Almost two weeks ago we brought you the news that Oscar-winner Sir Ben Kingsley had been cast as the yet-to-be-named villain in next summer’s mighty Marvel superhero sequel Iron Man 3. Today another high-caliber acting talent has joined the movie’s increasingly impressive cast as Guy Pearce, most recently seen kicking interstellar ass in the sci-fi action flick Lockout, has signed on to play geneticist Dr. Aldrich Killian.

Killian was an integral character in “Extremis,” the six-issue Iron Man comic arc penned by Warren Ellis that is said to be the inspiration for Iron Man 3.

Released back in October 2010 the comic action-thriller RED was a pleasant surprise. Based on a DC Comics graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hammer and directed by German-born Robert Schwentke (The Time Traveler’s Wife), RED brought together a killer cast (including Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Richard Dreyfuss, Karl Urban, and Brian Cox), armed them with cutting quips and heavy artillery, and let them have a paycheck-cashing ball. It was a hoot to see a fun action flick that relied more on old school ass-kicking and witty dialogue rather than CGI fireballs. The movie was also a huge success for distributor Summit Entertainment, grossing over $200 million and making a sequel inevitable.

Joe Quesada announced a bevy of new Marvel projects at his annual Cup O’ Joe panel at WonderCon 2011. Sure there’s tons of focus on the upcoming Captain America and Thor films, but at this panel there were plenty of tasty comic book announcements too. Perhaps the most notable of these announcements was that writer Warren Ellis and artist Jamie McKelvie will be teaming up to take over Secret Avengers in August. All that Quesada would say about Ellis’ run on the series is that the stories will be of the single-issue variety. So, sounds like no big story arc this time around.

Madhouse is doing the X-Men up all anime style for a new series debuting in Japan on April 1, 2011 and then coming stateside on G4 later this year.

Madhouse announced a bevy of Marvel projects back in 2009 so it makes sense that the characters look and feel most similar in the anime to the Astonishing X-Men comics. Plus, writer Warren Ellis, who did a run on Astonishing X-Men, has been involved with the project from the beginning. There are already Iron Man and Wolverine anime series out in the wild from Madhouse so X-Men seems like the next logical step.

Not much is known about the storyline at this point, but Animax has posted a teaser trailer for the series and we have it below for your viewing pleasure.

In honor of the new Bruce Willis movie Red, which was released in theaters this past weekend, I recently went back to read the DC comic book series Red created by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner, from which the film was adapted.

Both the comic book and the movie center around Frank Moses (Willis’s character), a retired CIA agent who’s thrust back into the world of danger when he’s attacked by highly trained unknown assailants. The over-the-hill action-comedy film brought out the older generations to the theater in droves, thanks to the change in the story’s overall tone (from serious to light-hearted), as well as (in my opinion) the creation of Helen Mirren‘s character Victoria, another retiree whose sexy looks and stellar aim with a sniper rifle probably make her the most lethal of the bunch.

There were quite a few differences between the movie and the 3-issue miniseries, mostly in the addition of new characters — played by Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Brian Cox — as well as alternations to the Frank Moses character and his situation, along with plenty of deviations from the original story.

Here’s the Top 3 differences between the film and the comic book.