As a fan of all-things X-Men I was slightly worried about a movie featuring the origin of the group and the lives of the young and future X-Men. Turns out I really had nothing to worry about because X-Men: First Class was awesome and director Matthew Vaughn did a bang up job.

Now, the movie is soon to arrive on Blu-ray, which is the only way to see it. We’ve got all the info on this release for you below, straight from the official press release. Plus, read carefully (especially if you’re attending Comic-Con in San Diego) for a special prize commemorating the film’s arrival on Blu-ray.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS

The Ultimate Blu-ray and DVD Experience Arrives on First Class Friday, September 9th

BONUS OFFER: First 1,000 Fans to Pre-Order A Blu-ray or DVD

During San Diego Comic-Con Receive a Limited Edition X-MEN: FIRST CLASS T-Shirt!

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Riding on the success and awesomeness of X-Men: First Class, Marvel has decided to continue in the trend of “retro heroes” as they go all the way back to the end of the second World War with Avengers 1959.

The series will give us some great moments that we remember fondly in history with that special Marvel twist and some great heroic moments with our favorites like Nick Fury, Punisher, Sabertooth, and more. Here’s the press release:

Spinning out from the pages of New Avengers, Marvel is pleased to announce Avengers 1959 #1 (of 5), a brand new mini-series from comics legend Howard Chaykin, this fall! An unique team of super powered individuals of the post-World War II era including,  Sabretooth, Kraven the Hunter and Namora, must combat threats in New York, Madripoor, and everywhere in between!

“I’m grabbing what feels like a brass ring here, with the opportunity to do an untold story of the lost years of the Marvel Universe,” explained Chaykin. “In a follow up to the sensational stuff laid out by Brian Bendis in NEW AVENGERS, we’ll follow Nick Fury and his Avengers around the world as they track down and take down super powered survivors of the Third Reich–as their ever effort is countermanded by a mysterious agency with a dark agenda of its own.”

A pretty action packed series, you can expect to catch the first of five issues hit shelves and comic book stores everywhere this October.

Here we are, less than a month into one of the biggest summer blockbuster seasons we’ve had in years, and not a single big-studio film has failed to live up to the expectations set forward by those studios.

It seems that the mid $50 million range is just where every film hits in the first weekend, as Warner Bros’ Green Lantern pulled in an estimated $52 million against its $200 million production budget. Not a complete letdown, as Warner’s are still looking to move forward with this toyetic film franchise.

In second place this weekend, Super 8 had less than a 50% dropoff from last week, pulling in an estimated $21 million this weekend, and topping the film off at $72 since its debut.

Another first weekender, Mr. Popper’s Penguins rose to the occasion in third place this weekend with an estimated $18 million, which isn’t bad considering the film was one of the only non-franchise family films hitting theaters this summer.

Finally, Fox’s X-Men: First Class is still holding strong in its third week, with an $11 million pull for the weekend and over $280 million worldwide since the release. With a turnout like that, you can expect to see Fox prepping Matthew Vaughn and his cast for a second film in the very near future.

All things considered, next week looks to be quite tame. Pixar’s Cars 2 will likely take the weekend, with upwards of 4,000 theaters showing the film. On the other end of the spectrum, adults get Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel in Bad Teacher from Sony.

While most analysts thought that the famous team-up of JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg would be box office gold, but it looked like the film failed to draw a massive audience, as Super 8 only opened to an estimated $38 million this weekend.

The film only cost roughly $50 million to make, so the profit margin is larger than it would be on a bigger blockbuster. With critics knocking last week’s X-Men: First Class opening weekend draw of $55 million, this measly $38 million is just that. It turns out mediocre marketing and nameless on-screen talent isn’t all you need to have a big box office weekend.

After it’s big(ger) first weekend, First Class dropped about fifty percent, bringing it to $25 million in the domestic box office and almost $100 million worldwide since last weekend. Coming up in third place this week is the ever popular The Hangover Part 2 with an estimated $18 million.

Next week, we expect big things for the box office as Warner Bros’ Green Lantern opens in over 3,000 screens, and is one fourth of the big superhero blockbusters of 2011.

With Fox’s reboot of the X-Men franchise, X-Men: First Class, tallying upwards of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes going into the weekend, it was no surprise that the film would take the number one spot in the Domestic box office. It was, however, a surprise that the film has the lowest opening weekend total of the entire X franchise.

The film totaled an estimated $56 million domestic, with an estimated $120 worldwide. The film still made $2 million more than the first film back in 2000, which made $54 million. That’s a bit different than the numbers we’re used to, as that 54 is more like $79 million adjusted to today’s ticket inflation.

Still, the film has legs and it will most likely retain its audience next weekend by word of mouth alone.

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For those keeping count, X-Men: First Class is the fifth film in the X-Men series and, chronologically, the first. It opens with the same sequence of a young Erik Lensherr in a Nazi concentration camp, wrenched from his parents and twisting the metal gates, as in the original X-Men film, but expands on the events immediately following: Erik is brought before Nazi scientist Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who tries to harness Erik’s gift by promptly shooting his mother. Across the world, a young Charles Xavier, possessing the gift of mind-reading, catches the shapeshifter Mystique breaking into his family mansion.

Fast-forward to 20-some years later, it’s 1962 and Charles (now played by James McAvoy) is a prominent biologist at Oxford whose work focuses on genetic mutation; Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is working as a waitress and posing as Xavier’s sister; Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) is hunting down the Nazi scientists who killed his family; and Shaw is now leading a terrorist organization known as the Hellfire Club, aided by his henchmen Emma Frost (January Jones), who also has the power to read minds as well as morph into a sexy diamond, and the demonic-looking Azazel (Jason Flyming), who can teleport as well as impale victims on his pointy tail; finally, there’s Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne), a CIA agent who’s hunting down Shaw.

MacTaggert’s investigation uncovers Shaw and his merry band of mutants, which leads her to team up with Xavier and take the villains on aboard Shaw’s yacht, right in step with Lensherr. Shaw escapes, and MacTaggert, Xavier, and Lensherr head back to the CIA, where the three set up a mutant task force (the gathering of which is one of the movie’s best scenes) to save the world.

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While we’re only 8 days away from Fox’s big summer blockbuster X-Men: First Class and we’ve seen almost all of the film from clips circulating the web. With that, we’ve got some awesome new clips for you to drool over.

For those who still haven’t heard about the details of the film, here’s the official synopsis.

X-MEN FIRST CLASS charts the epic beginning of the X-Men saga, and reveals a secret history of famous global events. Before mutants had revealed themselves to the world, and before Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time.

Not archenemies, they were instead at first the closest of friends, working together with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to prevent nuclear Armageddon. In the process, a grave rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men.

With a full cast and Kick-Ass’s driver Matthew Vaughn directing the film, we expect some pretty big results from this 60′s style prequel. Check out the clips after the jump and catch First Class in theaters on June 3rd.

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The X-Men are some of the most enduring and, let’s face it, cool characters in the entire Marvel Universe. With their diverse powers and great characters they are also some of the most popular creations in the Marvel Universe as well.

With yet another X-Men movie set to hit theaters soon, Marvel is also hard at work on more comic book incarnations and stories featuring these favored mutants. Case in point this time around is the upcoming comic X-Men: Schism from writer Jason Aaron and artists Carlos Pacheco and Frank Cho.

In this one, according to Marvel: For years Wolverine and Cyclops fought side by side, protecting the ideals of peaceful co-existence between human and mutantkind. But when a mutant-triggered international incident goes mainstream, their differences on the battlefield will prove to be too much and fans will bear witness to the fight they’ve all been waiting for – CYCLOPS VS. WOLVERINE!

X-Men: Schism will send shockwaves throughout and the entire Marvel Universe when a decision made by the X-Men leader jeopardizes the survival of all mutantkind. What lengths will some X-Men go to preserve the preservation of their species?

The new comic hits store shelves on July 13th. Until then, check out some preview pages for it after the jump.

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Clips are flowing like water these days as we get closer and closer to the June 3rd release date of Fox’s X-Men: First Class from Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn.

We brought you some great clips showcasing the original team of mutants like Banshee, Havok, and Mystique, but now we’re giving Hank McCoy a.k.a. Beast some love.

From what we can gather from the clips we’ve seen, it looks like McCoy (played by About a Boy star Nicholas Hoult) and Mystique (played by the up and coming star Jennifer Lawrence) are set to be in a bit of a love story, which is interesting considering the shared color the two have in common.

Check out the clip after the jump of Beast and Mystique meeting for the first time, and be sure to catch X-Men: First Class in theaters on June 3.

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We got the God of Thunder out of the way, now it’s time to look to the rest of this jam-packed year of superhero films. Up next is potentially the most original of the year, as Kick-Ass’s Matthew Vaughn takes on the origin of the X-Men set in Cold War Era America with X-Men: First Class.

We got a glimpse at some of the members of the team like Beast, Havoc, and Banshee that gave us a bit of a hint on what the tone of the film was going to be. Needless to say, the rest of the film is still shrouded in mystery.

We do know that the film has a good amount to do with Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1960′s, and that’s what sets up our clip. In it, McAvoy’s “Charles Xavier” and Jennifer Lawrence’s “Mystique” sit before a cabinet of shady government types and reveal their mutant abilities for the first time.

Check out how they react after the jump, and be sure to catch X-Men: First Class and all of its fun-loving mutants in theaters (and thankfully NOT 3D) on June 3rd.

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Kudos to the marketing team for Fox’s upcoming X-Men franchise reboot and origin story X-Men:First Class. Since they missed getting a trailer up during this year’s Super Bowl, they’ve been making up for it with tons and tons of new trailers designed to entice us and get us ready for potentially one of the biggest superhero films of the Summer.

Sticking with that, there are three brand new character trailers out now for our enjoyment that show off three of Professor Xavier’s very first team of crime fighting mutants. In these clips, we get an inside look (as well as lots more footage) of Havok (Lucas Till), Hank McCoy a.k.a. Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones).

These three trailers give us even more of a peek into the world that director Matthew Vaughn and his team of writers has created as an origin for this iconic team. And after seeing this world, we really think its one we want to visit soon.

Check out the three trailer after the jump. Get ready for X-Men: First Class to hit theaters on June 3rd.

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Welcome to another edition of 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 during the week. Let is know if we missed something interesting.

Let’s get started!

• Chuck Lorre is developing a Sheen-less reboot of Two and a Half Men for CBS. Would this be considered #cheating?

• As if Lex Luthor didn’t have enough reason to hate him, Superman recently renounced his US citizenship in the comics so that DC can appeal to a more global audience.

• A brand new poster for Green Lantern has hit the web showing off way more Corps members than we can name. Check out the full-res image here.

• Zach Galifiniakis is out, but Jeff Bridges may be picking up the slack to play alongside Ryan Reynolds in the big-screen adaptation of R.I.P.D.

• Those of you hoping for an animated Ant-Man film with Pixar and Marvel Studios are sadly out of luck, as Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter says there are no plans for a team-up.

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