In this edition of The Week in Spandex, we look at Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Luke Cage, A.K.A. Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, The Punisher, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Fantastic Four, X-Men: Apocalypse, Silver Surfer, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Gotham, The Flash, Arrow, Constantine and more…
Having been out in several international markets including the UK for over a week (enjoying an international opening weekend of $201 million and setting a record for the biggest ever opening for a superhero movie on these shores), Avengers: Age of Ultron finally made its way into U.S. theaters on Thursday night, with the latest Marvel Studios blockbuster pulling in a whopping $27.6 million from midnight screenings – almost $10 million more than its predecessor in 2012. Reports are suggesting that Age of Ultron claimed the highest opening day in history yesterday with between $94 and $97 million, and is expected to set an opening weekend record of $220 million, which would rocket the film beyond the half billion mark worldwide…
…In the build up to its North American bow, Marvel Studios released more promotional material for Age of Ultron, including two new clips [see here], featurettes on Captain America [see here], ‘Team Tension’ and the relationship between Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) [see here], and fifty high resolution stills [see here]. And, if you’re keen to know our thoughts on Avengers: Age of Ultron here at Flickering Myth, be sure to check out Luke Owen’s ★★★★★ review here, Robert Kojder’s ★★★★★ review here and Helen Murdoch’s ★★★★ here. It’s not all positive though – Rohan Morbey’s ★★ review can be found here, while Anghus Houvouras shared his disappointment over the movie in his latest ‘The Most Disappointing’ column [see here], and also thinks it might be time for a new Iron Man [see here]…
…Last year, Idris Elba let slip that he’d shot a scene for Age of Ultron alongside Tom Hiddleston, only for Loki to be absent from the final film; well, director Joss Whedon has now explained why the God of Mischief’s cameo was left on the cutting room floor: “We shot something but it didn’t play. The movie has so much. It’s so filled. We didn’t want it to feel overstuffed. I really wanted to have Loki in it, but I understand the decision that there were now too many voices in the chorus. At some point, the embarrassment of riches is actually embarrassing…”
…As he prepares to reprise the role of Steve Rogers for Captain America: Civil War, Chris Evans has revealed when we can expect to see Earth’s Mightiest Heroes reassembling for Avengers: Infinity War, with the star stating that production on the two-part superhero epic is set to get underway late next year, with Anthony and Joe Russo overseeing a back-to-back shoot on Part One and Part Two which is expected to last for nine months…
…But of course next up for Evans (and most of the cast of Age of Ultron) is next May’s Civil War, and Daniel Bruhl has confirmed this week that he’s set to play the character of Baron Helmut Zero, while Ant-Man star Paul Rudd has said that “I’m trying really hard to make my case for it” when asked if we’ll be seeing Scott Lang in the Phase Three launching superhero showdown…
…One character we will be seeing in Civil War is Spider-Man, and unconfirmed rumours have surfaced this week claiming that Asa Butterfield has bagged the role of Marvel and Sony’s rebooted wall-crawler. It should probably be noted that Latino-Review is the source here, so don’t be surprised if this is just a case of picking one of the five names said to be on the shortlist and hoping for the best. Meanwhile, former Latino-Review writer El Mayimbe has claimed that 2017’s rebooted solo movie will be going by the title of Spider-Man: The New Avenger, having previously suggested a couple of months ago that it would be called The Spectacular Spider-Man. Well, like they say, if you throw enough shit…
…Marvel has released a new featurette for its first Netflix show Daredevil which focusses on the character of Foggy Nelson [watch it here], while Joss Whedon has said that he lobbied for Marvel to reboot the Man Without Fear in his own movie, rather than a television series: “I fought for Daredevil to be a film instead of a TV show. Then under the auspices of Drew Goddard and Steven DeKnight… I’m dying to see the show but they released it just as I started the press tour! If the show’s working, the show’s working. Comic books are serialised entertainment and a lot of them lend themselves to TV shows as much or more than they do to movies. I like [Daredevil] because he’s basically Marvel’s Batman, thanks to Frank Miller basically. So for me I didn’t think they’d be able to sustain that sort of mood on TV but TV has changed so much. It’s come up so much that I think it might just be the right place…”
…As Mike Colter prepares to give a live-action debut to Luke Cage, the actor has been speaking about his involvement in Marvel’s next Netflix series A.K.A. Jessica Jones, and whether we might seeing any other characters crossing over between the various shows in advance of The Defenders: “I don’t want to give too much away about how much he’s involved in the A.K.A Jessica Jones show, but Jessica and Luke Cage have a history and a relationship. I don’t how much will be revealed in the actual series, but yes, I play an integral part. You might see any characters in the series from one series to the next, but they’re stand-alone shows. Each series has their own storyline. It’s not a spin-off. People like to use that word or they like to try and connect the two shows but every character that Marvel planned on developing to series – Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Cage – are all separate and they hope to then reunite them in their Defenders miniseries. But that’s way down the road…”
…Appearing on Howard Stern’s show this week, Ryan Phillippe has revealed that he’s in talks with Marvel about appearing in one of the Netflix shows, with subsequent speculation linking him to the role of Danny Rand in the Iron Fist series…
…A few weeks back, (former) Daredevil showrunner Steven DeKnight said he’d like to see a “Hard-R” version of The Punisher on Netflix, and this week has brought rumours that Frank Castle is in contention for his own series as part of the streaming service’s “Phase Two” Marvel slate…
…Over at ABC and you can read our review of this past week’s episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. ‘The Dirty Half Dozen’ here, while we’ve also got promo, poster and images for Tuesday’s upcoming ‘Scars’, as well as a batch of stills from the following week’s penultimate episode ‘S.O.S. Part One’, which you can see here…
…Any Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. fans hoping to see Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson or the rest of his team on the big screen may be disappointed with Joss Whedon’s recent comments, with the co-creator of the show seemingly indicating that it isn’t quite as connected to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we’ve been led to believe: “It’s a weird little yes and no [as to whether Coulson is alive]. As far as I’m concerned in the films, yes he’s dead. In terms of the narrative of these guys [The Avengers] his loss was very important. When I created the television show, it was sort of on the understanding that this can work and we can do it with integrity, but these Avengers movies are for people to see the Avengers movies and nothing else. It would neither make sense nor be useful to say ‘Oh and by the way remember me? I died! I think actually the movie people were a little bit cross about the TV show. They were sort of like ‘Well you can have this but not this. And this but not that.’ It’s complicated enough as it is without me adding another layer of complication. We also created a TV show called S.H.I.E.L.D. right before they made a movie where they destroyed S.H.I.E.L.D.. So everybody’s having a GREAT time..!”
…Before we move on from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige has shared a few words on the upcoming MCU debut of Spider-Man, the chances of Charlie Cox’s Daredevil making the jump from Netflix to the big screen, and the introduction of the Inhumans in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.; read his comments here…
…Click below to continue on for Fantastic Four, X-Men: Apocalypse, Silver Surfer, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Gotham, The Flash, Arrow, Constantine and more…
