…Naturally a press tour couldn’t pass by without Kevin Feige being asked about Spider-Man’s upcoming debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the producer sharing his excitement about Spidey’s homecoming: “Making that deal with Amy [Pascal] and Michael Lynton and Tom Rothman at Sony was just great. It was really amazing. On a personal level, making these movies, it means a lot because I think that we can do great things with Spider-Man. I think Spider-Man can serve a great purpose in our universe and that’s where he belongs. That’s what’s unique about him in the comics. It’s not that he’s only super hero in the world. It’s that he’s a totally different kind of super hero than can compare against all the other ones in the Marvel Universe…”
…Speaking of Spider-Man, Drew Goddard has offered up some more insight into his now-abandoned Sinister Six movie: “I’ve always wanted to do a Spider-Man project and to come at it slightly different just felt right for me. I was really excited about that one, but who knows what the future holds. The allure of Peter Parker is strong… When you’re doing just a straightforward superhero movie, you don’t need a lot of villains. The focus is on one guy. I think with Sinister, it’s different. To me it’s less about too many villains and more about too many antagonists and there’s a distinction. You never say, like, The Dirty Dozen has too many characters. They’re all villains, or you could argue that. But they’re protagonists. The trick with Sinister, is that I was making everyone the protagonist and less about six-on-one and more about coming at it a little differently. That was the idea. You have to be true to it. You can still have protagonists be evil. That’s the secret. Look at something like, say, Reservoir Dogs. They’re protagonists but Michael Madsen is a complete psychopath! It’s OK, you can do both…”
…Following the recent restructure at Marvel which separated the movie and TV divisions, Kevin Feige has admitted that the big screen side of the MCU will eventually start to reference its small screen counterpart: “I think that’s inevitable at some point as we’re plotting the movies going forward and they’re doing the shows. It’s easier for [the TV side],” states Feige. “They’re more nimble and faster and produce things quicker than we do, which is one of the main reasons you see the repercussions of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Age of Ultron in [Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.]. Going forward and certainly as they begin to do more shows and cast them with such great actors as they have — particularly Daredevil — that that may occur. A lot of it is by the time we start doing a movie, they’d be midway through a season; by the time it comes out they’d be done with the second, starting the third season. Finding timing on that is not always easy…”
…That brings us nicely to the TV side of the MCU, and this week saw ABC kicking off the third season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.; you can check out Danny Hale’s review of the first episode ‘Laws of Nature’ here, while we’ve also got a promo and clip from the second episode ‘Purpose in the Machine’ [see here and here], as well as an official description for the third episode ‘A Wanted (Inhu)man’ [see here]…
…This week also brought us a behind-the-scenes image from the second season of Agent Carter, which featured Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter) and James D’Arcy (Jarvis) joking around on set…
…It looks like ABC is expanding its Marvel output beyond Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter and the upcoming Mockingbird spinoff Marvel’s Most Wanted, with the network placing a pilot script order for Damage Control, a live-action single-camera comedy series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is being developed by Ben Karlin, a writer and producer on The Daily Show…
…Marvel released a third teaser for its upcoming Netflix series Jessica Jones this week [see here], as well as announcing that S.J. Clarkson (Orange Is the New Black, Dexter) is handling directing duties on the first two episodes: “S.J.’s vision of the material is spectacular. She drew performances from our cast that are nothing short of remarkable,” said executive producer/Head of Marvel Television Jeph Loeb. “When the world gets to know Jessica Jones’ name it will be in no small part from S.J.’s sparkling talent. We can’t wait to work with her again…”
…Marvel of course kicked of its Netflix partnership earlier this year with Daredevil, but things could have been different had original showrunner Drew Goddard stuck with his initial idea of a movie for the Man Without Fear: “I went into Marvel and talked to them about making [Daredevil] as a movie a couple of years ago, long after the Affleck movie. But what we all sort of realised is that, this movie doesn’t want to cost $200 million. The thing about Matt Murdock is, he’s not saving the world. He’s just keeping his corner clean. So it would feel wrong to have spaceships crashing in the middle of the city. But because of that, Marvel on the movie side is not in the business of making $25 million movies. They’re going big, as they should. It felt that we’d have more freedom to make it on the small screen and make it more adult. Look, if we took the Netflix [show] and put it in theatres, it’s rated R. And they’re not doing R-rated movies. And we also got to really explore the character. I feel like Netflix was the best possible home for that, otherwise you’d end up with a watered down version…”
…Disney XD’s Guardians of the Galaxy animated series continues today with the third episode ‘One in a Million’, and we have a clip for you here which sees the Guardians trying to save their teammate Rocket from becoming a fixture of the Collector’s museum…
…Before we move on from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Kevin Feige has responded to Steven Spielberg’s recent comments that superhero movies “will go the way of the Western”, stating that: “People have been asking me that for 15 years. “In 2001, 2002, 2003 there were two Marvel movies, three Marvel movies, and I still believe the same thing, which is as long as the ones that we can control are as good as they can be, that’s all that I care about. I think we’ve been doing pretty well. I’m very confident in the films we’ve announced that we have coming forward that they’re going to be surprising and different and unique. I’ve said a lot: I don’t believe in the comic book genre. I don’t believe in the superhero genre. I believe that each of our films can be very different. It could [die out], but the Western lasted 40-50 years, and they still pop up occasionally. It’s been, what, eight years since [Iron Man] if we count that, which I do, as the beginning of our MCU? Maybe [the superhero genre] will only last another 42 years…”
…20th Century Fox’s “creative consultant” Mark Millar has shared his thoughts on the disappointing reception to this year’s superhero flop Fantastic Four: “It’s a shame because I think elements of it were good. Some bits were good. I remember the first half in particular works well. [Josh Trank] is brilliant. Chronicle was my favorite superhero movie in 2012 — and be reminded Avengers was out that year. I really love Chronicle. It’s just a shame sometimes things don’t work out as planned. Nobody goes in hoping it’s not going to work out. Everybody is trying their best and those guys worked their asses off. It didn’t quite come together as well as they hoped, which is a shame.” He then went on to reveal that no decision has been made on the fate of Fantastic Four 2, adding that: “Marvel doesn’t always work out great — Thor 2 didn’t work out especially well, Iron Man 2 didn’t work. But then Iron Man 3 comes along and it’s great. These things can be uneven sometimes. Avengers 2 is nowhere near as good as Avengers 1…”
…With Hugh Jackman teasing an Old Man Logan adaptation for his third and final Wolverine solo movie, Millar has also shared his thoughts on how Fox could adapt his comic book story without having the rights to several characters from the MCU: “They’re not important to the story. The way I worked that thing is I actually structured it as, I broke it down mechanically – I figured out going from this part of America to that part of America and what he would encounter along the way, and then I added in the adversities later. Basically Wolverine doing The Road movie is the important thing and he has a friend [a blind Hawkeye] with him. But that friend could be Cyclops and he could be blind by the fact that his ruby-quartz visor is broken and he has to keep his eyes closed the whole time and everything, but still insists on driving the car they’re crossing America with. There’s lots of stuff. Instead of the Hulk, you could have the Blob or something…”
…In another piece of Millar-related news, it has been announced that Jeff Robinov’s Studio 8 has snapped up the movie rights to his and artist Rafael Albuquerque’s upcoming superhero comic book series Huck, which is set to get underway in November and follows a superhero whose secret identity is revealed to the world. Here’s the official solicitation for the first issue: “In a quiet seaside town, Huck uses his special gifts to do a good deed each day. His neighbors return the favors by keeping his abilities a secret. But when a newcomer alerts the media, a firestorm erupts, sending Huck on an adventure that will change everything…”
…Shifting back to Fox for a moment and The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone has revealed that he’s completed the first draft of the screenplay for the proposed X-Men spinoff New Mutants, while a report has surfaced claiming that the scheduling conflicts between Fox and Rupert Wyatt said to be the reason behind the director’s departure from Gambit were actually a smokescreen for creative differences, with the studio allegedly “questioning whether Wyatt was in fact committed to moving ahead on the project…”
…Click below to continue on for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Man of Steel 2, Suicide Squad, Watchmen, Gotham, The Flash, Arrow, Vixen, Supergirl, Batman: The Animated Series, Powers, Heroes Reborn and more…
