…Last weekend 20th Century Fox’s X-Men: Days of Future Past crossed the $500 million mark at the global box office, surpassing the $459.4 million haul of 2006′s X-Men: The Last Stand after just two weekends to become the highest grossing instalment of the studio’s X-Men franchise. By close of play on Thursday, the Bryan Singer-directed sequel was sitting on $518 million, but with some stiff competition from the likes of Maleficent, The Fault in Our Stars, Edge of Tomorrow and 22 Jump Street (not to mention upcoming releases How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Transformers: Age of Extinction, along with the impending World Cup), Days of Future Past might struggle to reach the box office heights of Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($709 million) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($691 million)…
…Sticking with X-Men: Days of Future Past for a moment and the X-Men sequel was the subject of the latest Flickering Myth Podcast [click here to listen to the thoughts of Luke Owen, Rohan Morbey and Scott Davis], while you might also be interested in a clip featuring the introduction of Evan Peters’ Quicksilver [see here], along with some early concept art for Blink (Fan Bingbing), Warpath (Booboo Stewart), Bishop (Omar Sy) and a Trask Industries Soldier, in addition to the ultimately unused character of Jubilee [see here]. Meanwhile, Bryan Singer has broken his radio silence to once again explain the decision to alter the source material, sending Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine back in time rather than Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page): ““It was logic for the story. It felt logical that he’s a character that we’re very grounded with, that we like to see in these movies. And his younger self would have the same appearance as his older self, so the same actor can play the role. Most importantly, the idea is that when we go back in time and discover Magneto and Xavier as young men, they’re at great odds and very wrecked and unmanageable, and I liked the idea of an older character having to manage these two reckless young men. If it had been a character jumping into their younger self, then it would have been a young character doing that and with Kitty Pryde it would have been a very young character. Well, in our world she wouldn’t have been born at all. And lastly Wolverine, from a technical standpoint, is the only one who can traverse that distance. The notion is that she can send people back in time for a week or two which they use in the future as a defence mechanism, but to physically send someone back that far is too damaging for the mind and the body. But Wolverine’s body heals, so as long as he remains focused and calm, he can remain until she can no longer control it…”
…Although he’s yet to sign on the dotted line, Channing Tatum has a new movie out, so of course he’s been speaking about his possible upcoming role as Gambit, stating that he wants to “change superhero movies” with his turn as Cajun card-thrower and stating that we might see the character in a solo movie, rather than the presumed X-Men: Apocalypse: “Creatively, we’re starting to chug forward. Obviously there’s nothing [official]. There are only conversations and dreams right now, really. I’ve been pretty vocal about wanting to be the part of Gambit for a very long time. It’s a weird, pinching-myself moment that we’re even having the conversation. We’ve talked about it being a standalone, first, and actually trying to change the ‘hero, superhero movie.’ Because Gambit is not your typical hero. He’s a thief. He walks on the gray. I’m hoping we can change it a little bit, and then ultimately feather into the other ones..”
…Back in the early 90s, before Sam Raimi first brought the wall-crawler to the big screen, James Cameron was attached to a Spider-Man movie, going as far as developing a detailed treatment, and during a Q&A at the L.A. Times Hero Complex Film Festival the Titanic and Avatar director spoke briefly about his efforts, stating that: “Spider-Man. Spider-Man was kind of going nowhere. Canon — a very low budget film company back in the 80s — had had it briefly. Nobody had really done anything with it. Marvel characters in general weren’t being developed very well at that time. I got Carolco Pictures to buy Spider-Man. I was going to launch that as a series of films. I wrote quite an extensive treatment – I think eighty or ninety pages long — And then again when Carolco collapsed, those rights were in play and I didn’t pursue it because I was on to Titanic and I was doing other things. When I was a kid: to me there were all the superheroes and then there was Spider-Man. So having not gotten Spider-Man, it’s not like I’m looking around for the next comic book character…”
…Over at Warner Bros. and it’s been another quiet week on the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice front, although that looks like it will change next week, with Zack Snyder and company calling up 8500 “military type” extras for a large-scale sequence which is set to shoot in Detroit on Wednesday. Meanwhile, to tide us over another couple of (likely false) rumous have popped up online this week, with one suggesting that Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow) is in talks with WB for a role, and the second claiming that Commissioner James Gordon will also feature in the film…
…Shifting to Warner Bros.’ various DC television properties and IGN has posted an interview with David Mazouz and Camren Bicondova, who are set to portray young Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle in Fox’s upcoming Batman prequel series Gotham…
Over at The CW, it has been revealed that filming on the third season of Arrow is set to get underway on July 9th, while there’s also been renewed speculation that Steven R. McQueen (The Vampire Diaries) is set to portray Nightwing in the show, owing to a picture on McQueen’s Instagram showing him with Stephen Amell and the capture “#arrow #nightwing.” This isn’t the first time McQueen has teased the role, so he’s either cast, or he really, really wants to be. I’m thinking it’s probably the latter, but we shall see…
…Arrow will of course be joined on The CW by the spin-off show The Flash this Fall, and 90s Flash star John Wesley Shipp has offered some insight into his casting as Barry Allen’s father in the new show, as well as passing on the baton to Grant Gustin: “They made an offer. They called my agent and said they wanted to talk. When I heard about it, people were saying ‘Jay Garrick! Jay Garrick! Jay Garrick!’ I thought ‘Yeah, I guess a mentor figure.’ I thought that was pretty limited. Then I heard about Geoff Johns reboot where he reimagined the Allen family and the fact that the father is imprisoned, convicted wrongfully, for killing his wife. I thought ‘Wait a minute! That’s the character! I don’t know what I can say without giving stuff away! All I can say, if people were disappointed that I’m not playing Jay Garrick because they wanted to see the baton passed, they’re going to get that. It’s going to be in the context of father/son so that it will appeal to a wider audience, because we have to realize that we can’t keep a show on the air…although the comic book audience will drive getting it there, we have to appeal to a broader audience so we put it in the context of father and son. But they will know when it happens. It’s awfully effective…”
…In other DC small screen news, it has been revealed that NBC’s Constantine will premiere on Friday October 24th after Grimm, while Matt Ryan (Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior) has spoken about the tone of the upcoming show, promising that it will remain as faithful as possible to the source material: “I think as with the source material, there’s so much to draw from in terms of the character and the balance of humor and wit and dark and gritty. It’s great, because John has this kind of real sarcastic, ironic British wit. It’s funny, but at the same time it’s serious and dark and gritty. It’s got it all, I think… We’re trying to stay as close to the source material as possible and really do the comics justice. So, hopefully, we can do that.” Constantine has been created by Daniel Cerone (The Mentalist) and David S. Goyer (Man of Steel), while Neil Marshall (Game of Thrones) has directed the pilot episode…
…On the animated front, Warner Bros. has dropped a trio of images from its upcoming DC Animated Universe Original Movie release Batman: Assault on Arkham, showing The Joker and Harley Quinn, as well as a tease for The Riddler [check them out here and here]. The movie is set in the same universe as the Arkham video games, and sees Kevin Conroy (Batman: The Animated Series) leading a voice cast that also includes Neal McDonough (Captain America: The First Avenger) as Deadshot, Troy Baker (The Last of Us) as Joker, Matthew Gray Gubler (Criminal Minds) as Riddler, CCH Pounder (The Shield) as Amanda Waller, Hynden Walch (The Batman) as Harley Quinn, Greg Ellis (24) as Captain Boomerang, and Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad) as Black Spider…
…And finally, a few FM writers have posted superhero-related features this week; be sure to check out Anghus Houvouras’ Can The Solo Superhero Movie Survive? and Do We Really Need a Grounded Fantastic Four, as well as Simon Columb’s Why a Lack of Risk Taking with Ant-Man Is Bad News For Marvel.
Gary Collinson is a writer and lecturer from the North East of England. He is the editor-in-chief of FlickeringMyth.com and the author of Holy Franchise, Batman! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen.
