Our weekly round up of all the big news stories from the world of screen superheroes…
Despite early reports indicating that The Dark Knight Rises was starting to fall off the pace box office-wise last weekend, Christopher Nolan’s Batman swansong responded with a strong second-weekend haul of $62 million in North America and looks set to make in three in a row by fending off competition from Sony’s Total Recall remake to retain top spot this time around. Having pulled in $318 million domestically as of Thursday, The Dark Knight Rises is now the third biggest movie of 2012 behind Marvel’s The Avengers and The Hunger Games in the US. However, the film isn’t quite managing to replicate this success in the international markets; with $566 million going into the weekend, The Dark Knight Rises is closing in on Men in Black 3 ($619.3m), Ice Age: Continental Drift ($653.7m), The Amazing Spider-Man ($659.0m) and The Hunger Games ($683.3m). With The Dark Knight Rises now facing stiff competition from Seth MacFarlane’s directorial debut Ted, I think we can safely declare Earth’s Mightiest Heroes as the winner of 2012’s superhero box office showdown, with the $1.46 billion global haul of The Avengers now looking untouchable…
…From the moment he uttered his first word in the IMAX prologue back in December, Bane’s (Tom Hardy) voice has been one of – if not the – most contentious aspects of The Dark Knight Rises. Although Nolan staunchly defended the approach, stating he would only make slight adjustments to the sound mix, a new before-and-after comparison video has popped up online which gives us an idea of just how much work went into cleaning up Bane’s dialogue in the months leading up to the film’s release…
…Now that The Dark Knight Rises has brought the curtain down on 2012’s superhero season, attention is starting to shift towards Hollywood’s next round of big comic book adaptations, including Hugh Jackman’s latest turn as Logan in The Wolverine. 20th Century Fox’s latest X-Men spin-off officially commenced principal photography in Australia this past week under director James Mangold (Knight and Day), and of course, the spies were on hand to give us a peak at what’s been happening on the set; Australia’s 7News released a video that gave us our first look at the Japanese prisoner of war camp set, while ComicBookMovie posted a collection of images showing a shirtless Jackman filming on said set, as well as pictures of him sporting a huge beard as he films scenes around a hunting shop and bar in the Yukon – a.k.a. the small town of Picton, New South Wales…
…Meanwhile, producer Bryan Singer has also confirmed the rumours that Fox’s next X-Men offering – the previously ‘Untitled X-Men Sequel’ – will be going by the title of X-Men: Days of Future Past, presenting a big screen adaptation of the classic 1981 comic book storyline. Naturally this opens up the possibility a return for some of Singer and Brett Ratner’s X-Men stars to pop up alongside Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class roster, and with Singer announcing that Days of Future Past “will start shooting in a few months”, expect speculation over castings and cameos to go into overdrive over the coming weeks…
…If you’ve been living under a rock this summer and never caught The Avengers (or foolishly left the cinema before the customary credits scene) and have been wondering just who this Thanos bloke is, you can now see for yourself as Marvel Studios has released the mid-credits scene as part of a series of clips promoting the arrival of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes on Blu-ray and DVD. Take a look here…
…Looking further ahead to Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor: The Dark World has secured its primary antagonist and no – it’s not the Enchantress, nor the Executioner. Instead, the rumours that Thor 2 would see Chris Hemsworth’s God of Thunder doing battle with Dark Elves has been confirmed, with British actor Christopher Eccleston (Doctor Who; G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra) announced as having secured the role of Malekith the Accursed, ruler of the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim. Eccleston joins a cast that also includes Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins and Idris Elba, with cameras expected to start rolling on the sequel in London later this month under director Alan Taylor (Game of Thrones)…
…This week has also brought so-far-unconfirmed rumours that Marvel may be looking at moving straight into production on Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man once filming is complete on Thor: The Dark World early next year, with a view to releasing the long-gestating project as the studio’s third offering of 2014 after Captain America: The Winter Solider and Guardians of the Galaxy. Wright is currently working on the third instalment of the ‘Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy’, The World’s End, with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, but there’s also been talk that he’ll find the time to film an end credits sequence for Iron Man 3 which would be used to introduce Hank Pym into the Cinematic Universe and serve to set up the eventual solo movie…
…In other news from Marvel’s upcoming slate, THR has revealed that screenwriter Chris McCoy has been brought in by the studio for rewrites on Nicole’ Perlman’s draft of Guardians of the Galaxy; although as-yet-unproduced, McCoy has landed on the prestigious Black List with three of his previous spec scripts, which are said “to have been praised for their quirky comedic bent…”
…Although Sony and Columbia Pictures have actively been pushing forward with development on a sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, there’s been a lot of uncertainly surrounding the involvement of Marc Webb, owing to the fact that he has an outstanding commitment to direct a film for Fox Searchlight. However, Fox may have cleared the way for Webb to reunite with Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker and Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy on the sequel, offering to give its blessing for him to helm The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in exchange for a subsequent two-picture commitment. With Sony looking at a planned release date of May 2nd, 2014, expect a decision to be made one way or another in the very near future…
…Warner Premiere has released the trailer for the latest entry in its direct-to-video DC Universe Original Animated Movies line, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1, which is of course the first of a two-part adaptation of Frank Miller’s landmark 1986 comic book tale. The animated offering sees Peter Weller (RoboCop) lending his voice to Bruce Wayne / Batman, and arrives on DVD and Blu-ray on September 25th. Check out full details of the release including a hi-res shot of the cover art over at Batman-on-Film…
…And finally, it seems that Stephen Amell’s Green Arrow is going to be joined by plenty of familiar faces from the DC Universe when The CW’s Arrow premieres this October, including the likes of Dinah Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy), Tommy Merlyn (Colin Donnell), China White (Kelly Hu) and Deathstroke. Well, now you can add another to that list with the news that Canadian actor Michael Rowe will appear in the third episode of the series as the expert marksman Deadshot. Meanwhile, with Batman’s movie career now on hold for the time being, IGN asked producer Marc Guggenheim (Green Lantern) about the possibility Dark Knight turning up in Star(ling) City: “Oh, my hope is that we can use him at some point. I think that plagued the Smallville showrunners more than it plagues us because, obviously, the Dark Knight trilogy is over. They’re not available to us yet… My hope is that they’ll be available to us at some point. That would be awesome. No question, that would be absolutely awesome. But I don’t know. That’s above my pay grade.”
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