John Malkovich is known for amazing performances and it looks like we’ll be seeing his acting talent in a pair of movies based on comic books in the near future.  It is being reported in numerous sources he has replaced John C. Reilly in Summit Entertainment’s espionage thriller Red, based on the WildStorm/DC comicbook.

He joins Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and Bruce Willis on the project, produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian, with DC exec Gregory Noveck exec producing. Robert Schwentke’s directing the script by brothers Erich Hoeber and Jon Hoeber.

Comicvine is reporting that the rumors are true that we can also expect to see Malkovich in the recently delayed Spider-man 4 as the Vulture.  Collider reported that Bad Taste caught John Malkovich on an Italian sports show and he confirmed he’ll be in the movie.  He’s just waiting for the final script to be sent his way.  Raimi has stated he wants Malkovich as the Vulture.  Sony has stated their nervousness of having him being the only villain for the movie.  Raimi originally intended the character to be Spider-man 3 but Sony forced the director to include Venom instead.

John Malkovich joins Ryan Reynolds in being a part of two different comic movie franchises for the same two comic book companies.  Reynolds will be playing the title role in Green Lantern which will be released in June 2011 as well as Deadpool which recently announced the team behind Zombie Land would be handling the script.

Update – With the recent announcement that Sam Raimi’s Spider-man 4 has been scrapped by Sony, Malkovich’s role is now up in the air.  The new movie will have a new director, new cast and will be an origin tale reboot.  We’re assuming the Vulture will not be a part of it as Sony isn’t a fan of the character.