…Moving on to the DC Cinematic Universe now and Jeremy Irons has been speaking about reinventing Alfred Pennyworth for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, while Jesse Eisenberg offered a few more thoughts on what attracted him to the role of Lex Luthor: “In a lot of ways Luthor is more of a stretch than any character you would do in an independent movie, which is normally the place you stretch. So in that way it was not at all compromised. If anything it was the best, most advantageous role I’ve ever been given. It’s because the opportunity to do an interesting character on a movie of that scale is incredibly rare. Now people expect the tone to be more realistic just because we live in a world where the average audience member has a sense of psychological motivations… How can one man—Superman—have so much power? These are the kind of things that we talk about when we think about authoritarian states, when we talk about Vladimir Putin having a strong foothold in Eastern Europe. They’re addressing geopolitics in this movie and not in a way that’s pretentious or esoteric. [Screenwriter Chris Terrio] cleverly ties in these really exciting superhero elements with these really sophisticated, philosophical themes in a much smarter, different way. That’s what I like to do with my writing: To have these very sophisticated, philosophical debates happen on very basic levels…”
…Gal Gadot has revealed that she was originally offered a role in 2013’s Man of Steel – presumably that of Faora – with the Israeli actress stating this week that: “When I was a month pregnant with [my daughter] Alma, I got an offer to be the evil Superman character. If I wasn’t pregnant I’d have taken the job, and there’s no way they would have taken me now to be Wonder Woman…”
…That leads us nicely into the Superhero Rumour Mill section of The Week in Spandex – a.k.a. The Week in Bullshit – and of course Heroic Hollywood was at the heart of it, claiming that rather than the rumoured Man of Steel 2, Mad Max: Fury Road director George Miller has been offered the Justice League Dark adaptation Dark Universe (which Guillermo del Toro was previously attached to, before leaving to direct Pacific Rim 2, which has since been postponed indefinitely). But that’s not all, as the site also claims to have some plot details on Man of Steel 2 (which has no director, no screenwriter, no release date, and no green light), which will allegedly include the characters of Brainiac, Supergirl and Bizarro. Although Birth.Death.Movies reckons that information is incorrect, and that Brainiac will instead feature as the villain in the two-part Justice League. Personally, I’m leaning towards this all being guesswork/outright clickbait fabrications…
…DC Entertainment has revealed that comic book writer Bill Finger is finally set to get recognition for his role as co-creator of The Dark Knight beginning with the second season of Gotham. Speaking about the long, long overdue decision, DC’s Diane Nelson stated: “Bill Finger was instrumental in developing many of the key creative elements that enrich the Batman universe, and we look forward to building on our acknowledgement of his significant role in DC Comics’ history. As part of our acknowledgement of those contributions, we are pleased to confirm today that Bill Finger will be receiving credit in the Warner Bros. television series Gotham beginning later this season, and in the forthcoming motion picture Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice…”
…And speaking of Gotham, the Batman prequel series returns to FOX on Monday, and to whet our appetites this week has brought us a new season two banner for the show and ‘Welcome to the Villains’ promo, along with a clip from the premiere episode ‘Damned If You Do’, which you can watch here…
…With just over a fortnight to go before DC returns to The CW, a new poster for the second season of The Flash has arrived online, along with a batch of promotional images for the first episode ‘The Man Who Saved Central City’, which has the following official description: “BARRY DECIDES HE NEEDS TO PROTECT THE CITY ON HIS OWN — Picking up months after the Singularity attacked Central City, Barry (Grant Gustin) is still struggling to forgive himself for Eddie’s death. Concerned about putting his friends in danger, Barry has pushed everyone away and has chosen to protect the city on his own. When a meta-human named Atom Smasher (guest star Adam Copeland) attacks the city, Iris (Candice Patton) tells Barry that he needs to let his friends help him protect the citizens of Central City. Meanwhile, Cisco (Carlos Valdes) helps Joe (Jesse L. Martin) with his Meta Task Force…”
…We’ve also got a batch of images for Arrow’s season four premiere ‘Green Arrow’, along with the following episode description: “MY NAME IS THE GREEN ARROW — Oliver (Stephen Amell) and Felicity’s (Emily Bett Rickards) blissful getaway is cut short when Thea (Willa Holland) and Laurel (Katie Cassidy) pay them a visit and tell Oliver they need his help back in Star City. The city has been attacked by “Ghosts,” assassins led by a dangerous man named Damien Darhk (guest star Neil McDonough). However, when Oliver returns, Diggle (David Ramsey) makes it very clear that he doesn’t want Oliver on the team...”
…Arrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim has also been speaking about Matt Ryan’s upcoming Arrow guest appearance as Constantine: “When you see him in the show, honestly it feels like we’re doing a Constantine/Arrow crossover, and it’s so exciting… We’re just really glad we got the chance to extend Matt Ryan’s run as Constantine by at least one more hour of television. I think you’ll see he fits very neatly into our universe. It never feels forced, it feels right. Stephen’s on screen vibe with Matt is just very natural, it’s as if these guys had been working together forever. I think people are really going to love the episode. John Badham directed it and it was just a happy circumstance, but John had also directed an episode of Constantine. It all works and it works really effortlessly. It worked effortlessly with a lot of effort I should say. I can’t wait for people to see that episode, if you thought it was a thrill just to see that one shot of Matt in the trailer wait til you see a whole episode with him…”
…The CW kicked off production on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow last weekend, and Caity Lotz (Sara Lance/White Canary) has taken to Instragram to release a few behind-the-scenes snaps from the set of the Arrow and The Flash spinoff, which feature Ciara Reneee (Hawkgirl), Falk Hentschel (Hawkman), Brandon Routh (The Atom) and Arthur Darvill (Rip Hunter). You can check out the images here…
…The CW has also released the fourth episode of its six-episode animated series Vixen, which you can watch over on the CW Seed website here…
…Over at CBS and the network has continued the countdown to Supergirl’s October 26th premiere with a new featurette that sees Melissa Benoist and the cast of the highly-anticipated CBS show discussing where Kara comes from, and how she ultimately embraces her greatness. Check it out here…
…DC Entertainment and Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim have announced that Robot Chicken DC Comics Special 3: Magical Friendship is set to air on midnight on Sunday, October 18th. The third DC special features a voice cast that includes Adam West and Burt Ward alongside the likes of Seth Green, Matt Senreich, Breckin Meyer, Alfred Molina, Nathan Fillion, Weird Al Yankovic, Alex Borstein, Giovanni Ribisi, Jonathan Banks and Dee Bradley Baker. Here’s the official synopsis: “The Robot Chicken DC Comics Special 3: Magical Friendship surrenders DC Comics’ multitude of Super Heroes and Super-Villains to the demented whims of the award-winning Robot Chicken for a triumphant third time. This time around, Batman and Superman’s bromance takes a competitive turn and the fate of the universe somehow hangs in the balance…”
…After announcing earlier this year that The Incredibles 2 would be his next movie, Brad Bird has given an update on the current status of the Pixar superhero sequel: “I have the story arc. I’m probably three-quarters through the script, first pass through the script, but we’re already boarding parts of it. I’ve got a lot of people that worked on the first one working on it, so we’re all having a good time with it. What’s changed [since the first movie] is there were only two other superhero franchises at the time Incredibles came out. One of them was X-Men and the other was Spider-Man, and now there are 400 billion of them and there’s a new superhero movie every two weeks. What you don’t want to do is trot over the same turf in the same way everyone else is. So we’re trying to keep it focused in the area that our film was, which was a little bit more about characters and relationships and stuff like that, and see where that takes us. But we’re having a good time…”
…With Heroes Reborn set to premiere on NBC this coming Thursday, NBC has released a new cast photo for the event series, as well as a selection of images from the ten episodes; check them out here…
…And finally, Samuel Brace has posted an op-ed on superhero reporting entitled ‘Superhero Centric Media: What’s With All The Sycophants?’, which you can read 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.
