…There’s less than two weeks to go until Thor: Ragnarok begins its international roll out, and if early tracking is to be believed, the God of Thunder’s third solo outing is tracking a domestic opening weekend of between $100 and $110 million, which would put it comfortably ahead of the first two Thor movies, as well as putting it ahead of rival 2017 superhero movies Logan ($88.4 million) and Wonder Woman ($103.3 million). It would however fall short of Marvel’s two other 2017 release in Spider-Man: Homecoming ($117.0 million) and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ($146.5 million)…
…Naturally we’ve also had a lot of promotional material for Ragnarok this week, including a clip of Thor meeting his “friend from work” [watch it here] and talking with Taika Waititi’s Korg the Kronan [see here], as well as several TV spots offering up a few snippets of previously unseen footage [watch them here, here and here]. And, looking back to Thor’s last solo outing, we’ve also had some unused concept art for Thor: The Dark World featuring alternate designs for Christopher Eccleston’s villain Malekith [see here]…
…During a press conference for Thor: Ragnarok, Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie) and Kevin Feige have revealed that they have spoken about an all-female Marvel team-up movie: “Recently I marched up with a couple of other women who work in Marvel and [asked Kevin] “’How about a movie with some female superheroes? Like all of them,’ said Thompson, with Feige picking up the story and stating that: “It was a pretty amazing moment to be somewhere and have your shoulder be taped and turn around find every female hero we have is standing there going, ‘How about it?’ And I said ‘yes…’”
…Last year Mark Ruffalo revealed that Thor: Ragnarok will launch a three-film arc for The Incredible Hulk which will run through Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4, and he’s been chatting this week about how it came about: “So basically, Kevin [Feige] pulled me aside before this, and said, ‘If you were gonna do a… if we were going to do a standalone Hulk movie, what would it be?’ And I said, ‘I think it should be this, this, this, and this and this, and ends up like this.’ And he’s like, ‘I love that. Why don’t we do that in the next three movies, starting with Thor 3 and then we go into Avengers 3 and 4.’ And I was like, ‘That sounds great!’ And so we are at the beginning of this arc…”
…If you’re wondering why we’re yet to get a trailer for Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel Studios’ Louis D’Esposito has the answer for us, revealing that it’s currently being finished, and so is simply not ready yet. Fortunately, Kevin Feige has promised that it will be with us soon, and definitely before the end of the year. Meanwhile, to help tide us over, some new promotional artwork has arrived online this week featuring Spider-Man and Iron Man’s new Infinity War suits [see here], along with Thanos and his Black Order members Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive [see here]…
…Kevin Feige was also asked about Marvel’s Phase Four plans, but he stressed that for the time being, the focus on is delivering a “satisfying [and] unexpected” conclusion to Phase Three: “All I’ll say is the films we are working on now – which take us through to the Avengers Untitled in May of 19 – that’s really all we are focusing on,” said Feige. “And we are focusing on bringing, by that point, an unprecedented, 22-movie, continuous shared fictional narrative to a conclusion in a satisfying way. And where we go beyond that? Of course we will go places beyond that. And, of course, we have ideas of where we go beyond that. But, really, it is all good stories. And as the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation said, ‘All good things must come to an end.’ And part of what makes them special, there is a finite quality to the best of fictional stories through history. And we wanted to do that at the end of our first three phases and 22 movies. How we start anew and wherever we go beyond that is a story for another time. This is really about 10 years on, bringing something to a head in a satisfying and unexpected way…”
…It looks like we’ll soon get another peek at Marvel’s first film of 2018, with the BBFC classifying a new trailer for Black Panther, which is expected to arrive around the same time as Thor: Ragnarok’s UK theatrical opening on October 24th. Meanwhile, it’s also been announced that T’Challa will be receiving his own animated LEGO movie next year with LEGO Marvel Super Heroes – Black Panther: Trouble In Wakanda…
…In a couple of other Marvel bits and pieces, Kevin Feige has teased the whereabouts of Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers in the MCU following her 1990s-set Captain Marvel solo movie, while some new set photos from Ant-Man and the Wasp have arrived online giving us a glimpse of Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang in his updated Ant-Man suit…
… The Punisher co-creator Gerry Conway has named Jon Bernthal as his favourite screen incarnation of Frank Castle, stating that he “gives The Punisher the kind of pathos that’s underneath the tough guy, and I really like that.” As yet, we’re still waiting on word of a premiere date for the Netflix series, with rumours suggesting that the streaming service may have decided to push back the show to later in the year following the tragic shooting in Las Vegas…
…ABC has released a promo for next Friday’s fifth episode of Inhumans, titled ‘Something Inhuman This Way Comes’ [watch it here], and we’ve also got a batch of promotional images for the following week’s sixth episode ‘The Gentlemen’s Name is Gorgon’ [see here]…
…Turning to Fox now and the studio gave us our very first glimpse of its latest X-Men spinoff this week, releasing the trailer for director Josh Boone’s horror-themed The New Mutants, which features a cast that includes Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones) as Wolfsbane, Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch) as Magik, Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things) as Cannonball, Henry Zaga (13 Reasons Why) as Sunspot, Blu Hunt (The Originals) as Danielle Moonstar and Alice Braga (Queen of the South) as Dr. Cecilia Reyes. You can watch The New Mutants trailer here, while Boone has also shared some storyboard artwork, which you can find here…
…It looks like Fox is finally set to pull the trigger on the oft-delayed Gambit solo movie, with the studio setting a Valentine’s Day 2019 release for the film. Channing Tatum remains attached to the title role of Remy LeBeau, while Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean) is expected to direct, becoming the project’s third director after Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) and Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow), both of whom left the project due to “creative differences”…
…Marvel’s new X-Men series The Gifted continue this week, and you can read Rachel Bellwoar’s review of the second episode ‘rX’ here; meanwhile, we also have a promo for this coming week’s third episode ‘eXodus’ [watch it here] along with a batch of images for the fourth episode ‘eXit strategy’ [see here]…
…And finally, as he prepares to make his directorial debut on the live-action Spawn reboot, creator Todd McFarlane has revealed that he still has plans for a new Spawn animated series: “I’m going to get the [Spawn] movie out and then we still have the rights for TV and animation and we’ll just figure it out. I’ve also got to figure out how to get Keith David in my movie, too. Just for one line.”
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.
