Detective Comics #1. Amazing Fantasy #15. Captain America #1. All iconic issues that most true comic fans would give their left leg for. In some cases, maybe even the whole left side of their body. But as rare as these books are, only one stands above the pack as the ultimate issue for a collector to lay their hands on. Action Comics #1. While you can’t trade the left half of your body for it, you can apparently pick it up for a cool $1,000,000.

So how did this first appearance of Superman break comic sales records? Monday morning, comic auction website ComicConnect.com posted the a 8.0 graded, non-restored copy of the issue at 10:30 eastern time. Minutes later, the book was reported to a “well known individual” who has chosen to remain private.

John Dolmayan, drummer of System of a Down and owner of Torpedo Comics, once paid $317,000 for a lesser grade issue of Action Comics #1 for a customer of his. Talking about the book, Dolmayan said, “It’s considered by most people as the most important book… It kind of ushered in the age of the superheroes.” Take a second and think about what Dolmayan has said and imagine a world without Superman or any other superheroes at all.

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Are you excited for the remake of the horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street? If so, this post is for you. Today, a new poster for the remake was relased into the wild at MySpace and features a better look at Jackie Earle Haley in the iconic role of your worst nightmare Freddy Krueger.

As you probably know, the original film was directed by horror legend Wes Craven and released in 1984. It spawned several sequels and imitators and propelled the character of Freddy Kruger into infamy. The remake, which is directed by Samuel Bayer and hits theaters on April 30, features Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner, Katie Cassidy, and Thomas Dekker as a group of suburban teens being haunted and killed in their sleep.

Even though I’m not always a big fan of remakes, this one looks pretty darn cool. More and more Haley seems like an inspired choice to take over as Freddy Kruger. If he brings to the role the killer intensity he showed as Rorchasch in Watchmen, he might just be able to pull it off. The more I see of the new film, the more I hope he can.

Click through for a look at the full poster. Seeing this, what do you guys think of Haley as Freddy Kruger and are you excited for the remake?

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Anthologies can often be either one of the best ways to explore a concept if executed properly. The idea explored here is Halo and the mythology surrounding it. For the first time, one work tries to take from all other source material like the Halo games, novels and comics in an effort to fully explain the world of Halo. In the process, it also helps actually add new substantial concepts to this much applauded franchise that show that the fight isn’t really over for Master Chief and the Spartans.

As seen before with Batman: Gotham Knight and The Animatrix, Halo Legends is an anthology of seven distinct and separate stories about the characters and ideas of Halo as seen through the eyes of various anime heavyweights. With writers and directors who had worked on everything from Cowboy Bebop to Bubblegum Crisis and MASK to Dragon Ball Z, the spectrum of top talent in this field was pieced together to put together Halo Legends.

The first story, “Origins”, comes in two pieces and may easily be the most important of the seven parts to the greater Halo universe. For the first time in full detail, the audience is given a look at exactly what happened to the Forerunners that caused them to disappear with the creation of the Halo rings. Most interesting about this feature comes from the revelation of what the Forerunners looked like and how they became revered as the gods of the Covenant.

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Not very long ago, some die hard fans of former Golden Girl Betty White put together a grassroots campaign through Facebook to get fans behind the idea of her hosting Saturday Night Live. The moderator put out a plea for people to protest and request NBC employees for her to get a chance to host. Practically over night, the fan group blew up, and is still running strong with over 430,000 members.

It was announced about a week ago that NBC is “this close” to booking White on the show, but she unfortunately comes with a caveat. From Entertainment Weekly:

White would not be hosting alone. Rather, I hear SNL is putting together a “Women of Comedy” episode that would team the former Rose Nylund with several of her younger contemporaries. Ex-SNL MVP Molly Shannon is on board, I hear, and feelers have also been put out to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. (An NBC spokesperson insists no one has been confirmed at this time.)

While the prospect of White hosting all by her lonesome is kind of an awesome one, the thought of having a super show with names like Molly Shannon, Fey, and Pohler back is pretty cool too.

The show is on hiatus for the Olympics, but will return to a full schedule soon with Jennifer Lopez hosting and performing one week, and on of our favorite comedians, Zach Galifiniakis, hosting the following week.

Now that Rob Marshall has settled in and Disney has confirmed that Johnny Depp will be returning for the fourth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, currently entitled On Stranger Tides, the studio is now looking to fill the cast with other well-known actors to keep the financial ball rolling.

First news on that front was that Penelope Cruz would be joining as Jack Sparrow’s new squeeze. More news is coming in that Ian McShane, the man who made swearing an art form on the series Deadwood, is currently in negotiations to play the pirate Black Beard.

The actor is best known for Deadwood, but has also been seen in other great projects such as NBC’s short-lived Kings, and the Andy Samberg comedy Hot Rod. The British actor was last seen in the film 44-inch Chest.

No word yet when we will get official word on McShane’s involvement with the film, but with other great actors such as Geoffrey Rush and Bill Nighy taking parts in the film, this seems to be right in line with that pattern.

What are your thoughts on Ian McShane as Black Beard? Who else would you like to see in the next Pirates film? Sound off in our comments below.

Starting this week, The Flickcast will be taking our love of Machinima and turning it in to a weekly feature. For those who don’t know, Machinima is real time 3D rendering of graphics to generate computer animation. What that means is people take different video games and their associated mods and create different short films or series based off of them.

This week, we will be taking a look at Phil from Black Light Productions. Named after its main character and created using Halo 3, Phil revolves around a Halo newbie as he learns his way around the XBox Live world with the accompaniment of the standoffish Zack and overly nice and naive Wally. Unlike some Machinima which has the players reacting as if the events of the game are “real life”, Phil, Zack and Wally acknowledge that they are playing Halo 3 and communicating over Live.

Following them through the series’ thirteen episodes, we get to see some of the biggest faults in online gaming portrayed in a very humorous way. Everything gets covered through the series from trash talkers, glitchers, griefers, competition and clans… and even a little bit of romance.

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As the SXSW Film, Music and Interactive festival gets closer, more and more announcements are coming out about what programming we can expect during the event. Friday, it was announced what film would cose the competition and in addition, more features and shorts were added to the program which already features over 100 films.

Here’s all the info about the new items from the official press release. As we told you previously, we’ve got a great team going to SXSW this year so be sure to check back often for more.

SXSW FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES CLOSING NIGHT FILM,

ADDITIONAL FEATURES & SHORTS FOR 2010 EVENT

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival has announced Chris Morris’ pitch-black satire Four Lions as its Closing Night film, to play on Saturday, March 20 at the Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas. SXSW also released additional feature and short titles or the 2010 event, which will take place March 12 – March 20, 2010. The festival will open with the world premiere of Kick-Ass, directed by Matthew Vaughn and starring Aaron Johnson, Cholë Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Nicolas Cage.

SXSW will also host more than 80 Film Conference panels, which will take place Friday, March 12 – Tuesday, March 16. Previously announced participants for the 2010 SXSW Film Conference include Michel Gondry (The Thorn in the Heart, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds), David Gordon Green (Eastbound & Down, Pineapple Express), Jeffery Tambor’s Acting Workshop, and Academy Award-winning Argentine composer, solo artist and producer Gustavo Santaolalla, among many others. For full panel descriptions and participants, as well as the complete film lineup and schedule, visit http://sxsw.com/film/.

Additional Feature Films in the 2010 SXSW Film Festival include:

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With blockbuster releases like Mass Effect 2 and Bioshock 2 already dominating video game sales charts, the industry is already asking itself what will be the biggest title of the year. Because of that success, many people have been asking what the next “big step” for the industry will be.

Most experts, including this writer, agree that the world of motion controls is either going seriously stimulate the growth of the industry or hurt it over the coming year.

Michael Pachter, the top video game industry analyst from Wedbush Securities, has weighed in on both of these topics in his most recent episode of Pach-Attack!, courtesy of our friends over at Game Trailers.

In this episode, Pachter first addresses the top selling game of the upcoming year and has put in his vote for Halo: Reach. After the game’s original trailer from the Spike VGA’s and then the X10 ViDoc, we are inclined to agree with him.

Not to say it won’t have any competition with upcoming releases like the next Call of Duty title, but with this year’s COD not coming from Infinity Ward it is likely to not pull the numbers that Modern Warfare 2 did. Even titles like Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 don’t have the game industry equity to match what the next Halo title can bring to the table.

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Our friends at Top Cow have sent us their list of comic solicitations for May, 2010 and because we know you are comics fans and also enjoy some Top Cow titles, we’ve included them for your advanced planning needs. And we’ve also got some cool cover images for you as well. Be sure to check those out after the jump.

Meantime, take a look at the comics coming in May from the official press release:

VELOCITY is off to the races!

MAY 2010 CHECKLIST

Velocity #1 Ron Marz/Kenneth Rocafort $3.99
Angelus #5 Ron Marz/Stjepan Sejic $2.99
Pilot Season: Stellar #1 Signed Robert Kirkman/Marc Silvestri/Bernard Chang $19.99
Broken Trinity: Pandora’s Box #4 Rob Levin/Bryan Edward Hill/Alessandro Vitti/Tommy Lee Edwards $3.99
Pilot Season: Hardcore #1 Signed Robert Kirkman/Marc Silvestri/Brian Stelfreeze $19.99
The Darkness #85 Phil Hester/Sheldon Mitchell/Aaron Campbell $2.99

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This week’s pick is the 1969 Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger, Force 10 From Navarone) directed classic Battle of Britain, which depicts the valiant struggle of Great Britain’s Royal Air Force against the onslaught of the numerically superior German Luftwaffe during the summer of 1940. The film opens as France falls in May 1940, and the British and their allies avoid capture with the massive evacuation at the coastal city of Dunkirk. With time to regroup and strengthen their home defenses, the British lie and wait for Hitler’s forces to eventually invade England.

The film is told through a collection of fighter squadron groups (English and German) who are veterans in the skies over France and the low countries during early 1940. Like many films of the mid to late 1960′s, Battle of Britain has its fare share of brilliant English and German actors. Screen legend Sir Laurence Olivier leads the cast as Chief Air Marshal H.C. Dowding who helped to coordinate British forces to total victory in the battle.

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Between Avatar raking in more money than any other film in the history of Hollywood, and other studios jumping around to upgrade their films for that extra 3D bump, such as Warner pushing back Clash of the Titans so they can go back and convert the film to a more 3D-happy stock, it looks like even more films will be getting this treatment.

IESB recently reported that Lionsgate’s upcoming reboot of Conan the Barbarian (now just titled Conan) will be going 3D, hoping that the film will bring in some of those fans that made Pandora a cash cow. Many other studios have fallen in line with this method, such as MGM changing the release date more than a year so that Joss Whedon’s Cabin in the Woods can get the 3D changeover.

Conan, based on the pulp series by writer Robert E. Howard, will begin filming next month, with Stargate Atlantis actor Jason Momoa stepping in as the sword-swinging barbarian. Mickey Rourke is also rumored to be joining the cast.

It appears the search for Green Lantern‘s arch enemy Sinestro is finally at an end. Amid speculation that is was going to be Jackie Earle Haley and other confirmed casting news about the film, it now looks as if Sherlock Holmes veteran Mark Strong is the clear winner and will definitely be taking on the role — assuming Geoff Johns knows what he’s talking about.

According to MTV’s Splashpage, Johns visited the New Orleans set of director Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern, the upcoming DC Comics adaptation starring Ryan Reynolds, and once there decided to let a few details about the project slip out via his Twitter account.

“Back from an amazing trip to Green Lantern town a.k.a. New Orleans!” Johns said on Twitter. “Ryan IS Hal. And Mark Strong is going to be a brilliant Sinestro.”

Johns also weighed in via Twitter with an opinion about several other key elements of the films including the inclusion of Kilowog, the Guardians, Oa and more. Said Johns:

“Kilowog, the Guardians, Oa…all breathtaking,” he surmised. “The age of Green Lantern is upon us!!”

It would appear the newly appointed CCO of DC is giving his stamp of approval to the film and also managing to confirm several details for fans everywhere all at the same time. Seeing as how Johns is the man pretty much responsible for putting Green Lantern back on the map and probably had a great deal to do with this feature film adaptation moving forward, his thoughts should go a long way to put fan’s worries about the film’s quality to rest.

Personally, I was pulling for Guy Pearce to be cast as Sinestro. Still, Mark Strong could be a great choice. I guess we’ll see soon enough. What do you guys think?