Our weekly round up of the latest stories from the world of screen superheroes, including X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, The Fantastic Four, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, The Amazing Spider-Man 3, The Sinister Six, Justice League, Arrow, The Flash, Constantine, Gotham, Son of Batman, Batman: Assault on Arkham, Nemesis, Daredevil and more…
We’re at the halfway mark of the year when it comes to the big superhero movie releases, and next up it’s 20th Century Fox’s turn with Bryan Singer’s hotly-anticipated time-travelling mutant epic X-Men: Days of Future Past, which is tracking a whopping $125 million domestic opening – a feat that would put it some $30 million ahead of both Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. And Fox is certainly going all out with it’s promotion for the film, flooding the internet with promotional material this week including 23 pieces of character art [see here], a (near) full cast banner [see here], a new image of Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and Beast (Nicholas Hoult) getting up close and personal [see here], a Quicksilver (Evan Peters) character featurette [see here], the Amazing Spider-Man 2 post credits stinger featuring Mystique, Havok (Lucas Till) and Toad (Evan Jonigkeit) [see here], a clip of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) with Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Kitty (Ellen Page) as he prepares to travel back in time [see here], and a couple of Sentinel-centric TV spots [see here]. Phew, that’s a lot of footage, and we’ve still got the best part of two weeks to go yet…
…X-Men: Days of Future Past may still be a couple of weeks away, but Singer is already turning his attention to 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse, hinting that he could be set to bring in a few familiar faces such as Cyclops, Storm and Jean Grey alongside the previously confirmed Professor X (James McAvoy), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and Beast (Nicholas Hoult) in the 1980s-set follow-up: “My next goal is how did the X-Men come together? That story hasn’t been told yet, so Days of Future Past is the inbetweenquel. It’s in between the birth of that relationship with Charles and Erik and the formation of the X-Men… In a way it feels like from this point forward we can do whatever we want but we’ll be moving forward with some of the actors from the First Class/Days of Future Past cast, so there’s stuff we’ve done in these last couple of movies that we’ll definitely continue doing for them, at least in Apocalypse, if not more movies going forward…”
…While you’d have to imagine that Singer and Fox will recast Cyclops, Storm and Jean with younger actors if they do make an appearance in Apocalypse, original X-Men star James Marsden isn’t quite ready to rule out a possible return as Scott Summers at some point in the future, stating that: “I’ve always been very proud of my role and it’s out of my hands [whether I’ll get to play the character again]. It’s nice to see Bryan go back in and turn the boat a little bit. I’m happy for those that made it back. I’d like to. I get excited watching the trailers because I’m excited for the continuance of the X-Men world. I’m a fan of X-Men and I know it’ll be a kick ass movie. I loved being a part of those movies. It was a great group of people. It was rare to get fans excited for a comic book movie, and do well at the box office with films that critics loved, too. I mean nobody doesn’t like them…”
…It’s being reported that Hugh Jackman will likely reprise the role of Logan for X-Men: Apocalypse, but with the star indicating that the third Wolverine movie could be his last time donning the claws, Flickering Myth’s Gavin Logan has written an op-ed exploring Jackman’s legacy as Logan and the future of the character on screen [read it here], while we’ve also been given a taste of what might have been thanks to some concept art from illustrator Miles Teves from back in 1997 when Mel Gibson was under consideration for the adamantium-clawed mutant. Check it out here…
…With filming now underway on The Fantastic Four, it has been revealed that Reg E. Cathey (The Wire) has joined the cast of the Josh Trank-helmed reboot in the role of Dr. Storm – meaning that it looks like Sue (Kate Mara) will be the adopted sibling, rather than Michael B. Jordan’s Johnny Storm. The Fantastic Four is currently shooting in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with a cast that also includes Miles Teller (Divergent) as Mr. Fantastic, Jamie Bell (Nymphomaniac) as The Thing, Toby Kebbell (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) as Doctor Doom and Tim Blake Nelson (The Incredible Hulk) as Harvey Elder…
…Sticking with The Fantastic Four and writer-producer Simon Kinberg has spoken about the tone of the reboot:” The energy on set is great. Josh Trank is fantastic on set. Really in command, really clear, and the thing that is most unique or defining about the new Fantastic Four is the tone. We’re approaching it in a much more realistic, grounded, science rather than science-fiction way. The playfulness or goofiness of those other movies is very, very different from what we’re trying to do, and that is true for the production design, the casting, the storytelling. But you never know until you get on set how it’s all gonna start to feel, and just seeing those actors and seeing Josh, the way he’s articulating the tone and the way the actors are executing it gives me a lot of confidence that we’ll actually be able to make a cool Fantastic Four movie.” Kinberg also went on to discuss how Fox’s plans for a sequel (already confirmed for July 2017) informed the approach to this first movie; read what he had to say here…
…Moving on to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the big news this week came from the small screen, with ABC announcing that it has renewed Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a second season, as well as giving an order to the Marvel One-Shot spin-off Agent Carter, which reportedly skip the pilot stage and go straight to series. Here’s the description for Agent Carter, which will see Hayley Atwell reprising her role and the likes of Dominic Cooper (Howard Stark) and Neal McDonough (Dum Dum Dugan) expected to feature (and we’ve also got the official logo here): “It’s 1946, and peace has dealt Peggy Carter a serious blow as she finds herself marginalized when the men return home from fighting abroad. Working for the covert SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve), Peggy must balance doing administrative work and going on secret missions for Howard Stark all while trying to navigate life as a single woman in America, in the wake of losing the love of her life – Steve Rogers…”
…As for the vastly improved Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his team are set for a final showdown with Bill Paxton’s Agent Garrett this coming Tuesday in the season finale ‘Beginning of the End’; check out a promo and poster for the finale, as well as a three-minute clip over at Marvel’s official website, and be sure to read Anghus Houvouras’ review of the previous episode ‘Ragtag’, which you can find here…
…In a couple of other bits and pieces from the MCU, Trevor Hogg spoke to stunt coordinator Thomas Robinson Harper about his work on Captain America: The Winter Soldier [read the interview here], Marvel dropped a couple of new images of Chris Pratt (The LEGO Movie) as Star-Lord from August’s Guardians of the Galaxy as Disney CEO Bob Iger spoke about the studio’s hopes for franchise potential with the cosmic superhero team [see here], and Jake Peffer posted a featuring ranking all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies to date. Check out his article here and be sure to let us know how you feel the MCU movies stack up against each other…
Continue on to the next page for Avi Arad claiming responsibility for “single handedly” putting together Marvel’s slate of movies, as well as updates on The Amazing Spider-Man 2, The Amazing Spider-Man 3, The Sinister Six, Justice League, Arrow, The Flash, Constantine, Gotham, Son of Batman, Batman: Assault on Arkham, Nemesis and Daredevil…
