost control of the Ferrari and swerved across the lanes, taking out a newsstand, a lamppost and the entrance to a Sbarro. (Personally, I wasn’t aware that Sbarros even existed outside of shopping malls, but I suppose that’s my southern upbringing taking over.) While the street had been closed for filming, pedestrians who lined up around the edges of the set to catch a glimpse of filming may have been too close for comfort–a woman was knocked over in the street and a man nearly pinned by a falling lamppost.

So far it has been reported that both people have been sent to the hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries–the woman was not involved with the film, and the man has not yet been identified. As of now, there’s no confirmation on whether Cage was on set at the time of the crash or the status of the stunt driver who lost control of the Ferrari.

It’s no secret that Dan Brown isn’t exactly the Catholic church’s favorite author. So it doesn’t seem a huge surprise that they would be…less than cooperative during the filming of Angels & Demons, the sequel to Brown’s controversial The DaVinci Code.

Howard, who had faced similar opposition during filming of The DaVinci Code, claimed he didn’t bother seeking cooperation from the Vatican itself, and that the official word from Roman authorities was that the Vatican had no influence over permits and other such details of the film. However Howard is reported in saying that the Vatican had unofficially “exerted some influence” through back channels regarding imagery of the Sistine Chapel and other sacred holy buildings.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi, refused to comment on Howard’s allegations about church interference, saying his charges were purely designed to drum up publicity for the film.

In this lowly blogger’s opinion, the truth is sure be be a bit of both. The Catholic church as a whole seems to be laying much lower publicly in regards to this film than they were for The DaVinci Code, although the film is said to contain the same, and additional, anti-catholic themes that angered church leaders in the first place. Are they now abiding by the time-honored tradition of, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all?”

Where are the fangs, Slade?

Summit Entertainment has confirmed 30 Days of Night and Hard Candy director David Slade will be directing the third installment of the Twilight saga Eclipse.

Yesterday it was reported from various sources that Slade was in talks for the job, but a Summit press release this morning made the claim official. Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg is also said to reprise her role as part of the third film.

The choice of Slade may come as a shock to those who are fans of his work. His previous films are undoubtedly darker material than the Twilight saga was ever meant to be. But he’s proven himself worthy in both the vampire genre and character study films, one of the elements many said to be truly lacking in the first film.

For those unfamiliar with the book series, the plot line of Eclipse is, for lack of a better term, much more ‘active’ than the first two. While Twilight and New Moon spend much of their time establishing characters and the relationships between them, Eclipse and the fourth installment, Breaking Dawn, see much more conflict–something that Slade has shown as one of his strong suits.

The Eclipse release is tentatively scheduled for June 30, 2010.

Rumors have been flying around for months regarding the “will-he-or-won’t-he” status of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s role in the highly anticipated Terminator Salvation. In recent weeks, updates have been given via both Arnold’s and director McG’s Twitter, foreshadowing various stages of commitment– but were ultimately inconclusive.

Well, long story short, Variety announced this morning that the main reason for all the ambiguity in regards to this issue was that no one was certain whether or not a CGI image of the iconoic Governator would be convincing enough to actually be a part of the movie. However, recent reports are claiming that Schwartzenegger has given his official and final consent for his likeness to be used, supporting the idea that by the grace of movie magic itself, they’ve found a way.

Will it be even mildly realistic? Will it even fit with the storyline the producers have been keeping so top secret? Who knows. What we do know is that the CGI Schwarzenegger will be restored in all of his 1984 cyborg glory, and will most likely deliver one, if not more, of those iconoic lines we’ve all been waiting for. Hey, he said he’d be back. And if he reneged on his word, what kind of terminator would he be? Not a good one, people. Not a good one.