People have been talking about making a Doctor Strange film for years now. But seeing as how the Sorcerer Supreme isn’t as well known a name as, and is a whole lot weirder than other super heroes, the project has never emerged as a priority over at Marvel Films. That might be ready to change though. Marvel’s real heavyweight franchises are Spider-Man and The X-Men, but Sony and Fox are still controlling their film rights respectively. They had a series of second tier characters that they are in direct control of, but at this point they’ve already brought most of them to the big screen and have them poised to team up in next year’s The Avengers. With all of their biggest names out of their hands or already starring in movies, the only option they have to create new movies at this point is to start moving forward with more obscure heroes. It comes as no surprise, then, that Twitch is reporting the long rumored Doctor Strange project is beginning its first stages of moving forward in a real way. The last news on the subject of a Marvel made mystical movie was that Thomas Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer had been tasked with the job of coming up with a script. Reportedly, that script has now been turned in and Marvel is shopping it around to potential directors to “oversee continued development.”

So pleased they were with the performance of the first, they’ve decided to make another. Disney and Marvel Studios have set a release date for Thor 2, a sequel to this summer’s Kenneth Branagh directed, Chris Hemsworth starring superhero film. Usually when a sequel to a comic book movie gets announced, it’s immediately time to start speculating on what’s going to happen in the next one. With Thor 2, however, things are a little bit more complicated. Before this movie ever happens, the Thor and Loki characters are already set to appear in Joss Whedon’s upcoming Avengers, so the people in charge of writing Thor 2 are going to have to make sure that what they do jives with the characters’ appearances there. And we’re going to have to wait to see it before really going wild with theories on what’s next for the Odinson.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s waiting to watch the latest episode of Community because it promised its girlfriend it would. And that’s really hard to do, because that show’s really good. Also, Josh Holloway from Lost guest stars in the two-part season finale. How can that be resisted by the world’s most interesting nightly movie news linkdump? Must… hold… on… Must… do… the news… Quentin Tarantino went big when he cast Brad Pitt as his lead in Inglorious Basterds. So to see him considering Will Smith as the titular character, a freed slave trained by a German bounty hunter that sets out on a quest to save his wife from a head slave, is an act of pure bravado — he’ll just go get anyone he effing pleases to star in his movies, won’t he? And if that wasn’t enough to blow your mind, consider this: Christoph Waltz is said to be circling the role of the German trainer, with Samuel L. Jackson in consideration as the bad guy. That’s potentially a perfect storm of awesome, so we’ll see.

Combing through movie news and trivium all day is enough to make someone jaded. Thus, it’s important to remember when a piece of fluff marketing like this comes out, to keep a level head about what it really means. Does it say anything about the movie itself? Not really. Does it say something about the photoshop skills of whoever made it. Certainly. With that in mind, here’s the first official cast picture from X-Men: First Class, showing off a little midriff on January Jones, a little stone cold stare from everyone else, and a whole lot of cheese.

Excuse me if this seems like old news, but I like it so it’s happening. As you may have noticed, Disney’s winter hopes hang on the success of Joseph Kosinski’s big budget, CGI spectaculathon Tron Legacy. And they are marketing it appropriately so, with countless posters, banners and boutique shops in Las Angeles where you can buy yourself one of those fancy Daft Punk suits. They’ve even bled the digital revolution into other areas of pop culture, including the comics of Disney’s newly purchased venture, Marvel Enterprises. And while we’d usually scoff at such blatant cross-marketing, we can’t help but admit that the Tron universe version of Iron Man is a total badass, as are several other characters. See for yourself after the jump.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; we can’t apologize enough. This is the internet column which thankfully you only have to bear once a week. I am an indiscriminate consumer of film and gorge myself on terrible b-movies as often as the AFI Top 100 fodder. Therefore each week I will showcase a bad film near and dear to my heart. I will list its sundry faults while simultaneously lavishing adoration upon it. When you are done duly vomiting, that’s the exact moment where I swoop in and present you with an appropriate junkfood item in an effort to inappropriately ease your cinematic indigestion. This week’s film may be a bit obscure, and difficult to find, but well worth the diligent hunt. It is a Chinese film called Dragon Tiger Gate. It is the story of two half-brothers, not-so-ironically named Dragon and Tiger, who are separated as children but not before being given a two-part pendant. Their shared father is the master of the Dragon Tiger Gate; a martial art academy that, like a Transformer, is more than meets the eye. Dragon ends up being raised by a ruthless Triad and Tiger remains loyal to the academy. But when the leader of an evil cult, who secretly controls the Triads, sets his sights on the academy, the brothers must band together for the greater good.

I am a comic book geek. I won’t fight it. Call me a nerd, and what have you. Those of you who know and love comic books though, probably realize how big of a deal that Mark Millar is. What you may not know though, is that he is one of the nicest and most passionate people I have ever met.

If you don’t know who Wolverine is by now, stop enjoying the outdoors and read a comic book – or at least this article. If you know Wolverine and want to laugh at his expense (while he’s not looking) you should also read this article.

Stephen Colbert, also occasionally known as his cartoon superhero alter ego Tek Jansen (of Alpha Squad 7), will be appearing with Marvel’s web-slinging hero.

It has become clear that while Marvel is running on high lately, fresh off the success of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, DC seems to be clinging to Batman, holding on for dear life.

The word around the interwebs is that Marvel Studios is set to adapt yet another one of their properties. With films adaptations such as Captain America, The Avengers, Thor and Iron Man 2 already having dates, Marvel plans for one more.

The Wakandan King could be coming to the big screen relatively soon.

Paramount Pictures has laid down its 2008 Movie Preview. First up, Iron Man!