…With X-Men: Days of Future Past now in cinemas, much attention is shifting towards 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse, and writer-producer Simon Kinberg has been doing plenty of talking about the next sequel, suggesting that some of the original X-Men cast will be returning, as well as promising a “Roland Emmerich-style disaster movie” when it comes to the scope of the film: “The thing that we’ve spent the most time talking about is not just the visual execution of the character, which is its own challenge – creating a character that’s the most powerful I think of any mutant villain that we’ve seen in the X-Men movies so far. More powerful than Magneto. The kind of scope and scale we’re talking about is like disaster movie, extinction level event. Sort of Roland Emmerich-style moviemaking, which you’ve never seen in an X-Men movie, or any superhero movie, which I think is exciting… But we’ve also been talking about how to give [Apocalypse] a real emotional and philosophical underpinning. So he’s not just somebody who’s out there destroying the world because he can. What he’s doing is – in his mind – justified and validated by a real compelling, coherent philosophy. He tries to proselytise and convert people – maybe some of our most familiar characters – to come to his cause…”
…And it’s not just X-Men: Apocalypse that Kinberg has been discussing, as he’s also spoken about Fox’s currently in production reboot of The Fantastic Four, telling us to suggest a “unique” tone from Marvel’s First Family: “Last summer, Emma Watts at Fox called me on the set of Days of Future Past and said, ‘We really want to do a new Fantastic Four.’ I said to her, ‘I’m interested but it depends how you want to do it.’ She said, ‘Talk to Josh Trank.’ We were shooting the Washington D.C. finale sequence in Days of Future Past and I talked to Josh, and he had such a clear vision of what he wanted to do with the film that was so different from the other movies—it was grounded, real, gritty, and what it would really be like if you went through a transformation and lost control of your body. That, coupled with him wanting it to be a coming-of-age movie, felt fresh to me. The tone of this movie will feel as unique as when you saw Iron Man, X-Men, or Batman Begins for the first time. It’s not as goofy as the first movies; it has humor in it, but the humor is much more real and comes from character, not pratfall jokes. It’s a much more dramatic film than it is a comedy. I would say it falls somewhere between [Sam] Raimi’s first couple of Spider-Man movies and Chronicle…”
…Before we move on from Fox, Wolverine fans might be interested in checking out eleven minutes of Hugh Jackman auditioning with Bryan Singer for the role of Logan in 2000’s X-Men, which you can watch right here…
…Over at Sony and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 continues to edge towards the $700 million mark – a figure it could achieve this weekend, although that would still leave it lagging behind the rest of the studio’s Spidey movies, with 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man the nearest rival, sitting on $752 million…
…Shifting to DC now and while we await more news from the currently in production Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, a couple of rumours have surfaced this week; firstly, it’s been said that inspiration for Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman costume has been taken from The All-New Wonder Woman #600 (which also served to influence her look in the video game Injustice: Gods Among Us), and secondly, there’s speculation that 300: Rise of an Empire star Callan Mulvey’s as-yet-unrevealed character in the Man of Steel sequel could be The Joker, although this should of course be taken with a huge pinch of salt until we hear something official…
…Sticking with Batman v Superman, and Kevin Smith has offered up some thoughts about the recently-announced title during his latest Hollywood Babble-On podcast, as well as how he sees the DC Cinematic Universe playing out: “[The title] is a bit of a mouthful. And also, I don’t know why Batman v Superman. Why not just throw the ‘s’ in there? Or spell it or something like that. Or honestly, every comic book fan on the planet, who is a DC comic book fan, I think we all wanted to see Batman/Superman: World’s Finest. But look, they’re obviously beginning something, and there’s a stretch of these flick, and so this is the beginning of the Justice League, as we all suspected as they were announcing that cast. We were like, ‘This is the beginning of a Justice League movie.’ From what I understand now, it’s no longer like, ‘This is Superman 2.’ They’re not doing these things. They’re doing like, ‘Here’s Man of Steel. Here’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.’ The next one is not like a sequel to one of the characters. They’re just going to keep building their universe for about five or six movies. But all of them…it’s supposed to tell one massive story, which is all Justice League oriented..”
…With so many DC shows set to arrive this year, it’s a little surprising how quiet it’s been on the TV front, although Arrow co-creator Greg Berlanti has spoken briefly about the upcoming spin-off The Flash – specifically the casting of original Flash star John Wesley Shipp as Barry Allen’s (Grant Gustin) father, while Gustin himself has offered up a few thoughts on his role as the Scarlett Speedster in the upcoming show: “Barry’s just excited by all of this. He’s a fanboy! And I don’t have to hide my excitement as I play the role, so it’s really fun to play with. At the same time though, it’s in a reality-based world, so there is an aspect of him that’s a little worried about what’s happening to his body. But at the same time, once he starts to get a handle on it, it’s the coolest thing that’s happened to anybody, as far as Barry is concerned. We’re not going to play the same game that they played on Arrow, where [his alter-ego] was a secret. There will be some characters that Barry’s specifically trying to keep it from, but his circle – for the most part – is going to know that he’s The Flash…”
…And finally, after announcing a movie based upon the beloved British comic book superhero Bananaman a couple of months ago, DC Thompson and Elstree Studio Productions debuted the first teaser poster for the film at the MCM Comic Con last weekend, and you can check it out here. So far, nothing is known about the project, save for the fact that it’s being billed as arriving in 2015.
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.
