In this edition of The Week in Spandex, we look at Avengers: Infinity War, Thor: Ragnarok, Doctor Strange, Captain America: Civil War, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Slingshot, The Punisher, Legion, Logan, X-Men: The New Mutants, Justice League, Wonder Woman, The Batman, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, The LEGO Batman Movie, Justice League Dark, Supergirl, The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Gotham and more…
We’ll start things off with Marvel Cinematic Universe this week and a casting call for Avengers: Infinity War surfaced online, reportedly revealing the main cast for the hotly-anticipated Marvel superhero epic. It was missing a few big names such as Tom Holland (Spider-Man) and Anthony Mackie (Falcon) – as well as Cobie Smulders, who has already confirmed she’ll be returning as Maria Hill – so we suspect this one is likely unofficial and just guesswork on the casting agency’s part. In more official news however, Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn has revealed that he is involved in Infinity War, and while he stopped short of providing any details we assume he could be taking on an executive producer credit similar to Iron Man helmer Jon Favreau…
…A few months ago a rumour emerged suggested that the titular Ragnarok from Thor: Ragnarok refers to the planet where the movie’s gladiatorial arena is situated, but director Taika Waititi has now debunked that, revealing that – as with the Planet Hulk source material – it will actually be Sakaar: “Sakaar was just an insane, far-off, furutistic place which was the biggest shift for the film and these characters,” said Waititi, before revealing that legendary artist Jack Kirby has been an inspiration for the look of the Phase Three movie: “I was really excited when Kevin Feige and the rest of Marvel jumped on board with the idea to use Kirby as a big influence in the design of the film. What’s really hard is staying authentic…”
…Mark your calendars UK Marvel fans, as it’s been announced that Doctor Strange will receive its home-entertainment release on this side of the Pond on March 6th 2017; take a look at the preliminary cover art here…
…Hot Toys has unveiled a batch of promotional images for its Captain America and Ant-Man Legacy Replica statue from Captain America: Civil War [take a look here], while comic book writer Mark Millar has shared his thoughts on the loose adaptation of his Civil War story arc, stating that he felt it was “too bleak”: “Civil War had a good opening twenty mins, but then I honestly can’t remember what the movie was about. It’s interesting the Russos have a background in comedy because it’s really missing in these otherwise well-made pictures and very, very missed. I really hope this bleakness doesn’t extend into their two Avengers pictures because what made that first Avengers work was the light as well as shade and I’ll be sad if that’s all lost like it was in this picture…”
…Turning to the small screen now and with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. set to return on January 10th, a synopsis for the second half of season four – dubbed ‘LMD’ – has arrived online, and reads: “On the heels of their encounter with Ghost Rider, their strangest phenomenon yet, the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. suddenly find themselves up against a myriad of new and ongoing threats: The anti-Inhuman Watchdogs are gaining political influence with Senator Nadeer, and uniting behind a mysterious benefactor. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the team, Aida has kidnapped Agent May and replaced her with a Life Model Decoy. Aida’s evil plans for May and the team remain a mystery…”
…Marvel has also released a behind-the-scenes featurette for the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. spinoff digital series Slingshot, which features comments from star Natalia Cordova-Buckley, AoS’s Clark Gregg, executive producer Geoffrey Colo and Marvel’s Joe Quesada; watch the featurette here, and check out the full six-episode series here…
…A photo has arrived online this week giving us our first look at the cast of Netflix’s The Punisher series together; take a look at the photo here, which features Jon Bernthal (Frank Castle), Deborah Ann Woll (Karen Page), Ben Barnes (Billy Russo), Jason R Moore (Curtis Hoyle), Michael Nathanson (Sam Stein), Daniel Webber (Lewis Walcott), Amber Rose Revah (Dinah Madani), Ebon Moss-Bachrach (Micro) and Jaime Ray Newman (Sarah Lieberman)…
…Marvel has another TV show launching this February as it teams up with Fox and FX to dip its toes into the X-Men world with Legion, and this week has brought us a new poster featuring Dan Stevens’ David Haller [see here], along with three pieces key art featuring Stevens and co-star Aubrey Plaza [see here]…
…20th Century Fox has been pretty quiet on the marketing front for Logan lately, but this week has brought a new promo image of Stephen Merchant’s Caliban, which you can check out here…
…With Fox set to go into production on X-Men: The New Mutants in the Spring, writer-director Josh Boone has been talking about how the spinoff came about, as well as revealing that he has plans for a trilogy of movies: “[Co-writer Knate Gwaltney and I] had loved this X-Men spinoff, The New Mutants. We had loved Bill Sienkiewicz’s run with Chris Claremont that had Demon Bear. It was really dark, interesting, and different from the typical X-Men stories that we had read. After I made The Fault in Our Stars, we made Fox a comic book. It walked them through a trilogy of New Mutant films that would build on each other. We used this program called Comic Life, and took all the images we had loved from the series and strung them together to show them the movie we wanted to do. We brought it to Simon Kinberg and he really liked it. We’ve been going for the past year and a half to get it ready, and I’m about to go location scout and we have a release date now…”
…Click below to continue on for Justice League, Wonder Woman, The Batman, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, The LEGO Batman Movie, Justice League Dark, Supergirl, The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Gotham and more…
