…With a little over a month to go until Bryan Singer delivers his latest X-Men outing, 20th Century Fox has released a new UK poster for X-Men: Apocalypse, which sees Professor X and his new team of X-Men joined by Apocalypse and his Four Horseman; check it out here…
…As Hugh Jackman prepares to don the claws for one final time in Wolverine 3, producer Simon Kinberg has dropped the biggest hint yet that the 2017 release will be inspired by the fan favourite comic book storyline Old Man Logan, with Kinberg revealing this week that “the movie takes place in the future.” Of course, Kinberg could simply be referring to the future timeline of the X-Men franchise, given that Patrick Stewart is reprising the role of Professor X…
…We already knew that screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick were returning for Deadpool 2, and expected that Ryan Reynolds and director Tim Miller would follow suit, and 20th Century Fox made it official this week, announcing at CinemaCon that the star and creative team are reuniting for the sequel to this year’s hit X-Men spinoff. Meanwhile, we also got a look at some alternate designs for Colossus from the first movie, thanks to illustrator Alexander Lozano; check them out here..
…On the subject of X-Men spinoffs, Josh Boone’s New Mutants movie took another step forward this week, with The Fault in Our Stars director taking to social media to announce that he and co-write Knate Lee have finished the second draft of their script…
…Production on Justice League Part One kicked off this week and while we’re yet to hear any reports or official announcements to mark the occasion, it has been revealed that cinematographer Fabian Wagner (Victor Frankenstein, Game of Thrones) will be serving as director of photography, as opposed to Zack Snyder’s regular DOP Larry Fong. Meanwhile, former Commissioner Gordon Gary Oldman offered a few words of advice for new Commissioner Gordon J.K. Simmons, with The Dark Knight Trilogy star stating that: “God bless him. Good luck, that’s what I say. The thing you’ve just got to get used to with Gordon is he’s a really sound detective, first of all. And he’s really incorruptible, which is a kind of wonderful quality to play and sort of, like, true blue. He’s like a Watson, oddly. He’s sort of like Watson to Sherlock, is Gordon to Batman…”
…Turning our attention to the DC Extended Universe now and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was dethroned from the top of the North American box office last weekend by Melissa McCarthy’s new film The Boss, but it has gone on to surpass Deadpool as the year’s highest grossing superhero movie to date, pushing its haul to $800 million by close of play on Thursday. Dawn of Justice is now the eighth-highest grossing superhero movie of all time, but that magical billion dollar mark looks well out of reach at this point…
…We’ve all known it was coming since he was cast in the role, but now it’s official: Ben Affleck is set to star in and direct a solo Batman movie, with Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara revealing that CinemaCon that: “[Batman v Superman] set up a great foundation for our DC slate, which includes at least 10 movies through 2020. I’m also excited to know that we will be working with Ben Affleck on a standaloneBatman movie.” There’s no word yet on a release date, but it will presumably occupy one of the two slots that Warner Bros. announced a couple of weeks back…
…This week brought us a new trailer for Warner’s next DC offering Suicide Squad, which was released during the MTV Movie Awards and featured plenty of new footage, including a few shots of Ben Affleck’s Batman in action. It also featured a few new jokes, further debunking the rumour about enforced reshoots to add more humour seeing as “all of the jokes were in the first trailer”. And if that wasn’t enough to pour water on claims that WB wants David Ayer to lighten the tone, the director took to social media this week to state “Suicide Squad ‘reshoots for humour’ is silly. When a studio loves your movie and asks what else you want, go for it! #ThanksWB #moreaction”…
…Sticking with Suicide Squad for a moment and be sure to check out Oli Davis’ theory on who the film’s main villain is [read his thoughts here], along with Thomas O’Connor’s op-ed on Jared Leto’s ‘method’ approach to The Joker, which included such japes as sending dead animals, used condoms and “sticky” porn mags to his co-stars [read the article here]…
…It looks like Wonder Woman may continue the tone established by Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, with Gal Gadot revealing this week that the Amazon Princess’ solo movie will be “pretty dark” in tone: “In Batman v Superman, you get a glimpse of who [Diana] is but not where she comes from. In Wonder Woman, this would be the first time we ever tell the coming-of-age story of how Diana becomes Wonder Woman. It’s very interesting. It has moments of humor, but it’s pretty dark…”
…Director James Wan offered a few words on the upcoming Aquaman movie, and how he hopes to change people’s perceptions of the oft-ridiculed King of Atlantis: “As we all know, Aquaman is somewhat the butt of the joke in the superhero world. There’s something cool about that. I love the idea of being the underdog, coming in with a take on this underdog character and completely blow people’s expectations away. Like, ’Oh, you thought he was going to be a wimpy character? No no no.’ It’s going to be so cool. There’s Justice League that happens before it, so I have to be respectful to that. But in a lot of ways… it’s a continuation but there are origin elements as well — and that’s the story that I’m excited to tell…”
…With the DC Extended Universe coming in for criticism for its dark and serious tone, Anghus Houvouras has posted an op-ed suggesting that its time for Warner Bros. to shout “Shazam!” and bring forward DC’s Captain Marvel movie. Read his article here…
…Turning to the small screen and its the season one finale of Supergirl this Monday, and you can take a look at a promo for the episode ‘Better Angels’ here, along with two clips from the episode here…
…Monday also brings the eighteenth episode of Gotham season two, ‘Better Angels’, and we’ve got a promo and images from the episode for you here, along with three clips which you can watch here. Gotham will be on a short break after Monday, but it will return with the nineteen episode ‘Azrael’ on May 2nd, and we’ve also got a batch of promo images for that episode here…
…Shifting to The CW now and with The Flash and Arrow still on a short break, we’ve got a synopsis for episodes nineteen and twenty of The Flash, ‘Back to Normal’ and ‘Rupture’ [see here and here], along with episode twenty of Arrow, ‘Genesis’ [see here]. And on the DC’s Legends of Tomorrow front, you can check out a batch of images, a trailer and promo for Thursday’s upcoming twelfth episode ‘Last Refuge’ here and here, along with a synopsis for episode thirteen ‘Leviathan’ here and a synopsis for episode fourteen ‘River of Time’ here…
…Warner Bros. has unveiled the next entry in its series of lengthily-titled animated LEGO DC movies, LEGO DC Comics Super Heroes – Justice League: Gotham City Breakout, which is set to arrive on DVD and Blu-ray in July, complete with limited edition Nightwing minifigure. The plot for the film will see Nightwing and Batgirl taking Batman on a trip down memory lane to visit one of his former mentors, leaving the Justice League and the Teen Titans to protect Gotham City from The Dark Knight’s Rogues Gallery. Check out the trailer, synopsis, cast list and cover art here…
…In other animated DC news, it has now been officially confirmed that the DC Universe Animated Original Movies adaptation of Batman: The Killing Joke will be given an R-rating. “From the start of production, we encouraged producer Bruce Timm and our team at Warner Bros. Animation to remain faithful to the original story — regardless of the eventual MPAA rating,” said Sam Register, president of Warner Bros. Animation & Warner Digital Series. “The Killing Joke is revered by the fans, particularly for its blunt, often-shocking adult themes and situations. We felt it was our responsibility to present our core audience — the comics-loving community — with an animated film that authentically represented the tale they know all too well.”The hotly-anticipated movie reunites Batman: The Animated Series stars Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as Batman and the Joker, and is set to receive its premiere during the San Diego Comic-Con in July…
…Two new trailers have arrived online for the rather splendid looking Russian superhero movie Guardians [watch them here], along with a batch of character posters [see here]. Directed by Armenian filmmaker Sarik Andreasyan, Guardians revolves around a group of Soviet superheroes during an alternate history Cold War, and is set for release in 2017…
…Jackie Earle Haley has signed on for a role in Amazon’s upcoming reboot of The Tick, where he’ll play the supervillain The Terror, “our world’s epitome of the criminal mastermind, a hooded ancient villain barking at his minions whose incredible will power and tenacity have powered an underworld syndicate for decades…”
…And finally, be sure to head on over to our YouTube channel – or watch the video at the bottom of this page – for the latest episode of FMTV’s Scooperhero News, where Luke and Oli round up all the big talking points from the world of movie superheroes.
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.
. url=”.” . width=”100%” height=”150″ iframe=”true” /]
https://youtu.be/b7Ozs5mj5ao?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
