Our weekly round up of all the latest stories from the world of screen superheroes, including Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time, Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Agent Carter, Big Hero 6, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, Spider-Man and more…
For the best part of the past year, we’ve been referring to Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel sequel as Batman vs. Superman and now with filming on the big DC ensemble underway, we’ve got an official logo and new title in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Yes, it’s very similar indeed to the placeholder title, with Warner Bros. deciding to drop the ‘s’ from ‘vs.’, and throw in a subtitle that makes it clear the film is building towards Justice League (just in case the addition of Batman, Wonder Woman and Cyborg hadn’t already given it away). And it’s also surely telling that Batman gets first credit in a Superman sequel…
…In other Batman v Superman news, Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones) has once again dismissed the persistent rumours claiming he’s been cast in the film, stating at the Motor City Comic Con that: ““What does everything tell you? No. Stop asking me. It’s so annoying… You know what, I think it started when people said ‘What superhero would you play?’ And I’d say ‘Batman and Superman, they’d be awesome together’. Then people were like, ‘He’s in Batman vs. Superman!’ I’m like, I really like Lobo. ‘HE’S LOBO!!’ And then some asshole was like ‘He’s Aquaman!’ And I’m like – what did you just call me? Where the f*ck do you pull out Aquaman? Seriously… And then it shows up on the internet. Not that it’s a bad rumor…”
…Now that production is underway, it’s surely only a matter of time before we get to see some new set photos from the sequel (so far, all we’ve had is Gal Gadot as Diana Prince), at which point we might finally get to see the colour scheme that Snyder and company have decided to go with for Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight, but judging by the latest comments from Kevin Smith, we already know the answer: “As you may remember, I saw a photo of the Batsuit many months ago, and many people asked online, ‘Is that the picture you saw?’ No, that is a very cool picture, but that is not the picture I saw. They put it on a fake rooftop, and they lit it up. But it was in color, and you could see every piece of detail. So I’ve seen some people online go, ‘Why is this f*cking suit any different than the Chris Nolan Batsuit, it’s all one f*cking color.’ It’s like, ‘Dude, that’s a monochrome photo. You know what that means, one chrome.” Smith went on to talk about the “That’s not a representation of what the suit looks like,” continued Smith. “So what the suit looks like, and I was always kind of keeping it quiet until they revealed it, but they’ve revealed it. And you can kind of see, and anybody that…you’ve seen some people take the picture and color it online. If you want to see what this f*cking suit looks like, you just go to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, go to the third book, Hunt the Dark Knight…it’s the exact f*cking outfit he’s wearing. That’s why I hugged that guy all those months ago…”
…Before we move on from DC and to coincide with its wide release this past week, Warner Bros. has debuted another clip from the animated feature JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time, which sees Superman, Cyborg and Batman racing through space to try and foil Lex Luthor’s crafty plan. Watch the clip here…
…Turning to Marvel Studios now and last night brought the disappointing news that Edgar Wright has vacated the director’s chair on Ant-Man, his long-gestating adaptation which pre-dates the Marvel Cinematic Universe, having been in development since 2006. The announcement came from a joint statement, which read: “Marvel and Edgar Wright jointly announced today that the studio and director have parted ways on Ant-Man due to differences in their vision of the film. The decision to move on is amicable and does not impact the release date on July 17th, 2015. A new director will be announced shortly.” Of course the news was immediately followed by scoops / wild speculation as to the reasons for Wright’s departure, along with potential director’s who may or may not have been approached as his replacement, although it’s hard to believe that these “reports” are anything more than guesswork at present. Nevertheless, as it stands now, there’s a huge question mark hanging over Marvel’s first Phase Three release, and the studio is going to have to move quickly if it’s to avoid a third date change for the miniature hero. Be sure to check out Anghus Houvouras’ take on the situation with his op-ed, The Marvel Movie Model: Auteurs Need Not Apply…
…Before the announcement of Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man departure, the big Marvel Cinematic Universe news this week was the arrival of the rather splendid second trailer for August’s cosmic superhero ensemble Guardians of the Galaxy, which was preceded by a first look image of Lee Pace’s (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) bad guy Ronan the Accuser [see here], along with three brief trailer teases [see here, here and here]. As for the trailer itself, you can find it here if you’d like to watch it again, while we’ve also got an alternative international version featuring a few snippets of new footage, which you can see here…
…Elsewhere in the MCU, Captain America: The Winter Soldier has crossed the $700 million mark at the global box office, becoming only the third Marvel Studios release to reach that milestone after The Avengers and Iron Man 3, while Marvel and ABC have announced that the Hayley Atwell-headlined Agent Carter is set to get underway on the network in January 2015, running for eight episodes during the midseason break of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.….
…The Middle star Eden Sher has revealed that she’s met with Marvel Studios, stating on Twitter that, “went to Marvel offices at noon for a ’15 minute meeting’. 3 hours and 80lbs of issues later, here I am paralyzed from excitement.” Marvel do have several projects at the casting stage, including Ant-Man and ABC’s Agent Carter series, not to mention their various upcoming Netflix miniseries. Could this be for a supporting role in Daredevil? Or perhaps, more likely, the lead in Jessica Jones..?
…Guardians of the Galaxy wasn’t the only Marvel movie to get a new trailer this week, with Disney releasing a first-look teaser for its upcoming animated adaptation Big Hero 6, which is due to open in the States in November and here in the UK in January 2015. You can check out the first trailer and poster here, along with three images here…
…This week saw the arrival of 2014’s third superhero offering in Bryan Singer’s mutant epic X-Men: Days of Future Past, and if the sequel’s box office opening is anything to go by, it looks like this could end up being the biggest superhero movie of the year. The film enjoyed an $8.1 million from late night shows on Thursday in the States, and is projected for a four-day haul of between $100 and $120 million over the Memorial Day weekend, which would make it the biggest domestic opener of the year so far and putting it on track with X-Men: The Last Stand, which is currently the highest-grossing instalment of the mutant franchise. International projections are yet to arrive, but with it opening in around a hundred territories from Thursday, expect big numbers when the dust settles on Days of Future Past’s first weekend. Be sure to read our review of the film here, and check out a trio of ‘Power Piece’ featurettes for Bishop (Omar Sy), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore) and Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) here…
…Now that Days of Future Past is here, it seems that Fox is moving full-steam ahead with the next X-Men movie X-Men: Apocalypse, and writer-producer Simon Kinberg has shared a few thoughts on how they plan to approach the new villain En Sabah Nur, better known as Apocalypse: “It’s really been about how do we give him [Apocalypse], most importantly, a very human and relatable motivation so that as extreme and insane as his methods are, there is something, you know, understandable, almost empathetic about his motivation. Some of that is in the books, some of that is us building on that. You know, fully dimensionalizing the character, but it is a huge part of the task of adapting the story of Apocalypse. It is making him, while larger than life, also on a human, emotional scale… We’re definitely approaching him as a super charismatic leader that will draw people to his cause. So far, in the X-Men movies, there really are two leaders. You know, there’s Eric / Magneto and what he did with the Brotherhood and Charles / Professor Xavier and what he did with the X-Men. Apocalypse presents a new leader, the darkest leader in the franchise…”
…Kinberg has also confirmed that Evan Peters’ Quicksilver will return for Apocalypse alongside James McAvoy (Professor Xavier), Michael Fassbender (Magneto), Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), Nicholas Hoult (Beast) and Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), and while he also spoke about the addition of Channing Tatum as Gambit, Tatum himself has revealed that he’s yet to officially sign on the dotted line: “I hope to be joining — everything’s not done yet. I’ve obviously been in talks, and we’re on the one yard line. I’m always afraid of being like, ‘Yes it’s totally happening’ and then it doesn’t happen. I’m dying to do it…”
…A few weeks back, Kinberg had suggested that Fox would be keeping its X-Men universe separate from director Josh Trank’s (Chronicle) upcoming reboot The Fantastic Four, but now he seems to have backpeddled, telling THR that, “In the world of Marvel Studios and everything they’re doing that we’ve been inspired by, anything is possible. I would say purely as a fan of comics and these film franchises, I would love to see it, but it has challenges…”
…After previously hinting that he could be set to hang up the claws either before or after the third Wolverine movie, Hugh Jackman has since indicated that he could be up for extending his time as Logan beyond the 2017 solo sequel, and now he’s spoke again about another ambition – seeing the adamantium-clawed mutant joining up with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes for a crossover with the Marvel Cinematic Universe: “I would love to see him as part of The Avengers, because there’s a great dysfunction among that team, and I think Wolverine would fit right into that. He’d like that. There’s no doubt that he’d get in a fight with Hulk at some point. Those two bad, rage-filled characters are going to square off at some point. It would be quite fun. I don’t know how much fun to shoot it would be because I’m sure I’d be on the worst end of it, but hey, he can heal…”
…And finally, turning to Sony’s Spider-Man universe and as The Amazing Spider-Man 2 edges towards $650 million this weekend, a rumour has emerged suggesting that Andrew Garfield has signed a new contract with the studio that will see him remaining as the wall-crawler until 2020, which – if true – would presumably include The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 4, as well as possible guest roles in Venom and The Sinister Six.
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.
