So if there was ever a reason to watch Once Upon a Time last night, we found it with the premiere trailer for the coming series, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. And look who is back… Coulson! The man who started out as an unknown supporting role and quickly drew his own cult following to the point where he became the spark that brought the Avengers together against Loki is headlining this upcoming series. While there are theories about how Coulson beat death (and sorry but this late in the game, you aren’t allowed to call spoiler on me for it), he will be heading up the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

From the look of it, this isn’t going to strictly be a super hero story as Coulson and his team aren’t powered up heroes. They are going to need to rely on their varied skill sets to take on the emerging metahuman threats in their world. From the trailer, you may spy a certain African American character with super strength (who speculation is already pointing to be the Marvel movie continuity first appearance of Luke Cage).

One great aspect to the show can be the introduction of such characters to the movie continuity without forcing too much of the film to revolve around their origin and instead focusing on the team dynamic or maybe even provide Easter eggs for characters like the Guardians of the Galaxy before their theatrical debut.

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The Avengers has come and gone, and now we get to see Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) dealing with the trauma he apparently experienced in New York. He has insomnia, and it strains both his work on the latest Iron Man suit as well as his relationship with Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow). His bodyguard Happy (Jon Favreau) is now head of security for Stark Industries. And, all around the world, there’s broadcasts from a strange terrorist figure named “The Mandarin” (Ben Kingsley).

The movie opens with Stark recounting a New Year’s Eve party way back in 1999. He’s at a conference in Bern, trying to bed a buxom botantist, Maya (Rebecca Hall) before the year’s turnover. He’s interrupted by pimply geek Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), who’s trying to start a think tank and wants Stark’s help. Stark blows him off, and if the use of Guy Pearce didn’t already suggest it, Stark states outright that it was the beginning of trouble.

Thirteen years later, Aldrich shows up at Stark Industries, again seeking support, though he does seem more interested in rubbing everyone’s nose in his success. He has created a new whatsit kind of technology called “Extremis” that allows the brain to regenerate tissue…and, somehow, make the patients melt things with their hands. (Dr. Curt Conners from the latest Spiderman films is going to be smacking his head with his tail when the inevitable crossover comes.)

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If you were looking for someone to fitting take on the role of a character whose last name is “The Destroyer”, it isn’t a shock to see that former WWE Champion Batista will be filling the boots of Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. Late yesterday, the Hollywood Reporter leaked the announcement that Dave Bautista would be taking on this role in Marvel’s 2014 Summer Blockbuster.

Alongside Chris Pratt who will be playing the part of Star Lord, Dave Bautista will be filling the shoes of a team of cosmic heroes fairly unknown to the audience outside of the comic book world. Though having success in the better half of the last decade, the Guardians of the Galaxy are only known to the mainstream audience because of Marvel’s announcements tying them in to the greater Avengers Marvel Studios film universe.

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The Marvel Cinematic Universe is entering into untested grounds. While the first phase of films was groundbreaking in its structure, it still had the familiar grasp of forward momentum. Like a wave crashing onto the beach, the momentum is beginning to recede as Marvel gears up for their next big push.

So it falls on the capable shoulders of Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man to embrace the narrowing focus of the universe, while still setting in motion the momentum for the next phase of Marvel films. So considering the pressure this film is under, it makes sense that we are seeing an expanded presence from this film’s marketing as the Super Bowl approaches.

We do not have the new TV spot, or a full trailer just yet, but Marvel Studios has just released a beautiful new poster to stroke everyone’s  anticipation glands.

The poster itself is a simple image of Iron Man, or as simple of an image of Iron Man you can get when he is plummeting to his certain doom. A cheery one-sheet that sets the tone for the ringer Tony Stark is set to be sent through.

You can check out the full new poster after the jump.

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This week is going to belong to Iron Man and Marvel Studios, today we have the first look at the teaser poster and an actual shot of The Mandarin for you to oogle over. Tomorrow we will get a glimpse of the first teaser trailer for next summer’s blockbuster to be and by Friday all of this will be dissected 1000 times over by the fan community and we will know if the film will suck or not. Things move fast these days.

First up is the teaser poster, which gives away absolutely nothing new. It is just a stylized version of Tony’s hall of armor with an unsuited Stark looking back to stare deeply into the audiences eyes as he ponders ‘what should I wear?’. It is a fine poster and actually ranks as one of the better Iron Man one-sheets to date. Posters is oddly one aspect of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that has been lacking over the last few years.

The second image for you to feast your eyes on is Sir Ben Kingsley as The Mandarin. For those who are not comic fan boys first, The Mandarin is the arch nemesis of Iron Man and has not made an appearance in the films, but his presence has been felt in the guise of the ten rings syndicate which is likely his criminal force.

Take a look at both after the jump.

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Few people remember the time leading up to Iron Man 2 when the relatively new ‘it’ girl Emily Blunt was nearly cast to play Black Widow. Of course her schedule didn’t clear up and the role went to Scarlet Johansson, which has worked out well enough so far.

Now it seems like the lovely Ms. Blunt is getting another crack at the Marvel Movie-Verse with rumors starting to run rampant that she is going to be up for the role of Ms. Marvel. A popular member of the Avengers who has been a major player in the comics in the last decade.

Her set of super powers might sound familiar to any of you X-Fans who were confused when Rogue didn’t take off plying and punch things real hard in the X-Men movies. Ms. Marvel was zapped dry by Rogue in the ’80s setting up the version of that character who was popularized by the X-Boom in the early 90′s. Although it is not terribly likely that a Fox owned X-Character will be popping into an Avengers film to basically take out one of their new heroes.

Or is it?

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Activision announced today that The Amazing Spider-Man would be making its way today to the digital storefronts for XBox Live, the PlayStation Network and Steam for digital release. The XBox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game will be sold for $59.99, while the PC version will be going for $49.99. As much as we loved the game (check out our review here), at this point it may be smarter to bargain hunt as many stores have likely reduced the price on the boxed copies of the game.

What does excite us though more than the announcement of these games going to digital release (because let’s face it, every game that is worth anything does it eventually) is the announcement of four DLC packs for The Amazing Spiderman that go live today too. There are going to be four separate DLC packs going up today for roughly $3.00 each as well as a bundle of all four at a discounted $10.00 price.

Most exciting about these Packs (all detailed below) is that they aren’t just new missions for Spider-Man. They instead give new characters to play as in addition to new methods of gameplay. In the Rhino Challenge Pack, players will be running through Manhattan breaking everything in sight. The Oscorp Search & Destroy Pack allows players to play smart phone games resembling classic titles like Space Invaders.

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Back when the no brainer announcement of Joss Whedon signing on to direct The Avengers 2: Thanos’ Boogaloo hit the web, there was another minor news item attached that was less widely discussed. Joss Whedon would also lend his expert hand in crafting a Marvel universe live action TV series for ABC.

The cryptic announcement was met with some speculation about what exactly the new show would be about. Now Deadline has broken the news that a live action S.H.I.E.L.D. show has been officially green lit by ABC:

S.H.I.E.L.D. will be written by Whedon and frequent collaborators, his brother Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen. Joss Whedon also is set to direct the pilot, schedule permitting. Production on the pilot, which marks the first live-action Marvel TV project to get a green light, will start immediately.

The main focus of any Marvel TV series should be on expanding the total universe, and there is no better way to reach the widest corners of the Marvel cinematic universe than with a show based on S.H.I.E.L.D. So this announcement makes a ton of sense.

Take a look after the jump for the top three reasons why this is pretty stupendous news.

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The Avengers is a phenomenal movie, there is not a whole lot more hyperbole we can throw onto the film at this point. So as the Blu-Ray release approaches we must find another angle in these news items. Thankfully a recently released alternate opening has been released over on Yahoo! for us all to marvel at.

I say we are thankful because this alternate opening provides us with something  substantial to say about the film that has already had so much said about it. The alternate opening is actually not all that good, or more precisely not as good of a way to start the film. Compared to the ‘jump right in’ action of the eventual opening, this concept takes a ‘teasing look forward at the end’ approach.

So with out heaping even more praise on the final film, we are now able to appropriately shower Joss Whedon and his editorial staff for making the right cinematic decision. Other than to pat the filmmakers on the back for a cut well done there is not much else in this minute and a half clip that feels all that important.

We know there is a ton of deleted content that would have made it to the film if an over three-hour Avengers film was feasible, but this scene is not a part of that promised quality content, which is ultimately why it was released in advance of the Blu-Ray.  To give us a tease of what is to come when we all pick up our copies September 25th.

So take a look at the alternate opening after the jump, and keep your eyes peeled to The Flickcast as this release creeps closer.

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By now everyone realizes that the cinematic rights to certain characters and franchise within the Marvel Pantheon are not actually held by Marvel Studios. They are spread out among several other major studios, most notably Sony and Fox, with those studios holding lucrative deals that allow them to keep the franchises so long as they are using them.

This means that as Marvel Studios blows everyone’s collective minds with their spectacular feature films, several key characters are off-limits to them. Up to this point that was not really a big deal because Marvel had plenty of their own marquee heroes and villains to play with. However, now Marvel is looking to expand into the cosmic corner of their universe with ‘Phase 2′ and the two most popular and known cosmic characters are currently held by Fox.

Under normal circumstances this would simply mean Marvel would have to find replacements for Galactus and Silver Surfer as they move forward with their cosmic phase, but timing might just be on their side. Fox is under a tight deadline to get their Daredevil reboot off the ground, and they just recently lost their director. Instead of simply scrabbling, Variety is reporting that Fox has proposed a trade with Marvel Studios to extend the Daredevil rights, a deal that would bring Galactus and Silver Surfer back home to Marvel.

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In the least surprising news of the day, Joss Whedon has just been confirmed as the writer and director of The Avengers 2. It was always said that Whedon had the open door to come back if he so chooses, and now we know he did indeed choose to do so.

The Avengers 2 will be the culmination of Marvel’s ‘phase 2′ which is the series of Marvel Studios films that are coming after the grand epic that was The Avengers. Each ‘phase’ sort of works like major comic book events, with lead ups in various solo titles/films and eventually one grand event book/movie.

The news of Whedon signing on to the second Avengers movie was not a shock, but today’s news isn’t entirely without a surprise. Whedon is also signed on to develop a Marvel themed TV show for ABC. That is right. a Whedon created Marvel themed TV show coming to prime-time broadcast television!

Obviously this comes with no further information as of yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do some rampant speculation. This new series is likely to exist in the Marvel cinematic universe if they are bringing in Whedon to create it, which begs the question of who the series will be about. Chances are slim the show will be about The Avengers but what about another Marvel super team that has been rumored from time to time for their own film, The Thunderbolts.

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Ten years ago if you told me the Avengers would be one of the highest grossing films of all time, I don’t think I would have believed you. Even when Marvel Studios started pushing out the solo films that would introduce the cast of the Avengers, most people would ask me (being their “comic book” friend) who Captain America, Thor and Iron Man were. For the most part, people knew who the Hulk was because of the cheesy television series and on occasion had at least heard of one of the other members of the team, but if you had asked them if it was a film they were going to be excited to see, most would probably have passed at the opportunity.

Conversely, a decade ago if you had talked to people about a Justice League movie, you probably would have gotten a much higher positive response rate. Just from DC’s Big 3 of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman (even before the Christopher Nolan series of films), people would have cared about the series. Fond memories of Christopher Reeves as the Man of Steel and any of the previous Batman movies were still acceptable enough to get people behind the idea of seeing them all together in one movie. But now, it’s a very different story if someone was going to try to put together a Justice League team movie.

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Of all the ‘Phase 2′ movies Marvel is pushing out in the next few years, none is as risky as the Guardians of the Galaxy film. Not only is it the most exotic of any Marvel film yet produced, it also has to set a cosmic tone that The Avengers 2 will likely launch from.

So Marvel Studios really needs to get this one right, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, they have tapped a hot-shot new writer to take a crack at the script:

Chris McCoy is being tapped to rewrite Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel Studios’ space adventure movie… McCoy is considered to have a lot of heat as a writer. The scribe has had three of his specs land on the Black List: Get Back in 2007,Good Looking in 2009 and Good Kids in 2011. His scripts have been praised for their quirky comedic bent.

Sounds like the right angle for a script that features a bad ass talking tree and raccoon. Speaking of, the Hollywood Reporter also added some clarity to the team that Marvel is putting together for this version of the Guardians.

Aside from the already alluded to Groot and Rocket Raccoon, the team will also include Drax The Destroyer, Star Lord and Gamora. Phase 2 ‘big bad’ Thanos is also likely to play a big part in this film in advance of him menacing The Avengers in their own blockbuster sequel.

We at The Flickcast will keep you updated on all the various ‘Phase 2′ projects as they progress forward.

While Bucky was and will always be considered the quintessential Captain America sidekick, for the better part of the last half century Cap fought crime with another. Falcon often joined forces with Cap since his return to Marvel comics in the ’60s, and now he is joining him on the big screen.

The Hollywood Reporter has found out that The Falcon likely has been cast for the next Captain America film:

Anthony Mackie is in negotiations to star alongside Chris Evans in the sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger… While Marvel would not comment nor divulge character details, it is believed that Mackie will portray the Falcon, one of mainstream comics’ first black superheroes and perhaps its first American one.

Mackie is a great choice for the role, and could likely bring a great new presence to the Captain America sequel that is seemingly going down a rather dark past.

The Winter Solider story line goes in some kind of darker places, especially compared to the last two films we have seen Cap in, so an actor like Mackie in a strong supporting role could really help balance the mood.

Of course this only leads to yet another side hero, like War Machine, who is clamoring in the wings to get in on the Avengers action. Stay tuned to The Flickcast for more Cap 2 details as the film gears up its pre-production for an April, 2014 release.

It is hard to describe exactly just how gratifying it is to see Marvel own the cinema world right now. When Marvel first got the crazy idea in their heads to make their own movies, little did the world know that in a few short years we would be here.

Proving the geek cacophony right, that just telling the stories like they are told in the comics, has become an era defining moment. It has taken the comic book movie fad  and turned it into a full-fledged cinematic genre that shows no sign of slowing down.

I hope you will pardon a little hyperbole on my part, but that is the kind of emotion that is running through my mind as the scope of Marvel’s movie-verse panel settles in my mind. Marvel trotted out their road map for ‘Phase 2′ this weekend in San Diego, and it brings ‘Phase 2′ into much greater focus.

Marvel officially announced a five film slate that, much like the five films before The Avengers, will act as a lead up to Avengers 2. Even though these films will lead towards a single event film, that doesn’t mean Marvel is treating them as tiny pieces to a whole.

On the contrary, Marvel is actually treating each individual franchise like they would the solo run of these characters in the comics. Which might just be the secret sauce that makes these films individually exciting, but collectively intoxicating.

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