…Moving on to Fox’s Marvel properties now and Ryan Reynolds took to Twitter this week to mark a year to the day for the release of Deadpool by revealing a behind-the-scenes image that gives us our first glimpse at the Merc with the Mouth’s costume from the 2016 solo movie. Meanwhile, it has also been announced that Gina Carano (Fast & Furious 6) has signed on to play the female lead, the character of Angel Dust, while T.J. Miller (Transformers: Age of Extinction) is confirmed for a “comedic role” and X-Men veteran Daniel Cudmore will reportedly feature as Colossus…
…Bryan Singer has also been active on social media this week, teasing another of Fox’s 2016 releases in X-Men: Apocalypse, posting a couple of BTS shots of pre-production on the mutant superhero sequel, which you can see here and here. Meanwhile, Sophie Turner has spoken about her upcoming role as Jean Grey in Apocalypse, comparing her to her Game of Thrones character Sansa Stark: “I think maybe one of the reasons that they chose me for [Jean] is because they saw the dark side of Sansa. Maybe they’re thinking, ‘Oh, Phoenix, Jean Grey.’ I definitely see a lot of parallels in there. [Jean] struggles with her power… and not being accepted in the human world. I think in terms of [Game of Thrones], that’s kind of the way Sansa felt in that she really wanted to be a normal princess/queen and live a normal life — and she doesn’t, because of all this havoc happens. I think Jean, in a way, feels that. [I want to] bring something different to the character… I think Famke Janssen played Jean incredibly well, but also, I’m playing a younger version of her. I want to emulate Famke in a sense, because she has to seem like the Jean in the first two movies, but I’m also going to put my own twist on her. I think I’m also going to take inspiration from the comics. I don’t know, we’ll see… I’m really, really excited to play [Jean]. She’s an icon…”
…Patrick Stewart has been talking about the X-Men franchise this week, revealing that his good buddy Ian McKellen will likely be back as Magneto in X-Men: Apocalypse, while he might also reprise the role of Professor Xavier for a “buddy movie” alongside Hugh Jackman’s Logan in Wolverine 3. Jackman himself was also asked about Stewart appearing in the next solo sequel, responding that: “I’m not going to deny it… I’ve always seen it as a really important relationship, and we started with that and I think it’s a really important one. I think it would be really great to see it in the Wolverine movie, because we haven’t really explored it in the standalone Wolverine movies. So it’s not not not not not going to happen…”
…Jackman also commented about the Spider-Man / Marvel deal, and whether that’s given him hope of one day realising his ambition of seeing Wolverine joining the Avengers as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe: “I’ve always loved the very basic idea of the comic book world where on the Friday night you can have a couple of beers and say to a mate, ‘Oh wouldn’t it be great to see Wolverine face off against Iron Man?’ and bang Monday morning someone’s drawing it, you know. I always thought that was cool. I mean it’s a very complicated world how rights and who buys what, at what price, when and I think it’s great that they’re kind of melting it. I’m sure by the time that all of that is resolved it’ll be past my used by date, but you never know…”
…Following the big Marvel / Sony announcement this week, many expected Warner Bros. to counter with some big DC news, and… well, they haven’t. Not yet, at least. However, we have had some Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice news, with Man of Steel’s Christina Wren revealing she will be reprising the role of United States Air Force officer Carrie Farris in the DC ensemble, as well as discussing the possibility of her character being Carol Ferris: “There’s some gossip; this has not been officially confirmed with me at all. But my character’s name is Carrie Farris; there’s a character named Carol Ferris who’s the Green Lantern’s girlfriend and turns into this superhero, Star Sapphire. But I have no idea if that’s the plan; they’re not even slated to do a Green Lantern film for several years…”
…It looks like Warner Bros. has found its replacement for Tom Hardy on Suicide Squad, with RoboCop star Joel Kinnaman reportedly signing on to fill his shoes in the role of Rick Flagg, the squad’s leader. Meanwhile, director David Ayer has continued posting teasers on Twitter [see here], while Focus co-stars and the future Deadshot and Harley Quinn, Will Smith and Margot Robbie, have spoke about the film in several interviews this week, including the departure of Hardy, and what attracted them to the project [see here and here]…
…Looking a little further ahead on Warner’s DC schedule and Dwayne Johnson has been talking about his role as Black Adam in 2019’s Shazam movie: “I think Black Adam is going to grow into becoming an anti-hero. “It’s all written within the spirit of respecting and paying homage to the comics. As we know, Black Adam started out as a slave. When he’s given the powers, he utilised them. Then in the wake of his powers, tragedy strikes, which turns his sentiment and tone in terms of psychology. It was all agreed that the worlds are all interconnected… One day you will see Black Adam go at it with Superman or Batman or any of the DC characters. But that said, there’s a great independence to Black Adam from the DC world, allowing us to inject, not only viciousness, but also winking humour…”
…A video has popped up online this week which presents an 11-minute retrospective on the cinematic evolution of The Dark Knight, beginning with the 1940 movie serials and ending with Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. Check it out here…
…Announced back in January, Warner Bros. has now debuted the first trailer for Batman Unlimited: Animal Instincts, an upcoming all-ages direct-to-video feature which sees the Caped Crusader teaming up with The Flash, Green Arrow, Nightwing and Red Robin to take on the animal-inspired supervillains Silverback, Cheetah, Killer Croc and Man-Bat, a.k.a. Animilitia. Watch the trailer here…
…A Gotham promo teaser arrived online this week for Monday’s episode ‘The Blind Fortune Teller’ [watch it here], giving us what could be our first look at The Joker in the Batman prequel series, as played by Cameron Monaghan (Shameless). Asked about the character of ‘Jerome’ and his ties to the Clown Prince of Crime, Gotham showrunner Bruno Heller offered up a cryptic response: “He may or may not be The Joker. All I can promise is that’s not a bait and switch. It’s a long game we’re playing here. The great fun of this show is that it’s the origin story of these famous characters, and with The Joker, the wonderful thing is that nobody knows where he came from and what his genesis was. What I can guarantee is that you have to follow that brilliant young actor Cameron Monaghan down the line, and you will see how this leads to the character we all know and love…”
…In other Gotham news, you can take a look at a batch of promo images for ‘The Blind Fortune Teller’ here, along with stills from the next episode ‘Red Hood’ here; and of course, we’ve also got a review of the previous episode ‘The Scarecrow’, which you can read here…
…Turning to The CW now and Grant Gustin has been speaking about which character he’d most like to feature alongside in The Flash (hint – it’s Superman), while Robbie Amell (Ronnie Raymond) has discussed the potential evolution of Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) into the supervillain Killer Frost: “In an upcoming episode, you get a very small taste of the future of Killer Frost. It’s definitely a ways down the road. I know that Danielle is super excited about it. I know they’ve been talking to her about it. I think it’s a matter of time. I’m sure they’ll start to manifest it shortly, but you have to see the development there, otherwise you’ll feel like you’ve missed a step…”
…Sticking with The Flash and you can see a trailer, promo and images for Tuesday’s episode ‘Fallout’ here, along a new promo teasing the arrival of Gorilla Grodd here and our review of ‘The Nuclear Man’ here. And over at Starling City, we’ve also got a trailer, promo and images for Wednesday’s episode of Arrow, ‘The Return’, which as you might have guessed features the return of a couple of familiar faces. Check those out here, and read our review of this week’s episode ‘Canaries’ here…
…Well, the season finale of Constantine has been and gone last night, and there’s still no news on the fate of the DC show. While we await news about a cancellation or second season, be sure to take a look at our review of last Friday’s ‘Angels and Ministers of Grace’ here, and we’ll have our review of the finale up for you soon…
…Given the poor box-office performance of Kick-Ass 2, it was thought that the third and final chapter of the comic book trilogy would never reach the big screen, but that may not be the case after all as Matthew Vaughn has revealed he and Mark Millar have plotted not only Kick-Ass 3, but also a Hit-Girl prequel: “Do you know what’s going to be next if I do it… we’ve finished plotting it. What we have to do is, we’ve got to do the First Class to the Kick-Ass world. We lost a few fans on Kick-Ass 2. It wasn’t as loved as one would’ve hoped. So we have this idea for a Hit-Girl prequel. It’s a really strong, really simple prequel where I think we can regain the love and the passion. If that happens, I’m pretty sure I can persuade Aaron and Chloe to come back and finish the story of Kick-Ass with Kick-Ass 3. Mark and I have already plotted Hit-Girl. We have to get the script done next. It’s so far out there, you have no idea. I wouldn’t direct. We spoke about it to Gareth Evans a couple of years ago. I’d get someone like that, a really bold, clever director. Most of it is set in the far east…”
…And finally, if you’re struggling to keep track of all the superhero movies set to land between now and 2020, then you may want to check out this handy Flickering Myth infographic featuring the release dates for – deep, deep breath – Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, The Fantastic Four, Deadpool, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Captain America: Civil War, X-Men: Apocalypse, Suicide Squad, Gambit, Doctor Strange, Wolverine 3, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Thor: Ragnarok, Justice League: Part One, The Flash, Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1, Black Panther, Aquaman, Captain Marvel, Shazam, Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2, Justice League: Part Two, Inhumans, Cyborg and Green Lantern. And that’s without Batman, Man of Steel 2, The Sinister Six, Venom and a female-led Spidey spin-0ff. Better get saving up – it’s going to get expensive.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&list=PL18yMRIfoszFJHnpNzqHh6gswQ0Srpi5E&v=zzYUW1bfw34
