This week On the Radar George Lucas seeks to capture the minds of even younger viewers, Image Comics takes a shot at Marvel, and one of the most famous music videos of all time may go 3D.  All that and whole bunch of other fun stuff!

Crispin Glover talks Back to the Future controversy

Personally, I didn’t realize Back to the Future was mired in any kind of controversy, but it is.  Speaking at a promotion for Hot Tub Time Machine, Crispin Glover, who played Marty McFly’s (Michael J. Fox) Dad spoke about the raw deal he was dealt after the first film came out:

“On the DVD to the Back to the Future trilogy, Bob Gale has said something that’s totally fabricated,” Glover told a group of reporters at this weekend’s press junket forHot Tub Time Machine. “He said I asked for twice the amount of money that Michael J. Fox asked for in the first film. In the negotiation for the second film, they offered me less than half of what any of the actors that were being asked to come back in the film—Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson and Tom Wilson. They had all done studio films, and they’d made a lot more money. I was being penalized.”

Interesting stuff.  Mind you, considering the somewhat lackluster opinions of the second and third film maybe Glover got off easy by not being in them.

Jamie Foxx to star in Kane & Lynch video game adaption?

There hasn’t been a lot of talk about the film adaption of video game Kane & Lynch other than it could star Bruce Willis as Kane.  Now, another big name is being tossed around to play opposite Willis, Jamie Foxx.  Developed by IO Interactive Nu Image/Millennium is set to finance with Lionsgate distributing.  While I’m confident in the actors involved, video games are not well known for the best of translations to the big screen.

George Lucas bringing Galactic Heroes to TV

Ask any “real” Star Wars fan and they will probably tell you that The Clone Wars cartoon is pretty childish.  Well, prepared to consider that more mature entertainment.  Looking to draw in even younger viewers to the Star Wars universe, George Lucas is working on a cartoon adaption of the Star Wars: Galactic Heroes toy line.  You know, those chunky figures with a whopping two points of articulation (usually the arms).  Worse yet, this problem means more screen time with the one Star Wars character that can relate best to 3 year olds-Jar Jar Binks.

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The offbeat, swirly, Gothic-lite, snow-filled reign of Tim Burton will never let up. According to Deadline Hollywood Daily, Universal’s Illumination Entertainment has snagged the rights to Charles Addams’ original The Addams Family cartoons with an eye to letting Burton direct a stop-motion feature out of them. Why yes, the term “3D” is also being tossed around. Yay.

I love The Addams Family. I was unhealthy obsessed with the Barry Sonnenfeld film as a pre-teen, and I used to hang out at the bookstore reading the original cartoon collections. It was the closest I got to becoming a Goth.  While I’ve enjoyed a lot of Burton films over the years, I’m not sure I want to see the Addams sent through The Burton Factory, and made out to be a family with a penchant for swirls and black and white stripes.

DHD notes that Burton will ignore the previous films and television show, and return straight to the source.  Apparently, he’s quite drawn to the sharp wit of the original comics. And they are funny. Much funnier than Burton’s Addams imitation, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy which is just kind of gross and painful to read.

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With The Flickcast’s own Shannon Hood covering all the excitement at SXSW this week yours truly is stepping in to take over box office duty. Don’t worry all you Hood fans, I have no doubt that she’ll be back next week, which means I’m only here for one week. That’s something that can’t be said about Alice in Wonderland, however.

Even with mixed reviews, Alice took the top spot again over the weekend. While it dropped 46% drop from last week, the 3D fantasy took in another $62 Million, bringing its total to $208 Million in only two weeks. As Shannon noted last week, this is Tim Burton’s biggest opening and the film is certainly finding an audience.

One concern from reviewers was whether or not audiences would be somewhat disappointed by the 3D aspect of Alice in comparison to Avatar. While Avatar was quite an immersive experience Alice in Wonderland presented more of your traditional 3D environment. It seems movie goers don’t mind the difference and are eager to see Johnny Depp and cast as they romp through Wonderland.

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It may not have taken home a lot of Oscar gold, but many might argue that the jangly coins in Avatar’s pocket might mean a lot more to Fox and James Cameron.  But despite the massive success they’ve enjoyed in theaters, Cameron and Fox want a little more of your hard earned cash.

They noticed that the demand in digital 3D immediately went up when the IMAX run was up. They’re concerned that giving up their screens to Alice in Wonderland may have cost them, in Cameron’s words,  “a couple hundred million dollars.” They know people will eat up more Avatar. So they’re planning a summer re-release.

According to The Hollywood Reporter,  discussions are underway to bring the film back this summer with additional footage. Cameron feels that he was forced to rush the film into theaters to make its December 18 date, and had to leave too many scenes on the cutting room floor.

There’s actually some debate as to how much extra footage there is — Cameron claims there’s about 10 to 12 minutes of scenes that he could toss right back into the film, whereas IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond claims there’s 40 extra minutes. However, an IMAX analog theater can’t handle a film over 170 minutes, so even if Cameron has 40 minutes of unused footage, he can only add 10 or 12 to come in under the IMAX limitations.

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Though Avatar didn’t pick up the best picture award at the Oscars on Sunday, the filmmakers can console themselves by sobbing into the ridiculous pile of money the film is still making and a few technical awards. Even without a big Oscar win, the 3D juggernaut in Hollywood keeps rolling along, as word is now coming in that Warner Bros. is planning on rebooting the holiest of classics: The Wizard of Oz.

And yes, it will be in 3D. From The LA Times:

The studio is examining two existing “Wizard of Oz” projects, with an eye toward giving one of them a modern gloss and moving it toward the screen.

One project, called “Oz,” currently lives at Warner’s New Line label. It’s being produced by Temple Hill, which is behind a little franchise called “Twilight,” and has a script written by Darren Lemke, a writer on the upcoming “Shrek Forever After.”

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There’s a lot of interesting stuff on the radar this week. An Avatar alumni could face off against Conan, Modern Warfare developers bring a fight to Activision, and director Guy Ritchie may be breathing new life into the heroes of Camelot.

Fox finds its shadow for $1 million and David Slade may be the man

Fans of the comic book series The Shadow rejoice as it seems the reboot continues to move forward.  While it was thought Sony and director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, Army of Darkness) would bring a new version of the character to the big screen things have changed somewhat.

After Raimi began shopping the property around Fox decided to purchase the rights. Sadly, it sounds like Raimi may no longer direct, possibly replaced by David Slade.  Slade directed the vampire film Thirty Days of Night which, unfortunately, felt just that long in the theater. Here’s hoping he can put a little more adrenaline into The Shadow.

How I Met your…Smurf?

Neil Patrick Harris will be venturing to the land of blue, three apples tall creatures in Smurfs: The Movie.  The How I Met Your Mother star won’t be playing a Smurf though.  As this film will be a mix of live action and animation, Harris will be playing the lead live action character.  Too bad, I would have liked to know just which Smurf he’d play.  ”Awesome” Smurf maybe?  Let us know your picks in the comments.

‘Wolverine 2′ starts shooting next January

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was pretty good, but it was missing one thing: ninjas!  Hopefully that will be rectified in the sequel which is set to begin shooting next January.  Delving into Wolvie’s Japanese mythos the script follows stories penned by two pretty big names:

“Based on a story cycle by Frank Miller and Chris Claremont, Wolverine’s adventures in martial arts will be a love story featuring a Japanese actress, I am told. ‘It’s a beautiful story,’ says a source, ‘and will be very different than the first film.’”

Okay, I’m not really sold on the “love story” angle but considering the number of women that went to see Wolverine (pretty much for mutant hunk, Hugh Jackman) at least this will be one you can take your girlfriends to.

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Even when he tackles darker subject matter, Tim Burton always manages to bring a touch of whimsy to his films.  On the surface, Alice in Wonderland seems to be the perfect tale for the eccentric filmmaker to put his own spin on. With Alice oscillating wildly between giant and diminutive proportions, two queens vying for control of the land, and anthropomorphic fauna and animals, the tale seems ripe for a wild re-imagining.

Trouble is, Burton leaves the enchantment at home along with warmth and heart. The resulting movie is rather cold, devoid of color and brightness (save for the mad hatter’s shock of orange hair and startling green eyes) and not a lot of fun. I’m not saying that makes it bad, but it was very different from what I was expecting.

In this particular retelling, Alice is a grown woman instead of a little girl. At a large party she learns she is to marry a stodgy bore of a man. She rushes off to be by herself and falls down the rabbit hole into the “underworld.”  There she encounters the characters that we are all familiar with. There is the white rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen), the Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), the stoned-out-of-his-cocoon caterpillar (Alan Rickman), and of course, the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp.)

This version of the  Mad Hatter is a more tragic character with a brutal back story to explain his madness.  I found Depp’s portrayal of the Hatter annoying and frenetic, crazy for the sake of being crazy. He drifts in and out of a heavy Scottish brogue for reasons not immediately clear.  I wish the character had been toned down a bit as I think it would have made him a little more likable.

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While legions of fans are getting ready for Disney and Tim Burton’s release of Alice In Wonderland tonight at midnight, a good portion of the attendees are also going for a special glimpse at Tron: Legacy, which will be attached to the beginning of most screenings. That’s right, Disney is already starting the marketing for the film, which won’t be in theaters for another 9 months.

With that said, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Disney is already planning on expanding the franchise to their TV network geared more towards kids between the ages of 6 and 14. The show reportedly a 10-part Tron micro series that will follow the events of Legacy, and premiere in the fall of 2011.

No word yet on whether the show will be a mix of CG animation and live action, such as it will in the upcoming film, but you can expect it to look as stunning as some of the images and graphics we have seen from Disney on the project thus far.

As well as news coming in about the upcoming animated series, we also recently got our hands on some new stills from the upcoming Tron: Legacy film, which hits theaters this December in 3D and IMAX. Check them out after the jump.

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About a month ago, we brought you news of the first new character to be revealed from Disney’s upcoming Toy Story 3. His name was Mr. Prickelpants, and he was a porcupine in lederhosen, voiced by Timothy Dalton. As if the characters couldn’t get any better than that, we just got word of the next four to be revealed.

Disney has even gone as far as to give descriptions of each new toy, staying in the context of the Toy Story Universe. Each of our favorites are still back, including Tom Hanks as Woody, Tim Allen as Buzz, Wallace Shawn as T. Rex, and John Ratzenberger as Piggy Bank.

Check out each of the descriptions, with exclusive new pics, after the jump. Catch Toy Story 3 in theaters and IMAX across the country on June 18th.

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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.