Welcome to this week’s On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage this week. Let is know if we missed something interesting. Otherwise, on to the links!

• A fan-made alternate ending to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory has surfaced. Michael Bay would love this one.

• Of course there is a real life Kick-Ass, and he prefers to be called “The Viper”.

• Kevin Bacon is allegedly in talks to be the main villain in X-Men: First Class. No word on who he’ll play, we just hope it’s not the same character he played in The Woodsman.

• Just in case you weren’t excited enough for The Expendables, here’s an 8-bit video game to keep you occupied.

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Here’s a list of things that made a blip on The Flickcast’s radar this week from around the Internets, Twitter and beyond. Let us know if we missed anything cool so we can include it in the next installment of On the Radar.

• Planning a LOST finale party? Well, no party is complete without LOST BINGO!

• Morgan Spurlock, Harry Knowles, Stan Lee and Joss Whedon teaming up to fight crime. . . er make a documentary about San Diego Comic-Con.

• Apparently, nobody in the US gives a crap about Manga. We could have told you that.

• James Cameron’s Avatar has sold a metric butt load of DVDs and Blu-rays. Color us blue for surprised.

• Larry David and friends head to NYC to do the last season of Curb. That show is still on?

• Are you a fan of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air? How about Lord of The Rings? Well, what if Gandalf sang the opening theme? Mind = Blown!

• Did you get a chance to check out Maggie Q in the new show Nikita? If not, what are you waiting for?

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This week On the Radar bring a whole slew of new and interesting stuff. Let us know if we missed anything.

• The Flickcast’s own Elisabeth Rappe reports from the set of Jonah Hex (for another site but we don’t care, we love her).

• James Cameron says 3D will replace 2D soon. Yes, but when will substance replace style?

• True Blood gets a comic book. At least that’s better than a Lady Gaga comic. . . oh, wait.

• Heroes to get the axe? Isn’t it about time, really? The show has pretty much sucked sense Season One.

• Judge Dredd is returning to the big screen. He is the law, dammit!

• Some guys made a Mega Man movie. Why? Why the hell not?

• Hayden Christensen to help rip off The Da Vinci Code in The Genesis Code. But what about the younglings?

• Michael Bay says the Racist Robots will be banished from Transformers 3. On a related note, Michael Bay is a liar.

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This week on The Flickcast, Chris and Matt discuss new and recurring topics. Some of these include The Avengers, The Losers, Avatar, Cabin in the Woods, How to Train Your Dragon, cool technology, upcoming releases of A Nightmare on Elm Street and Iron Man 2 and the nature of journalism.

They also make some great picks this week including Matt’s pick of the awesome keyboard dock for the iPad and Chris’ pick of the Blu-ray release of Avatar.

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.

This week On the Radar Leonard Nimoy says goodbye to Spock, Robert Downey Jr. may journey to the land of Oz, and Mickey Rourke wants to play one of the most feared Mongolians in history.

Did Jason Voorhees just get killed? Oh, the irony!

However evil slasher Jason Voorhees may appear to be it seems there is something that can stop him afterall-movie studios.  While the recent remake of Friday the 13th garnished nearly $100 million worldwide, producer Brad Fuller responded to a fan via Twitter and said a sequel may be dead.

Platinum Dunes does not seem interested in continuing the story at this time.  Let’s not count Jason out yet, though.  Freddy Krueger is about to leap bag onto the big screen in the Nightmare on Elm Street remake.  If that’s successful, Voorhees may climb out of the grave once more.

Leonard Nimoy to hang up his Spock ears for good

While not as active as his friend William Shatner on the acting front, Leonard Nimoy took fanboys by storm by reprising his role as Spock in J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot.  He caused further excitement by taking on the enigmatic role of William Bell in the TV series Fringe.  Unfortunately, it seems Nimoy is ready to step back from the celebrity life:

“I want to get off the stage. Also, I don’t think it would be fair to Zachary Quinto,” he says, referring to the actor who portrayed a youthful Spock in last summer’s smash Star Trek relaunch. “He’s a terrific actor, he looks the part, and it’s time to give him some space. And I’m very flattered the character will continue.”

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This week On the Radar Michael Bay does his part to help take down the American car industry, MGM loses a bidder as it struggles to stay afloat, and in completely contradictory fashion James Cameron, of all people, advocates against 3D.

Maleficent finds a writer in Wonderland

Long before Alice in Wonderland stormed the box office there were rumblings about director Tim Burton tackling one of Disney‘s best baddies, Maleficent.  Well, the success of Alice has only bolstered this film’s development and Alice in Wonderland writer Linda Woolverton has been tapped to write t script.  While there were some Alice detractors out there, it’s hard to argue the success of the film.

For better or worse I think we’re witnessing the beginning of the fairy tale phase in cinema.  I’m sure the studios couldn’t be happier.  Most fairy tales, in their original iteration, are in the public domain which means the whopping cost of zero to use the stories.  Sorry, Disney, but you couldn’t be the sole exploiter of classic children’s tales forever.

Bryan Singer off X-Men: First Class?

When word came out about Bryan Singer returning to the X-Men franchise fanboys rejoiced.  Well, the excitement certainly didn’t last too long.  It seems Singer has to choose between X-Men: First Class and Jack the Giant Killer.  Unfortunately, he can’t do both:

“Before Singer can dive into casting, he has a rather large problem –  the fact that Warner Bros. has the filmmaker on the hook to direct ‘Jack the Giant Killer.’  Fox, flush with money from ‘Avatar,’ is eager to move forward with its mutant franchise in all of its permutations, so there are negotiations that need to be done.

With Singer contractually obligated to Warner Bros. it means Fox has begun searching for other directors to reignite the X-Men films.

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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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It was an interesting show for the Oscars this year.  From the “Kanye” moment to Sean Penn somewhat proudly proclaiming he’s not part of the Academy.  Sandra Bullock won an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role (The Blind Side) the very same year she accepted a Razzie for Worst Actress (All About Steve).  And, of course, the gross upset of Avatar at the hands of The Hurt Locker.  With 41 million viewers, this year’s Oscars had something for everyone but, perhaps more interestingly, it best reflected the two sides of Hollywood which exist today.

How fitting to have two hosts on the one Oscar night that would truly exemplify both faces of Hollywood.  For so long many have seen Hollywood as one massive, filmmaking entity but that really isn’t the case.  Now more than ever there’s a division between what I’m calling (for the purposes of this article) “mainstream” Hollywood and “performance” Hollywood.  The names pretty much say it all.

Films in the mainstream category are all the summer blockbusters, tent pole movies studios rely on to turn a healthy profit year over year (e.g. Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Avatar).  In contrast you have the performance pictures, lesser known films with limited release and all too often far less money behind them (e.g. Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men, The Hurt Locker).  These are two very different types of films, each vying for the attention of movie goers.

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The Winners

Just call her the giant slayer. Kathryn Bigelow and her modest little Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker beat out the behemoth box office champ Avatar for best picture, best director, best original screenplay, best editing, best sound editing, and best sound mixing. Bigelow made history, becoming the first female ever to win the award for directing.

James Cameron and company (Avatar) left with a total of three trophies: best visual effects, best art direction and best cinematography. The cinematography award seemed a little odd. After all, most of this film was computer generated, wasn’t it?

There were no real surprises in the acting categories. Best supporting actress went to Mo’nique for Precious, best supporting actor Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds, best actress was Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side, and Jeff Bridges finally won for Crazy Heart.

Up won best animated feature and best original score, while El Secreto do Sus Ojos (Argentina) won best foreign picture. The Cove won best documentary. For an expanded list of major category winners, scroll to the bottom of the article.

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This week on The Flickcast, Chris and Matt are once again joined by Elisabeth Rappe to discuss all things Oscar. With the Academy Awards airing this Sunday, the team discusses the nominees, argues about who might take home a statue, makes their predictions and generally has a great time.

So, fire up your iPod or browser, get your list of nominees ready, listen to the show and follow along and see if your picks match those of our team. Of course, be sure to catch the Oscars live on Sunday, March 7th at 8/5 Pacific on ABC.

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.

We’ve been known to be kind of hard on James Cameron’s Avatar, given how much money and praise it’s gotten over the past two months. Given that, there are some die-hards still out there that believe that “Pandora” is the greatest place in existence, and wish it was real. Leave it to the internet to find a way to make that humorous.

Many people have become aware of the lives of LARPers over the past few years. Some even got to see a few films, including Role Models and the little-known Darkon. It’s basically acting out a scenario that most people play using dice and boards, such as Masquerade or Dungeons and Dragons. This time, the focus is set on Pandora and the Na’vi.

After the jump, check out what a group of Hometree Wisconsin pulled together using toilet paper, wigs, and tons of blue face paint. This is all your fault, James Cameron.

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This week on the radar we’ve got news on Steven Spielberg’s potential return to dinosaurs, the status of the third Mortal Kombat film, NBC gets a Gold in the ratings competition, and what comic book legend may show up on one of our favorite shows, The Big Bang Theory.

Let’s see what blips are on the radar this week.

Boba Fett, finally the deadliest action figure in a galaxy far, far away

If you’re like me, you grew up on the first generation of Star Wars toys and action figures. You know the ones, they had a massive (sarcasm) five points of articulation. Well, one figure that was sort of an urban legend was the missile-firing Boba Fett.  We all heard of it, but rarely saw it.  Well, now it can be yours with the purchase of five other figures!  Offer expires 3/31/2011, while supplies last, only valid in US and Canada…and a whole lot of other legal fine print I’m sure.

Tron: Legacy viral campaign starts to gear up

Disney teased everyone at last year’s Comic Con about a Tron viral campaign. With the highly anticipated film set to open this December online viral goodness have started to trickle out.  The first is a new site with a somewhat enigmatic theme to it.  Can you figure out what it is?  I don’t want to ruin it, but if you must know check this link out.

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