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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This week on The Flickcast, Matt is back home from his trip to sunny LA and he and Chris are back in action with a whole bunch of new topics. Some of what gets discussed in this episode includes Mark Strong as Sinestro in Green Lantern, Conan in 3D, Wal-Mart buying Vudu, Betty White on SNL, Call of Duty and its many incarnations, Ian McShane as Blackbeard, the sale of Action Comics #1 and a whole lot more.

They both also made some good picks again this week incuding Matt’s pick of the short film The Legacy and Chris’ pick of the classic 80’s TV series Tales of the Gold Monkey, featuring Stephen Collins and Roddy McDowall.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.

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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?

Yesterday, we showed you some of the cool new movie toys from this year’s Toy Fair at New York City’s Jacob Javits Center. Diamond came in with lots of new and exciting movie properties, but some of their coolest new toys were for their existing DC and Marvel lines.

Among the new toys we got to see were some cool new Marvel MiniMates for the upcoming Iron Man 2 film, including a neat Whiplash, Justin Hammer, and Stark Drones. Marvel Selects announced a gigantic new Abomination figure, as well as The Thing and others, each heavy enough to be used as a murder weapon.

From DC and Diamond, we got to see some cool new statues from the DC Dynamics line, the first ever line of Vertigo busts, and some great statues form the upcoming Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths film. Also from DC, we got to see some great new “then and now” style figures, including the original Superman vs his current incarnation.

Check out the full gallery after the jump, and be sure to keep it here for more upcoming news and features from the wonderful world of toys!

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Principle photography for DC and Warner’s newest superhero flick, Green Lantern, starts up this month. With that, we’re expecting to see lots of news on the casting front of the film. On that note, Heat Vision is reporting that Academy Award-winning actor Tim Robbins will be joining the cast.

Robbins is set to play Senator Hammond, the father of the film’s villain Hector Hammond, played by Peter Sarsgaard. The role will be mostly supporting, but with a name like Robbins filling the shoes, we can expect it to be longer than 30 seconds.

Robbins will join an already hearty cast of Ryan Reynolds, Sarsgaard, Blake Lively, and a rumored Mark Strong as Sinestro. Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) is taking on the task of directing, and he’s already reassured the easily irritable fan community by stating that most of the film will take place off-planet.

Last week, some interesting concept art got leaked online, and may have given us a first glimpse of what the rest of the Green Lantern Corps could look like. We’ll be sure to keep you posted as more information on the film comes our way.

This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt are joined by our resident comic book expert Sal Loria to discuss a bunch of topics. Some of these include comics (of course), the upcoming Green Lantern movie and the recently released concept art, the Deadpool movie, Smallville, the Superman franchise, Zac Ephron as Spider-Man, Batman, the comic book business, the nature of heroism and a whole lot more.

The guys also make some picks this week including Sal’s pick of Marvel’s mini-series Deadpool: Suicide Kings, Matt’s choice of the Cohen Brothers A Serious Man and Chris’ pick of David Lynch’s modern classic Mulholland Drive.

As usual, if you have any comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitterand at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

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The siege of Asgard continues, Indigo becomes the new choice of color and Captain America “officially” returns in this latest edition of The Pull List Comic Reviews! Due to time constraints and unforeseen delays, this week’s column is abbreviated. As always, WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

PULL OF THE WEEK:

Atom & Hawkman #46
DC Comics – $2.99 US
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Ryan Sook
Score: 9/10

Ray Palmer, known better as the Atom, has been knocked down more than most during his career as a costumed crime-fighter, but he always manages to pick himself up. Not surprisingly, that compassion of his has earned him an Indigo ring, and with the dead seemingly winning the war, Ray has figured out a way to swing the battle to the good guys; even if the good guys aren’t all necessarily “good” to begin with.

I would never have thought that, of all the Blackest Night-themed “continuation” issues, this would be the best of the bunch (so far), but with Geoff Johns at the helm, I should have known better. Johns uses a This Is Your Life presentation of Ray Palmer’s history as a canvas to show just how much the character brings to the table, and in doing so, the writer sets the stage for what could be the turning point in war against Nekron.

Artist Ryan Sook simply crushed this issue. Everything in this issue was pitch-perfect, from Ray’s past to the horrific present – every panel led to the next without skipping a beat. Instead, the body of work in this issue touched on varying types of visual storytelling that not only worked incredibly well, but also showed the artist’s vast range of skills.

Wrap all this up and throw in the aforementioned revelation of the Indigo rings, and you’re left with a can’t-miss issue that’s also the Pull of the Week.

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With more and more news hitting daily on the upcoming Green Lantern film, there will of course be more information hitting the web that shouldn’t actually be out there. Between how big of a film this is turning out to be, and how much of a fanbase the DC character has developed over the decades of print, there were bound to be a few leaks.

With that news comes some potential new concept art for the alien life that we’ll be seeing in the film. Martin Campbell already confirmed that we’ll be seeing Kilowog, Abin Sur, and Toma-Re in the upcoming flick, but these is the first time we’ll be seeing what they could actually look like.

The images first hit on one of the Green Lantern fan message boards, and was later confirmed by several sources to be legit. This comes only days after Warner announced that Sony will be doing the special effect work for the upcoming film.

Check out the concept art after the jump, and be sure to keep it here for more Green Lantern news as it comes our way.

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Casting for the upcoming Green Lantern movie has become a little more interesting over the last few days. It was long rumored that the role of Sinestro, Green Lantern’s nemesis, would be played by Jackie Early Haley (Watchmen, A Nightmare on Elm Street).  It even went so far as to being kind of confirmed.  It turns out that Haley’s involvement may have been rumor all along.

According to director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale), Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes) is in talks to play Sinestro and discussed the Haley rumor with MTV:

“No, that’s completely wrong,” said Campbell of the persistent rumor, which popped up again recently despite Haley denying any involvement with the “Green Lantern” movie. “In fact, we’re in negotiations with Mark Strong to play Sinestro.”

I have no doubt this will bring another layer to the debate on who would be the best actor to play Sinestro. Even here at The Flickcast, it was discussed thoroughly. While I originally was in favor of Haley, I conceded to Chris’ choices of either Guy Pearce (The Hurt Locker) or Jason Isaacs (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix).  I wonder how Mark Strong will stack up against them?

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On Wednesday, there was a collective sigh of both disappointment and confusion when Peter Saarsgard was announced as Dr. Hector Hammond, the villain in the upcoming Green Lantern film, starring opposite Ryan Reynolds. The idea of Saarsgard as a villain was definitely a fun one, but the fans of the franchise wanted Sinestro, and we didn’t understand why we weren’t getting him.

It seems like we all just needed to wait a few hours, as DC and Warner Bros. have stated that they will be including Sinestro in the film, and they only have one actor in mind to play him: Jackie Earl Haley. The folks over at Hitfix did some legwork and uncovered Warner’s plan for the character.

With Sinestro, don’t expect him to stroll in and suddenly be pure evil in this film.  And don’t expect him to be onscreen for the entire movie.  But unless something drastically changes, he is in the film.  And I’m hearing that based on the relationship they have with him from “Watchmen” and “A Nightmare On Elm Street,” Jackie Earle Haley is the only choice for Sinestro by the studio.

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