Our weekly round-up of all the latest superhero news and talking points, including Ant-Man, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Doctor Strange, Ms. Marvel, Black Panther, Guardians of the Galaxy, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Luke Cage, Big Hero 6, The Sinister Six, The Fantastic Four, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Superman Lives, Shazam, Arrow, The Flash, Gotham, Constantine, Powers and more….
Marvel Studios kicked off production on the Phase Three launching Ant-Man this week in San Francisco, with director Peyton Reed taking to Twitter to officially announce the start of filming, which was followed by the first official shot of Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, a couple of behind-the-scenes images of Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne, and a few FM exclusive set photos and a scene description of the first day’s shoot [see here]. And to coincide with the start of production, Marvel released an updated cast list – which also includes Michael Douglas (Behind The Candelabra) as Dr. Hank Pym, Corey Stoll (House of Cards) as Darren Cross / Yellowjacket, John Slattery (Iron Man 2) as Howard Stark and Bobby Cannavale (The Long Play), Michael Peña (American Hustle), Abby Ryder Fortson (Togetherness), Judy Greer (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), David Dastmalchian (The Dark Knight), Wood Harris (The Wire), Gregg Turkington (The Comedy) and T.I. (American Gangster) in as yet-unrevealed roles – along with an updated synopsis: “Armed with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, con-man Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) must embrace his inner-hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), protect the secret behind his spectacular Ant-Man suit from a new generation of towering threats. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Pym and Lang must plan and pull off a heist that will save the world…”
…It looks like we can add another familiar face to the packed cast of Avengers: Age of Ultron, with Stellan Skarsgard revealing that he’s set to reprise the role of Dr. Erik Selvig in next year’s hotly-anticipated sequel: ” I’m going to be in Avengers: Age Of Ultron, a small appearance. It’s something really nice. Even if it’s owned by Disney now, it’s really run by four or five people, and they know exactly what they’re doing. I like working with them because if I have a problem with the scene, I have Kevin Feige’s number. I can call the head of the studio. You can’t do that when you work on a normal Disney film or with Warner Bros or Paramount.” Skarsgard also went on to discuss his naked turn in last year’s Thor: The Dark World, stating: ” I was naked again. They called my agent and said, ‘Do you think Stellan will mind being naked?’ My agent laughed his head off. Yeah, I almost insist! Sometimes with a contract you get a nudity clause, which is fantastic. It’s supposed to protect me from having my genitals exploited, which I doubt anybody would make a dime on…”
…Although Doctor Strange has a director and screenwriter in Scott Derrickson (Sinister) and Jon Spaihts (Prometheus), we’re still waiting on an official announcement on the film; however, that hasn’t stopped the rumour mill from churning out “scoops”, with the latest one suggesting that Marvel has decided against a straightforward origin story, and the film is “not going to be twenty-minutes of [Stephen Strange] being a doctor,” instead jumping straight in to the action with Strange as the Sorcerer Supreme. However, it will reportedly still explore his origin through flashbacks, Batman Begins-style, so I guess you could still class it as an origin tale, making the whole “scoop” a bit of a non-story…
…Speaking of Doctor Strange, and Jon Hamm has denied the rather dubious rumour from back in January suggesting he’d already been cast as the Sorcerer Supreme, with the Mad Men star stating: “The funny thing about the internet is you can have rumors go on about possible jobs, and possible things that you have no idea… Maybe [it was true], I don’t know. You know, it’s funny when the internet knows more about you than you do, but maybe they’ve been talking to someboyd high up at Marvel. Maybe the internet was talking to Marvel. I don’t know. I know I certainly wasn’t approached about it, but I do like Doctor Strange, he”s a very cool character…”
…We’re still waiting on details of the films set to join Ant-Man, Doctor Strange and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 as part of Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it appears that there’s a chance Ms. Marvel and Black Panther could be set for their long-awaited MCU debut, with Kevin Feige confirming that development is underway on both properties: “They’re both characters that we like, that development work has been done on and continues to be done on and certainly the public… it’s a question I get asked more than anything else. More than Iron Man 4. More than The Avengers 3. And that’s sort of the fist time that’s really happened to us so I think that makes a difference. I think that’s something we have to pay attention to…
…This week saw Guardians of the Galaxy returning to the top of the U.S. box office pushing its worldwide box office to $430.7 million (by close of play on Thursday), with the film set to overtake Thor ($449.3 million) this weekend and close in on the half billion mark. Meanwhile, Marvel has dropped a new featurette which sees the cast discusses the ‘Awesome Mixtape Vol. 1’ soundtrack to the space opera, as well as announcing the first official Dancing Groot toy, which comes courtesy of Funko…
…Turning to the small screen side of the MCU and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has added both a superhero and supervillain to its cast for the upcoming second season, with Adrianne Palicki (G.I. Joe: Retaliation) signing on to play fan favourite Bobbi Morse, a.k.a. Mockingbird, and Brian Patrick Wade (Teen Wolf) securing the role of Crusher Creel, better known as The Absorbing Man (check out a first look image of the bad guy here)…
…With Luke Cage set to join the MCU as part of Netflix’s Marvel series, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 star Jamie Foxx has revealed that he was approached to play Power Man back when John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood) was attached to direct a feature film for Sony and Columbia Pictures…
…We’ve already had four Marvel movies this year in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, X-Men: Days of Future Past and Guardians of the Galaxy, but Disney has one more up its sleeve in the animated movie Big Hero 6, and you can check out a new still from the film here…
…Click below to continue onto the next page for The Sinister Six, The Fantastic Four, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Superman Lives, Shazam, Arrow, The Flash, Constantine, Gotham, Powers and more…
