…With production well underway on the third season of Gotham, Fox has debuted the first poster for the returning series, which teases the Court of Owls [check it out here], while executive producer Danny Cannon unveiled the first image of the returning Jada Pinkett Smith as Fish Mooney [see here], along with a batch of set photos, including one which may or may not tease an appearance from Killer Croc [see here]…
…There’s just over a week to go until the one-night-only theatrical release of Batman: The Killing Joke, and voice actor Tara Strong has been speaking about reprising the role of Barbara Gordon for the DC Universe Animated Original Movie adaptation, and Batgirl’s expanded part in the story; see what she had to say here…
…It seems that every time he has a movie coming out, Matt Damon is asked about whether he’d like to take on a superhero role. And sure enough, with Jason Bourne incoming, he’s been asked that very question, with the actor revealing he’d jump at the chance, if his good pal Ben Affleck is directing: “I’d consider anything with the right director, but I can’t imagine there are any superheroes left, I think they’re all taken at this moment. If [Ben] was directing me, I’d jump on it in a New York minute. I’d love to work with Ben.” Of course, Affleck does have a Batman movie on his upcoming slate, so…
…Moving on to the Marvel Cinematic Universe now and Marvel has whet our appetites for its Hall H panel by releasing some concept art from November’s Doctor Strange giving us a new look at Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sorcerer Supreme [see here], along with some concept art for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 which features the expanded team of Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Drax (Dave Bautista), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), Groot (Vin Diesel), Yondu (Michael Rooker), Nebula (Karen Gillan) and new character Mantis (Pom Klementieff) [see here]…
…Marvel kicked off production on Thor: Ragnarok last week, and Mark Ruffalo has been giving fans a brief peek behind-the-scenes, sharing a couple of set videos showing him wearing giant Hulk hands, and in his motion capture suit; watch them here…
…Cameras also continue to roll on Spider-Man: Homecoming, and this week brought some new set photos and videos of Tom Holland’s Spidey in action [check them out here], while Sony chief Tom Rothman spoke about his studio’s partnership with Marvel on the reboot: “We’re really, really fortunate on this because Marvel and Kevin Feige have really embraced the character, and nobody knows it as well as Marvel. It is another crown jewel of Sony’s for sure. [The title] is relevant to the story because it takes place in high school and there is a scene — that I guess I can give a little thing — at a homecoming dance. I’ve actually seen the dailies of it because we already did the high school shooting of it in the first couple weeks. It’s fantastic! But it’s also a homecoming to Marvel. And a homecoming to the cinematic universe that Spider-Man belongs in. So it’s a pretty unprecedented deal between two studios, but we’re really proud of it. And all I can tell you is, those guys at Marvel — I think the technical term is — they know their shit…”
…Looking back to Marvel’s last offering and thanks to illustrator Andy Park we’ve got a look at an early design for Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther from this year’s Captain America: Civil War; take a look at the concept art here…
…Last year it was announced that Marvel and Fox were partnering up for an X-Men TV project entitled Hellfire, and it’s been reported this week that the project has been shelved; however, fear not, as it’s also been announced that another as-yet-untitled X-series is in the works from writer Matt Nix (Burn Notce), who will team up with X-Men producers Lauren Shuler Donner, Bryan Singer and Simon Kingberg and Marvel Television’s Jeph Loeb and Jim Chory. You can read comments from Fox president David Madden, Fox TV boss Jonathan Davis and Marvel’s Jeph Loeb here…
…Sticking with Fox and before the studio decided to give Tim Miller the greenlight for Deadpool following the leaked test footage, filmmakers were invited to pitch their own take on the Merc with a Mouth in an effort to drag the project out of development hell. One such filmmaker was Jeff Wadlow, director of Kick-Ass 2 – and a writer on X-Force – who teamed up with illustrator Kelton Cram to produce some artwork for his pitch, featuring Wade Wilson along with Random, a member of the Marauders, whose concept art was modeled on Stone Cold Steve Austin. You can take a look at the concept artwork here…
…And finally, it’s been announced this week that Waypoint Entertainment has optioned the rights to Jeff Lemire and illustrator Emi Lenox’s coming-of-age superhero comic book series Plutona, which enters on a group of kids who find the body of a famous dead superhero in the woods. It’s the second superhero-related comic to be optioned by Waypoint recently, with the company also snapping up the rights to Mark Millar’s Supercrooks.
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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