Barely Related: Marvel's Civil War, DC movies galore

Welcome to Barely Related, a conversational Friday column that presents the non-gaming news stories that we, the Joystiq staff, have been talking about over the past week. And no, we're not stopping our focus on industry and gaming news. Think of this as your casual weekly recap of interesting (and mostly geeky) news, presented just in time to fill your brain with things to discuss at all of those weekend shindigs.

Grab a fresh drink, lean back in your armchair, and get ready to talk nerdy with us.

Marvel launches Civil War on the silver screen, re-launches the comic

Marvel's Civil War arc is poised to hit theaters with Captain America 3, as Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. is in final negotiations to join the film and set up that storyline. This is the beginning of a fresh round of Marvel movies, and the Civil War story will bleed into the Avengers films, Variety reports. Captain America 3 is due out on May 6, 2016, and the second Avengers film, Age of Ultron, is due out on May 1, 2015.

The 2006 Civil War series, written by Mark Millar, sees Iron Man and Captain America fighting over the Superhero Registration Act, which compels everyone in the US with super-human abilities to register with the government and pledge to fight for it. Steve Rogers (Captain America) doesn't like the act, while Tony Stark (Iron Man) supports it. Fighting ensues.

In addition to the movies, Marvel is rebooting the Civil War series in the comics, beginning summer 2015. This lines up with the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad movies; all the dates for DC's films

Deep breath, everyone. And here. We. Go:

• "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," directed by Zack Snyder (2016)

• "Suicide Squad," directed by David Ayer (2016)

• "Wonder Woman," starring Gal Gadot (2017)

• "Justice League Part One," directed by Zack Snyder, with Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill and Amy Adams reprising their roles (2017)

• "The Flash," starring Ezra Miller (2018)

• "Aquaman," starring Jason Momoa (2018)

• "Shazam" (2019)

• "Justice League Part Two," directed by Zack Snyder (2019)

• "Cyborg," starring Ray Fisher (2020)

• "Green Lantern" (2020)

There's no word on if the Suicide Squad film is based on The New 52 (no thanks, please) or one of the series' original runs, but actors such as Ryan Gosling, Margot Robbie, Will Smith and Tom Hardy are rumored to be eyeing roles. Also, Wonder Woman!

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them film begins a trilogy in Harry Potter's world

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the Harry Potter spin-off film written by JK Rowling, is now a three-movie series. The first film is due out on November 8, 2016, and the second and third are scheduled for 2018 and 2020.

Fantastic Beasts follows Newt Scamander, a magizoologist and textbook author, around New York 70 years before Harry's story begins. Rowling released a little, itty-bitty bit of information about the story last week.

Fantastic Four comic series comes to an end

The Fantastic Four graphic novel series is set to end by June 2015 with a run titled "The End is Fourever," Marvel Editor-in-Chief Alex Alonso and series writer James Robinson announced during a panel at New York Comic-Con. This final story will be in a triple-size issue, #645.

The Fantastic Four film, Marvel's reboot of that series on-screen, is scheduled to hit theaters in August 2015.

A third X-Files movie, "sorta kinda"

Gillian Anderson, the actress who portrays Dr. Dana Scully on The X-Files, did a Reddit AMA this week and was of course asked if there had been any progress on a third X-Files film. Her response? "Uh....uh... uh... Sorta kinda. Keep your ears to the ground." That's definitely more interesting than a "No."

Also, Anderson would love to be in Paul Feig's all-female Ghostbusters movie. "OH MY GOD, I just looked it up online. Paul Feig, cast me now! Start a Twitter petition! I'm free!!!!! I'm free I'm free and I'm funny, goddamnit!" All emphasis is hers. It's also adorable and a damn good idea, Feig.

Every episode of Friends will be on Netflix in January

Goodbye, life.

Scarlett Johansson poised to play lead in Ghost in the Shell film

Margot Robbie is out and Scarlett Johansson is in, Deadline reports. DreamWorks has offered Johansson $10 million to take the lead role of Major Motoko Kusanagi in the live-action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell, the site says.

As noted in the DC movie lineup in this post, Robbie is now rumored to be looking at a role in DC's Suicide Squad film.

TV premiere ratings time!

American Horror Story broke all FX records with the debut and encore of its fourth season, Freakshow: 13.36 million viewers.

The Walking Dead season five broke all of the cable records, despite the show being fairly awful: 17.3 million viewers.

The Flash was the CW's most-watched premiere ever: 6.42 million viewers.

First look at Netflix's Daredevil series

Marvel's Daredevil is poised to premiere on Netflix in May 2015.

America is trying to do The IT Crowd again

NBC has ordered a pilot for The IT Crowd, a take on the British television comedy. We should say another take, since the first time around (in 2007), the US version of The IT Crowd starred Joel McHale and didn't do so well. Not because of McHale; it was just pretty bad.

The new show is written by Community's Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan, and produced by Bill Lawrence. These chaps were responsible for Scrubs as well.

Rainbow Brite returns with Molly Ringwald, Emily Osment

A Rainbow Brite TV series will be available via subscription on-demand service Feeln starting on November 6. Episode one is titled Cloudy With A Chance of Gloom, and Ringwald portrays the villain while Osment is Brite herself.

[Images: Marvel]