Presenting our weekly round-up of the biggest news stories from the world of movie superheroes…
It seems like an age ago that we got our first look at Marvel’s upcoming Captain America: The First Avenger with the all-too-brief 30 second Super Bowl spot back at the beginning of February. Well, after weeks and weeks of anticipation the first full length trailer finally arrived this past Thursday and boy, was it worth the wait. Expanding on the TV spot, the trailer gives us a good insight into Cap’s origin from sickly G.I. to patriotic Super Soldier and we also get a look at the majority of the supporting cast including Peggy Carter (Hayley Attwell), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones), Professor Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) and Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), along with brief glimpses of Dum Dum Dugan (Neal McDonough) and the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving).
Captain America is the last superhero to arrive this year (the film hits North American cinemas on July 22nd and opens here in the UK the following week) and judging by what we’ve seen so far it looks as if director Joe Johnston is set to end the summer on a high. Evans seems like a great fit for the role and the studio have done a fine job selling the movie, delivering a trailer that really raises the bar against what we’ve seen from Green Lantern, Thor and X-Men: First Class. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s the best trailer we’ve seen to date from Marvel Studios and I’m just hoping that the film can go on to live up to its promise. If you want to take a closer look at the trailer there’s a pretty good breakdown over at ComicVine that’s worth checking out, and if you’re desperate to get your hands on anything Cap-related then you might be pleased to hear about the special (and extended!) Blu-ray release this May for 1990’s cult shitfest Captain America, starring Matt Salinger as the Sentinel of Liberty. Or maybe not.
Sticking with the theme of The Avengers for the moment, Marvel CCO Joe Quesada had a few words about both Thor and Captain America and revealed that filming is already underway on Joss Whedon’s epic superhero ensemble. Mark Ruffalo also spoke to Total Film about stepping into Ed Norton’s elasticated shorts for the 2012 team-up and suggested that it’s likely we’ll be seeing more of The Avengers in the future, but sadly we may have seen the last of The Incredible Hulk as a standalone franchise (until the next reboot, obviously). However, don’t expect all of the Avengers to go down this path, with Thor actress Rene Russo announcing that, much like Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman, she’s already signed up for a sequel. Of course Kenneth Branagh’s original has to come first, with a new TV spot and more character posters arriving in advance of its release on April 27th (or May 6th for those across the pond).
Turning now to the week’s other big talking point and no, it’s not the official confirmation that Joseph Gordon-Levitt has joined the Inception reunion on Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, but rather the pantomime to-ing and fro-ing between heavyweight publications Variety and Entertainment Weekly over just who in the hell he’s playing. The whole “oh yes he is… oh no he isn’t” began on Saturday when Variety confirmed his casting and stated that he’d be portraying Alberto Falcone, son of Batman Begins mob boss Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson) and The Long Halloween’s Holiday Killer. However, by Monday EW had shot Variety’s story down by saying the character of Falcone was ‘incorrect’, although sadly their ‘source’ didn’t feel the need to go on and ‘correct’ it.
So, who is JGL likely to be playing? He’s been linked to just about every Rogue in the Gallery (The Riddler, Hugo Strange, Deadshot, Falcone and even The Joker) so let’s face it, he could be anyone. My guess is that Warner Bros. will wait until they’ve added a few new faces to the cast and release a joint press release, much like they did with Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy. Marion Cotillard has long been linked to an unspecified role and Variety has announced that Juno Temple is “100% locked in” as a “street-smart Gotham girl”, whom AICN have speculated could be Robin. That would support earlier rumours of location scouting for Robin’s hideout and I suppose if you really have to include Robin then a female version could be the way to go (it certainly makes more sense than Joseph Gordon-Levitt, that’s for sure).
Of course TDKR isn’t the only DC property that Warner Bros.’ and Nolan are working on for 2012 and there’s also been some movement on possible additions to the cast of Zack Snyder’s Superman: Man of Steel. Viggo Mortensen had been tipped to join up alongside Henry Cavill, Diane Lane and Kevin Costner as General Zod, but it was thought that his involvement with Snow White and the Huntsman would effectively rule him out. The latest names said to be ‘of interest’ for the unspecified villain(s) are Edgar Ramirez (Carlos, Wrath of the Titans) and Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire), although Variety have reported that Mortensen has officially withdrawn from Snow White negotiations and could be back in contention. Snyder is busy finishing up the promotion of Sucker Punch and with Man of Steel set to film in August, expect some official casting news in the very near future.
Moving on now and the X-Men Movies Facebook Page continues to deliver regular updates on Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming prequel X-Men: First Class. The pick of the goodies this past week was a Q&A with Nicholas Hoult, who stars as a pre-PhD’d Hank McCoy, a.k.a. Beast, answering a selection of fan submitted questions. The X-Perts Q&A series continues every week until June 1st and takes in all of the major cast members, with Oliver Platt (Man in Black) and Rose Byrne (Moira McTaggert) next in line. Meanwhile the page also delivered a host of character bios which, in addition to the aforementioned names, also includes Xavier (James McAvoy), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Darwin (Edi Gathegi), Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones), Azazel (Jason Flemyng), Riptide (Alex González), Havoc (Lucas Till), Angel Salvadore (Zoë Kravitz), Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) and Emma Frost (January Jones). Head over to ComicBookMovie where they’ve kindly gathered all of the bios together for your viewing pleasure.
Other interesting bits and pieces from the world of movie superherodom…
…The Twilight Saga: Eclipse director David Slade has been busy talking about his new Daredevil project on Twitter and suggested he’s yet to be approached about taking over on The Wolverine now that Darren Aronofsky has departed. Slade also tweeted on Deadpool, saying that the studio are looking at comedy directors…
…That leads in nicely to a Latino Review chat with James Gunn, in which the Super director talks about the possibility of moving into the serious superhero business, revealing that he has had general discussions with Marvel and had earlier passed on the opportunity to write Fantastic Four…
…Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance co-director Brian Taylor described the upcoming Nicolas Cage flick as “pretty much a reboot, only with the same actor, which makes it: a requel. Or a seboot, I can’t decide which one I like better”, while Johnny Whitworth (Limitless) had a few words on portraying the villain, Blackout…
…It may be more than a year before we see Andrew Garfield swinging into cinemas as The Amazing Spider-Man but Sony are obviously confident of success, hiring screenwriter James Vanderbilt to begin work on the sequel…
…We got a nice shot of Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison), the Green Lantern who recruits Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) in Martin Campbell’s upcoming DC adaptation. With the film set to open in June a second trailer should be just around the corner…
…Fresh from playing a Frost Giant in Thor, Joseph Gatt becomes the latest actor to sign up for the Wonder Woman TV pilot in the role of John O’Quinn, henchman to Elizabeth Hurley’s villainous Veronica Cale…
…And finally it looks as if we’ll be seeing more of our favourite DC characters on the small screen as DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. team up with Cartoon Network to deliver the DC Nation programming block. Shows expected to appear include Green Lantern, Young Justice and Batman: The Brave and the Bold, in addition to “event programming, interstitials, exclusive behind-the-scenes of theatrical production and an insider look into the world of all things DC.”
