You know you’ve hit a milestone as a fan when you hear serious directors are fighting over the chance to direct a sequel of a spin-off. No longer will mainstream media scoff at the idea of super hero films. With Martin Campbell helming DC’s Green Lantern and Nolan’s Batman franchise making more money than sliced bread, there is finally some legitimacy to the genre.

With that comes an even more interesting story, as directors Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler) and David Slade (Hard Candy) are currently in the running to direct the sequel to 2008′s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. From Deadline.

20th Century Fox is between David Slade and Darren Aronofsky, I’m told. Slade, who just directed the summer hit The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, met over the weekend with Hugh Jackman on location where he is shooting Real Steel for DreamWorks. Aronofsky has also been talking with Jackman, and they have a good relationship that dates back to The Fountain.  Aronofsky has some momentum of his own because of Black Swan, I’d say Slade has the edge.

As exciting as it is to think that Wolverine 2 will be Aronofsky’s first super-hero film, and even first sequel, we aren’t holding our breath. It seems more believable that Fox will go with Slade, considering the success of his work on Twilight: Eclipse, and of course every executive think that those fans will translate over to a film about a furry Canadian with claws.

What this news does mean, however, is that Aronofsky is actually interested in doing a flick in this genre. That means that if he doesn’t end up working on Wolverine 2, we could see him attached to something more original, and maybe something that doesn’t have Gavin Hood’s stink all over it.

The sequel to Origins is set to send Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to Japan, with heavy Asian and Ninja themes throughout the film. We just hope it will set something up for Ryan Reynolds to return as Deadpool in the future.

As we often do because hey, why not, we’ve got a preview for tonight’s episode of Syfy’s hit series Warehouse 13 to share with you today. And this one looks pretty cool.

In the episode entitled “Vendetta” the team flies to Russia to track down a killer with links to Artie. As usual, things don’t go exactly as planned and the team is forced to improvise.

What is going on with this killer and why does he have a link to Artie? The answers may surprise you. To find out you’ll just have to watch. I know I will be, just like every week.

Check out the preview for tonight’s all-new episode of Warehouse 13 after the jump. Tune in at 9/8C for all the action only on Syfy.

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With Fantastic Fest in Austin, TX coming up in mere weeks, we’re going to be getting more and more info about the fest and the great programming offered during it. We’ve already been bringing you some info and now we’ve got a really cool bit of news to share with you today.

Acclaimed action master and director Yuen Woo-Ping will be honored by the fest with a Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition for his vast achievements in cinematic action and direction.With credits ranging from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Drunken Master, Fist of Legend, Iron Monkey to Kill Bill Vol. 1 and II and The Matrix, Woo-Ping has proven time and again that he is, indeed, a master.

This is a well-deserved award indeed. For the full scoop on the award and all that’s associated with it, check out the full press release from the fine folks at Fantastic Fest.

FANTASTIC FEST HONORS DIRECTOR YUEN WOO-PING WITH
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
The Lifetime Achievement Award Will Be Presented at the
Gala Screening of “True Legend”

Austin, TX—Tuesday, August 31, 2010— The 6th annual Fantastic Fest will honor director and master fight choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the world premiere of his new martial arts fantasy True Legend, starring Vincent Zhao (Fong Sai Yuk, Dragon Gets Angry) Zhou Xun (The Emperor and the Assassin, Suzhou River) with Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and the late David Carradine (Kill Bill), on Saturday, September 25, 2010 at The Paramount Theatre in Austin, TX. The film will play as part of a double feature with Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, Yuen Woo-Ping’s directorial debut and the film that put action legend Jackie Chan on the map. Fantastic Fest will play host to Yuen Woo-Ping’s first U.S. festival appearance.

If you’ve ever walked out of a movie theatre after watching a martial arts film and left your jaw on the floor, your eyes were probably dazzled by the fight choreography of filmmaker, Yuen Woo-Ping. Gods of kung fu — Jackie Chan, Stephen Chow, Jet Li, Donny Yen and Michelle Yeoh — have all had their impressive abilities molded into a cinematic language of fist-pounding aerial artistry at the hands of Yuen Woo-Ping. His work headlines the top fight sequence lists of all time from films like The Matrix trilogy, Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Iron Monkey, Drunken Master, Once Upon a Time in China, Fist of Legend and Kung Fu Hustle.

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NBC has had a pretty good track record with their comedies in the past few seasons. Who can forget Parks & Recreation and Community, two of their newest shows on Thursday night, and probably two of their best. Now the network is planning on continuing the trend with this season’s next big comedy, Outsourced.

Consider the show like The Office or Parks but with the classic “fish out of water” plot twist. Need more? NBC spells out the premise in a recent press release:

After recently completing Mid America Novelties’ manager training program, Todd Dempsy (Ben Rappaport, off-Broadway’s “The Gingerbread House”) learns that the call center is being outsourced to India, and he is asked to move there to be the manager.  Having never ventured out of the country, he is unprepared for the culture shock. Overwhelmed, Todd discovers that his new staff needs a crash course in all things American if they are to understand the U.S. product line and ramp up sales from halfway around the world.

The cast is full of most Indian character actors you’ve seen for years, and now get to watch shine. We’ve got two new clips from the upcoming series, which proves that the show will fit right in at home with the awkward Michael Scott and misunderstood Leslie Knope.

Check out the clips after the jump, and join us in welcoming the newest motley crew to NBC’s Thurdsay night line up on September 23rd at 9:30PM.

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Now that steam is picking up for Fox’s other Marvel movie franchise, it looks like the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot wants a seat at the cool kids table as well. Last week, we brought you news that both Adrien Brody and Jonathan Rhys Myer were the leading contenders to play the role of Mr. Fantastic, and now it seems we have a similar situation for the voice of the CGI Thing.

In an attempt to up the ante on their superhero projects, Fox has a new strategy of stunt casting the films, like they did with Kevin Bacon and Oliver Platt in X-Men: First Class. It now looks like they are pitting Kiefer Suthland and Bruce Willis against each other to play the stone behemoth in the Fantastic Four reboot.

Comicbook Movie originally reported that the studio was in talks with Willis to lend his voice for the film, and now the chaps at Screenrant are adding to that, saying Sutherland is also up for the role. Awkward.

Also up for debate is the director’s seat, as the studio is playing with the idea of David Yates (Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince), Joe Carnahan (Smokin’ Aces), or James McTeigue (V For Vendetta) to take on the project, so you know the film will either be for kids or…definitely not for kids.

Other casting rumors that don’t seem to have conflict is that Alice Eve will be playing Susan Storm, Kevin Pennington is in talks to play Johnny Storm, and True Blood’s Stephen Moyer will be taking on the role of Victor Von Doom. Much like how the casting news for First Class poured out inside of a few weeks, we can expect the same for Fantastic Four: Reborn in the coming months.

Color me excited. I just fired up my HTC Incredible this morning to find a message alerting me that the update to Android 2.2 (aka Froyo) was ready to be installed.

Naturally, this made me very happy and I proceeded to do the update. Here’s what was added or otherwise made much better by this update, which changes your software to version 3.21.605.1 and Android version 2.2:

• 3G Mobile Hot Spot
• HTC Widget: Mail
• HTC Widget: News
• EAS Updates
• 720p Video Recording
• Amazon MP3
• Skype
• My Verizon

The rumored 802.11N wireless enhancement seems to be untrue as so far my updated HTC Incredible can’t find my N wireless network. That’s a shame. I will be testing out these changes and whatever else I can find today and will let you know if anything else seems odd or broken.

Plus, if I end up finding anything else cool not so far known with this update. If you guys decide to update, let us know your experiences in the comments.

Even though his film Battle: Los Angeles hasn’t even been released yet, director Jonathan Liebesman has apparently already lined up his next job. That job? Director of the sequel to Clash of the Titans which, at this moment, is cleverly entitled Clash of the Titans 2.

According to Deadline, the director was in talks for the film over the weekend and through yesterday but those negotiations stalled because of, you guessed it, money. But now it seems all is well and they’ve been able to reach an agreement to make a sequel to a film that most people, including a majority of critics, had nothing but bad things to say about.

Unfortunately, the sequel was inevitable considering both of the film’s leads (Sam Worthington and Gemma Aterton) survived and the movie, in spite of its negative reviews and terrible conversion to 3D, made a crap load of money worldwide. I’m hopeful the studio will do better this time and am encouraged by at least one other fact that’s come out during this dealmaking process: They will shoot the film in 3D instead of converting it later.

That alone should improve things considerably. Now if we could just do something about the lame story, wooden acting and uninspired direction . . . then we’d really be onto something. Too snarky? I can never tell.

If you’re a gamer chances are you probably use Microsoft’s XBox 360 console. If so, you probably also use XBox Live and have paid for a membership.

If the answer to both of these is a resounding yes then this post is for you. Yesterday over at his blog, Major Nelson put out the word that new XBox Live pricing for 1 year Gold Memberships is going to go into effect starting on November 1st. The new price: $59.99.

Yes, that’s right, Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away. Well actually, they’re just raising the price on something you already have and not really taking much away. Fortunately, there’s a silver lining in this price increase cloud. If you act now and secure your year renewal for XBox Live Gold you can get the full year for only $39.99.

So, if you’ve still got a few months left on your membership like I do, that can potentially save you a bit of money and the pain of having to pay the higher rates in November.

See, Microsoft isn’t so bad.

Sad news hit the comedy world last week, as it was announced that Saturday Night Live cast member for just over 8 years Will Forte will not be returning for the show’s upcoming 36th season. But, much like the circle of life, where we lose one, we get another…or in this case, three new lives in the SNL world.

No word on whether it was Forte’s decision to leave or Lorne Michaels’ way of mixing things up right before the new season, as he’s prone to do. What we do know, however, is that Forte’s publicist says that he’s “eternally grateful” to Michaels, along with the cast and crew.

With that said, a new report is out that the show will be getting 3 new faces come this fall. From the NY Post:

Taran Killam, a refugee from the cast of the long-running sitcom “Scrubs,” and two young comedians from Chicago — Paul Brittain and Vanessa Bayer – have been signed to the cast.

Among the new cast members, Killam, 28, is by far the best known. He became free when the proposed series he’d been working on — the Arianna Huffington-produced comedy called “Freshman,” about three first-term congressmen living together in the same D.C. apartment — was not picked up by ABC.

Brittain and Bayer are little known outside Chicago, where they have starred in stage comedies and done stand-up.

While the new of Forte leaving is sad enough on it’s own, other reports are coming in that Seth Meyers, Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis and Kenan Thompson are still up in the air as to whether or not they will return next season.

Do you love movies, TV, new media, comics, games, and all thing geek? Do you spend lots of time on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites sharing info and opinions with friends? Are you a good writer with a passion for sharing your insight and opinions in a comprehensive and cohesive manner? If so, we might just have a job for you.

Due to increased demand we are looking for writers to contrite to the site and to pending others. It doesn’t matter where you live (although candidates in LA or New York are encouraged to apply) or what you do for a living, if you love movies, TV, new media, comics, games and all things geek and want to write about them, we want to hear from you.

Drop us a line at the following email for consideration: jobs [at] the flickcast dot com and please include two sample posts in The Flickcast style or a link to your own previous work for consideration. We’ll get in touch with you if we think you’ve got what it takes.

Thanks.

No matter what happens in the world you can always count on new comics coming out every week. This week is, of course, no exception as our friends at Marvel are releasing a whole slew of new comics and trades on Wednesday.

Some of the ones we’re excited about include Scarlet #2, I Am An Avenger #1, Iron Man Legacy #6 and the debut of Wolverine #1.  Like most weeks, comics are on sale this Wednesday so head on over to your favorite comics shop early for best selection.

Don’t know where your nearest comic store is? Use this handy guide to find one. Also, be sure to check out covers for some of these books after the break.

Comics On-Sale:
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN PRESENTS: BLACK CAT #3
ASTONISHING X-MEN: XENOGENESIS #1 DIRECTOR’S CUT
AVENGERS, THOR & CAPTAIN AMERICA: OFFICIAL INDEX TO THE MARVEL UNIVERSE #5
AVENGERS: THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE #2
AVENGERS: THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE #2 CHAREST VARIANT
CAPTAIN AMERICA: FOREVER ALLIES #2
DEADPOOL PULP #1
DEADPOOL: WADE WILSON’S WAR #4
FRANKEN-CASTLE #20
GORILLA MAN #3
HAWKEYE & MOCKINGBIRD #4
HERCULES: TWILIGHT OF A GOD #4
HEROIC AGE: ONE MONTH TO LIVE #1
I AM AN AVENGER #1
INCREDIBLE HULKS #612

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Often its fun to watch great films featuring A-list stars doing what they do best. It’s also fun to watch a big budget sci-fi or action film full of amazing effects, death-defying stunts and hugely imaginative worlds exquisitely realized. And then sometimes you just want to see stuff explode.

This new trailer featuring Dolph Lundgren in The Killing Machine is pretty much that third one. Still, that doesn’t mean the film is bad, just not as expensive or fancy as others.

Directed by and starring Lundgren, the film follows the exploits of Edward Genn (Lundgren) a Soviet-era sleeper agent and trained assassin living in America. But times have changed and Edward is ready to leave that life and move on.

With a new identity, Edward is ready to re-introduce himself to his wife and daughter. But even though he may want to live a new life, there are others who still remember him and will do anything to destroy him.

The Killing Machine also stars Stefanie von Pfetten, Samantha Ferris and Bo Svenson. It will be available on DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment on October 19th.

Check out the trailer after the jump.

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