Our weekly round up of the latest news stories from the world of screen superheroes, including Iron Man 3, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, S.H.I.E.L.D., The Incredible Hulk, Marvel Animation, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Kick-Ass 2, Man of Steel, Arrow, Wonder Woman, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, DC vs. Marvel and more…
…Following the ankle injury sustained by Robert Downey Jr., filming on the Shane Black-directed Iron Man 3 resumed earlier this week at Dania Beach, Florida. Along with a new set photo that gave us a decent look at Tony Stark’s Mark XLVII suit alongside War Machine’s (Don Cheadle) shiny new Iron Patriot armour, Marvel Studios has also revealed that we’ll get to see the first trailer from Iron Man 3 on October 23rd, ahead of the film’s release next spring. Might we get a glimpse at Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin? Well, we’ll find out soon enough…
…With filming well underway on both Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World, Marvel Studios is now starting to turn its attention towards its 2014 slate, and this week brought news that five actresses are set to screen test for the female lead in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. According to reports, Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones), Jessica Brown Findlay (Downton Abbey), Teresa Palmer (I Am Number Four), Imogen Poots (Fright Night) and Alison Brie (Mad Men) are all in contention to become Steve Rogers’ (Chris Evans) new love-interest. Scarlett Johansson is also said to be a lock to reprise her role as the Black Widow, joining the previously confirmed Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, while Anthony Mackie (The Hurt Locker) has also joined the cast as Sam Wilson, a.k.a. Falcon…
…Speaking at MorrisonCon’s Celluloid Heroes panel, newly-confirmed Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn spoke briefly about the casting process on Marvel’s ‘big space epic’: “There’s such a long, long list for all our casting choices, we’ve barely begun. It’s not cast-dependent. We could make the movie with unknowns if we wanted to. I can’t talk too much about this, because Marvel will kill me…”
…Moving on to Marvel’s upcoming small screen offerings, and the first character details for Joss Whedon’s upcoming S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series have arrived online and – just as Whedon promised – there’s no familiar faces in the main roster. Along with a female character named Skye, the series will centre on S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Grant Ward (the one with a bit of a temper), Althea Rice (the one with crazy skills when it comes to weapons and flying), Leo Fitz (the one who’s a technical whiz) and Jemma Simmons (the one who’s an expert biologist and chemist). You can check out some brief bios here…
…Elsewhere in Marvel TV Land, Guillermo del Toro has also offered a very brief update on his proposed Incredible Hulk series, stating that: “Right now all I know is the official word I was given is that there’s a writer they want. They are very interested in me meeting with him. He’s very, very busy. The official word is we are holding, but I don’t know.” So, hardly encouraging, and considering the lack of movement on this over the past year or so, I’d not be surprised to see The Hulk go the same way as a million of del Toro’s other ideas…
…Not content with dominating both cinema and TV screens, Marvel has also announced that two of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes will team-up for the direct-to-video animated movie Iron Man & Hulk: Heroes United, which is set to arrive next April and will see the Armored Avenger (voiced by Adrian Pasdar; Heroes) and Green Goliath (voiced by Fred Tatasciore; Ultimate Spider-Man) joining forces to combat the living energy mass Zzzax (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker; American Dad). Meanwhile, Captain America will team up with Spidey this Sunday to take on Doctor Doom in the latest episode of DisneyXD’s Ultimate Spider-Man, and you can take a look at a brief clip over at ComicBookMovie…
…Following on from Patrick Stewart’s recent comments teasing his return as Professor Xavier in Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming X-Men: First Class sequel X-Men: Days of Future Past, Famke Janssen has become the latest original X-Man to hint at the possibility of reprising her role. “Jean Grey, the Phoenix… she finds a way to reincarnate herself constantly, so one never knows,” she told MTV Splash Page, before stating that she’s “in no position to say anything” and telling fans to “stay tuned”…
…X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner has also provided an update on the status of Days of Future Past, telling Crave Online that “we have a great treamtment and we’re just waiting for the screenplay.” Meanwhile, she also touched upon the possibility of the X-Men joining up with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes for a Fox / Marvel Studios crossover: “I would live it. I personally have close tie to Marvel because of Kevin Feige, because Kevin worked for me. But to take our characters and mingle them in the way that they were written, yeah, absolutely…”
…Filming on the comic book sequel Kick-Ass 2 has now moved on to the UK, and director Jeff Wadlow has tweeted the latest set photo, which depicts a casket full of automatic rifles. Kick-Ass 2 is due for release next summer, with a cast that includes Aaron Johnson, Chloe Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jim Carrey, Donald Faison, John Leguizamo, Lyndsy Fonseca, Robert Emms, Lindy Booth, Clark Duke and Morris Chestnut…
…Moving on to Warner Bros.’ next comic book offering, and scriptwriter David S. Goyer (Blade, Batman Begins) had a few words about director Zack Snyder’s upcoming Superman reboot Man of Steel: “What Christopher Nolan and I have done with Superman is try to bring the same naturalistic approach that we adopted for the Batman trilogy. We always had a naturalistic approach, we want our stories to be rooted in reality, like they could happen in the same world we live in. It’s not that easy with Superman, and actually this doesn’t necessarily mean we will make a dark movie. But working on this reboot we are thinking about what would happen if a story like this one actually happened. How would people react to this? What impact would the presence of Superman in the real world have? What I really like to do is write ‘genre’ stories without a cartoonish element. I did the same with Da Vinci’s Demons, and I’ll do the same with Man of Steel…”
…This coming Wednesday (October 10th) sees the premiere of The CW’s latest superhero TV series Arrow, and ahead of its debut the network has released a new ‘first look’ featurette that gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the series, as well as a rundown the main cast members, including Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen / Arrow, Katie Cassidy’s Laurel Lance, Willa Holland’s Thea Queen, Colin Donnel’s Tommy Merlyn, Paul Blackthorne’s Detective Quentin Lance and David Ramsey’s John Diggle [take a look here]. Meanwhile, the first images of Michael Rowe’s assassin Deadshot – who is set to debut in the third episode, ‘Lone Gunman’ – have also popped up online, which you can see here…
…During an interview with Crave Online, Adrianne Palicki (G.I. Joe: Retaliation) discussed working on last year’s Wonder Woman pilot, which ultimately failed to make it to a full series: “I’m incredibly proud of that project. I was so grateful to get to play Wonder Woman. That was a childhood dream of mine and I’m proud of the outcome. I do wish it would have gone to series but everything happens for a reason. Looking at it as a positive, I got to work with some amazing actors, [an] amazing writer and I got to wear the outfit. It was not comfortable but it was totally worth it…”
…Following the release of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 last month, Warner Home Entertainment is now shifting the focus to Part 2, releasing the first image from the second part of the animated comic book adaptation earlier this week, while casting and voice director Andrea Romano spoke to Media Geek Network about casting Mark Valley (Boston Legal) in the role of Superman. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 is set to arrive next year, with a voice cast that includes Peter Weller (RoboCop) as Bruce Wayne / Batman, Ariel Winter (Modern Family) as Carrie Kelley / Robin and Michael Emerson (Lost) as The Joker…
…And finally, Marvel’s The Avengers may have secured victory over The Dark Knight Rises in this year’s cinematic superhero showdown, but how does Marvel’s feature film output hold up against that of DC Comics’ overall? Well, according to a nifty infographic, Marvel is currently leading its rival by some $1.7 billion dollars at the North American box-office, although DC holds the advantage when it comes to per-film averages, with $208,145,490 compared to Marvel’s $201,877,828. In fairness, it doesn’t seem entirely accurate (notable omissions include the likes of Constantine and The Losers), but it still makes for pretty interesting reading, and – with only Man of Steel on the horizon for DC and Warner Bros. – expect Marvel to firmly extend its lead over the next couple of years with Iron Man 3, The Wolverine, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Avengers 2 all set to arrive between now and May 1st, 2015.
Holy Franchise, Batman! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen – Available now via Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com
