Sure Shots: Jeffrey Wright; The Lords of Salem; The Avengers

* Jeffrey Wright seems to be at his best when surrounded with other A-list talents, such as in his recent performance in The Ides of March. So expect his upcoming performance in Broken City to be phenomenal. Variety reports the high class actor has joined the Allen Hughes directed noir thriller, which currently features Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Barry Pepper, and new additions Natalie Martinez, Justin Chambers, Griffin Dunne, and James Ransone. Wright will play a police commissioner in the story about a disgraced ex-cop turned investigator, hired by a politician to investigate his wife's infidelity, and discovering a deep conspiracy instead. Broken City will open on January 18th 2013.

* 1970s child star Brandon Cruz(The Bad News Bears) has joined the cast of Rob Zombie's upcoming horror, The Lords of Salem. Already deep into filming, the shoot recently moved from Salem, MA to Los Angeles. Cruz will play a local Salem drug counselor, but how much his character gets involved with the rampaging coven of witches in the film is unclear at this point.

* A couple of tidbits on The Avengers, one concrete, the other pure rumor at this point...

First, Paul Bettany has confirmed he will reprise his Iron Man role as the voice of J.A.R.V.I.S. in the upcoming superhero flick, directed by Joss Whedon. JARVIS is Tony Stark's artificial intelligence/super computer which helps maintain the Iron Man armor. 

Second, there's an unconfirmed rumor which could end up being a spoiler, so read continue on at your own peril.  A source has told Comicbookmovie that early drafts of the script had Loki(Tom Hiddleston) returning to Earth via The Negative Zone, and escaping with him are a number of Marvel villains. Some are said to be the alien race known as The Skrulls, who have long been mentioned as the villains of the film. But also included in that is Annihilus, considered one of Marvel's greatest villains ever, who has tussled with the Fantastic Four and The Avengers on many occasions. Could he be a factor in the story as well? Or possibly the sequel?