…With production on Avengers 4 now in full swing, this week has brought confirmation of several stars set to feature in the as-yet-untitled blockbuster in Don Cheadle (War Machine), Sebastian Stan (The Winter Soldier) and Brie Larson (Captain Marvel), the latter of whom has also expressed her interest in getting behind the camera to direct a Marvel movie. Meanwhile, Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange) has also confirmed his return, and spoke about his excitement over next year’s Avengers: Infinity War: “It’s ten years coming. It’s just a huge, huge, huge amount of work, huge amount of storylines and it’s all sort of pointing to this confrontation….It’s amazing to be part of it even though I’m late to the party, it’s very cool to be part of it…”
…We’re just a little over a month away from the UK release of Thor: Ragnarok, and this week has seen Marvel Studios unveiling a new IMAX poster (it’s pretty much the theatrical post, with the addition of some rather large IMAX text), while we also got a look at director Taika Waititi’s Korg the Kronan Pop! Vinyl figure [see here], a magazine cover featuring Chris Hemsworth’s Thor and Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk [see here], and a possible first look at one of Surtur’s dragons thanks to some concept art from Guardians of the Galaxy – Monsters After Dark theme park ride [see here]…
…In other news from the MCU, some set photos from Ant-Man and the Wasp have arrived online this week featuring Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Van Dyne in full Wasp costume [see here]; a behind-the-scenes image from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 surfaced this week showing Stan Lee with a pre-CGI Watcher [see here], and James Gunn confirmed that Glenn Close filmed a cameo in the sequel as Nova Prime, but it was left on the cutting room floor [read more here]; Frank Grillo has claimed that Marvel Studios has plans to bring back his character Crossbones despite his demise in Captain America: Civil War [read more here], and rumours have surfaced suggesting that Marvel Studios is currently developing a Power Pack movie as part of its Phase Four slate [read our report here]…
…Netflix stepped up promotion for its next Marvel series The Punisher this week, unveiling the first trailer and new images from the show [see here], as well as another viral teaser [watch it here]. As yet, we still don’t have word on a release date, although a listing in the latest issue of Total Film suggested that the series will hit the streaming service on Friday October 13th. Meanwhile, it’s been confirmed that Rob Morgan will be reprising his Daredevil and Luke Cage role as small time crook Turk Barrett, showrunner Steve Lightfoot spoke about the challenges of making Frank Castle relatable to audiences, and leading man Jon Bernthal promised that the series will take us to “a dark and brutal corner” of the Marvel Universe…
…Some bad news for The Defenders, as it has been revealed this week that the miniseries has suffered the lowest viewership of any of Netflix’s Marvel series in its first month. According to marketing analytics agency Jumpshot, The Defenders enjoyed just 17% of the viewership of Daredevil season 2 – Netflix’s best-performing Marvel season – in its first 30 days. For comparison, Iron Fist, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones managed 28%, 27% and 26% respectively. The stats also show that The Defenders had the largest week-over-week drop in viewership of the Marvel shows, declining 67%, 48% and 41% respectively. And on the subject of the Netflix/Marvel shows, be sure to read Liam Hoofe’s article ‘Five TV Shows That Could Help the Marvel Netflix Universe‘…
…Turning to the X-Verse now and director Josh Boone and cast members Maisie Williams (Rahne Sinclair/Wolfsbane), Blu Hunt (Danielle Moonstar/Mirage), and Henry Zaga (Roberto da Costa/Sunspot) took to social media to celebrate the end of production on X-Men: The New Mutants, while Fox CEO Stacey Snider spoke about the tone of the spinoff and how it will stand out against other superhero movies: “If we’re going to make a superhero movie, we have to ask ourselves: ‘What’s our version? What’s a Fox Marvel film?’ When you look at films like Deadpool or Logan or the upcoming New Mutants, you’ll see they have their own personality. Great effort has been put into making sure they’re differentiated. New Mutants is about these teenagers who are just coming into their powers. It’s like watching mutants go through adolescence and they have no impulse control, so they’re dangerous. The only solution is to put them in a Breakfast Club detention/Cuckoo’s Nest institutional setting. It protects the people on the outside, but it’s strange and combustible inside. The genre is like a haunted-house movie with a bunch of hormonal teenagers. We haven’t seen it as a superhero movie whose genre is more like The Shining than ‘we’re teenagers let’s save the world…’”
…X-Men: First Class director Simon Kinberg dropped a few nuggets on Fox’s Marvel projects this week during promotional interviews for his new film Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Firstly, he expressed his interest in directing a Fantastic Four reboot (to apologise for Fox’s last reboot) [read his comments here], and secondly he also revealed that he decided to exit b as he felt it should have been the third movie in a trilogy, and wanted to make a Young Wolverine movie as a follow-up to First Class [read his comments here]…
…In other Fox news, CEO Stacey Snider has teased the recasting of Wolverine when asked about the possibility of the studio rebooting the character after Hugh Jackman’s final outing in Logan [see here], Josh Brolin shared an intense behind-the-scenes photo of Cable from Deadpool 2 [see here], and Daniel Cudmore has revealed that he’ll be returning to the X-Men franchise with a role in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, although it isn’t clear whether he’ll be back as Colossus, or is portraying a different character [see here]…
…With The Gifted set to premiere a week on Monday, Fox has released a batch of images from the first episode of the X-Men show, titled ‘eXposed’ [see here], along with promo images from the following week’s second episode ‘rX’ [see here]…
…M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass has added two more Unbreakable stars to its cast, with Spencer Treat Clark and Charlayne Woodard set to reprise their roles as Joseph Dunn, the son of Bruce Willis’ David Dunn, and Mrs. Price, the mother of Samuel L. Jackson’s Elijah Price. In addition to Willis and Jackson, the Unbreakable and Split sequel will also see James McAvoy and Anya Taylor-Joy back as their Split characters Kevin Wendell Crumb/The Beast and Casey Cooke respectively, and Sarah Paulson (American Horror Story) is set for an as-yet-unrevealed role…
…And finally, a poster, trailer and synopsis has arrived online for the indie superhero adventure Armstrong, which is set to hit VOD in the States on October 3rd. Check them out here.
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.
