Our weekly round up of all the latest stories from the world of screen superheroes, including Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, Big Hero 6, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Gambit, James Cameron’s Spider-Man, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Arrow, The Flash, Constantine, Gotham, Batman: Assault on Arkham and more…
Well, it’s been more than two weeks now since Edgar Wright vacated the director’s chair on Ant-Man, and with the project due to go into production next month, it seems Marvel Studios are having trouble securing a replacement for the British filmmaker. After entering talks with Marvel last weekend, Adam McKay (Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues) declined the offer to direct, stating that he has other projects that he’s committed to, with Rawson Marshall Thurber (We’re the Millers) allegedly following suit. Following the rejection(s), Marvel is said to have added Nicholas Stoller (Neighbors) and Michael Dowse (Goon) to its shortlist, before casting the net even wider, with David Wain (Role Models) and Peyton Reed (The Break-Up) both under consideration, and the latter thought to be the front-runner…
UPDATE: It has now been confirmed that Peyton Reed will direct Ant-Man, with Adam McKay contributing to the script. Here’s the official 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…”
…So far, we’ve heard very little in the way of comments from those involved with Ant-Man about the situation, although Michael Douglas (Behind the Candelabra) has expressed his disappointment over Wright’s departure from the project, stating that: “I was very disappointed. I am a big fan of his movies. It’s a very disappointing situation. Happened very late in the game. I don’t think anybody’s quite recovered. My heart goes out to Edgar – he’s been involved with the project for a long time. But he’s talented enough that you’ll be hearing a whole lot from him and I’m sure with a little vengeance…”
…While Marvel seems to be struggling with Ant-Man, it looks like the studio is ploughing full steam ahead with another Phase Three offering, with Scott Derrickson (Sinister) signing on to direct the still-not-officially-announced Doctor Strange movie. Of course, no sooner had the news broken than we had our first candidate for the role of the Sorcerer Supreme, with BadAssDigest claiming that Oscar-winner Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club) is under consideration, before the more-reliable Deadline threw another two names into the mix in British stars Benedict Cumberbatch (Star Trek Into Darkness) and Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises)…
…At this point, it appears likely that we’ll get a full announcement on Marvel’s Phase Three plans at the San Diego Comic-Con International in July; in addition to Ant-Man, Doctor Strange is all but assured alongside Captain America 3 and Thor 3, and with The Avengers 3 expected in 2018, that leaves one slot free, assuming Marvel is going to stick to two releases per year. This week, the company registered a series of trademarks that may potentially give us a clue to the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy and Age of Ultron joined by the likes of Black Panther, New Warriors, Strikeforce: Morituri and Alpha Flight; check out the details here…
…Next week Marvel Studios is set to drop an official batch of character posters for August’s Guardians of the Galaxy, and to whet our appetites a huge batch of James Gunn-approved fan-made one-sheets have arrived online, which you can peruse here, as well as a couple of new TV spots, which offer up some brand new footage from the cosmic superhero ensemble. Meanwhile, following the announcement that Josh Brolin (Men in Black 3) is set to voice Thanos, details of the Mad Titan’s involvement in Guardians of the Galaxy have surfaced online [read them here, but beware of minor spoilers], while Lee Pace (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) has discussed his turn as the film’s main bad guy, Ronan the Accuser: “I’ve never played a character like Ronan before. I like a bombastic villain, and that’s what I had a good time doing. It was the most fun playing this character… I was stronger than I’ve ever been, doing all this training, and the character is just a beast. He’s just so evil. At first when I started working on him, I was thinking, ‘We’ve seen so many great performances of villains by very talented actors in superhero movies. I’ve got to find something relatable about this guy.’ But the more I played him, the more fun I had with just being evil. Evil, evil, evil. He’s an alien – there’s no kind of human rules. There’s nothing to relate to, actually. It just became, like, the more dark I could conceive of him, the more I understood him… He’s like Osama bin Laden – he’s like a religious fanatic. It’s so cool…”
…Having been absent from Marvel’s Phase Two line-up, Mark Ruffalo has promised that we’ll be seeing an expanded role for The Incredible Hulk when Earth’s Mightiest Heroes reassemble next year for Avengers: Age of Ultron: “[My role’s] even bigger than last time, and it’s more complex and it has more layers and a bit more arc. I’m really tripping on the technology of this motion-capture stuff… now I just completely embrace it and see it as this other exciting place we can go as performers…”
…Coming hot on the heels of details about the home-entertainment release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Marvel Studios has released a Blu-ray trailer for this year’s Phase Two solo sequel, which you can see here…
…Having reunited with Robert Downey Jr. for his latest film Chef, Iron Man and Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau has spoken about the “big gamble” of casting the star as Tony Stark in 2008’s first Marvel Studios release: “I remember when we cast Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man, and I was told no several times. It was my job as a director to show that it was the best choice creatively…and now the Marvel Universe is the biggest franchise in film history… Everybody knew he was talented… Certainly by studying the Iron Man role and developing that script I realized that the character seemed to line-up with Robert in all the good and bad ways. And the story of Iron Man was really the story of Robert’s career. That was a big gamble on whether or not he was really serious about it…and now history has definitely proven that he was dead serious about it and now he is the biggest star in the world…”
…Before we move on from the MCU, Clark Gregg has offered up a few words about the upcoming second season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and how it will fit in with ABC’s new show Agent Carter: “I just had a big chat with [the writing team] and they said, ‘here’s the broad strokes: it’s going to be low-fi, you’re going back to basics [and] you’re going to have to build S.H.I.E.L.D. again from the ground up in a much more dangerous world where your group is outlawed’. So, it feels like early Sean Connery James Bond with brass knuckles and not afraid to knock anybody off. There were so many thing stacked against us last year and one of those was getting a new show off the ground where the regular ABC television schedule would have us on for 3 shows and then take us down for four weeks – so we couldn’t get any momentum going.” he said. “When the show started being on consistently and [we had] a story that carried over in an episodic way, that’s when the show started to click. So the great thing about the announcement is that we’re moving to 9pm where it can be a little darker – which I think Marvel needs to be. Then they’re going to show, I believe it’s ten [Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episodes], eight of [Agent Carter], then twelve [more Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.]… For the most part, this is straight runs of our show, which is when I think it really works…”
…Sticking with Disney / Marvel for a moment and we’ve had our first look at the full team from November’s Big Hero 6 thanks to a new image from the animated movie, which you can see here…
Continue on to the next page for X-Men: Days of Future Past, Gambit, James Cameron’s Spider-Man, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Arrow, The Flash, Constantine, Gotham, Batman: Assault on Arkham and more…
