So, will Bryan Singer -- who is supposed to be working on "X-Men 3" -- be the man who finally gets the Man of Steel on the screen? Or will the comic-book movie director be the latest casualty on this franchise that has been going on for way too long.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Singer will replace "Charlie's Angels" director McG, who left a week ago because of budget concerns. This also eliminates director Michael Bay from the running, who was rumored to be taking over the project since about a week before McG officially dropped out.

It is unclear what is going on with Singer's current projects because of this move, however. He was scheduled to work both on a remake of "Logan's Run" as well as the third movie in the X-Men franchise. The X-Men film is scheduled to premiere May 5, 2006.

There is no start date for Superman, however, and could be dependent on when a final script is finally hammered out for the project. The most current script was written by J.J. Abrams, who created the television series "Alias." It is possible that Singer himself could be involved in story development, and he might bring in some of his own writers for the project.

"My interest in Superman dates back many, many years," the director said. "In fact, it was the Richard Donner classic film that was my day-to-day inspiration in shaping the X-Men universe for the screen. I feel that Superman has been late in his return, and it is time for him to fly again."

Singer joins a long list of directors attached to the project, including Tim Burton and Brett Ratner.

In other news, Singer's regular co-conspirator, Tom DeSanto, seems to be ready to move publicly on the "Transformers" live-action movie that he has been working on for nearly a year now.

According to Cinescape, an announcement about the movie is expected to take place this weekend at Comic-Con in San Diego, which runs from Thursday until July 25.

It's expected that the announcement will entail on which production company will be doing the film, rumored right now to be either DreamWorks or Sony Pictures.

The live-action version of the popular children's cartoon series has been said to focus on the first generation of Transformers, which includes the likes of Optimus Prime and Starscream.

Talk about this story on the Airlock Alpha message boards. Click here!.

RELATED STORIES
Superman suffers another setback with McG departure
Up, up and away finally for the new Superman movie
Tom Welling says he won't play movie Superman
Robert Zemeckis ready to helm new 'Transformers' movie?
Transformers will concentrate on original cast of characters