Last summer's X-Men: First Class ended with a snap, crackle, and pop, as erstwhile BFFs Professor Xavier and Magneto ended up on opposite ends of the spectrum agitating for mutant rights.  While Xavier set about establishing his school for gifted youngsters, Magneto adopted his codename and helmet to bring the fight to the Man.  That doesn't mean, however, that Erik Lensherr will be twirling his mustache as an arch villain in the planned sequel, though.  According to screenwriter Simon Kinberg, Magneto will remain a conflicted character in the continuation.

In the eight years since Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's nimble, endlessly rewatchable Shaun of the Dead arrived Stateside, we've seen no shortage of clever takes on the zombie subgenre, as well as straight-up undead-fests like AMC's The Walking Dead.  The latest distinctive take on zombies is Warm Bodies, which focuses on a shuffler called R who develops a strange relationship with a live woman after eating her boyfriend's brains and absorbing his memories.  The film was set to hit theaters this August, but now, distributor Lionsgate has moved the release back about six months.

2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine was commercially successful, but critics and audiences didn't exactly fall in love with the film and there was a general sense that the X-Men franchise might be running out of steam.  Then last summer, X-Men: First Class pulled a Batman Begins, basically rebooting the series and setting it in a promising new direction.  20th Century Fox has indicated it would continue with a sequel to the prequel and even hired a writer to do some work, but its been an open question whether or not Matthew Vaughn would return for another round. 

Two weeks after halting pre-production on Akira for at least the second time, Warner Bros. has now put another would-be blockbuster on hold, taking the medieval action film Arthur & Lancelot off its release calendar for next year.  Like that science fiction remake, Arthur & Lancelot isn't officially dead, but is on life support while the studio attempts to work out a smaller budget.  And speaking of big budget Warner Bros. movies, Bryan Singer's 3D fantasy adventure Jack the Giant Killer has been pushed back from June 2012 to March 2013.

Though any description of the story marks Warm Bodies as standard fare in the now-ubiquitous literary genre "Young Adult Supernatural Romance," the movie has the pedigree to transcend any Twilight-y associations.  Months ago we saw a promo image for the film, but the first image officially released online suggests that Warm Bodies will attempt make zombies brooding and sexy, with Nicholas Hoult as a pale, high-cheekboned undead shuffler in the rain.  But the novel by Isaac Marion on which the film is based suggests plenty of potential.  The story follows Hoult as R, a zombie in a postapocalyptic wasteland who begins an odd relationship with a young woman played by Teresa Palmer after consuming her boyfriend's brains.

Up until now, we've seen nothing official from Jack the Giant Killer, director Bryan Singer's 3D action adventure that uses the beanstalk-climbing fairy tale as the basis for an epic journey.  Today, Warner Bros. has gone ahead and dropped the teaser trailer online, complete with thumping giants and what looks to be in-process effects work.  Anyone seeing Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows this weekend will see the trailer in theaters, along with the second trailer for a little picture called The Dark Knight Rises, but why not check it out right here and now?

In just over a year, the money-teat that is the Twilight franchise will be more or less dried up for Summit Entertainment, as The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 hits in November of 2012.  Not to be deterred by the closure of its flagship franchise, Summit is making all manner of moves to establish big, marketable properties, and one of note is Warm Bodies, a zombie love-story/comedy based on the recently-published novel by Isaac Marion.  Though the film has been described as a combination of Twilight and Shaun of the Dead, with plenty of comedy, the first promotional image has popped up online, and it sports a strikingly Twilight vibe.  The image constitutes our first look at leads Teresa Palmer and Nicholas Hoult.  The film takes place in a more or less postapocalyptic future, and Hoult plays a zombie in existential crisis who falls in love after he eats the brains and absorbs the memories of a beautiful military daughter's boyfriend.

At the young age of twenty-one actor Lucas Till has already compiled an impressive resume of film work in movies such as Walk the Line, Hanna Montana: The Movie, The Spy Next Door, and Battle: Los Angeles. But it was his role as the energy-wielding mutant Havok in this past summer’s hit super hero film X-Men: First Class that has put the talented actor in the spotlight.

In the movie, which is a prequel to the original series, Till plays Alex Summers, the brother of X-Men leader Scott Summers (Cyclops), who was played by actor James Marsden in the first three films. While Havok was mostly portrayed as a hero in the comics there has always been an edge to the character and he quite often bumps heads with his older brother. In X-Men: First Class, Alex Summers is recruited by a young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) to join his team of heroic mutants along with Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Beast (Nicolas Hoult), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), and Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones). The movie was directed by Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) and based on a story by executive producer Bryan Singer who directed the first two films in the franchise. So far the film has gone on to earn over $350 million worldwide.

Ever since supermodel Rebecca Romijn first slunk across the screen in blue bodypaint and latex scales as shapeshifter Mystique more than a decade ago in X-Men, the makeup and the process behind it have been a natural point of interest for audience everywhere.  That's only natural, and with Oscar nominee and fellow gorgeous woman Jennifer Lawrence having sported the scales as Mystique in this summer's X-Men: First Class, it's only natural to be curious all over again.

A new behind-the-scenes video excerpted from the upcoming Blu-ray release of X-Men: First Class goes into some detail about the arduous daily routine that turned the actress into a shapeshifting mutant.  It includes some interesting trivia, such as the fact that, though previous makeup artists had three movies to perfect the process, First Class did not benefit from any of their expertise, with the all-new makeup team starting all over.  Also, as surreal as Mystique may appear in her final form, it's far stranger to see Lawrence in partially-completed makeup.

It's Friday, which means that X-Men: First Class is now playing at a theater near you.  Some X-fans probably caught the film at midnight screenings already, but since the bulk you have yet to see the mutant prequel, why not partake in yet another clip from the film?  This time, it's not James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender diffusing the Cuban Missile Crisis.  It's the first class of the title – young, confused mutants enlisted to fight the Hellfire Club – deciding on their code names and sharing their unique powers.