…Moving on to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Paul Bettany has been speaking about returning to the role of The Vision for Captain America: Civil War: “We all had a bit more fun. You know, there were more improvised jokes between me and Robert Downey Jr., and me and Chris Evans, and it was a really loose atmosphere on-set. It was one really loose set, it was great! They’re all a really nice bunch of boys and girls. They’re all happy to be there. They’re being terribly well-paid, so they should be happy to be there. And work’s really creative and fun, you know? I got to be born on camera [in Avengers: Age of Ultron], you know, that’s unlikely to ever happen again. was given comics [to prepare]. I also was looking to think about what could be edifying for me to learn. I took the opportunity—you see my character get born… something unlikely to ever happen to me again. He must be both omnipotent and yet totally naive at the same time. And experiencing the world in real time and his place in it. Is he going to be a force of good or a force of evil? It was really interesting, fun to play with, because he is dangerous, you do not know if he’s going to go one way or another. And I’m continuing that theme in Captain America 3…”
…Marvel’s final Phase Two release Ant-Man reached a box office milestone this past week, with the film crossing $400 million at the global box office ahead of its release in China next month, which should help to push it to the half-billion mark. Meanwhile, some concept art arrived online from illustrator Andy Park, which gives us a look at the design for Janet Van Dyne’s 1960s Wasp…
…Wesley Snipes has been speaking more about his alleged meetings with Marvel over a potential return as Blade: “There’s always a possibility, you know. It’s in Marvel’s hands. They’re controlling the pace and the flow with that. Conversations have been good. They see the value in it. We see the value in it. I’m still in shape enough and fit enough to handle the role. We’ll see how it goes. I don’t really know what’s going to happen to it yet. It would be interesting [to join The Avengers]. I mean, I know it’s in the comic book. It would be interesting to see where they would place him and where he really would fit in. He’s got to bite somebody. I don’t know who he’s going to bite…”
…Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s third season gets underway this Tuesday, and Marvel has released the opening four-minute scene from the premiere episode ‘Laws of Nature’ [watch it here], along with a promo banner teasing Quake [see here], and an official episode description and promotional images from the second episode ‘Purpose in the Machine’ [see here and here]…
…ABC has also released a New York Comic Con poster for the second season of Agent Carter, which features Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter against her new 1940s Los Angeles backdrop…
…Following on from a teaser trailer and a batch of official images, today has given us our very first glimpse of footage from Marvel’s upcoming Netflix series Jessica Jones thanks to a short promo, which you can watch here…
…Marvel has also released a short behind-the-scenes featurette for its first Netflix series Daredevil, which sees the cast and crew discussing the acclaimed show; check it out here…
…And on the subject of Daredevil, Matt Damon has revealed he’d be interested in playing the Man Without Fear, should Christopher Nolan direct: “For [myself and Ben Affleck], it was always Daredevil. That’s the comic we read when we were kids, but when that one came along I chickened out, because I couldn’t tell. I hadn’t seen the director [Mark Steven Johnson’s] work and I didn’t know. So I just said, ‘No.’ Ben was like, ‘I gotta do it.’ [I don’t] think Ben was ultimately very proud of it. If Chris Nolan came up to me and said, ‘I want to do Daredevil,’ I would be in…”
…Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy animated series premieres on Disney XD tonight, and we have a clip from ‘Knowhere to Run’, the second part of the one-hour premiere, which sees Thanos confronting the team. Watch it here…
…We’ve known for a while that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man will be a high schooler in Captain America: Civil War and the subsequent 2017 solo movie, and now director Jon Watts has revealed just how old Peter Parker is going to be: “I love the idea of making a coming-of-age high-school movie. We’re really going to see Peter Parker in high school and get deeper into that side of it. He’s just 15 now…”
…Despite Marvel and Sony rebooting the Spidey franchise, it seems that Drew Goddard hasn’t given up hope of his Sinister Six movie reaching the big screen: “My vision of that movie was a summer annual. So you didn’t have to worry about continuity. It was just, ‘We take Peter, put him on an adventure, we put him back in his life.’ I intentionally wanted a movie that didn’t have to worry about mythology and continuity. It was important to me to make a movie that could stand on its own. So the good news is, you know, [laughs], it slots in very well to any plan anybody ever wants. We just need to let a couple years go by, I think…”
…During an interview this week, Ryan Reynolds spoke about the failure of Fantastic Four (and he’s a bit of an expert on failed superhero movies, after Green Lantern), stating that he’s a little concerned about how the cast might recover, specifically Michael B. Jordan: “You know, Miles Teller’s gonna recover. Miles Teller’s gonna go on to do amazing things, you know. It’s important that Michael B. Jordan continues to go on and do amazing things. I know it’s not easy for a black actor. It’s not easy for a female actor. It’s not easy for a lot of people that are… That entire cast is amazingly talented. And I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. I mean, I know what that feels like. It doesn’t feel good. And it also is difficult, because you don’t feel like you can control that outcome. You know, as much as you want to. You can’t really…”
…Reynolds also addressed the topic of superhero saturation, stating that: “I think Deadpool’s coming along at the right time. Because it’s also speaking to that generation and that group of people that have seen them all, seen all these comic-book films and enjoyed them all to varying degrees of success. But I think it’s speaking to them as though the guy in that red suit is one of them, to some degree.” Meanwhile, Deadpool creator Rob Liefeld suggested that Colossus will feature “a good amount” in February’s X-Men spinoff: “ou guys have seen a glimpse of him in the trailer; at San Diego in Hall H, they showed a little bit more of Colossus. You are going to love Colossus in Deadpool. He’s in it a good amount; he doesn’t just walk through the movie…”
…Simon Kinberg has been talking about X-Men: Apocalypse, describing it as the culmination of a trilogy for the First Class cast: “[X-Men: Apocalypse] delivers on the dramatic story and emotion of the last two movies. It feels like the culmination of the four main characters really — James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult and Jennifer Lawrence. And it’s a bigger movie in both physical scale and I would say emotional stakes too because it is the culmination of this mini trilogy of stories…”
…The 2017 Wolverine sequel will mark the culmination of Hugh Jackman’s time as Logan, and the actor has suggested this week that the third solo movie will explore Wolverine’s “quasi-father/son sort of relationship” with Patrick Stewart’s Professor X (despite Wolverine being old enough to be Xavier’s grandfather…), as well as suggesting that Tom Hardy would be a great fit for the character once Jackman calls it a day. If you need help picturing Hardy in the role, check out this fan art…
…Since announcing that The Incredibles 2 will be his next month, Brad Bird can’t take part in an interview without being asked about the Pixar sequel, and this week he offered up a few more words, stating that: “I had a bunch of ideas that I wanted to put in The Incredibles, but they just didn’t fit. Certain ideas fit, but other things make you go, ‘This is great, but I’d have to give up two other things that matter more to me to get this other thing in.’ So there were a pile of ideas left over from The Incredibles, but it’s not a big thing. There were little scenes and things that I was interested in. I wanted to come up with sort of an over-arching idea that connected to the first film that went somewhere different. That’s the one that took a little more time.” You can read the rest of his comments here…
…Heroes Reborn premiered on NBC this week (we’ll have a review up for you soon), but if you’re yet to catch the premiere episode you may want to check out a promo entitled ‘A New Phenomenon Awaits’, which you can watch here…
…Ahead of its premiere on Crackle next month, the first episode of the stop-motion animated comedy series SuperMansion has arrived online, and you can watch it here. The series sees Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) leading a star-studded voice cast as Titanium Rex, the leader of the League of Freedom, a motley band of seen-better days super heroes, all living together in a SuperMansion.
…And finally, we end on a sad note this week with the news that actor Jack Larson has passed away, aged 87. Larson portrayed Jimmy Olsen alongside George Reeves’ Man of Steel in Adventures of Superman between 1952 and 1958, while he also made a guest appearance in the Superboy TV series in 1991 as well as cameoing in 2006’s Superman Returns.
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.
