Our weekly round-up of the latest news and talking points from the world of screen superheroes, including Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Justice League, The Flash, Aquaman, Shazam, Cyborg, Green Lantern, Batman, Superman, LEGO Batman, LEGO DC Super Heroes, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, Gotham, Arrow, The Flash, Constantine, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, Civil War, Captain America 3, Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, Daredevil, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, Gambit, Powers and more….
Well, it’s been a huge week for superhero news – so much so that it was a toss-up between Warner Bros. and Marvel Studios for our lead story this week. However, as we’ve been inundated with Marvel news, we’ll get things underway with Warner and its big DC Cinematic Universe announcement. Yes, the studio has finally revealed its plans post-Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, announcing a slate of DC movies between 2016 and 2020 which will see Suicide Squad (directed by David Ayer) out in 2016, Wonder Woman (starring Gal Gadot) and Justice League Part One (directed by Zack Snyder and – so far – starring Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck and Amy Adams) in 2017, The Flash (starring Ezra Miller) and Aquaman (starring Jason Momoa) out in 2018, Shazam (starring Dwayne Johnson) and Justice League Part Two out in 2019, and Cyborg (starring Ray Fisher) and Green Lantern out in 2020. And if you’re wondering why Batman and Superman are absent from that list, WB has also confirmed that both The Dark Knight and Man of Steel will be getting solo movies by 2020, although their release dates are yet to be confirmed (Flickering Myth’s Thomas Roach believes that Justice League Part Two could potentially be a smokescreen for a solo Batman movie)…
…And it seems that WB is wasting little time in getting Suicide Squad up and running, with reports this week suggesting that David Ayer is looking to assemble an A-list cast to portray the antiheroes, with Will Smith (After Earth), Ryan Gosling (Drive), Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises) and Margot Robbie (The Wolf of Wall Street) all wanted for as-yet-unspecified roles…
…Before then there is of course the small matter of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and producer Charles Roven discussing how Affleck’s Batman will differ from the previous incarnation in The Dark Knight Trilogy: “We knew that we wanted a very mature Batman, because we wanted to juxtapose him against this young Superman, so we wanted a guy who was tougher, rugged, had signs of life, had lived a hard life,” states Roven. “We wanted the guy to have chops, for sure. When we went down that list there just weren’t a tremendous number of guys that we felt could carry that. We also wanted the guy to have a big stature, Ben is 6′ 3″ or 6′ 4″, Henry is 6′ or 6′ 1″, we wanted Batman to tower over Superman, where Superman needed to look up to Batman, and Ben could do that… And so he was the first guy we went to, that’s who we wanted. What he did do was make sure he understood what Zack was looking for, he wanted to know exactly how Zack planned on treating this Bruce Wayne that was going to make him completely different, even though he was still Bruce Wayne, still Batman. [Ben] is a much more social animal in the Bruce Wayne incarnation, but he’s also an extremely rough guy in the Batman incarnation. Very, very, very rough.” Click here to read more from Roven, including how the ensemble will build to Justice League and a wider DC universe…
…The rumour that Jena Malone will be reuniting with her Sucker Punch director Zack Snyder for Batman v Superman has resurfaced again this week, with an alleged extra on the film claiming to have confirmed that there is a female Robin in the DC ensemble. Malone was previously spotted on set, while speculation about her playing Carrie Kelley intensified a couple of weeks ago after she dyed her hair red, much like the character in The Dark Knight Returns…
…We’ll be seeing Batman back on the big screen in 2017 too, albeit in brick form in WB’s spin-off from The LEGO Movie, and director Chris McKay has released a teaser image, which spoofs the first-look shot of Ben Affleck’s Batman from Batman v Superman [see here]. Meanwhile, in other LEGO-related news, Cartoon Network is set to air an animated special this month entitled LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes: Batman Be-Leaguered; check out a clip and synopsis here…
…After the recent apology from George Clooney for Batman & Robin, director Joel Schumacher has taken a moment to reflect on that film and its predecessor Batman Forever, as well as the infamous inclusion of Bat-Nipples: “I was never able to go into the darkness. Because of Batman Returns, families had objected that it was too adult, which is no criticism of Tim Burton’s. When they offered it to me, I went to Tim and said, ‘This is your franchise and they want me to do it. I won’t do it if you don’t want me to.’ He said, ‘Take it, please! I can’t do another one.’ Even though Batman Forever is really sexy, it was a movie the whole family could see. [I was surprised by the controversy over the nipples on the Batsuit]. I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ I think that will be on my gravestone. It’s how I’ll be remembered. [Batman Forever] was the biggest movie of the year and the cheapest Batman ever made. It cost under $100 million, with Val [Kilmer], Nicole [Kidman], even Jim [Carrey] was still coming up. Batman Forever was total passion. My bosses let me change Batman. Jim was inspired as the Riddler. Tom Lee Jones played Harvey Two Face. Drew Barrymore is in it. Debi Mazar plays a bad girl. It has a great cast and everyone did a great job. It was fun to create a Batman movie. They immediately wanted a sequel, but I said yes. There’s nobody else to blame but me. I could have said, ‘No, I’m not going to do it.’ I just hope whenever I see a list of the worst movies ever made, we’re not on it. I didn’t do a good job. George did. Chris [O’Donnell] did. Uma [Thurman] is brilliant in it. Arnold is Arnold. George made a noble effort. I was the problem with Batman & Robin. I never did a sequel to any of my movies, and sequels are only made for one reason: to make more money and sell more toys. I did my job. But I never got my ass in the seat right.” Meanwhile, Flickering Myth’s Simon Columb has reflected on the fourth Batman movie, suggesting that it’s Time to Celebrate Batman & Robin…
…Having given an order for an additional six episodes (taking it up to a full-season of twenty-two) FOX took its Batman prequel series Gotham to the New York Comic-Con this past weekend [watch it in full here], with executive producer Danny Cannon revealing afterward that both Tommy ‘Hush’ Elliott and Leslie Thompkins are set to appear in upcoming episodes of the show and casting due imminently. Meanwhile, ahead of Monday’s episode ‘Viper’, we’ve got a promo and four clips [see here and here], while we’ve also got a batch of images from the following episode ‘Spirit of the Goat’ [see here], which is set to air on October 27th…
…Following the appearance of the Queen Consolidated logo in the Gotham skyline, there’s been plenty of speculation about a potential crossover between Gotham and The CW’s Arrow. Unfortunately, that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen any time soon, with Gotham executive producer Danny Cannon stating that it was “unintentional” and Arrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim addressing the use of The Dollmaker, a character who has featured in both shows. Read what they had to say here…
…And speaking of Arrow, we’ve got a review of this week’s second episode ‘Sara’ [see here] along with a trailer and promo for the third episode ‘Corto Maltese’ [see here], while we’ve also got a review of The Flash’s second episode ‘Fastest Man Alive’ [see here], as well as a trailer and promo for that show’s third episode ‘Things You Can’t Outrun’ [see here]…
…DC fans have another show to look forward to next week as Constantine premieres on NBC on Friday night, and executive producer David S. Goyer has been speaking about the possibility of introducing more characters from the supernatural side of the DC universe into the show, stating that: “I think you’ll see some of those…If the show takes off…even within the first 12 episodes we’ve introduced two or three characters from the broader DC universe that are not just exclusively from Hellblazer. Corrigan has been mentioned, but there’s a couple of other characters we haven’t talked about that will show up as well. If the show takes off and we get our back nine and come back a second season, we sort of have access to that whole corner of the occult universe… [Swamp Thing] has been thrown around. It’s not something I think we’d attempt in the first season. We need to make sure that we can pull off the special makeup effects. We don’t want to do a cheesy version of Swamp Thing. It’s a lot easier to do Doctor Occult or Zatanna or Jim Corrigan than it is to do Swamp Thing. So we’ll see…”
…And on the DC animated front, the cover art and details of the Blu-ray special features for Justice League: Throne of Atlantis have arrived online, as well as the first clip. The film will be released direct-to-video on January 27th 2015, with a voice cast that includes Matt Lanter as Aquaman, Sam Witwer as Orm/Ocean Master, Chris Gorham as The Flash, Jason O’Mara as Batman, Shemar Moore as Cyborg, Rosario Dawson as Wonder Woman, Jerry O’Connell as Superman, Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern, Sean Astin as Shazam and Harry Lennix as Black Manta…
…Click below to continue on for Civil War, Captain America 3, Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, Daredevil, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, Gambit, Powers and more
