Save the Spider, Save the World.

As you may have seen during last night’s Heroes (a show which has certainly hit a stride of some kind in the past few episodes — it’s gone from low-grade cheesy fun to being genuinely surprising at times, and it — and Sundance‘s Slings and Arrows — are now don’t-erase Tivo staples), NBC.com is previewing seven minutes of Spiderman 3 until 9pm PST this evening, including Aunt May on memory lane, a knock-down, drag-out between Spidey and the Green Goblin II (Harry Osborne/James Franco), and our first official look at Venom.

Grind, Kingdom, Prime, FF.

Another wave of holiday trailers comes down the pike: Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez let their B-film freak flags fly (again) in the full trailer for Grindhouse, with Kurt Russell, Rose McGowan, and Freddy Rodriguez, among others; Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Chris Cooper, Jeremy Piven, and Richard Jenkins fight the war on terror in Saudi Arabia in this first look at Peter Berg’s The Kingdom; and Shia la Boeuf and the US military run from metal toy-like things in the new preview for Michael Bay’s Transformers (If you’re interested, see also the pic of Optimus Prime here.) Word is the trailer for Fantastic Four 2 is also showing in theaters at the moment, although the only thing online right now is this rather meh image of the Silver Surfer…hopefully, they do a better job with Galactus. Update: The FF teaser is now up.

Sand in your Eyes.

The new Sandman-heavy trailer for Sam Raimi’s Spiderman 3 is now online. To be honest, I think I preferred the teaser — this one doesn’t really grab me (and it seems to give away too many plot points.) Nevertheless, here it is.

Comic, Comic, Comic, Comic, Comic, Chameleon.

As most of y’all likely already know, this past weekend was Comic-Con 2006 in San Diego, which means an exceedingly large amount of news in the fanboy department. To wit:

  • Regarding perhaps the most anticipated comic-to-film property nearing post-production, Sam Raimi’s Spiderman 3, the attending panel offered a number of new shots of the main characters, including an iconic poster of Thomas Haden Church as the Sandman and — at right — That 70s Show‘s Topher Grace, a.k.a. Venom, having a painful-looking first run-in with the black suit/symbiote.

  • Also in Marvel’s wheelhouse, Jon Favreau premiered the teaser poster for his take on Iron Man, and confirmed the villain of his film, the Mandarin.

  • In other Marvel news, Louis Leterrier’s Incredible Hulk has picked a villain, too, that being the Abomination.

  • On the DC side, Bryan Singer is looking to revisit Superman in 2009, even though the jury’s still out on Superman Returns.

  • The inimitable Peter Jackson, via remote (and still not making The Hobbit) showed off a scene from his extended DVD version of King Kong (my love of the extended LotR versions notwithstanding, count me among those who thought Kong needed tightening more than anything else.)

  • Not Comic-Con news, per se, but worth mentioning here: Former Jedi Samuel Jackson and Hayden Christensen may reunite for the film version of Steven Gould’s Jumper, a surprisingly solid little take on the hoary old teleportation meme, to be directed by Doug Liman of Swingers and The Bourne Identity.
  • J.J. Abrams of Lost, Alias, and M:I:III brought along a teaser poster for his Trek reboot, which, word has it, puts young Kirk (Matt Damon?) and Spock back at Starfleet Academy.

  • In other sci-fi television news, J. Michael Straczynski announced he’ll be revisiting the world of Babylon 5, albeit in straight-to-video spinoffs.

  • Also regarding sci-fi on the telly, Battlestar Galactica‘s Ron Moore showed up to kick some more k-nowledge about BSG Season 3, due in October (which complement the recent spoilers here.)

  • And lots of other news, including Kurt Russell in Quentin Tarantino’s half of Grindhouse, a look at Zack Snyder’s 300, talk of the Star Wars spinoffs, teaser posters for Michael Bay’s Transformers, and descriptions of clips from Neil Gaiman/Matthew Vaughn’s Stardust. Yep, Comic-Con seems like good fun…perhaps I’ll make it out someday.
  • Hulk Smash Puny Transport!

    In other comic-to-film news, Transporter director Louis Leterrier has been given the reins of The Incredible Hulk, which is apparently a re-do of Ang Lee’s ill-conceived version of a few years ago. A solid choice, but given Marvel’s recent non-Spidey track record (X3, FF, Blade 3, etc.), I can’t say I’m very hopeful.

    Bots and Bugs.

    Elsewhere, Michael Bay’s big-budget version of The Transformers gets a teaser (hopefully the robots work better than the website), and Spiderman 3 gets spoiled rotten over at Dark Horizons — Seriously, don’t go if you don’t want to know.

    Spider & I.

    Also in the trailer bin, Venom gets his curtain call in the impressive and much-awaited new teaser for Spiderman 3, appearing in front of Superman Returns tomorrow. (A better Quicktime version is due later today) Update: Here it is!