In this edition of The Week in Spandex, we look at Fantastic Four, Deadpool, Gambit, X-Men: Apocalypse, X-Men, Ant-Man, Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy, Agent Carter, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Gotham, The Flash, Arrow, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Vixen, Supergirl, Hellboy 3, The Crow and more…
Well, it’s here. The final superhero movie of 2014 arrives with a bang – only not the kind of bang 20th Century Fox was hoping for. Having been surrounded by negativity from the start, the studio’ reboot of Fantastic Four opened this past Thursday to a wave of bad reviews and a whimper at the box office. It’s currently at 9% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it one of the worst-received superhero movies ever (a title I’m not sure it really deserves, but…), and despite early tracking indicating a $40-$50 million weekend, it looks like a $2.7 million Thursday bow is going to lead to a domestic weekend of around $25 million – which would be the lowest opening for a Marvel-branded movie since Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance debuted with $22 million in 2012 – and could even lose out on top spot to Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. Not good. Not good at all…
…Prior to the film’s opening, writer-producer Simon Kinberg was in damage control mode in the face of increasingly negative reviews, stating that “it’s not a disaster” and coming to the defence of Josh Trank, although by Friday he was making efforts to distance Fantastic Four from the X-Men franchise, while Trank himself was looking to put the blame onto Fox, tweeting that: “A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would’ve received great reviews. You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though.” Naturally the studio soon fired back, suggesting that Trank’s “combative behaviour” toward the cast, crew, producers and studio are responsible for the film’s failings. Regardless of who’s to blame, unless the film can perform miracles at the box office, it looks like Fox will now have a free release date on June 9th 2017…
…You can read Rohan Morbey’s review of Fantastic Four here, along with Rob Kojder’s review here, and one or two of you out there may still be interested in checking out some promotional material for the film, including an extended sneak peek [see here], two clips [see here] and a batch of TV spots [see here], along with a rather nice illustrated poster of Doctor Doom by Bryan Hitch [see here]…
…Before we move on from Fantastic Four, the folks at Screen Junkies turned their attention to 2005’s Fantastic Four and its sequel Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer for the latest Honest Trailer, while Flickering Myth’s Neil Calloway delved into the 1994 Roger Corman-produced film for the op-ed ‘The Fantastic Four Film You Weren’t Meant To See‘, and Anghus Houvouras had a suggestion on how to fix the franchise with ‘Why Don’t They Just Make a Doctor Doom Movie Instead?‘…
…Fox will be hoping for a more successful 2016 with its Marvel properties, and this week saw the studio giving us a first official look at its next superhero offering – and one that has a little bit more anticipation behind it – by releasing the trailer for February’s X-Men spinoff Deadpool. Ryan Reynolds’ Merc with a Mouth kicked things off on Monday with a special teaser [see here], before the red and green band trailers landed the following day. If you want to watch them again, you can find both versions here…
…Way back in February Daniel Cudmore announced that Colossus would be recast for Deadpool (with Andre Tricoteux eventually nabbing the role), and director Tim Miller has revealed that Cudmore was offered the opportunity to return but declined: “I did actually call Daniel Cudmore to ask him if he wanted to do this, even though he’d be entirely CG the whole time. He was very nice about it. He was like, ‘I appreciate your offering, but nah’,” stated Miller, with Cudmore responding that: “I did get a call for Colossus but it was CGI/stunts and not using my voice so I graciously passed. Love 2 play him in the future as an actor. Really looking forward to @deadpoolmovie as I was such a fan of the leaked script and can’t wait to see what Tim Miller did with it…”
…Last week it looked like Channing Tatum’s involvement in Gambit was hanging by a thread, but the actor and the studio appear to have ironed out any issues as Tatum has now officially closed his deal to play Remy LeBeau in the solo movie, which is set to be directed by Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes). Meanwhile, Fox has also identified a shortlist of actresses for the lead female role of Bella Donna Boudreaux, with Lea Seydoux (Spectre), Rebecca Ferguson (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation) and Abbey Lee (Mad Max: Fury Road) all said to be in contention…
…Bryan Singer has given us another peek at next year’s X-Men: Days of Future Past follow-up X-Men: Apocalypse with the release of a behind-the-scenes photo of Alexandra Shipp’s Storm overlooking 80s’ Cairo; check it out here…
…It looks like Fox is hopeful of reaching an agreement with Marvel for an X-Men TV series, with Fox Television Group Chairman Dana Walden stating this week that: “[For] X-Men, we’re in negotiations with Marvel. We’re hopeful we’ll be able to announce something soon. We’re not closed on a deal yet but it’s something we’re definitely pursuing. The characters from the X-Men franchise are with Fox on the feature side so we won’t be including Marvel characters that are at ABC with Disney. This will be exclusively the franchise as it has existed at Fox.” The news has sparked a lot of speculation that Marvel could ask for the rights to Fantastic Four in return for signing off on the series, but that seems a little on the hopeful side, right..?
…Moving on to the Marvel Cinematic Universe now and Marvel’s climactic Phase Two offering Ant-Man has hit the $300 million mark at the worldwide box office by start of play on its fourth weekend. It’s overtaken the worldwide haul of 2008’s The Incredible Hulk ($263.4 million), but remains some $70 million adrift of Captain America: The First Avenger ($370.6 million). Nevertheless, the film still has to open in several lucrative markets, so its box office run isn’t over yet…
…With Tom Holland reportedly having already shot his scenes as Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War, it was assumed the wall-crawler would feature in a brief cameo in the Phase Three launching sequel, however a rumour has surfaced this week suggesting that we’ll see a fair bit more of him, including a fight scene that “might be the one that really gets fandom excited – not because of how top tier the face-off will be, but because of how profoundly dorky and unlike any other big screen superhero fight it will be.” Meanwhile, it’s also been claimed that Mark Ruffalo has been spotted on the set of the film, which would appear to indicate that The Incredible Hulk will be making his return alongside pretty much every other character that’s ever featured in the MCU…
…I’m not quite sure how many people still take stock of anything El Mayimbe says these days seeing as he’s having about as much luck with his guesswork as Fox are with the Fantastic Four franchise, but he’s had the Heroic Hollywood crystal ball out again this week, taking a guess at the “teams” for Captain America: Civil War, as well as taking a guess that Kraven the Hunter will appear as the villain in the solo reboot. As it happens, Kraven was repeatedly brought up as a possible villain in the emails from the Sony hack so it’s certainly possible, but so was Drew Goddard as director for the reboot, and as we now know, that “scoop” blew up in Mayimbe’s face…
…If you were concerned that the upcoming Spider-Man reboot would retell Peter Parker’s origin story once again, then you can rest easy as screenwriters screenwriters John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein have confirmed that won’t be the case: “Everybody feels like, you know he got bit by a spider and you know Uncle Ben died,” said Goldstein, with Daley adding that: “It’ll be a fun departure from the Peter Parker that you’ve seen where now, he is truly a kid. And I think the stakes are increased in that his struggle through high school is very real and isn’t just a sort of side note. It matters now…”
…Click below to continue on for Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Guardians of the Galaxy, Agent Carter, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Gotham, The Flash, Arrow, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Vixen, Supergirl, Hellboy 3, The Crow and more…
