Our weekly round up of the the latest news stories from the world of screen superheroes, including The Dark Knight Rises Blu-ray and DVD details, Marvel Cinematic Universe updates, Thanos and Schwarzenegger, Mark Millar and Fox, The Wolverine first look, X-Men: Days of Future Past casting teases, Marc Webb and The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Frank Miller for Justice League and more…
Earlier this week the first artwork for the various Blu-ray and DVD offerings of The Dark Knight Rises arrived online via Amazon, including the limited edition Broken Cowl Blu-ray Combo Back and Dark Knight Trilogy Limited Edition Giftset. Sadly, any sites that posted the images were asked to take them down, before EW ‘exclusively’ broke the news on Friday, as well as providing a run down of the special features. As expected, there’s no commentary from Christopher Nolan, but there are a few documentaries (‘The Batmobile Documentary’, ‘Ending the Knight’ and ‘The Journey of Bruce Wayne’), along with the obligatory trailers and art galleries. The Dark Knight Rises will be available to pre-order this coming Tuesday (October 2nd) and hits shelves in the UK on December 3rd, with a North American release the following day…
…On the subject of Batman, the latest entry in Warner Premiere’s DC Universe Animated Original Movies line, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1, was released this past Tuesday; check out some new images and a Q&A with Ariel Winter (who voices Carrie Kelley / Robin), while ComicBookMovie also posted an interview with executive producer and animation legend Bruce Timm…
…Tuesday also saw the US home-entertainment release of Marvel’s The Avengers, which was accompanied by the arrival of four exclusive new posters for the blockbuster superhero team-up [see here], as well as enabling fans to unlock even more content through the Avengers Initiative: Marvel Second Screen Experience app. Best of all was concept art for the film’s surprise mid-credits villain Thanos, which certainly bears more than a passing resemblance to one Arnold Schwarzenegger [credit Tyrel Cote], who happens to have been rumoured on more than one occasion as a possible candidate to voice the Mad Titan for his potential appearances in Guardians of the Galaxy and The Avengers 2:
…In a couple of other bits and pieces from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the folks at Latino Review got their hands on some crew hats from Iron Man 3 that suggest the return of The Ten Rings terrorist organisation in the Shane Black-directed sequel (hardly surprising really, considering that Ben Kingsley has been announced as portraying The Mandarin); the cast of Thor: The Dark World has been bolstered by two new additions, with Clive Russell (Game of Thrones) signing up to portray Thor’s older brother Tyr and Richard Brake (Batman Begins’ Joe Chill) cast as a captain in Asgard’s elite Einherjar; and newly-confirmed Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn posted an update on his preparations for helming Marvel’s ‘big space epic’ on his official Facebook page: “Rereading old Guardians books, I came upon this villain from Guardians of the Galaxy #1 (1990 run). Although I’m not discussing anything having to do with the Guardians movie, I will say the odds of Taserface making an appearance are quite low…”
…Following the appointment of Joss Whedon to oversee ‘Phase Two’ of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, 20th Century Fox has moved to emulate Marvel Studios’ success by hiring Scottish comic book writer Mark Millar (Wanted, Kick-Ass) to serve as creative consultant for its upcoming superhero slate. Millar – who has plenty of experience on Marvel titles such as The Ultimates and Civil War – has signed on to work with the studio “on developing new avenues for its X-Men and Fantastic Four tentpoles,” which so far includes the X-Men entries The Wolverine and X-Men: Days of Future Past, along with Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot. Check out what Millar has to say about the opportunity over on his official forums…
…Sticking with X-Men for a moment and Fox has released the first official image of Hugh Jackman from James Mangold’s currently-in-production solo outing The Wolverine, while Patrick Stewart took a moment to tease fans at the 2012 Montreal Comic Convention about the possibility of him returning as Professor Xavier in Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming adaptation of the classic Days of Future Past storyline. According to Newsarama, Stewart ran down a list of female co-stars Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, Rebecca Romijn and Anna Paquin, stated “yes, I’ll be reprising” and was promptly cut off by his son before the moderator steered the panel back towards Star Trek…
…Total Film also caught up with Hugh Jackman, who spoke about his latest outing as the adamantium-clawed Logan: “For various reasons with [X-Men Origins: Wolverine] I don’t think we got to the bottom of the character and I think that’s why, in this one, we’re calling it ‘The‘ Wolverine. It should feel like a standalone movie. It’s a wonderful idea, which is why Darren Aronofsky was interested in doing it. He’d been looking for a movie for a long time and he said that this was the best script he’d read. It didn’t work out in the end for many, complicated reasons but it was kind of a reassurance to me that I knew we were on the right path…”
…After months of speculation, director Marc Webb has reached an agreement with Sony to direct the sequel to this year’s The Amazing Spider-Man, with Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone also both confirmed to return as Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has been written by Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci (Transformers, Star Trek Into Darkness) from a draft by James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, The Amazing Spider-Man), and is due to swing into cinemas on May 2nd, 2014…
…We’ve already seen plenty of spy photos from the set of Kick-Ass 2, but this past week director Jeff Wadlow gave us our first official look at Kick-Ass (Aaron Johnson) and Doctor Gravity (Donald Faison) via Twitter, as well as a few behind-the-scenes shots of Chloe Grace Moretz’s Hit-Girl and Eisenhower the Alsatian as Colonel Stars’ (Jim Carrey) guard dog Sophia; check them out over at ComicBookMovie…
…Although Warner Bros. has remained tight-lipped about its plans for a Justice League movie, that hasn’t stopped speculation from running wild about potential directors for the project. So far we’ve had Ben Affleck (Argo), Brett Ratner (X-Men: The Last Stand), McG (Terminator Salvation), Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) and Andy and Lana Wachowski (Cloud Atlas), and now we can add Frank Miller (Sin City) to that list; according to Bleeding Cool, WB sent some of its staff out mystery shopping to an unnamed comic book store, where they proceeded to quiz the staff about all things comic book movie, before asking “What would fan reaction be to a Justice League movie with Frank Miller’s name attached?” It’s probably rubbish, but it makes for a good read anyway, (see the bigging up of Jonah Hex and looking glum when told that DC should “just do what Marvel have done”)…
…Speaking to MTV News, Ben Affleck discussed being linked with the director’s chair on the epic DC Comics team-up: “What happens is that there’s a lot of bloggers and Internet interest around superhero movies, so there’s regularly a rumor that comes up. Obviously [with regard to] Justice League, once Avengers happened, they think, ‘Well, it would be crazy not to make Justice League,’ and I’m sure they will. I guess I should be flattered, and I’m sure it will be cool. I’ve seen some of the stuff from [Man of Steel], and that stuff is awesome. I think they took a really cool, real approach to Superman, which no one has done before, so if that trend continues, I’m sure Justice League will be great.” Affleck also went on to touch upon the negative experience he had on 2003’s Daredevil, before admitting that he would be open to another comic book movie: “I would love to do one if it was the right one, if I thought I could do it well. I think you have to, with any movie, have an idea for it that’s original and unique and committed to it, and that’s a hard thing to find…”
…And finally, with less than two weeks to go until DC’s Emerald Archer arrives on the small screen with the premiere of Arrow on October 10th, we’ve now got our first look at one of the the series’ featured villains, with Zap2It posting two images of Kelly Hu (X2: X-Men United) as China White, who will make her debut in the second episode and has been reimagined from the leader of a drug cartel to an assassin working for the Triads.
Holy Franchise, Batman! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen – Available now via Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
