…With less than two weeks to go until its release, Marvel has blitzed the internet with a slew of promotional material for Ant-Man, releasing a “final” (as in “probably not final”) trailer [see here], along with a tonne of TV spots, clips and featurettes [see here, here, here and here]. We also got a new viral video featuring the return of Leslie Bibb’s Christine Everhart [see here], along with six potential posters to accompany the 3D release [see here] and some SDCC exclusive Mondo artwork [see here], while Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn also did his bit for the Mighty Marvel Marketing Machine, describing it as “a complete blast” and stating that: “Ant-Man may just be my favorite Marvel film since Jon Favreau’s Iron Man (well, maybe excluding one film to which I’m partial)…”
…Kevin Feige has been a very busy man this week, taking part in a host of promotional interviews for Ant-Man, which naturally also strayed to pretty much every corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Marvel Studios chief admitted that there’s “big plans” for The Wasp, while Evangeline Lilly spoke about the prospect of her character Hope Van Dyne picking up the mantle from her mother Janet and expressing her hope to see The Wasp lining up with The Avengers: “I would love to see [Hope join the Avengers]. Hope is a very, very capable, intelligent and, to a certain extent, lethal woman, even in her own right, without any superhero powers. There is that element that she is the Wasp’s daughter and a chance to create that is fun. s far as the plans for her going forward… I think everyone who signs with Marvel has to sign a multi-picture deal. I’m just crossing my fingers that that turns into something, that they ask me back and that I have to do more movies…”
…Feige also offered up a few comments on May’s Captain America: Civil War, promising that the film is “very much a Captain America movie and very much a sequel to The Winter Soldier” despite the stacked cast of Marvel characters, while he also spoke about the introduction of Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther: “[Black Panther] is a role that he is still in the beginning phases of taking on, it’s a mantle he is only beginning to take on because his father is older… The reason we introduced him in Civil War is because we needed a third party. We needed fresh eyes who wasn’t embedded with the Avengers and who has a very different point of view than either Tony or Steve. We said, ‘We need somebody like Black Panther… why don’t we just use Black Panther?’ That’s how it went in the development process…”
…And speaking of Black Panther, despite being rumoured to have signed on to helm the 2018 solo movie, Selma director Ava DuVernay has confirmed that she’s no longer in the running: “I’m not signing on to direct Black Panther. I think I’ll just say we had different ideas about what the story would be. Marvel has a certain way of doing things and I think they’re fantastic and a lot of people love what they do. I loved that they reached out to me. I loved meeting Chadwick and writers and all the Marvel execs. In the end, it comes down to story and perspective. And we just didn’t see eye to eye. Better for me to realize that now than cite creative differences later…”
…During one of his many press interviews this week, Kevin Feige referred to the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, with writer-director James Gunn subsequently taking to Facebook to confirm the title for the 2017 release…
…Feige also offered up a few words about next year’s Doctor Strange, and specifically the decision to gender-swap The Ancient One, who is set to be played by Tilda Swinton: “As we were developing this film we looked at The Ancient One as a mantle more than a specific person. The sorcerers have been around for millennia, protecting us from things we didn’t know about until this story. There have been multiple [Ancient Ones], even if this one has been around for five hundred years, there were others. This is a mantle, and therefore felt we had leeway to cast in interesting ways.” Meanwhile, a rather neat fan made opening title sequence has arrived online, which you can watch here…
…A few weeks ago El Mayimbe claimed that Kenneth Branagh was in contention for a return to the MCU to direct Thor: Ragnarok, and so naturally the rumour has now been debunked, with Kevin Feige stating this week that: “Not true. I don’t know where that came from. Probably towards the end of the summer we would announce a filmmaker and a writer. May be the same person, I don’t know, may be two different people…”
…One director who definitely won’t be back is Alan Taylor, with the Terminator Genisys helmer describing his experience on Thor: The Dark World as “wrenching” during an interview this week: “You don’t make a $170 million movie with someone else’s money and not have to collaborate a lot. The Marvel experience was particularly wrenching because I was sort of given absolute freedom while we were shooting, and then in post it turned into a different movie. So, that is something I hope never to repeat and don’t wish upon anybody else…”
…Given the U.S.’ landmark marriage equality ruling this week, Feige was also asked when we might see a LGBT character introduced into the Marvel Cinematic Universe: “Well in the drawing board going up to 2019 it remains to be seen. The comics always make the path that we get to have the fun of saying, ‘Yeah let’s choose this way or let’s choose this way’ and I think there are a lot of cool things happening in the comics now that—it’s usually a five to ten-year cycle between when something happens in the comics and when we can do it in the movie, sometimes a little less, but Civil War is certainly about the 10-year mark. Winter Soldier, I think, was around that time. So we always look at stuff that’s happening in the comics and go, ‘Where could we do that?’ Sometimes it’s sooner, but there’s no reason why that couldn’t happen in the next decade or sooner…”
…Illustrator Andy Park has given us a peek at some early design work for the villainous Ultron in this year’s blockbuster sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron, posting a selection of early concept art for the character which you can see here…
…Click below to continue on for Agent Carter, Avengers Assemble, Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, Deadpool, Gambit, Heroes Reborn and Electra Woman and Dyna Girl…
