Along with all the other cool stuff like movies, TV shows and new, geeky gadgets we get to talk about here at The Flickcast, comics are another one of our favorites. So, when a new, interesting comic preview is availbale for us to bring to you, we do just that.

This time that comic preview is from Marvel and it’s their upcoming book Marvel NOW! – X-MEN #1. In the comic:

“Storm, Rogue, Jubilee, Kitty Pryde, Rachel Grey, Rogue & Psylocke redefine what it means to be a Child of the Atom when an old enemy shows up at the X-Men’s door, seeking asylum from an ancient evil come back to Earth. Meanwhile, Jubilee has come home, and she’s brought with her an orphaned baby who might hold the key to the Earth’s survival…or its destruction!

With an imminent alien invasion and an eons-spanning war between brother and sister around the corner, Storm steps up and puts together a team to protect the child and stop a new threat that could destroy all life in the Marvel Universe!”

Sounds cool, right? Click through for some preview pages for the comic. Look for X-Men #1, written by Brian Wood with art by Olivier Coipel, to arrive in comic shops on May 29.

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Say what you will about X-Men Origins: WolverineOrigins called simply The Wolverine. In it we get a good bit of action, drama, kick-ass fights and pretty much everything else we could want. Plus, there’s even some shots of Hugh Jackman without a shirt for the ladies (or the gents that appreciate that kind of thing).

In other words, it looks like The Wolverine is back where he belongs and back in the hands of someone, in this case director James Mangold, who can do him justice. Look for The Wolverine in theaters on July 26.

Check out the trailer, first shown at CinemaCon in Las Vegas last month, after the break.

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The cast list for X-Men: Days of Future Past is starting to get a little ridiculous. Featuring the bulk of the cast from X-Men: First Class and significant portions of the original X-Men trilogy, the film is going to be the most jam-packed mutant spectacular this side of the funny books.

So the most recent casting news should not come as a huge surprise. Deadline is reporting that Bryan Singer has nabbed yet another classic X-Man for his upcoming new film:

Deadline has confirmed the actress will reprise her role as Storm in 20th Century Fox’s X-Men: Days Of Future Past. There had been serious concern this wouldn’t work out, but I’m told it has. The X-Men: First Class will be bolstered by most of the original X-cast, including Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Shawn Ashmore and Hugh Jackman.

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When it was announced that Matthew Vaughn was leaving the director’s chair for X-Men: Days of Future Past, the geek community felt an inescapable fear that things might be falling apart. Even the seemingly good news that original X-Director Bryan Singer was coming back didn’t seem to dissuade the growing fear that Fox was once again messing up the X-Men.

Then the online nerd populous started putting two and two together. If the next film was going to tackle one of the most famous comic book time travel stories, and the director was the guy who made the first two great X-Men movies, would we be getting a giant cross generational X-Men X-travaganza?

Well, the answer seems to be a resounding yes, and according to the twitter account of Bryan Singer himself it keeps getting better:

Very excited to welcome #annapaquin, @ellenpage &@shawnrashmore to #XMen #DaysofFuturePast - thank you @BrettRatner for letting them live!

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Matthew Vaughn is a frustratingly great director. He is great in regards to his four feature films all being excellent, and he is frustrating because the man seems to take great pleasure in agreeing to do awesome projects and slipping away from them so close to production.

For those of you who don’t remember, Vaughn was the original choice to direct X-Men: The Last Stand after Bryan Singer jumped ship to his Superman snore-fest. Everything seemed great in the X-Universe until, at the last-minute, Vaughn dropped out and Fox was forced to call in Brett Ratner who has a history of bringing in projects on time and on budget. Now X3 had an extremely mixed reaction (I actually loved it, ask me to defend it to a hater some time for raucous debate) but one thing is certain, the film suffered from Vaughn’s departure.

Fast forward a handful of years and Vaughn finally made his X-Film and it ended up being the best of the franchise and single-handedly saved the struggling mutants from an impending cinematic reboot fate. Now we stand at the precipice of another X-Film production with Vaughn at the helm and, wouldn’t you know it, the man bows out.

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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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Even if you’re a fan of Apple or the iPhone and iPad, that doesn’t mean everyone is. In fact, Google’s Android OS is also very popular and powers many devices people use every day.

One thing that’s been a bit lacking on the Android front is the amount of movie and TV content available from Google’s Play store. Well, thanks to a deal Google just finalized with 20th Century Fox, that’s about to get a lot better.

That’s right, Google Play will start selling and/or renting 600 titles from 20th Century Fox including Family Guy, Glee, Modern Family, Black Swan, X-Men and Ice Age. In addition, to help get the deal started off on the right virtual foot, Google Play will offer Ridley Scottt’s Prometheus 3 weeks ahead of its Blu-ray, DVD and video-on-demand release. In other words, today.

The rest of the content will be releasing during the coming weeks. Pretty cool. It’s always nice to have alternatives, especially if you’re already invested in the Android ecosystem as many are.

Since the abomination that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine, word has been that a Deadpool movie would be on its way. Since Wade Wilson’s appearance at the beginning of the movie was pretty much the only salvageable part of the film (and we can all just pretend that everything at the end didn’t happen), it does make sense to bring Ryan Reynolds back to take on the role. In current Marvel continuity, Deadpool has lost his healing factor which means the scars that cover his face are gone and he can appear as a normal person.

This is a huge asset to any film with a known actor taking on the headline role as it gives legitimacy to him being seen without the full costume on at all times. Frankly, no one was really looking forward to seeing the fully scared up Deadpool face on screen when the mask came off anyway. But in some ways the actor portraying Deadpool is low on the list of concerns in regard to what is needed to make this character actually work for a full feature length film.

One of the most challenging aspects of Deadpool is going to be his inner dialogue that goes on between Wade and the two insane voices in his head. One reason it works so well in comics is the visual cue. Deadpool has his own distinctive speech bubble and each of the two voices has their own design to their respective caption box as well. Even when ‘Pool is talking under a mask, it is easily identifiable which of the three is talking. The problem that appears in a movie is that when the film is in motion and Deadpool is talking under a mask, it is going to be a challenge to identify three different voices on screen.

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The X-Men film franchise has undergone a roller coaster of quality. Like any good roller coaster there are ups and downs, and some times wicked loops, and right now the franchise is about to hit one of those pretty big, gut churning upside down loops.

Matthew Vaughn’s First Class was welcome return to quality, but was a tad confusing in the continuity department. It was clearly a prequel, and Fox remains steadfast in the concept that the whole franchise fits together. So people have been wondering what, if any, steps the sequel will take to help bring things together.

Recently producer Bryan Singer confirmed the film’s title, which gives us a very good indication of where potential connective tissue can arise to properly connect First Class with the rest of the franchise. The new X-Men film will be known as X-Men: Days of Future Past.

For those uninitiated in X-Men lore, Days of Future Past refers to a story written by Chris Clarmont that revolves around an alternate, dystopian future and the attempts of one mutant from that time to travel backwards to stop an assassination. In other words, a perfect template for a film set in the past to tie in with a set of films that are perpetually set in the ‘not to distant future’.

What makes this even more perfect is that Days of Future Past doesn’t really need to be a perfect adaptation. The story is very malleable so the filmmakers have some wiggle room to change things as they see fit to make a good movie. A luxury Fox hasn’t had in the past when they tried to change the Galactus and Phoenix story arches.

Stay connected to The Flickcast as we will be on top of any new updates on the next X-Film in the coming months.

Interesting development in the casting of The Wolverine. We reported that Jessica Biel might be signing on to an important role in the upcoming film, but then it didn’t happen.

Of course this is why we qualify these reports with has ‘might’, but it looks as if Jessica balked. No word on if she went another direction because of the script, the timing or just a general dislike to Hugh Jackman.

The movie chugs forth though, and it looks like Fox has already made gestures to another actress to fill the role of Viper, Twitch is reporting:

Twitch has learned that Fox is currently in talks with Svetlana Khodchenkova for the part and are expected to close the deal quickly. The twenty nine year old Russian actress has done most of her work in Russia to this point but may be familiar to some western audiences thanks to her part in Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

A solid, if untested, actress for what is likely an important role in a tent-pole blockbuster. There is a lot working against this film, but there is hope, because at its core Wolverine and Hugh Jackman are capable of being great.

Keep tuned to The Flickcast for any new updates as this project speeds towards production.

The Wolverine should not exist. The first Wolverine solo movie was so awful that even a dyed-in-the-wool X-Men fan like myself can’t justify it. In addition to that, Fox just reincarnated their main X-Men franchise with First Class which is progressing forward with its own sequel.

So The Wolverine is an oddity, one that is a shining example of Fox’s stubbornness. Good thing for us fans, that stubbornness might actually be paying off.

Twitch is reporting that none other than the excellent Jessica Biel has been offered a major role in the sequel:

Jessica Biel has been offered the role of Viper, a complex character who at one point was a peer of Logan’s as well as an enemy. She was a major player in criminal organization Hydra and, in one story arc, blackmailed Logan / Wolverine into marrying her.

I am now about to enter into the world of ridiculous pontificating, so bear with me. Biel is a bankable star, one that is likely playing a character who is an agent of Hydra and has deep ties to both Wolverine and Nick Fury. We already know Sony was interested in allowing Oscorp to be used in Avengers…

I am calling it now, Jessica Biel’s character will be the first to jump studios and form the first connections between Fox’s X-Universe and Marvel’s movie-verse.

It seems as if every super hero project at Fox has to go through at least one director kerfuffle during it’s pre-production. So it is hardly a surprise to hear that Daredevil just lost its director.

David Slade has officially dropped out of the project that can ill afford any delays. If Fox can’t get this movie into production soon they run the risk of losing the rights back to Marvel. A pleasant prospect to anyone who doesn’t work for Fox.

Which is exactly why this is bitter-sweet news, because the fans ultimately win if Fox totally screws the pooch on this film and loses the rights.

That isn’t the only pertinent Fox based director news to hit today either. Josh Trank, who made the stellar super hero found footage movie Chronicle, has finally signed on the dotted line to take over Fantastic Four. Trank has been rumored for the job since the 8:00pm screenings let out on Chronicle‘s opening day, but it is nice to see the deal get inked.

While it would be nice to see FF get mired in the same sort of limbo that might bring Daredevil back to the Marvel Studios fold, I think Fox is capable of letting Trank make a Fantastic movie. Fox has done a lot to mend the fences with genre fans in the last couple of years with the resurgence of their X-Men and Apes franchises.

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This is an open letter to anyone at 20th Century Fox, with how I would handle their X-Men Universe in the wake of The Avengers and their successful First Class Pre-Boot-quel-thing. 

The X-Men cinematic universe was the first major franchise launched in this modern era of comic book blockbusters. The original X-Men film managed to successfully lay in the groundwork of how these types of films can be a success without losing their comic book soul.

The sequel was a massive leap forward in both action and general cinematic quality. While the other sequels have received mixed reviews, it was clear that despite the reboot happy tendencies of modern hollywood. Fox remained committed to the continuity of the universe they established in 2000.

Just a few weeks ago The Avengers made more money than conceivable in its debut, representing the culmination of a five-year, 6 movie plan. The newly established ‘shared universe’ model demonstrated by Marvel Studios could be a new gold standard for what a studio can do with these types of properties.

So it is with that context that I present my plan for a smaller scale ‘shared X-universe’ that can allow Fox to use it’s already established property in an exciting new way.

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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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The concept of ancillary books to large comic events is becoming common place. No longer does an event take place in the confines of it’s own limited series or the pages of the characters involved, now it is everywhere. Marvel’s newest event, Avengers VS. X-Men, is no exception to that new rule, although Marvel might just be changing the game a little bit.

Marvel has teamed up with MTV to bring you Avengers VS. X-Men: War Journals, a web series that gives you a behind the scenes look at the event from the perspective of the people actually creating it:

Join Axel Alonso (Marvel Editor in Chief), Tom Brevoort (Marvel SVP/Executive Editor) and Nick Lowe (Senior Editor) as they discuss putting their own personal allegiances aside to craft the biggest story in Marvel history and meet fans at Midtown Comics in NYC for the largest Avengers VS. X-Men launch party in the world! As fans argue about who will win—Avengers or X-Men—some of the hottest celebrities—DJ Pauly D, Big Time Rush and the Wanted—let you know just which team they’ve chosen! Plus, discover more bonus clips featuring the biggest names in comics exclusively at MTV Geek.

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