…20th Century Fox has announced this week that it has secured the rights to Stan Lee’s life story, but instead of a typical biopic, the studio is in development on a 1970s-set action adventure movie, which will see Lee as the main character in what is being described as being similar in tone to Kingsman: The Secret Service and Roger Moore’s 007. The project is being produced by Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey (Twilight, The Maze Runner), but is yet to secure a writer, so it’s possible that plans for the storyline could change…
…That segues in quite nicely to Fox’s various Marvel properties, and with X-Men: Apocalypse set to hit Blu-ray and DVD next month, a new deleted scene has arrived online which sees Cyclops, Jean grey, Nightcrawler and Jubilee paying a visit to the mall [watch it here], along with an eight-minute blooper reel from the Bryan Singer-directed sequel [watch it here]…
…On the commentary track for X-Men: Apocalyspe, Singer and writer-producer Simon Kinberg discuss the post-credits scene, confirming that the Essex Corp Easter egg is a set up for the as-yet-untitled Wolverine 3 and that Mister Sinister will appear in what is expected to be Hugh Jackman’s final outing as Logan. Meanwhile, director James Mangold has responded to a question on Twitter asking when we’ll get to glimpse some footage for the March 2017 release, stating that: “Working on it every day in edit room. You’ll hear and see things very soon…”
…Moving on to the DC Extended Universe now and ahead of Batman Day (which is today – Happy Batman Day!), Zack Snyder took to social media to reveal a new image of Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight from Justice League, which gave us our first look at Batman’s new Tactical Batsuit. The image prompted Flickering Myth’s Thomas O’Connor to write an op-ed, which asks ‘Is Batman Becoming Too Tech-Based?’ – be sure to check it out here…
…Suicide Squad celebrated another box office milestone this week, with the DC supervillain team-up crossing the $700 million mark at the worldwide box office. The David Ayer-directed film is now up to $708 million globally, which is certainly an impressive haul given that it was denied a release in China, and it’s now the seveneeth-highest grossing superhero movie of all time and less than $1 million behind The Amazing Spider-Man 2…
…We’re yet to get official confirmation on a Suicide Squad sequel, but it looks like Warner Bros. is moving forward with its Harley Quinn spinoff, with news this week that Margot Robbie has officially signed on to executive produce the project under her new LuckyChap Entertainment production banner. Details on the project are scarce, but the initial reports suggested the film could be a Birds of Prey-style setup featuring female characters from the DC universe…
…And it looks like we have official confirmation on another rumoured DCEU movie, with Henry Cavill’s manager Dany Garcia announcing that the Man of Steel sequel is on the actor’s upcoming slate: “Henry has a big appetite. We’ve been in a five-month period of time where he’s re-strategizing, acquiring property [for his production company Promethean], he’s filming [Justice League] now, he’s in development for the Superman standalone… he’s beginning to expand that world…”
…Not much detail to go on this one, but Alan Ritchson has seemingly stated on Twitter that he’ll be playing Shazam alongside Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam in the 2019 Shazam! movie. Ritchson does of course have previous DC experience, having portrayed Aquaman in Smallville…
…Chalk this one down as “not going to happen”, but Anne Hathaway has revealed that she’s open to reprising the role of Selina Kyle for a Dark Knight Trilogy spinoff centred on Catwoman: “I loved that character and I had such a blast playing her. I’m not sure how it would work because I think the Chris Nolan chapter of the Batman story has been wrapped up and I’m part of that, but I love the DC Universe and it would be fun to take a trip back.” Hathaway also revealed that she won’t have any issue if and when another actress replaces her in the role: ““I don’t think you can [feel possessive]. It sort of goes with the territory when you accept it and receive it from the last Catwoman. I was shown such generosity from Halle Berry and from Michelle Pfeiffer, and so I would do that the next time as well…”
…In a case of “what might have been”, director Joe Dante (Gremlins) has been speaking about being approached for a Batman movie in the 1980s, stating that he wanted to cast John Lithgow as The Joker: “Well, the Batman that I was going to do would have been completely different from what they ended up making,” said Dante. “This was right after Gremlins, and Tom Mankiewicz, who had written a lot of James Bond movies, had done this take on Batman which was certainly not Chris Nolan-dark, was certainly darker than the TV version. It started with his parents being killed, and it was a revenge story. But it was very outlandish, had a lot of giant props in it. The Joker was a major character in it. I wanted to hire John Lithgow for that part because I had met him on The Twilight Zone movie. And for whatever reason, I started to gravitate more towards The Joker than towards Batman. And I actually woke up one night and I said to myself, ‘I can’t do this movie – I’m more interested in The Joker than I am in Batman, and that’s not the way it should be.” Read the rest of Dante’s comments on turning down the opportunity here…
…Moving on to the small screen and with Gotham set to return for its third season this coming Monday, Fox’s marketing department has went crazy, releasing a new trailer [watch it here] and promo images from the season three premiere ‘Better to Reign in Hell…’ [see here] and second episode ‘Burn the Witch’ [see here], along with the latest character promos for Selina Kyle, Nathaniel Barnes, Barbara Kean and Tabitha Galavan, and Fish Mooney and Valerie Vale…
…With season three of The Flash and season four of Arrow set to get underway on October 4th and October 5th respectively, The CW has released official synopses for the season premieres; check out The Flash’s ‘Flashpoint’ synopsis here, and Arrow’s ‘Legacy’ here., and be sure to take a look at the new extended trailer for Arrow season five, which sees Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen training his new team – including Wild Dog, Artemis and Mister Terrific – as well as offering a glimpse of former WWE star Cody Rhodes’ mystery villain…
…Supergirl’s second season begins the following week on October 10th, and The CW has released two new promotional images of Melissa Benoist’s Kara [see here], along with a teaser and batch of images for the season two premiere ‘The Adventures of Supergirl’ [see here] and a batch of images for the second episode, ‘The Last Children of Krypton’ [see here]. Meanwhile, we also have word of a new villain casting, with Dichen Lachman (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) spotted on set in the role of Roulette, who reportedly “runs an underground alien fight club in National City and she is eager to get Supergirl in the ring…”
…We’ve also got a couple of bits of casting news on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, with Johnathon Schaech confirming that he’ll be reprising the role of Jonah Hex for a guest appearance in the second season, and Dan Payne (who played Dollar Bill in Watchmen) set to portray a younger version of the Justice Society of America member Obdisian (with Lance Henriksen previously cast as the future version)…
…DC TV supremo Greg Berlanti has given an update on the big four-way CW superhero crossover, stating that: “We just finished writing the fall crossovers. And now we’re trying to figure out how to produce them. That’s probably the most challenging thing we do all year. And now we’re doing it across three shows! You really are trying to run a single production across three different productions. But they’re run as three separate entities. We have to figure out when we’re borrowing one actor from where. We’re telling one cohesive story; Supergirl will participate, but the storyline doesn’t actively begin there. There are some characters who show up in her episode, but the story begins with The Flash episode and goes to Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow. We’re just getting into designing the bad guy for it, and we start now but it doesn’t air until the end of November. We will put a lot of time between now and then figuring out visual effects sequences. Just today I was holding the three scripts back-to-back – that’s 180 pages of material. It’s a three-hour story, almost a miniseries.” Berlanti also spoke briefly about the musical crossover between Supergirl and The Flash, and you can read the rest of his comments here…
…The hotly-anticipated Russian superhero movie Guardians has received a new English-language trailer this week, and you can watch it here. The film, which is directed by Sarik Andreasyan, follows a Soviet-era superhero team who are forced to come out of retirement, and is slated to open in Russia in February…
…The long-gestating reboot of Troma’s cult superhero horror comedy The Toxic Avenger has found itself a director, with Conrad Vernon (Sausage Party) signing on to helm the remake from a script by Mike Arnold and Chris Poole (Archer). “The opportunity to re-imagine a favorite cult-classic from my high school years is an honor,” said Vernon. “Toxie is an underground icon. My favorite kind.” The new take on the 1984 original is described as a more grounded and mainstream telling of the story” and will reportedly follow an average teen who joins an environmental club to impress his crush. While doing some investigating at a waste plant, he is thrown into a tub of waste and transforms into the radioactive hero Toxie…
…And finally, be sure to pop on over our YouTube channel to check out the latest episode of Scooperhero News, where Oli and Luke discuss all the latest superhero news in video form!
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.
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