Its no secret we’re big fans of Marvel here at The Flickcast. The company produces some of the most interesting, compelling and fun comics around and we look forward each week to what they have to offer. If you’re a fan of Marvel as well, and you probably are, you’re going to want to join us in celebrating a major milestone for the company: their 70th Anniversary.

Started on this day in 1939, the company has grown to be one of the biggest publishers in the world. And to do things right and commemorate the event, Marvel is having a bunch of parties all across the country and featuring exclusive comics for you to read and enjoy.

To find out if there’s a party in your area so you can drop in and join the celebration, check out all the info from the official Marvel press release.

To celebrate its 70th anniversary, Marvel Comics will commemorate the milestone event on Tuesday, August 11th with special anniversary parties taking place around the world! Over 500 comic shop retailers will be hosting parties to celebrate the comic book giant’s 70 year history from 1939 to today.

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Here’s a list of some of the new DVD and Blu-ray releases this week we’re particularly interested in. Plus, some old favorites (and not so favorites) coming out this week for the first time on Blu-ray.

Movies

About Last Night… ~ Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, James Belushi (Blu-ray)

Alien Trespass ~ Eric McCormack, Dan Lauria, Robert Patrick, and Jenni Baird (DVD and Blu-ray)

Blue Thunder ~ Roy Scheider, Warren Oates, Candy Clark, and Daniel Stern (Blu-ray)

Chaos ~ Jason Statham (Blu-ray)

The Class (Entre Les Murs) ~ François Bégaudeau, Agame Malembo-Emene, and Angélica Sancio (DVD)

Cutthroat Island ~ Geena Davis, Frank Langella, Matthew Modine (Blu-ray)

Eagles Over London ~ Van Johnson, Frederick Stafford, Francisco Rabal, and Luigi Pistilli (Blu-ray)

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Screenwriting duo Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek) recently told Sci Fi Wire they turned in their draft of Cowboys & Aliens on Aug. 5 and are awaiting feedback on their adaptation of Fred Van Lente’s graphic novel.

“We’ll find out, literally,” Orci said. “We’re waiting to hear from the principals. We try not to turn it in until we think it’s ready. Obviously, there are always things you can improve.”

Van Lente’s graphic novel deals with feuding frontier settlers and Native Americans in the Old West who team up to fight extraterrestrials. Orci and Kurtzman have stated that they put their own spin on the adaptation, and now producers Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg and potential star Robert Downey Jr., will have the opportunity to voice their opinions.

“We’re just literally waiting to hear if they hate it or what,” Orci said.

Cowboys & Aliens is tentatively slated for a summer 2011 release.

“We never thought we’d find a place where we belong. ” The opening words of the NAMBLA credo? No, the line sung by Holly Robinson Peete during the opening of the 21 Jump Street theme song. The one hour drama about four young cops and their radical Captain, set in an American metropolitan city, was ostensibly the launch pad for Johnny Depp’s acting career.

In 21 Jump Street, cops who looked too youthful to be taken seriously are sent to the undercover unit located in an abandoned chapel on Jump Street. There, Captain Richard Jenko (Frederic Forrest — who was replaced in later episodes by Steven Williams as Captain Fuller) preaches peace, love and Miranda warnings. With capers usually taking place in area schools, the Jump Streeters bust kids for all sorts of creative diversions like “smash and grab” robberies, stolen cars and, of course, drugs.

As the season progresses, the detectives become better friends, better at their jobs, more fearless and eventually, more likable. Judy Hoffs (Peete) is the cool and beautiful African American chick who takes Depp’s character, rookie Tom Hansen, under her bedazzled-denim-jacket-clad wing, to transform him from straight-laced polo boy to 80′s badass complete with earring and leather jacket. Peter DeLuise, son of late comedian Dom DeLuise, is Doug Penhall, a big, affable guy with a heart of gold. Rounding out this melting pot crew is Harry T. Ioki (Dustin Nguyen), a Vietnamese immigrant turned cop. In many scenes, his mullet steals the show.

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For actor Michael Fassbender, getting into distinct characters is another day at the office. Over the last two years, he has transformed himself into a Spartan warrior, an emaciated hunger striker and a dashing English military man. For the upcoming DC Comics adaptation of Jonah Hex, Fassbender donned facial tattoos to play the charismatic henchman Burke, and the actor told Sci Fi Wire it was the costume that helped him get into character the most.

“Burke on the page was a certain sort of character, but then when I arrived in New Orleans and met up with Michael Wilkinson and Christien Tinsley, who did the tattoo, they really gave me all of the information I needed,” says Fassbender. “I put on this three-piece suit, and then I was going through hats, and I just put on a bowler hat, and I was like, that reminds me of Clockwork Orange, and that reminds me of Frank Gorshin’s Riddler. So that would be my physicality—I wanted to try and make him quite angular and quite rakish, and I definitely got the inspiration through the hat. So I found it all in that bowler hat, to be honest.”

According to Fassbender, his primary purpose in the film is to offset the intensity of John Malkovich, who plays Turnbull, a calm and menacing character and Jonah’s main adversary.

“I knew that [Jimmy] wanted quite a sort of boisterous, colorful character to go against John Malkovich’s,” he said. “Something that was sort of off the wall. So that’s sort of why I thought of the Riddler in the 1970s, and then there’s also something very sinister and dangerous about the Clockwork Orange element. So I just sort of mashed them together.”

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Luciana Carro is returning to Syfy with a role on the BSG prequel series Caprica. TV Squad is reporting that the actress best known for portraying Kat on BSG, the cocky Viper pilot and “stims” addict who eventually became Starbuck’s nemesis, is also the first BSG actor to join the Caprica cast.

As fans will remember, Kat succumbed to radiation poisoning after flying her last mission in season three of BSG. Although Carro will most likely be playing a new character on Caprica, fans will no doubt wonder if the Caprica character will be related to Kat. Since the series takes place 58 years prior to BSG, there is certainly plenty of time to explore the character’s heritage.

Caprica will air on Syfy beginning January 22, 2010.

I don’t always like to post bootleg copies of trailers and other things of “dubious” origin here at the site. However, this one is just too cool to pass up and has already popped up at other sites so there’s no use it holding back now. So, in that spirit, here’s the trailer — via Trailer Addict –  they showed at Comic-Con in San Diego for Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Kick-Ass, the comic written by Mark Millar and drawn by John Romita, Jr.

In case you’re not familiar with the comic or the movie, it follows the adventures of young Dave Lizewski, a regular New York City high school student, who takes his interest in comic books as inspiration to become a real-life superhero. When his exploits are recorded by an onlooker with a cell phone and posted to the Internets, he becomes a sensation and is given the moniker Kick-Ass.

Along the way, he fights injustices found through his MySpace page and eventually team up with other like-minded wanna-be heroes including Hit Girl, Big Daddy and The Red Mist, to take down a local drug kingpin. The film, which is currently seeking distribution, stars Nicholas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloe Moretz and Aaron Johnson.

Check out all the bloody fun after the jump. But you better hurry, seeing as this is a bootleg, it might not last long on the Internets.

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Halo fans who have been patiently waiting for a movie version of their beloved video game — especially after the previous version was killed a few years ago — might have a reason to celebrate in the near future. The folks over at IESB have reliable sources saying Steven Spielberg is currently in active negotiations to develop the Halo feature film adaptation.

Spielberg was reportedly blown away by writer Stuart Beattie’s script, Halo: The Fall of Reach, and is himself a huge gaming fan. Since the Dreamworks umbrella is currently looking for a tent pole to help launch their newly independent studio, this rumor could have some real legs.

Stay tuned to The Flickcast for the latest news on the Halo project.

Score: 8.5 – 1200 Microsoft Points ($15.00)

After nine years, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is still one of the most popular fighting games around. This past week with XBox’s Summer of Arcade, it became available for the first time for download to XBox Live members through XBox Live Arcade and is coming in a few weeks to the Playstation 3 through the Playstation Store. Even after almost a decade, it is still one of the best fighting games out there.

The game consists of 3 on 3, tag in and out single round fighting with a 56 character roster from both Marvel and Capcom. This retro title release, if a game under 10 years old can actually be considered retro, most resembles the Dreamcast port of the Arcade release.

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Director Louis Leterrier has done quite a lot for action films, including a series of fun Transporter movies. He also helped us forget about what Ang Lee did to The Hulk. Though both fanboys and studios are split down the middle on how Leterrier’s Incredible Hulk actually turned out, he is still talking about doing more work with Marvel Studios and even the “jade giant” himself.

In an interview with the LA Times, the director talked about his real dream for the next few Marvel movies.

I’ll tell you my real dream: To work with Joe Johnston, [“Thor” director] Kenneth Branagh and Jon Favreau and make like a triptych. We do four movies. We release them one a month for the summer. Or even every two weeks or three weeks. And the whole summer would be Avengers summer. So we do it the way they make television shows. One story arc but told in installments by different directors.

So all of the directors that touch part of the Avengers world would do a part; we could make the movies shorter, maybe less than an hour and a half, and we use the same sets and save Marvel money. I would love to sit around a table with all of them a kick around the story. That’s my dream.

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Coming off the success of $9 million in seven weeks in limited release for The Hurt Locker, Paramount is reteaming director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal to work on the action-adventure Triple Frontier, with Charles Roven (producer, The Dark Knight), Alex Gartner (Get Smart) and Steve Alexander (Swimming with Sharks) producing through their Atlas Entertainment banner. From Variety:

“Triple Frontier” is described as a high-stakes ensemble project. Boal and Bigelow, who will both exec produce, sold the original idea together; the logline is being kept under wraps. Boal’s writing the script, set in the notorious border zone between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil where the Igazu and Parana rivers converge — making “la triple frontera” difficult to monitor and a haven for organized crime.

Producer Charles Roven told Variety he’s hoping to begin production on Triple Frontier next year. He’s in post-production on historical drama Season of the Witch and is producing Sam Raimi’s Warcraft adaptation for Warner Bros. We’ll be sure to have more information on the film as it develops, and The Hurt Locker is open now in limited theaters across the country.

Fantastic Fest in Austin is one of the best festivals in the country devoted to genre films. Previously, we brought you news about the first round of films scheduled to show during the fest. And now, there’s even more news to share today, including some great guests and some relly cool films we’re looking forward to seeing.

But really, I probably can’t do all this info proper justice (given my time constraints today at least) so I’ll just let Tim League, director/co-founder of the Fest, speak for himself via the latest Fest press release:

George Romero Returns to Fantastic Fest!

George RomeroIn 2007, Fantastic Fest was honored by the presence of one of the true masters of horror, George A. Romero.  Now, two years later, we are thrilled to welcome back the undisputed champion of all things undead for his latest blood-drenched thrillride, SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD.  When the idyllic retreat of Plum Island falls victim to the zombie plague, a new breed of clan war breaks out.  On one side is the camp who want to exterminate all undead with a wickedly diverse array of brain-splattering headshots.

On the other, devoted family members take the stance that “zombie-ism” is a disease, the undead have rights and they must be kept alive until a cure is found.  Unable to simply “agree to disagree,” the two clans go to war and make their island microcosm a whole hell of a lot bloodier. An undead parallel to the tribal wars that are plaguing our own society today, SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD exposes the futility of such conflict and the need for tolerance of the beliefs of others.  Plus it’s got zombie horses in it!

From the very beginning, Romero has been making more than simple gore films.  To be sure, he’s amazing at delivering “the blood-red goods,” but what makes his films classics are the underlying social and political threads interwoven with the rampant gut-munching.  NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD played with themes of Vietnam-era paranoia, DAWN OF THE DEAD poked fun at mass-consumerism all the way up to DIARY OF THE DEAD which took aim at the journalistic and new media ethics (or lack thereof).

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