Quick! View the comic con trailer for Thor, before Marvel takes it down!

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With the excitement surrounding the upcoming Thor, Captain America, and Avengers films, little attention has been given to Marvel's lesser known characters that may soon be be getting screen adaptations of their own.


Marvel Studio head Kevin Feige hinted at several projects yesterday during their extensive and nergasm inducing movie panel. Feige did confirm that Doctor Strange is the next project the studio plans to undertake once the Avengers has finished production. Feige also hinted at taking on the Black Panther and Iron Fist, due to their critically well received recent comic book runs.


However, perhaps the most surprising announcement was that Marvel is still considering the possibility of another Punisher adaptation. Despite the poor performance of both previous outings for the gun toting anti-hero, it appears that Marvel is still in talks to keep their edgiest hero on the big screen.

Although I am not a fan of DC comics or its universe, I have to say I was rather impressed by this six minute preview into the world of the upcoming MMO DC Universe.

Marvel has officially won Comic Con with perhaps the most impressive movie panel of all time.


Following the end of the comic book company's panel for the upcoming Thor adaptation, a teaser for the upcoming Avengers film slipped its way onto the massive screen overlooking the audience. As the logo for the film slowly grew on the screen Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury recited the most famous quote in the history of the Avengers: "And there came a day, a day unlike any other, when Earth's Mightiest Heroes found themselves united against a common threat. On that day...the Avengers were born."


Following the end of the teaser, Jackson himself stepped onto stage and slowly introduced the entire cast of the film as the joined him on stage: Scarlet Johansen as Black Widow, Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, and introducing Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye. Finally, Robert Downey Jr. himself stepped on stage.


With a triumphant statement of confidence, he welcomed writer and director Joss Whedon himself up. As the the applause of the theater grew to a deafening roar, Whedon and Downey Jr. addressed the issues regarding the ambition of the project. Both assured the crowd of screaming fans that the project was indeed in good hands. And for once in a convention so often filled with cynicism, everyone agreed.


Information and image courtesy of IGN.com

Although officially announced yesterday, the news has finally leaked to the outside world. Space combat will be a part of Star Wars: The Old Republic. The exact mechanics are unknown as of the moment, but will be fully revealed in the October issue of PC Gamer due out August 17th.


To hold us over until then, Bioware Community Leader Sean Dahlberg has dropped the following blurb: "If you’ve been following the news coming out of the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ panel at Comic-Con International, you’ve heard the announcement that we will indeed have Space Combat as part of the TOR experience! But what does that mean? Space combat is an alternative gameplay experience to the primary game of storytelling, questing, and ground-based combat. In space combat, you fly your personal ship to various “hot spots” on your galaxy map. From there, you will blast your way through asteroid fields, enemy fighters, frigates, destroyers, and a variety of other obstacles that will evoke memories of some of the great Star Wars™ space battles."


More news on this gameplay development as it is released.

It appears that the Hulk has finally been cast. After several weeks of rumors and leaked names it appears that actor Mark Ruffalo has landed the role.

According to Deadline Hollywood, the The Kids Are All Right actor has just recently signed a contract to appear as the angry green giant in the upcoming superhero adaptation. An official announcement should not be far down the road.

Perhaps one of the biggest sleeper announcements at this year's Comic Con is further news on the upcoming Legendary Pictures Godzilla reboot. While not an actual announcement, Legendary has begun handing out a cool new shirt that reveals the design of the King of the Monsters for the upcoming Godzilla film. The shirt in addition to offering the first ever glimpse at the film, also features a cool web cam feature featuring Godzilla's trademark beam, seen below.

An official trailer has been released for the upcoming season of Clone Wars, which will feature the return of Aurra Sing, Cad Bane, and Asajj Ventress. Apologies for the poor video quality, a clearer version can be found here on the official Star Wars website.



My Opinion: While there are some impressive visuals and I am happy to see the return of more clone centric episodes and Bane, I am rather concerned about this upcoming season. Season two was great because it steered clean away from many of the issues that made the first season such a mess. While we have yet to see the return of Jar Jar Binks, we do have the disturbing homosexual caricature of Zero the Hutt. Also, I'm not sure what I think of 3P0 centric episode, a character that has not been done well since the original trilogy.

Joss Whedon has been dropping alot of hints about his upcoming megablockbuster The Avengers. While the project has rumored for years and casting hints have been leaked onto the internet for months now, for the first time Whedon has confirmed and denied numerous peices of information that have leaked onto the Internet.

Thanks to an interview with ontheredcarpet.com (seenbelow), the Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator confirmed that Academy Award nominated actor Jeremy Renner will in fact be playing the arrow shooting Hawkeye in the comic book adaptation.



Also, in less positive news. Whedon has dropped some conflicting and confusing reports about fan favorite actor Nathan Fillion playing the role of Ant Man. Fillion (Firefly)has been rumored to play the size changing super hero for months, and yesterday Whedon appeared to confirm his appearance in the film. However, Marvel has issued a statement claiming that Whedon's apparent announcement was in fact a joke. Since then the director has gone on record with the following quote: "Nathan Fillion is Ant-Man, unfortunately Ant-Man isn't really in the movie."

What exactly that means will be left up to interpretation.

Science fiction has taken hold of the independent film business. With films like District 9 and Moon taking the critical and pop cultural world by storm, it is no surprise that small time filmmakers everywhere are taking advantage of this new age of technology to bring us a wide range of science fiction fantasy films. One such movie is the upcoming alien horror action film, Skyline.

Skyline is a completely independent science fiction film created by the Brothers Strause, the team behind Alien vs Predator: Requiem. The film follows characters played by Donald Faison (Scrubs), Eric Balfour (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), David Zayas (Dexter) and Scottie Thompson (Star Trek) as the struggle to survive and understand a mysterious and dangerous otherworldly prescience. As the group struggles to survive they have to face mysterious blue lights, gigantic space craft, and monstrous organic beings who are ravaging their hometown of Los Angeles.

The Brothers Strause stress the fact that they had no outside input at all when shooting the film. The actors didn't even have trailers. However, this is not to say that the work the team has done on Skyline is unprofessional. The team has hired acclaimed special effects studio Hydraulx (Avatar, 300, Iron Man 2) to do the effects work for the film.

Skyline is currently schedule for release December of this year.

Information courtesy of IGN.com

Check out this cool new teaser trailer for the upcoming sci-fi suspense film Monsters, due out for a limited release this October..

Video courtesy of IGN.com

Even though Disney has already released a film adaptation of its famous ride, The Haunted Mansion, but it appears that another is already on the way.

Announced as a surprise at the very end of Disney's Comic Con panel, The Haunted Mansion will be directed by critically acclaimed fantasy director Guillermo Del Toro. According to Del Toro, the theme park adaptation is reportedly a dream project of his since childhood. Del Toro also insists that this latest version will not be a comedy, unlike the critically slammed Eddie Murphy version. He insists that the film will be scary, but still fun.

The plot will revolve around a central character of the ride the Hatbox Ghost, and will introduce a new mythology for the ride.

Looks like we are getting our fair share of zombie films in coming years. With Comic Con heating up, author of such living dead hits as The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z and Max Brooks announced to MTV that famous actor Brad Pitt will play the lead role of the upcoming adaptation of his best selling novels.

Scheduled for a summer 2012 release, World War Z follows a journalist, who is tasked with gettting eye witness accounts of the war with the living dead that has ravaged the planet. The film is to be directed by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace) and written by Matthe Michael Carnahan.

Paramount has also bought the rights for Brooks other zombie related works.

Comic Con has officially started, and with the release of today's Disney panel we now have a new trailer for Tron Legacy among other announcements. Enjoy this brand new look at the long awaited Tron sequel.

Trailer courtesy of Yahoo!.com