In this edition of The Week in Spandex, we look at Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Guardians of the Galaxy, Daredevil, A.K.A. Jessica Jones, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, Deadpool, X-Men, Suicide Squad, Shazam, Gotham, The Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, Heroes Reborn, Powers, The Crow and more…
There’s less than five weeks to go before Marvel kicks off the 2015 superhero season with the UK release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, and to whet our appetites even further the studio has debuted a couple of TV spots this week which offer up some brand new footage from the hotly-anticipated sequel, including the first dialogue from Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Quicksilver [watch them here]. Meanwhile, the titular villain also got his own character poster (which you can see to the right), Joss Whedon spoke about the new roster additions to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes including Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) [see here], and Hot Toys debuted its latest 1/6th scale collectible figurine based on Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow [see here]. Oh, and there have also been quite a few “scoops” this week concerning which characters may or may not make it out of Age of Ultron alive, but frankly it’s all just guesswork so I’ll not waste your time…
…As Marvel prepares to unleash Avengers: Age of Ultron, the studio is already gearing up to go into production on its Phase Three-launching Captain America: Civil War, and as well as Daniel Bruhl (Rush) sharing his excitement about joining the film [check out his comments here], a synopsis has also surfaced for the 2016 threequel which reads: “Following the events of Age of Ultron, the collective governments of the world pass an act designed to regulate all superhuman activity. This polarizes opinion amongst the Avengers, causing two factions to side with Iron Man or Captain America, which causes an epic battle between former allies…”
…Looking back at the last instalment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Framestore has released a video featurette exploring their visual effects work on the character of Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy which you can watch here, and if you were puzzled as to why Groot stops dancing when Drax turns to look at him in the film’s memorable final scene, then director James Gunn has the answer for you here…
…Shifting to the small screen and with Daredevil set to land on Netflix on April 10th, Marvel has released a new image of Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock [see here], along with a couple of motion posters for the 13-episode series – the second of which includes a look at Avengers Tower as well as a potential first glimpse of Matt Murdock’s red devil suit [watch them here and here]…
…Turning to the next step on the road to The Defenders and some new set photos from A.K.A. Jessica Jones have arrived online featuring Krysten Ritter (Breaking Bad) and Eka Darville (Empire) [see here], while former Doctor Who star David Tennant has been speaking about joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe with his upcoming role as Zebediah Killgrave: “This is something I grew up with. It’s like my eight year old self doesn’t know what to do with himself. I think comic books are a glorious wonderful art form and I think Marvel is one of the things that we’ll be looking back on in a hundred years’ time they’ll be one of the cornerstones of our cultural existence. I got shown around [Marvel] and clever people gave me comic books and told me how they got made and met people that spent their day doing that stuff. It was so exciting…”
…Over at ABC and a promo has arrived online for the next episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. entitled ‘Love in the Time of Hydra’ [watch it here], along with a promo poster for the episode and first look images of Edward James Olmos as Robert Gonzales and Luke Mitchell as the new Inhuman character Lincoln [take a look here]…
…Prior to Sony’s deal with Marvel over Spider-Man, there were rumours that the studio was planning a spin-off from The Amazing Spider-Man centred on the character of Aunt May; however, it seems this is news to Aunt May herself, Sally Field, who dismissed the claims this week when asked if there was any truth to the report: “Aunt May spin off? And make her the lead? What would you do with her? She has no special powers whatsoever. She was a housewife waiting for the kids to come home. I think they did that: it was called The Donna Reed Show…”
…Moving on to Fox now and while it appears that director Josh Trank has a very different take on Marvel’s First Family in store for us with this summer’s The Fantastic Four, Miles Teller has revealed that we will be seeing the traditional Fantastic Four costumes in the movie alongside the “containment suits” seen in the promotional material: “These are the beta versions of the costumes, which is great… But, yeah it would be very odd if the Fantastic Four didn’t don the traditional costumes. You’ve got to. There is some servicing there. You’ve got to give that to the fans. That’s what it’s all about.” In a separate interview, Teller went on to state that: “We were looking to kind of put our stamp on it. We were looking to pay respect to the history of the characters but to bring them up to date [but] you should have some laughs in there. You want to see some enjoyment and The Thing better say ‘It’s clobbering time…'”
…With cameras set to start rolling on Fox’s first Marvel movie of 2016, this week has brought details of the characters set to be played by Morena Baccarin (Gotham) and T.J. Miller (Transformers: Age of Extinction) in February’s Deadpool solo movie, with Baccarin playing Vanessa Carlyle, a.k.a. Copycat, and Miller as Wade’s tech guy and weapons dealer Jack Hammer, better known as Weasel…
…As he prepares to link up with his X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past co-stars for Bryan Singer’s X-Men: Apocalypse, Nicholas Hoult has revealed that his contract to play Beast is up after next year’s sequel, but he’s keen to sign on for more mutant adventures: “[Apocalypse] is the last one I’m signed up for. The first one did so well and [X-Men: Days of Future Past] got received so brilliantly. It’s like, ‘Wow, people really want to see the films’ and the best thing is it’s a great crew and cast to work with and he’s a fun character. I have a good time playing him so I’d keep making them…”
