…We come now to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Jon Favreau shared a photo from the set of Avengers 4 this week, confirming his involvement in the Avengers: Infinity War follow-up alongside Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark and Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts; meanwhile, Love/Hate and Peaky Blinders actor Tom Vaughan-Lawlor has confirmed that he is playing a villain in next year’s Infinity War, presumably one of Thanos’ Black Order: “I am [in the film],” said Vaughan-Lawlor. “But it’s like I’m one of those ones where you go into a sentence to say something about it and hope you have a job at the end of the sentence. You sign so many documents and waivers and people ask you about it and you have to give the generic and boring ‘I can’t say too much about it’. But I am doing it and it’s really amazing and an amazing thing to be part of…”
…A couple of new international posters arrived online for Marvel’s third superhero movie of 2017, Thor: Ragnarok, featuring all of the main players from the cosmic threequel [check them out here], while director Taika Waititi shto down a rumour that the film will run for 2 hours and 10 minutes, revealing that it actually clocks in at 90 minutes, making it the shortest Marvel movie to date…
…Some new set photos from Ant-Man and the Wasp have arrived online, showing Paul Rudd (Scott Lang) and Evangeline Lilly (Hope Van Dyne) with their costumes under wraps, as well as Michael Douglas as Hank Pym; check them out here…
…James Gunn has been talking about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 this week, stating that he’s undecided as to whether it will see the debut of Adam Warlock and the return of Nathan Fillion, as well as saying that Awesome Mix Vol. 3 will be inspired by Yondu, and teasing that the threequel “will help to set up the next 10, 20 years of Marvel movies. It’s going to really expand the cosmic universe.” Meanwhile, we also got a look at some Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 merchandise, with Funko unveiling its new Star-Lord, Groot and Drax Pop! Vinyl figures [see here], and Hot Toys debuting promotional images for its fantastic Yondu collectible [see here]…
…Turning to the small screen and with Netflix’s Marvel team-up The Defenders hitting the streaming service this past Friday, you may want to check out Samuel Brace’s feature ‘Marvel’s The Defenders Teaches Us That Less Is More‘, as well as Ricky Church’s episode reviews of the series [check out episode one, episode two, episode three, episode four, episode five, episode six, episode seven and episode eight]…
…While we still don’t have a premiere date, next up from Marvel on Netflix is The Punisher series, and this week brought us a new image of Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle in full costume, complete with classic skull logo [see here], while it has also been announced that Oscar-nominated actress Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog, The Expanse) has joined the cast and will play Farah Madani, the mother of Homeland Security agent Dinah Madani (Amber Rose Revah) on the trail of Jon Bernthal’s Punisher…
…Finn Jones has revealed that he’s about to begin training for the second season of Iron Fist, as well as teasing the introduction of the character’s classic costume: “Now, just gonna let you know, moving into Season 2 of Iron Fist, I’m actually starting my training next week. We’re at least four or five months away from shooting, so this time around, I’m being given a lot more preparation leading up to Season 2, which I think is really gonna have a huge improvement on the quality of the fight scenes in Season 2 of Iron Fist. [We will see the costume eventually]. And look, I’m not the writer for this show, nor am I the executive producer. “So unfortunately these things don’t fall on my head. But from an actor’s distinct perspective, I certainly think that will happen within, hopefully, Season Two…”
…Marvel’s Inhumans premieres in IMAX theaters this coming Friday, and this week has seen the release of seven new character posters featuring Black Bolt (Anson Mount), Medusa (Serinda Swan), Maximus (Iwan Rheon), Crystal (Isabelle Cornish), Karnak (Ken Leung), Gorgon (Eme Ikwuakor), and Triton (Mike Moh) [see here], as well as a Lockjaw one-sheet [see here] and an illustrated poster featuring Crystal and Lockjaw [see here]…
…During an appearance at the Edinburgh International TV Festival, Marvel Television’s SVP of Original Programming Karim Zreik revealed that Marvel is looking to capitalise on the success of Warner’s Wonder Woman with “more female-skewed shows”, including one which he described as “Jessica Jones-esque”. Zreik also discussed Freeform’s upcoming New Warriors series, confirming that it will be a comedy, and seemingly taking a little dig at DC’s failed workplace comedy Powerless in the process: “It took us time to dip a foot into comedy because it has to be right. Marvel is never going to do an office comedy, you don’t need that….”
…We’ve had a couple of new images of Josh Brolin’s Cable from Deadpool 2 this week [see here and here], as well as some set video giving us our first look at Hunt for the Wilderpeople star Julian Dennison who is sporting a yellow jumpsuit and Mutant Inhibitor Collar [see here] and news that Eddie Marsan (Atomic Blonde, Ray Donovan) has joined the cast of the superhero sequel. Meanwhile, Ryan Reynolds has said he’d like to see Deadpool joining forces with The Avengers for an R-rated crossover: “That sounds like a great idea but a very expensive idea. Can you imagine the shit-talking contest with Iron Man? Oh, that would be great. But it would have to be rated R to completely unharness everybody. Unbridle the merriment and watch them go…”
…Channing Tatum has provided an update on the long-gestating Gambit solo movie this week, reiterating his comments from Comic-Con that they have gone back to the drawing board in the wake of the success of Deadpool and Logan: “I look for a personal connection to the movies I make and it may not be immediately obvious…In every story, I have a personal connection… With Gambit, I just never found that personal way in. We lit a fuse on the first one and just blew it completely out of the water. I think we got lucky – we got hit with some setbacks and it was all for a good reason. We were trying to do something completely different. We were trying to do something that this genre of movie hasn’t seen before. We kept running into the same problems, and then Deadpool and Logan came through and kicked the doors down. Now we’re really getting to do some of the things we’ve always wanted to do with the script – we’ve just sort of started over…”
…If rumours are to be believed, Sony will be using the upcoming Silver & Black Spider-Man spinoff to introduce the character of Norman Osborn into the SpiderVerse franchise. A report this week has claimed that Osborn will be featured in the female-led movie, although he may only be heard rather than actually appearing on screen, thus setting him up for future spinoff movies…
…And finally, it’s been revealed this week that Deadpool star Ed Skrein has joined the cast of the Hellboy reboot, while David Harbour discussed how his version of the Dark Horse character will differ from Ron Perlman’s portrayal: “There are things that I’m gonna do that are different. Hellboy is the same character from the comics and from what Ron did, there are certain things that are the same thing, but I do think that—I don’t know, there’s a different approach because I sort of highlight different things, I think, than Ron does. Ron sort of embraces this machismo in himself and in Hellboy, and I really like it and it’s super fun and it’s a super fun performance, but I think Hellboy has a certain psycho dynamic where occasionally he has to prove that he’s the lion, has to roar, and I think he struggles with his own masculinity. But I don’t think he needs that as much as maybe those other movies. I have a bit of a different take on his capability or his slickness. I sort of think that for me he’s a little less skilled at constructing that persona.”
Gary Collinson is a writer and lecturer from the North East of England. He is the editor-in-chief of FlickeringMyth.com and the author of Holy Franchise, Batman! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen.
