In this edition of The Week in Spandex, we look at Wonder Woman 2, Justice League, The Batman, Batman: Year One, Superman Lives, Man of Steel 2, Suicide Squad 2, Nightwing, Gotham, Supergirl, The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Arrow, Krypton, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers 4, Thor: Ragnarok, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Venom, Captain Marvel, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp, X-Men, Fantastic Four, The Punisher, Jessica Jones, Logan, X-Men: The New Mutants, The Gifted, Hellboy, The Boys, SuperMansion and more…
We’re starting things off in the DC Extended Universe this week, and it’s now official that Patty Jenkins will be back in the director’s chair on Wonder Woman 2, with Jenkins putting pen to paper on a deal which has presumably made her one of – if not the – highest-paid female directors in Hollywood. Meanwhile, Jenkins has also enlisted Dave Callaham (The Expendables, Godzilla) to script the film, from a story by the filmmaker and DC Films’ Geoff Johns. Wonder Woman 2 is set for release on December 13th 2019 (unless it decides to move away from Star Wars: Episode IX) and will see Gal Gadot reprising the role of the Amazon Princess…
…Next up from the DC Extended Universe is Justice League, and this week saw the release of a new banner for the teamup with Wonder Woman front and centre, as well as a promotional image from the superhero team-up featuring Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen. Miller also revealed one (unsurprising) change we’ll be seeing when The Flash hits the big screen this November: “Well, you know, look, I can confirm, spoiler alert, his suit does not pop out of his ring [in the movie]. Things have to progress, you know? Original Barry Allen was clearly an incredibly, incredibly clever scientist. We acknowledge and respect that. We want to apologize to the fans who are mad about the ring thing. I know the ring is the coolest thing about the DC universe. It was a little hard for us to sell in this version of this universe right now. Bear with us! There’s gonna be other cool things…”
…With Matt Reeves taking over directing duties on The Batman and working on a page-one rewrite of the script for the Dark Knight solo movie, question marks have been raised about whether we’ll be seeing Joe Manganiello’s Deathstroke in the film. Manganiello himself said back in July that he knew the answer but couldn’t reveal it, and now Arrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim has just dropped a major hint that Deathstroke won’t be in the film after all during an interview discussing Slade Wilson’s return to the DC show: “DC control these characters. We went through a period where DC was like, ‘We’ve got plans for Deathstroke that don’t include Arrow.’ That changed at the end of this year.” Meanwhile, our old friend El Mayimbe popped his head up this week to claim that Ben Affleck’s unused script for The Batman was inspired by David Fincher’s The Game…
…On the subject of unused Batman scripts, Darren Aronofsky has been talking about his aborted Batman: Year One adaptation this week, comparing the tone to Warner’s recently announced standalone Joker origin movie: “You know what, I think it’s finally… I think we were basically – whatever it is – 15 years too early. Because I hear the way they’re talking about the Joker movie and that’s exactly – that was my pitch. I was like: we’re going to shoot in East Detroit and East New York. We’re not building Gotham. The Batmobile – I wanted to be a Lincoln Continental with two bus engines in it…”
…Another DC project that never saw the light of day was Tim Burton’s Superman Lives, but that hasn’t stopped Nicolas Cage from describing it as the definitive Superman movie: ““I would offer that the movie that Tim and I would have made, in your imagination, is more powerful than any of the Superman movies. I didn’t even have to make the movie and we all know what that movie would have been in your imagination. That is the Superman. That is the movie. Even though you never saw it — it is the Superman…”
…In other Superman-related news, Matthew Vaughan (X-Men: First Class, Kingsman: The Golden Circle) has confirmed that he has had talks with Warner Bros. about the prospect of directing Man of Steel 2, although he’s undecided as to what his next project will be: “I am planning another Kingsman, I’ve written the treatment and some of the scenes… I don’t know what I’m going to do next but I have had chats about Superman, I love Superman. If somebody asks me to do Indiana Jones, most of the superheroes or Star Wars, the fanboy in me can’t help but be excited…”
…Margot Robbie has revealed this week that she expects to be back in the role of Harley Quinn in 2018, although she’s not sure exactly what movie it will be for (candidates include Suicide Squad 2, Joker and Harley Quinn, and Gotham City Sirens). Meanwhile, Harley fans will soon be able to get their hands on Hot Toys’ Harley (Dancer Dress Version) collectible figure from the first Suicide Squad movie, and you can take a look at the official promotional images here…
…The LEGO Batman Movie director Chris McKay has been speaking about his upcoming live-action DC movie Nightwing, stating that: “I’m a big comic book fan, and being able to do the story of Nightwing, to do a Dick Grayson story, which is a character that every single person in the world knows, but has never really had a lot of screentime…I’m a big fan of underdog stories, and he is one of the biggest underdog stories in comics. And he’s a character that I grew up with. I like the arc. It’s gonna be a badass action movie with a lot of heart and emotion. It’s gonna be a crazy, fun ride. It’s gonna be real stuntwork, and they’re gonna need to do all of the stuff on camera and do it credibly. For the cast and the crew, it’s gonna be a visceral experience, and for the audience. It’s not gonna be like a lot of these movies where there’s a lot of CG and flying, and things like that. Everything he does is gonna have to be real.” You can read the rest of McKay’s comments on DC’s filmmaker-led approach here…
…Gotham’s fourth season gets underway this coming Thursday, and we’ve got a batch of promotional images from the premiere episode ‘Pax Penguina’ [see here], while showrunner Danny Cannon has revealed that Chris Chalk’s Lucius Fox will be the one to create Bruce Wayne’s proto-Batsuit which we’ve seen in the trailers for the new season: “Lucius is beginning to suspect that Alfred and Bruce might have a double life and politely weaves his way in. Lucius has worked for Wayne Industries and he may work there again one day, and for right now he doesn’t want to see Bruce get hurt. So he finds a way of helping without interfering…”
…The CW stepped up the promotion for its returning DC superhero shows this week, releasing new promos for Supergirl season 3 [watch it here], DC’s Legends of Tomorrow season 3 [watch it here], The Flash season 4 [watch it here] and Arrow season 6 [watch it here]. Meanwhile, we also got a first official image from season four of The Flash featuring a bearded Barry Allen [see here], while Flickering Myth’s Alex Moreland caught up with Arrow star Juliana Harkavy for an exclusive interview about her role as the new Black Canary; read the interview here…
…Syfy has announced a new addition to the cast of its Superman prequel series Krypton, with Shaun Sipos (Melrose Place, The Vampire Diaries) joining the new show in the series regular role of Adam Strange. The series’ incarnation of the DC hero is described as “a world-weary human, who finds himself stranded on Krypton as the unlikely mentor to Seg-El, Superman’s grandfather.” Adam Strange was one of several DC characters that were announced as being part of the series during the San Diego Comic-Con, so we should probably expect to get some casting news on the others – Hawkwoman, Doomsday and Brainiac – very soon…
…Click below to continue on for Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers 4, Thor: Ragnarok, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Venom, Captain Marvel, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Ant-Man and the Wasp, X-Men, Fantastic Four, The Punisher, Jessica Jones, Logan, X-Men: The New Mutants, The Gifted, Hellboy, The Boys, SuperMansion and more…
