…Luke Cage made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut last month, with Mike Colter portraying the character in the Netflix series Jessica Jones. However, had the stars aligned differently, Power Man could have hit the screen in the early 90s courtesy of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. During a promotional interview for The Hateful Eight, Tarantino spoke about his interest in the project, and why he ultimately decided against it: “One of the things I wanted to do before Pulp Fiction to some degree or another…one of the outside projects that I considered doing was doing a Luke Cage movie. In the case of Luke Cage, it was my comic geek friends that almost talked me out of it, because I thought Larry Fishburne back in the day would’ve been a great Luke Cage, and they were talking about Wesley Snipes. And I could see them both, but it was like ‘I think Fish would be better.’ And they go ‘Yeah…he could work out and everything, but he doesn’t have the bod that Wesley Snipes has, and Luke Cage needs to have the bod.’ And I literally was so turned off that that would be their both starting and ending point, that it literally put it in my head that, if I do a comic book movie, it should be an original character. It should be something I create rather than try to fit in…”
…Be sure to check out the Defenders TV Podcast for episode eight of Jessica Jones, ‘AKA WWJD’, which you can listen to here…
…It has been announced that Lyndsy Fonseca will reprise the role of Angie Martinelli for a guest appearance in the second season of Agent Carter, where she’ll appear in a musical song-and-dance dream sequence featuring members of Dancing with the Stars…
Turning to the DC Extended Universe now and with advance tickets for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice going on sale in Germany, we got a couple of new international promos for the Zack Snyder-directed DC ensemble [see here and here], as well as a potential running time of 2 hours and 31 minutes, which seems quite short given how much the film looks to be packing in. Meanwhile, we also got a look at more Batman v Superman merchandise, with Medicom releasing promotional images of their Wonder Woman and Armored Batman MAFEX figures…
…As production continues on Warner Bros.’ first superhero offering of 2017, Chris Pine has been speaking about the Wonder Woman movie, as well as praising director Patty Jenkins: “It’ll be a fucking blast. Patty’s got a tremendous sense of story, I couldn’t be happier to be supporting Gal in what’s going to be the first female-driven superhero film. I think in the world today we’ve had plenty enough of male-driven everything and it’s finally time to see how wonderful the world can be with beautiful, strong intelligent women kicking some major ass…”
…With Supergirl on its midseason break until January 4th, CBS has released a new featurette entitled ‘Supergirl’s Greatest Saves’, which explores the 40,000 lives and counting that Kara has saved to date [watch it here]. A synopsis for the tenth episode ‘Childish Things’ has revealed when Toyman is set to make his debut in the DC series, played by Henry Czerny (Revenge), while executive producer Andrew Kreisberg has also revealed that Kara will also square off against Bizarro, although it’s unclear whether this will be Bizarro Superman, or Bizarro-Girl. While you wait for Supergirl’s return, be sure to check out Martin Carr’s review of the midseason finale ‘Hostile Takeover’ here…
…The CW has announced this week that Matt Letscher is set to reprise the role of Eobard Thawne – a.k.a. Reverse-Flash – in the eleventh episode of The Flash season two, entitled ‘The Reverse-Flash Returns’, while two new promos have also arrived online featuring footage of Reverse-Flash, along with Earth-2 versions of Barry (Grant Gustin), Iris (Candice Patton), and Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) as Killer Frost; watch the promo here…
…We’ve also had a glimpse at the second half of Arrow season four, with The CW releasing a promo entitled ‘Revenge’, which you can watch here…
…With DC’s Legends of Tomorrow set to get underway on The CW on January 21st, a couple of promos and a batch of images from the pilot episode have arrived online [see here and here], along with cast portraits [see here] and character logos for The Atom, Rip Hunter, Firestorm, White Canary, Captain Cold, Heat Wave and Vandal Savage [see here]. Meanwhile, it’s also been announced that Ali Liebert (Strange Empire) has signed on for a guest role as 1950s housewife Lindsay Carlisle, who will serve as a new love interest for Caity Lotz’s White Canary…
…Ahead of its release in February, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has released a clip from the straight-to-video animated movie Batman: Bad Blood featuring Nightwing and Alfred; check it out here…
…Well, that’s it for the final Week in Spandex of 2015. Thank you to all our readers for your continued support of the site, and we’ll see you in 2016 for more superhero news, where we have Deadpool, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Captain America: Civil War, X-Men: Apocalypse, Suicide Squad, Doctor Strange and (potentially, if Fox gets a move on) Gambit to look forward to. Until then, Happy New Year!
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.
