Marvel Rumors: The Avengers To Battle The Skrulls And Kree? Demi Lovato Up For A Role? Plus Minor X-Men: First Class Spoilers

Rumors never sleep. Doesn't matter that we've just come through the Christmas holiday, that most of LA is still asleep to gather strength for New Year's Eve, and that the Eastern seaboard is under a couple feet of snow. There are possible news tidbits floating around about The Avengers and X-Men: First Class. The X-Men stuff is possibly spoilerish, so it's after the break.

The most non-spoilerish bit is the not quite reliable news that Disney star Demi Lovato (Camp Rock) is up for a role in The Avengers. Make of that what you will, but since we know most of the major roles, if anything happens it would likely be for a relatively small part. Also: feel free to grumble about Disney / Marvel co-pollination conspiracy theories in the comments. [RadarOnline]

A recurring rumor from The Avengers and possibly spoilerish news about X-Men: First Class follow after the break.

So the big rumor floating around today is based in a report from the Albuquerque Journal (via AICN) about The Avengers filming in New Mexico. The paper says,

'The Avengers' script will blend 'Iron Man', 'Thor', and 'Captain America: The First Avenger' story lines as the Avengers battle with two alien races, the Skrulls and the Kree.

This rumor has come up before, first from the relatively well-connected Devin Faraci, when he was still at CHUD, and then again in May of this year. But SuperHeroHype talked to Marvel, which says the info in the article did not come from the studio, and "can instead be attributed to a research error on the part of the newspaper." (In other words, the paper relied on an earlier report about the Kree and Skrulls, which caused the rumor to surge forward once more.)

As SHH points out, there's no refutation from Marvel that says the Kree and Skrulls aren't in the film, but at this point that aspect remains part of the general speculation about the movie. We've also heard that Loki would be the Big Bad, and that the Hulk would initially be his pawn.

Finally, X-Men: First Class has been shooting on the Georgia coast.

Further info removed by request of 20th Century Fox