The films put out by Marvel Studios have been excellent in most ways possible. Really nailing the tones of a wide variety of Marvel superheroes. One thing these movies have been lacking, however, is a strong musical presence.

Going back to the original Iron Man, these films have not really had the same level of film score heights that we have come to expect from comic book movies in the last decade plus. The tide began to turn with the last released film, Captain America, which brought in the fantastic Alan Silvestri, but even that didn’t really live up to its potential.

Well Mr. Silvestri is back with the biggest and most epic Marvel film yet, so can he deliver on the promise his name and this property offers? In one word, yes. In seven words and three exclamation points, hell freaking yeah! he totally nailed it!!

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And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth’s mightiest heroes and heroines found themselves united against a common threat. On that day, the Avengers were born—to fight the foes no single super hero could withstand! 

Yesterday in select cities nationwide, thousands of people were treated to a back-to-back marathon screening of all six Marvel Studios films. From Iron Man all the way to the midnight premiere of The Avengers, this epic, butt-busting extravaganza was sold as THE best way to celebrate the arrival of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

The roster of films was impressive, but the time commitment was daunting. For true Marvel movie fans was this celebration a good thing? Is the act of subjecting yourself to hours upon hours watching these films worthwhile? Does it diminish the quality or enhance the context when you watch them all back-to-back?

These were all questions I had to ask myself before settling in on my seventeen hour quest through the Marvel Movie-verse, and they were all questions that were answered quite emphatically by about the fifth hour.

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With Marvel’s The Avengers coming out tonight at midnight there’s another movie (from a different studio) that wants to make sure we know it’s coming out soon too. That movie is, of course, the re-imagining of the reboot of Spider-Man known as The Amazing Spider-Man.

Much like the posters that came out a few days ago, this trailer isn’t really all that special. Believe us, we wish it was. It just looks like more of the same thing we’ve seen before in the previous Spider-Man movies that were not really all that long ago.

On a positive note, we prefer Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy to what’s her names previous tern as Mary Jane. That much is certain. We’re less enthusiastic about Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, however.

Oh well. It probably won’t stop the movie from making a boatload of money, which is fine.

Click through to look at the trailer. The Amazing Spider-Man hits theaters this Summer.

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Most of us will be seeing The Avengers in a few days and The Dark Knight Rises trailer is still on everyone’s mind. So Sony wants to remind you all that they have a pretty big deal super-hero movie coming out too.

The new posters for Amazing Spider-Man are nothing particularly exciting, although the standing Spidy one ditches that all too familiar blue-tinted cityscape for a far more intriguing and realistic color scheme. In fact I think that one now ranks as my favorite of the posters for this flick.

The second of the new posters actually reminds me of those classy Dark Knight posters with Batman standing watch over a blue-tinted Gotham from inside an office building. The Spider-Man poster has what looks like a very similar blue-tinted city, but it looks more like he is busting through the glass. Might it be a subtle dig at The Dark Knight, or might I be reading way to much into a similar image? I vote the latter.

You can check out these two new posters after the jump, and don’t forget to catch The Amazing Spider-Man in theaters this summer.

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Much like the upcoming Avengers big screen movie, in the comics Marvel heroes are fighting each other. Only in the comics, it’s the Avengers fighting the X-Men and not fighting among themselves — although that happened a few years back with Civil War.

Anyway, we’ve got a preview of the latest installment of Avengers vs. X-Men for you today. To tell you more about this book, here’s some info from the official Marvel press release:

The war is here! Today in Avengers VS. X-Men #3, by the blockbuster creative team of Ed Brubaker and John Romita Jr., Captain America splits the Avengers up all across the Marvel Universe to find Hope before the X-Men do! But Cyclops and his team are hot on the mutant messiah’s trail and are not letting Earth’s Mightiest get in their way. With Wolverine’s loyalty still in question – Captain America must make a harrowing decision and the result will have everyone talking!

Avengers vs. X-Men #3 is in comic stores and Marvel’s digital app now. Click through to check out the preview pages.

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With the advent of the internet buying tickets to movies becomes more and more like buying tickets to concerts, and I don’t mean the inflated prices. When an event film comes out and you know you want to experience it with the midnight or opening day crowds you can by your tickets way ahead of time.

Lots of people are doing just that for the first ever major ‘Cross-over Event’ Film. According to MovieTickets.com the presale ticket numbers for The Avengers are larger than all the other Marvel Studio films… COMBINED:

MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS is pre-selling more tickets for the upcoming release than the online ticketing company sold for CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, THOR, IRON MAN 2, and IRON MAN combined at the same point in the sales cycle for each film.  In fact, pre-sales of MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS is over one and a half times that of these past Marvel films combined sales at the same point in the sales cycle.

You can check out the bigger break down of how far ahead The Avengers is after the jump.

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The Dark Knight Rises is going to be a big film, and now we know that has more than one meaning. The blockbuster is going to be setting a new standard for how much IMAX native footage is released for a Hollywood feature film.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Christopher Nolan’s Bat-Finale will include the most actual IMAX footage of any studio film before it:

When Mr. Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises” opens July 20, it will contain the most IMAX footage ever for a Hollywood feature, more than one hour’s worth. There were 40 minutes of such footage in 2008′s “The Dark Knight”—which set box-office records in its opening weekend.

IMAX’s summer slate also includes potential blockbusters “The Avengers,” “The Amazing Spider-Man,” “Men in Black 3,” Tim Burton’s gothic comedy “Dark Shadows,” and Ridley Scott’s 3-D “Prometheus.” Mr. Nolan’s film was the only one shot using IMAX cameras; the others were converted using IMAX’s technology.

Sounds exciting. These Nolan Bat-Films are paving the way for the first truly IMAX movie. Sure the cameras and tech have been around for ages, but up till know it was used for nature docs and educational programming. We want to see what true film-making legends can do with the tech. IMAX is always going to be more immersive than traditional movies, so this can only be a big win movie goers.

Let’s face it, print comics may not be completely dead, but they’re probably on life suport. The future is here now and that future is digital. With that in mind, Marvel has announced, as part of its ReEvolution concept, the upcoming Marvel Digital Comics Shop.

What is it? Well, for the best description, let’s let the folks at Marvel speak for themselves, via a handy press release:

The Marvel ReEvolution grows even bigger this month as Marvel is proud to unveil the Marvel Digital Comics Shop, the newest place to find and read Marvel digital comics. This convenient online destination gives fans the chance to purchase all their favorite Marvel comics in one location and have it sync to the Marvel Comics app for Apple iOS and Android devices. Not only can you read your comics anytime and anywhere – but now you can read them on your desktop or laptop! With all Marvel Universe and Ultimate Comics Universe titles available the same day they hit comic shops, there’s no better time to jump into comics!

Okay, so, that’s pretty cool. But wait, there’s more:

Then, come June – all Marvel super hero comics priced at $3.99 at your local comic shop will include codes for free digital copies of those same issues on the Marvel Comics app for Apple iOS and Android devices, the Marvel Digital Comics Shop and the Comics by comiXology app and web store all at no extra cost!

See, the future is here. Now where are the damn jetpacks and hoverboards!

Remember way back in 2009 when we told you Guy Ritchie was going to direct the big screen adaptation of the DC comic series Lobo for Warner Bros? Well, as you probably know, that never happened and the project was put on the back burner. . . until now.

What sparked this resurgence? The project has a new director attached and that man in Brad Peyton, who’s previous credits include the recent hit  Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. The deal was reportedly finalized just today for him to rewrite and direct the movie.

In case you’re not familiar with Lobo, the character first appeared in Omega Men #3 and was created by Roger Slifer and Keith Giffen. The story concerns a seven foot, blue skinned, heavily muscled anti-hero and interstallar bounty hunter who comes to earth in search of some fugitives intent on destruction. Once here, he teams up with a small town teenaged girl to help stop the mayhem and in the process learns a little something about humanity.

With Peyton now on board, we can expect to see the Lobo adaptation hit multiplexes late next year or in early 2014.

One of the biggest enigmas in the crowded summer blockbuster season is how will the average movie goers take a rebooted Spider-Man so close to the success of the Raimi trilogy. How the reboot is received is going to be an important indicator for the longevity of the comic book movie as we know it.

In the last decade comic book films have rewritten a lot of the rules for how major franchise movies act in cinemas, pretty much demolishing the previous axiom that sequels suffer from standard diminishing returns. Now the success of an event film has much more to do with the reception of the previous film in the series and over all franchise health.

This summer brings two old comic book standards to the big screen, the team-up and the reboot. If these are successful it could signal to other studios that movie going public is keen on these characters, and will show up for a good film starring them even if the story is going back to the beginning.

So a lot is at stake, and as such the marketing push for The Amazing Spider-Man has been going strong for awhile now, keeping ole web head in our minds during the spring and early summer event film season. The newest bit of advertising is a brand new poster featuring some battle damaged Spidy. A really great, simple image that is reminiscent of the Raimi era character posters, while still feeling very much a part of the new tone for the series.

You can check out the full poster after the jump.

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With the release of Christoper Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises inching ever closer we can expect to see more and more information about the film start to come out. This time around we’ve got new images from the film which appeared in Entertainment Weekly and were generously scanned by the folks at Batman News.

In them we get a look at our major players including a very good opportunity to see just what Anne Hathawy’s Catwoman outfit is all about. Like we’ve heard from others around the Interwebs (and around The Flickcast’s water cooler), we’re not completely in love with the look.

That said, we’re more than willing to give Nolan the benefit of the doubt here. He’s proven time and again that he’s a guy who knows exactly what he’s doing.

Plus, Tom Hardy’s Bane looks pretty badass and so does, not surprisingly, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character. He looks pretty at home with that firearm. Wonder how he’d look in the Batsuit?

Anyway, check out some more pics after the break. Look for The Dark Knight Rises in theaters and IMAX on July 20.

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The Avengers is less than a month away, but the folks at Marvel Studios are thinking beyond to the second ‘phase’ of the Marvel shared Universe. There are already release dates scheduled for Thor 2 and Iron Man 3, and now Marvel has settled on it’s date for Captain America 2.

The second solo film staring Cap is set to release April 4th, 2014. This is an odd time to release a big budget blockbuster sequel to a well received film. Usually films like this come out in the Summer blockbuster season, or around Christmas when most people have lots of free time.

Our theory here at The Flickcast is that Marvel is hedging it’s bets with Captain America 2. The Hunger Games proved that you can still be a huge blockbuster in the spring, but expectations are limited in non-peak months. The truth of the matter is that Captain America has a limited worldwide audience, and that translated to the second lowest Marvel Studios box office performer.

Obviously the movie was a smash here in America, and Cap is an integral part of the Marvel Universe. So moving his film to the spring might help keep expectations in check, while still allowing the movie a chance for it to blow up internationally.

Whatever the reasons are, the next phase of Marvel’s shared universe is starting to come into focus. Baring a failure of The Avengers next month, all these new films should culminate in Avengers 2 some time in the future.