With the live action Avengers hitting the big screen today Marvel doesn’t want fans to forget they have other programs featuring their heroes available to watch. In fact, a TV series about the Avengers is currently running on Disney XD right now.

That show, called The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, airs on Sundays and this week’s new episode promises some pretty good action and fun for kids of all ages. To help set the mood Marvel has sent us a preview for this Sunday’s episode along with some word we’re supposed to include. Here they are:

Can’t get enough of the Hulk?! This Sunday on Ultimate Spider-Man, catch more HULK SMASH action as he teams up with Spidey to take down an invisible villain who’s destroying Manhattan! In this behind-the-scenes interview, the big voice behind the big guy, Fred Tatasciore, gives an inside look into the mind of this week’s breakout Avenger.

Don’t miss Fred as The Hulk in Ultimate Spider-Man and in a new The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (featuring The Guardians of the Galaxy!), this Sunday inside Marvel Universe at 11a/10c, only on Disney XD.

Check out the video after the break.

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Pixar has set into a pretty stead pattern of releasing one film a year. This summer we have Brave to look forward too, and next year brings us Monsters University. But what about 2014 and beyond? Worry not, Pixar is not letting up anytime soon.

Variety is reporting that Pixar has come clean on several projects targeted for 2014 and 2015:

Pixar has announced its latest project in development, setting a 2015 release target for a toon based on the Mexican holiday of Dio de los Muertos… Other Pixar news from Las Vegas: The studio has titled its dino pic “The Good Dinosaur,” set for May 30, 2014; and has dated its “Untitled Pixar Movie that Takes You Inside the Mind” for June 19, 2015.

So The Good Dinosaur for 2014 and a potential double dip in 2015. What is most exciting is the news of the newly announced film that is based on the Day of the Dead. There is a wealth of culture and history to be mined out of the Mexican holiday, and of all the studios willing to go down that hole, Pixar is by far the most capable of giving it the proper due.

We here at The Flickcast will keep a close eye on this future project, but in the mean time we can all brace for the potential awesomness that is Brave this summer.

Disney’s big holiday animated project likely hits close to home for many of The Flickcast’s readership. A tale of an 8-Bit villian who tires of his repetitive life of villainy and struggles to find a place for him to be a hero. No it is not the biography of Donkey Kong, it is Wreck-It Ralph.

In the wake of the Pixar merger a few years ago, Disney has had a very successful run of animated films NOT produced by the famed animation studio. While not quite the high water mark of the second golden age, the last handful of years has been a welcome return to quality animation for the mouse house. Hopefully Wreck-It Ralph keeps that newly forged streak alive.

The newest poster for the upcoming film has hit the web today, and its simplistic, 8-Bit design fills us with confidence. Clearly this film knows it’s roots and is being made by people with a genuine love of the video game world. 8-Bit design has found a resurgence in the geek community in recent years, and to see a major motion picture studio plastering the style in theater hallways nationwide is heartening.

You can see the full poster after the jump.

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Tron: Legacy is a bit of a polarizing film. Some people loved it, others hated it while few could find much middle ground. Say what you will about the movie itself, it is hard to deny that Legacy re-introduced us to an intriguing universe that deserves to be explored a bit more.

While a third Tron film grows less and less likely with each passing month, Disney remains committed to the franchise with a new animated series set to debut on Disney XD soon. We have long known of this project, as it was announced shortly after the release of Legacy, but it has been awhile since we have been reminded that the show is still on the horizon.

That reminder has finally arrived in the form of a new trailer for the show, showcasing an impressive animated style that fits the digital world of Tron perfectly. The show also boosts an incredible voice cast, starring Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore, Lance Henriksen, Paul Reubens and even Bruce Boxleitner back as Tron.

You can check out the new trailer after the jump.

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Spider-Man cartoons have always been among the very best in Super-Hero animation. Most recently the series Spectacular Spider-Man managed to be the fourth or fifth iteration of the character that actually worked as an animated series.

So there is high hopes for the new Ultimate Spider-Man series. In anticipation of the series premiere, Marvel has released a few stills from this upcoming season with certain guest stars cut out. Time to play the guess who’s coming to Ultimate Spider-Man guessing game!

These little teases are nothing new in the comic world, with covers often released with cutouts to ramp up anticipation. Doing this for an upcoming animated show, on the other hand, is downright inspired. This is the perfect way to drum up interest in a new series few people even knew was coming.

The show will hopefully join The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes as the new watermark for Marvel animation. DC has long held the title of best hero cartoons, but now that Marvel has the backing of Disney, there is no reason we can’t see JLU quality programming set in the Marvel universe.

You can check out the full set of pictures after the jump, and don’t forget to catch the series premiere this Sunday.

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It’s that time of year. No, we don’t mean Girl Scout Cookie time. It’s time for an all new batch of episodes from our favorite degenerate animators Matt Stone and Trey Parker (along with their hard-working crew). Comedy Central returns with its flagship animated sitcom, South Park this Wednesday at 10PM.

This week, the envelope is once again pushed with an episode titled “Reverse Cowgirl.” Here’s an official synopsis.

One of the boys had been told time and time again about leaving the toilet seat up after he goes to the bathroom, but he didn’t listen. His actions have consequences and ultimately result in an unimaginable catastrophe.

As if that isn’t enough for you, be sure to take a look at an exclusive clip after the jump. Catch “Reverse Cowgirl” on Comedy Central this Wednesday night at 10PM.

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That unfortunate loud thudding noise you just heard was John Carter‘s opening weekend. The mega budget, would be franchise starter came in at a beyond disappointing 30.6 million. Good enough for second place to last week’s winner, The Lorax.

Speaking of this week’s box office champion, The Lorax hauled in an impressive 39.1 million, representing a mild 44% drop from last week’s huge opening numbers. With a massive opening, and a mild drop, the Dr. Suess adaptation is in prime shape to be the break out hit of the spring. It really only has The Hungar Game to compete with, and that audience is similar but far from exact.

Project X held well, and preformed strongly in the wake of a solid opening weekend. This week it was announced that a sequel to the found footage party film was possibly underway, and a continued strong presence at the box office goes a long way in validating that decision.

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The Lorax is the big winner of the box office this weekend, bringing in a massive 70.7 million. This is a monumental number and further proof that the concept of prime seasons being the only way a film can make bank is dead.

We are now in the thick of the ‘Spring Movie Season’ which for the last few years has yielded some of the most successful and surprising films of the years. The staggering numbers for The Lorax also represent a bit of a coming out for Universal’s animation house Illumination Entertainment, which previously won a lot of people over with the very fun Despicable Me.

The impressive haul also marks a new high water mark for Dr. Seuss adaptions, topping the previous high of 55.1 million raked in by How The Grinch Stole Christmas. The film is likely to have a decent run as well with few marquee kids films on the immediate horizon, and mixed reviews that do tend to skew a bit towards positive.

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There are three very high profile groups that are making stop-motion animated films these days. 2012 is a marquee year for the art form as all three are releasing high profile films.

Odds on favorite to be the best of the bunch is ParaNorman by the people who brought us the tremendous Coraline a few years ago. We have seen a couple teasers so far for this movie, but now we have a brand new full trailer to really sink our teeth into.

In case you are unaware of what ParaNorman is about, here is the synopsis:

In ParaNorman, a small town comes under siege by zombies. Who can it call? Only misunderstood local boy Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee), who is able to speak with the dead. In addition to the zombies, he’ll have to take on ghosts, witches and, worst, of all, grown-ups, to save his town from a centuries-old curse. But this young ghoul whisperer may find his paranormal activities pushed to their otherworldly limits.

This one is very high on our radar, and looks to be one of the best animated films of the year.

The movie is set to be released this august and you can check out the full trailer after the jump.

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The story of The Lorax has never felt right to me. Either the Once-ler is the most short-sighted whatsit in the world, next to the Lorax himself (or at least the forest creatures), or the entire tale is a buried parable on the importance of stable property rights. Given Seuss’s general lack of subtlety when making a political point, the latter probably isn’t the case. In any event, why does no one preserve the Truffula trees? If the Once-ler owns the forest, and his business is based on the Truffula trees, why on earth would he practice clear-cutting?

He, like pretty much every other private timber company that owns the forest they log, has an incentive to preserve the forest (unless he’s renting it from the creatures, but that doesn’t seem to be the case) – clearly the Once-ler needed to fire his business planner. Or, once the land had been deforested, should have sold it and the seed to another logging concern.

Heck, they’d probably seek him out, since Truffula trees are a hot commodity, and there’s a lot of Thneedians; we already know that one of the characters is a budding entrepreneur, it’d be a lot easier and a lot more profitable for him to replant the forest than find a way to sell air. Evidently the Thneedians don’t understand marginal utility, but that’s okay, what gets me is how Seuss (and the movie) stacks the odds in his favor.

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If you like this sort of thing then you will be excited to see the first teaser for Universal’s Despicable Me 2 has arrived. The first one was fun and this looks to be more of the same.

Plus, the first one made over $525 Million globally, so you should have expected to see a sequel as soon as possible. It’s only going to take about two years. Look for Despicable Me 2 to hit theaters on July 3, 2013.

Yeah, that’s more than a year away but things tend to get started earlier in the process these days to help build that important “brand awareness.” Although, with all that money in the bank from the first movie, the awareness is already pretty high.

Still, you can never be too careful these days. Enjoy.

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The titan of quality that is Pixar might have stubbed it’s toe last year with the release of the sub-par Cars 2, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still riding a nearly two decade long winning streak. Creatively, their mandate of doing what isn’t expected has paid off in droves.

What makes Brave such an interesting next step for Pixar is the fact that it is the first film with a female lead who is for all intents and purposes a princess. That’s right, this is a classic Disney princess fairy tale, but done the Pixar way. Fans of Disney and Pixar have reason to be very excited at that prospect.

Disney has just released a third trailer for the film, but instead of just hyper cutting more footage to beautiful music, they opted for an extended scene that does a brilliant job of summing up the general conflict of the movie. You can tell immediately that this film has that Pixar charm we all know and love.

Check out the new trailer after the jump.

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