…With less than a month to go until its release, 20th Century Fox has stepped up the promotion for X-Men: Apocalypse, releasing the final trailer for the Bryan Singer-directed sequel, which confirmed with its final shot that Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine will be making a cameo in the film (read what Singer had to say about Wolverine here). Meanwhile, the studio also released the first clip featuring Professor Xavier (James McAvoy), Havok (Lucas Till) and Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) [watch it here], along with four new TV spots [see here and here], a new image of Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) [see here] and a first look image of The Blob [see here]…
…As Fox gears up to go into production on its next X-Men offering, this week has brought word that Richard E. Grant (Withnail & I) and Stephen Merchant (Extras) have signed on to appear in the as-yet-untitled Wolverine 3. Both roles are being kept under wraps, but it’s said that Grant will play a “mad scientist-type” villain. The duo join the returning Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart, while Boyd Holbrook (Narcos) will play the main bad guy…
…If you were hoping we might get an early look at Wolverine 3 at the San Diego Comic-Con in July, it looks like you’ll be out of luck as reports this week suggest Fox will be skipping Hall H due to concerns over their footage leaking online…
…Moving on to the DC Extended Universe now and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has pushed its box office haul beyond the $850 mark this week, and to commemorate the occasion Warner Bros. released an official clip from the movie showing Wonder Woman’s introduction during the climactic battle with Doomsday. Meanwhile, it seems that the running time of the extended version has been revealed, with a retailer listing suggesting that the R-rated Ultimate Edition runs for 181 minutes, exactly half an hour more than the theatrical cut…
…Despite the fact that production is now underway, things have been awfully quiet on the Justice League front, although this week did bring some comments from J.K. Simmons, who said that his role as Commissioner Gordon will be “very small” in Justice League Part One: “I don’t get started on that until June, and my part in the first one is very small. I’m excited to be playing that iconic character in that iconic series… With these big superhero movies, everyone is so tight lipped about everything that there’s a certain amount of going on faith. They asked me to come in and meet with Zack Snyder. We had a great meeting and I’m a big fan of what he’s done. We hit it off and he asked me to do the guy, and I’m going into a thing that will hopefully be two, three, four maybe more movies for me. My part in the first one is very small, but we know who the guy is, we know his entire backstory through the comics, so I’m just gonna finish doing my research on that. I’m probably not going to watch the other actors who have played the part, because that’s intimidating honestly, and I don’t think I’d find that productive, so I’m just going to do my take…”
…Next up from the DC Extended Universe is Suicide Squad, and this week saw the release of a new image from the supervillain team-up, which appears to tease some possible romance between Deadshot (Will Smith) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie)…
…It looks like Warner Bros. will need to find a new director for The Flash, with Seth Grahame-Smith exiting the Ezra Miller-led solo project owing to “creative differences” with the studio. Grahame-Smith, writer behind Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, has also penned the script for The Flash (from a treatment by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller), and it’s said that WB will be retaining his screenplay for the film, which is slated for release in 2018…
…Coming hot on the heels of the news about Grahame-Smith’s departure, Devin Faraci of Birth.Movies.Death claimed that director James Wan is “feeling a tremendous amount of trepidation” about helming 2018’s Aquaman movie, and “is trying to decide if he needs that hassle”. Apparently, there’s a lot of discontent inside Warner Bros. following Batman v Superman, and concerns over the direction of the DC Extended Universe going forward (apparently that includes lots of fighting between Zack Snyder and Warner execs). Worrying times for the DCEU, assuming Faraci isn’t just making it up, of course…
…In one other piece of DC Extended Universe – which is almost certainly made up, given the source – El Mayimbe of Heroic Hollywood is suggesting that Mad Max: Fury Road helmer George Miller is the name floating around for the director’s chair on 2020’s Green Lantern Corps. Miller does of course have a great relationship with Warner Bros., and was previously set to direct the abandoned Justice League Mortal, as well as recently being rumoured for Man of Steel 2., so there’s a good chance his name would get brought up in discussions at the studio for any DC movie. Seems a pretty solid bet if you’re trying to guess yourself a scoop. Don’t be surprised if Mayimbe links Miller to The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg in the coming weeks…
…Turning to the small screen now and you can read Martin Carr’s review of the last episode of Gotham ‘Pinewood’ here, and we’ve also got a promo for Monday’s upcoming nineteenth episode, entitled ‘Azrael’; take a look at that here…
…As we await official confirmation from CBS that Supergirl is being renewed, be sure to check out Martin’s review of the season one finale ‘Better Angels’ here…
…Over at The CW, Jessie Robertson has reviewed episode nineteen of The Flash ‘Back to Normal here, while we also have a trailer and promo for Tuesday’s twentieth episode ‘Rupture’, along with a poster and a batch of images…
…Arrow returned from its midseason break this past Wednesday with the nineteenth episode ‘Canary Cry’. You can read Jessie’s review of the episode here, and check out a poster, trailer, promo and images for this coming Wednesday’s ‘Genesis’ here…
…We also have a promo and trailer for next Thursday’s fourteenth episode of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, entitled ‘River of Time’, which you can watch here, in addition to a batch of images from the episode here…
…The CW also celebrated National Superhero Day this past Thursday with the release of a promo featuring footage from its current DC offerings Arrow, The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and the animated series Vixen, as well as dipping into the archives with the short-lived Birds of Prey and the 90s Flash series; watch it here…
…On the DC animated front, Warner Bros. has released the first full trailer for the upcoming DC Universe Animated Original Movies adaptation of Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s seminal one-shot Batman: The Killing Joke [watch the trailer here]. The movie reunites Batman: The Animated Series co-creator Bruce Timm with voice stars Kevin Conroy as Batman, Mark Hamill as The Joker and Tara Strong as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, and is set to premiere at the San Diego Comic-Con in July…
…Any UK Heroes fans out there might want to check out our Heroes Reborn competition, where we have three DVD copies of the event series to give away. You can enter the competition here…
…And finally, as always be sure to head on over to our YouTube channel – or watch the video at the bottom of this page – for the latest episode of FMTV’s Scooperhero News, where Luke and Oli round up all the big talking points from the world of movie superheroes.
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.
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