…Turning to Sony’s troubled Spider-Man franchise and a new (and likely entirely fabricated) rumour has emerged this week suggesting that the studio is considering bringing Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy back from the grave for The Amazing Spider-Man 3, while The Amazing Spider-Man 2 star Felicity Jones has expressed her interest in returning to the series in the role of Black Cat, stating that: “Being vacuum-packed into a leather suit, doing backflips?! I’d love that.” The rumoured female-led spin-off, perhaps..?
…With Deadpool set for 2016, creator Rob Liefeld has spoken about the project at last weekend’s Comikaze, confirming – as far as he can confirm – that Ryan Reynolds will return as the Merc with the Mouth: “Ryan is Deadpool. Look, Ryan Reynolds, he’s gone through that same career arc, the guy is ridiculously talented. He has a huge, huge passion for Deadpool. Deadpool’s not happening, because he was a giant star, they said, ‘Ryan, what do you want to do?’ And he said, ‘Deadpool.’ That’s why it happened. They would have no faith otherwise. That movie is because of his passion. He put together the team.” Liefeld also went on to tease the eventual introduction of Cable at some point in the future of the X-Men franchise: “Cable is awesome. And he will…when he appears on screen, we’re all going to nerdgasm, because he’s coming. They can’t hold him back. He’s coming…”
…Ahead of the UK home-entertainment release of X-Men: Days of Future Past this coming Monday, some new concept art from the mutant superhero sequel has arrived online, and you can take a look at it here…
…Moving on to Warner Bros. now and with filming wrapping in Detroit on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, we’ve now had our first spy photos and video from the Chicago set of Zack Snyder’s big DC ensemble, which features Henry Cavill in full costume as Superman, along with Amy Adams’ Lois Lane; check them out here…
…Having provided the score to The Dark Knight Trilogy, there had been some debate about whether Man of Steel composer Hans Zimmer would return for a second stab as the Caped Crusader with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and while Zimmer’s involvement was confirmed a few months back, it seems he’s reached a compromise with director Zack Snyder, bringing in collaborator Junkie XL to provide the music for the Batman parts of the score. “You know something? I have agonized over it,” said Zimmer. “I agonized over it, so much so that finally, I went, I don’t want to betray what Christoper Nolan, James Newton Howard and I did. And so I asked Zack Snyder if it would be okay if I called a friend in. And I’m going to be working with Junkie XL, who really is a great friend. He just finished the Mad Max: Fury Road score. I said to him, ‘You take care of Batman. I’ll do the other guy.’ And Zack loved that idea. It’s a way out…”
…And speaking of The Dark Knight Trilogy, director Christopher Nolan caused a bit of a stir this week in the build up to the release of his latest film Interstellar, with The Guardian quoting him as rejecting a post-credits scene for Man of Steel on the basis that “a real movie wouldn’t do that.” Obviously this didn’t set well with fans of Marvel Studios, but it turns out that Nolan had been misquoted, with the filmmaker clarifying that “I would never say someone else’s film isn’t ‘a real film’. The quote is inaccurate.” Apparently Nolan’s reason for rejecting the post-credits scene was that he and Snyder “shouldn’t be chasing other movies, but stay true to the tone of Man of Steel.” Of course, with Nolan out of the DC picture now, it remains to be seen whether Warner Bros. will incorporate post-credit sequences going forward…
…It seems that the Clown Prince of Crime is set for a return to the big screen, with various trades reporting that Dallas Buyers Club star Jared Leto is wanted for the role of The Joker in 2016’s Suicide Squad. Apparently director David Ayer has added the character to his draft of the script, with Leto the number one contender following interest in Ryan Gosling (Only God Forgives). Meanwhile, it’s said that Will Smith (After Earth), Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises) and Margot Robbie (The Wolf of Wall Street) are all still wanted by the studio, although there’s no word on potential characters for those…
…Looking further ahead in the DC Cinematic Universe – potentially – and following on from earlier comments from New Line executive Toby Emmerich, Dwayne Johnson has teased that the upcoming Shazam movie will be kept seperate from the rest of Warner’s DC film slate, tweeting “I guaran-damn-tee we’re gonna have bad ass fun w/ Black Adam. (Its a NL/DC property). #Independence See u at the junket homie” in response to criticism on Twitter that David S. Goyer and Zack Snyder will never make anything as fun as the Fast & Furious movies…
…During an interview with IGN, Anne Hathaway expressed her interest in returning to the role of Selina Kyle from The Dark Knight Rises for a solo Catwoman movie (with Nolan’s involvement), as well as stating that she’d be open to a cameo role in a future DC movie: “I would be totally up for doing [a solo movie], if Christopher Nolan was involved. For me, the thing that made doing that part particularly fun was that she existed in his Gotham. Without him I don’t think it would be the same thing. But I also wonder about that part. If because she’s a thief, it’s not better to have her be a small part in a larger film. So she can go through and steal aspects of the film. But when the focus is squarely on her, I don’t know if it works as well. [A cameo] wpi;d be fun. I’d definitely love that. I want to play her again. I don’t know – this is just speculation, because I do think about it sometimes – I think she’s got an amazing backstory and it would be great to see her get her own film. But I don’t know – she is someone who… mystery serves her well so I don’t know what a whole film would do. But who knows..?”
…On the small screen, FOX has released a new Rogues Gallery featurette for Gotham [see here], along with a promo for Monday’s episode of the Batman prequel series, entitled ‘The Mask’ [see here], some promotional stills from the following episode ‘Harvey Dent’ [see here], and a selection of first look images of Nicholas D’Agosto (Masters of Sex) as Gotham’s future District Attorney and supervillain Two-Face [see here and here]. Meanwhile, executive producer Danny Cannon has also revealed that The Scarecrow will join the show in an upcoming episode, although Gotham’s version of Jonathan Crane “will be seen as a child, before he takes on the Scarecrow moniker. In fact, it’s something that will be passed on to him from his father, which will create an eventual enemy for Batman while still having a possible adversary for Jim Gordon…”
…Over at The CW and we’ve got a selection of promo images and a clip from Tuesday’s episode of The Flash entitled ‘Plastique’ [see here and here], along with a batch of images from the following week’s ‘The Flash Is Born’ [see here] and a ‘Rogues Gallery’ featurette which sees Grant Gustin (Barry Allen) and Danielle Panabaker (Caitlin Snow) discussing the growing roster of villains in the series [see here]. Meanwhile, you can also check out our review of sister show Arrow’s fifth episode of season three ‘The Secret Origin of Felicity Smoak’ here, along with a trailer and promo for this Wednesday’s episode ‘Guilty’ here…
…Papa Midnite made his debut in Constantine last night [check out promo images of Michael James Shaw in the role of the voodoo king of New Orleans here], which NBC will be hoping helped to give the show a ratings boost after the second episode ‘The Darkness Beneath’ lost over a million viewers from the premiere, pulling in just 3.06 million viewers in its Friday night slot. Read our review of the second episode here, and check out some images and promo for the next episode, entitled ‘A Feast of Friends’…
…And finally, ahead of its long, long-awaited home entertainment release this coming week, Warner Bros. has dropped a clip from Batman: The Complete Television Series, which offers up a side-by-side comparison of the restoration work courtesy of a scene featuring Adam West and Burt Ward’s Dynamic Duo and Cesar Romero’s Joker. Check it out here and be sure to enter our competition here for the chance to win a copy of the box-set on Blu-ray!
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.
