Trigger Street Productions, the company owned by Kevin Spacey, is getting ready to do two new projects. Together with 2929 Productions they will produce two new movies with the team behind ‘21.’ The $35 million ‘21′ has been a moderate success, with $75 million in the US and over $100 million worldwide.

The pictures will be based on two books by Ben Mezrich, a both fiction and nonfiction writer. The first one, ‘Ugly Americans,’ is about the nonfictional story of a business man who takes an investment job in Hong Kong. His boss turns out to be in the mafia and soon he will find himself getting into the same situation.

The second, ‘Q,’ is based on the currently unpublished book about an epidemic breakout. The book will be out this fall and focuses on the quarantine laws.

Apparently Paramount was just downplaying their box office star when they said they were expecting ‘Iron Man’ man to do $60-$70 million. Sure, you don’t want people to point and laugh at you when your blockbuster makes $50 million less than you expected, but sources now say ‘Iron Man’ is currently out-tracking last summers’ ‘Transformers.’

While the ‘Total Awareness’ was bigger for ‘Transformers,’ the Robert Downey Jr. vehicle has a better ‘Definite Interest number’ (51%-46%) and a better ‘First Choice score’ (29%-23%). With an $8 million preview on Thursday, a $38 opening Friday, and respectively $37 million and $28 million for Saturday and Sunday, this will make for a $111 million opening weekend. And it will put the movie in the top 10 of best openings and the second place for a non-sequel opening.

Personally, I think it won’t do more than $100 million in its opening weekend, but I’m not sure how much hype there is for this movie in the US. You could consider the lack of big movies the last weeks, which would make for a hungry public. But with all the upcoming box office monsters and GTA IV just getting into the households, the public might not be that hungry after all.

Mel ’sugar tits’ Gibson is taking his first leading role since ‘Signs’ by M. Night Shyamalan in 2002. In ‘Edge of Darkness’ he’ll play a detective investigating the death of his activist daughter. Directed by Martin Campbell (’Casino Royale’), it is based on a six-hour mini-series Campbell did in the eighties, which Gibson seemed to have enjoyed.

Mel Gibson hasn’t been in the spotlight since the DUI arrest in 2006. After his anti-Semitic rant, ABC withdrew involvement in a mini-series by his production company Icon Productions, which focused on the Holocaust. Reportedly he got close to accepting new leading roles after spending some time at the AA, but this is the first one to come through.