…Tom Holland gave us a look at his first Spider-Man suit this week, although it’s not the one he’ll be wearing in Captain America: Civil War, but rather his actual first Spider-Man costume from when he was a kid [see here], while outgoing Spidey Andrew Garfield offered up some of his thoughts on the Amazing Spider-Man movies and the pressure and expectations that came with the films and the role. Although, like they say, with great power comes great responsibility. Although they didn’t actually say that in those movies, just some silly half-arsed version…
…One person who certainly won’t be pleased to see 2017’s Spider-Man reboot is British actress Emma Thompson, who spoke up this week about her weariness with superhero movies, and said she’d “hang” herself if she has to see another Spidey flick: ““I loved the original Superman with Chris Reeve because there was a real tongue-in-cheek-ness to it. After a while, you do get a tiny bit cynical about it. The fact that I know they’re going to win out in the end has now slightly interfered with my continuing to go to those movies. If I see yet another Spider-Man, I’m going to have to actually hang myself. I can’t do it anymore! They’re all marvelous, but how many times can you make this franchise, for crying out loud..?”
…Legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg also chimed in about the superhero movie this week and how he feels they’ll “go the way of the Western”, stating that: “We were around when the Western died and there will be a time when the superhero movie goes the way of the Western. It doesn’t mean there won’t be another occasion where the Western comes back and the superhero movie someday returns. Of course, right now the superhero movie is alive and thriving. I’m only saying that these cycles have a finite time in popular culture. There will come a day when the mythological stories are supplanted by some other genre that possibly some young filmmaker is just thinking about discovering for all of us…”
…Stan Lee offered his theory on why Fantastic Four failed miserably at the box office this week, with the Marvel legend telling Larry King that: “It was probably because I didn’t have a cameo in it and they didn’t discuss the story with me but I haven’t seen it yet.” While Stan was absent from Fantastic Four, he did confirm that he’s set to make his customary cameo in next year’s X-Men: Apocalypse, adding that: “The cameo is different than any I’ve done before, because I did it with another person who is very important to me. I can’t tell you more than that, you’ve gotta see it…”
…In other Fox/Marvel news, X-Men Origins: Wolverine star Liev Schreiber has suggested that he’s open to reprising the role of Victor Creed/Sabretooth for Hugh Jackman’s X-Men swansong Wolverine 3: “What I heard was… I don’t know if I’m invited, but I heard that the storyline is Old Man Logan. And when I heard that, I thought, ‘Well, you know there’s Old Man Logan, there could be Old Man Sabretooth…’”
…Turning to the DC Cinematic Universe now and this week gave us a new official shot of the Batmobile from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, while Michael Shannon backtracked on his recent comments about Zod having “flippers” for hands in the DC ensemble, namedropping Doomsday in the process: “Somebody was asking me about this in New York and I made up some ridiculous bullshit answer about how my character Zod has flippers, and this went viral on the Internet or something and people have been asking me about that. That is so obviously a complete bullshit story, right? But people took it seriously. I wasn’t there [on set]. It’s a really awkward situation—I’m in the trailer for a movie that I didn’t work on. The thing about the whole Krypton universe, apparently, is that even when you destroy them, there are ghosts. [Man of Steel], Jor-El is there even though he’s been dead for lord knows how long. I went over and did some voice-over stuff because it’s like that ghost thing. But I don’t know if I’m supposed to say that. I get very nervous. Maybe they should add [flippers], I don’t know! Maybe in Part 3, Doomsday will have flipper hands. I mean, look—nothing would make me happier than to work with Zack Snyder again, he’s hysterical and he’s a lot of fun to work with…”
…Although principal photography and Suicide Squad is now complete, second unit filming for the DC ensemble has been taking place this week with the stunt doubles for Batman, The Joker and Harley Quinn on set to shoot the remaining shots for the chase sequence, and you can check out a video of the action here…
…With just over a fortnight to go until Gotham’s second season gets underway, Fox debuted a new promo entitled ‘Monsters Are Coming’ [watch it here], as well as releasing a batch of images, a clip and a synopsis for the premiere episode ‘Damned If You Do’…
…Supergirl added two more DC characters to its cast this week; Iddo Goldberg (Salem, Peaky Blinders) is set to play Red Tornado, “the most advanced android the world has ever seen. Designed by scientist T.O. Morrow for the U.S. Army as the ultimate superweapon, he soon becomes sentient, posing a grave danger to National City — including the people Supergirl cares about most”, while Glenn Morshower (24, X-Men: First Class) has nabbed the role of General Sam Lane, a powerful military lifer and an overprotective father to both Lucy Lane (Jenna Dewan Tatum) and her sister Lois who heads to National City and attempt to involve Kara (Melissa Benoist) in a dangerous government initiative.” And speaking of the Lanes, we’ve also had our first look at Jenna Dewan-Tatum (Step Up, American Horror Story) as Lucy Lane with the release of a new official still…
…With just over a month to go until the return of Arrow and The Flash, The CW has released a promo teasing the return of its two DC series, and you can watch it right here…
…This week also brought us the first full trailer for Arrow season four [see here], along with a new poster giving us a great look at Oliver’s new costume [see here], and promotional image showing John Diggle in his own suit, complete with Magneto helmet [see here]. Meanwhile, despite having previously ruled out a Green Lantern appearance due to the Green Lantern Corps movie, executive producer Marc Guggenheim dropped some production art featuring another Hal Jodan Easter egg [see here]…
…We’re yet to get a trailer for the second season of The Flash (at the time of writing, at least), but The CW did drop a new poster teasing the Earth Two Flash Jay Garrick [see here], and it was announced that Tony Todd (Candyman) is set to lend his voice to the season’s main villain Zoom, with executive producer Andrew Kreisberg also offering up some details on the new big bad: “Part of the mystery of the season is who or what is underneath the Zoom outfit, and so we wanted to do something like James Earl Jones as Darth Vader — this iconic voice coming out of this mask. Last year, we thought of the Reverse-Flash as a speed warrior; this year, Zoom is like a speed demon, and no one does demon-voice better than Tony Todd. The Zoom outfit is much more organic than the Reverse-Flash suit. n a way, it’s hard to tell if it is a suit or alive… There’s no skin showing, for all you know there’s a robot underneath, or dark energy. For us, the best villains are the ones who don’t have megalomaniacal ‘I want to rule the world’ motivations. Last year, the Reverse-Flash had a very simple goal which was ‘I just want to go home, and if people need to die or cities need to get wasted for me to get that, so be it.’ And Zoom has a very similar, personal goal this season… simple and easy to understand, and very primal. And just as with Wells last year, Zoom doesn’t care who gets hurt or what gets destroyed in the service of him getting his goal…”
…Executive producer Marc Guggenheim gave us a peek behind-the-scenes of the upcoming Arrow / The Flash spinoff DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, posting an image of the cast during a table read [see here]…
…The CW also launched the second episode of the CW Seed animated superhero show Vixen, which you can watch here if you’re in the States…
…In other animated news, it seems that DC may be about to launch a new Justice League series, with an image popping up online which allegedly shows a wall in Warner’s Burbank offices featuring a selection of posters for animated shows, including one for JLA. As yet, there’s been no confirmation on whether this is accurate, but it would make sense for Warner and DC to extend its animated output with the DC Cinematic Universe set to explode next year…
…Out on the promotional trailer for his Amazon show Hand of God, Ron Perlman offered up a few plot details for the potential Hellboy III: “Holy shit, he’s the beast of the Apocalypse. He has to take down civilisation. He has to. It’s non-negotiable. That’s the foundation for the story, and that’s why I think it would be a shame if we don’t do it. I’ll tell you this. The two twins [Hellboy’s children with Selma Blair’s Liz Sherman]: one would look like the mum and one would look like the dad. And one of them was going to be completely fucking corrupt, the other one angelic. Which one was which? Only Guillermo would make the fucked-up-looking one be the angel. So then that adds to the saga…”
…With Heroes Reborn fast approaching, NBC has released another promo for the upcoming event series entitled ‘Lives in the Balance’ [watch it here], while Tai Freligh has been looking forward to the new series with the op-ed ‘Heroes is Reborn and Cooler Than Ever’ [read it here]…
…And finally, ahead of its debut on Crackle next month, we’ve got six character posters for the stop motion superhero comedy SuperMansion, which features Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston as the voice of the aged superhero Titanium Rex. Check them out here.
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.
