Presenting our weekly round-up of the big news stories from the world of movie superheroes…
Marvel Studios are gearing up to deliver their second superhero movie of 2011 (and the fifth installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) as Chris Evans steps into the role of Super Soldier Steve Rogers for Joe Johnston’s World War II-set Captain America: The First Avenger. The second theatrical trailer has finally made its way online after premiering at the Hero Complex Film Festival a couple of weeks ago, along with a brand new poster that could just as easily be an advertisement for some kind of patriotic fake tan. Still, the trailer looks great and judging by what we’ve seen so far this certainly has the potential to be the superhero movie of the summer.
Joining Evans in Captain America: The First Avenger are Hugo Weaving (the Red Skull), Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes), Toby Jones (Arnim Zola), Dominic Cooper (Howard Stark), Neal McDonough (Dum Dum Dugan), Stanley Tucci (Dr. Abraham Erskine), Tommy Lee Jones (Col. Chester Phillips), Richard Armitage (Heinz Kruger) and Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), and the film hits cinemas on July 22nd (USA) / July 29th (UK). Take a look at the trailer…
Sticking with Marvel for a moment, the studio have confirmed that they won’t be holding a dedicated Marvel panel at the San Diego Comic-Con International. So, while it’s unlikely that we’ll seeing anything from The Avengers, NerdReactor have suggested that Captain America will have a presence, with stars Chris Evans and Hugo Weaving both expected to be in attendance, along with a special preview screening of The First Avenger. Meanwhile Warner Bros. are unlikely to take either The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel , but there TV arm have announced that their panel will feature the cast and crew of Green Lantern: The Animated Series and Young Justice, alongside the likes of Alcatraz, Fringe, Supernatural and ThunderCats.
The critically-mauled Green Lantern has pushed its worldwide box office gross to $87m, leaving it trailing X-Men: First Class ($290m) and Thor ($436m) in the race for the biggest superhero film of the year. As it stands the Ryan Reynolds-starrer is going to struggle to recoup its $200m production budget and with such a poor reception you have to wonder whether WB have any regrets over their decision to scrap the proposed Green Lantern comedy that was in development a couple of years back. Screenwriter Robert Smigel (Saturday Night Live) has been talking to Vanity Fair about the project, which was written with Jack Black in mind, and centred on a reality TV star who accidentally gets his hands on the power ring intended for Hal Jordan.
According to Deadline, British actress Julia Ormond (Legends of the Fall) is close to signing a deal to join Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel as Kal-El’s biological mother Lara, a role that was originally thought to have been offered to Connie Nielsen. If accurate, Ormond will join a cast that so far includes Henry Cavill as Superman, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Russell Crowe as Jor-El, Michael Shannon and Antje Traue as General Zod and Faora and Diane Lane and Kevin Costner as Ma and Pa Kent. Deadline have also since reported that Christopher Meloni (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) is in negotiations for an unspecified ‘major’ role – could Snyder have found his Lex Luthor?
NBC’s Wonder Woman series starring Adrianne Palicki may have failed to get past the pilot stage but that hasn’t seemed to have deterred Warner Bros. from pushing ahead with their plans for a live-action Wonder Woman film, which is rumoured to be in the very early stages of development alongside live-action adaptations of The Flash and Justice League of America. Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn had a few words to Collider early in the week about his own proposed take on the Amazon Princess, suggesting that Christina Hendricks (Firefly, Mad Men) would be his number one choose to don the red boots and star-spangled knickers, but any plans will have to be put on hold as the director looks to tackle a remake of Logan’s Run as his next project.
Wrapping up the best of the rest and The Dark Knight Rises star Anne Hathaway had a few brief (and I do mean brief) words about working on Christopher Nolan’s third Batman feature (apart from confirming that she will be donning the Catsuit, there really isn’t much else), while screenwriter Alex Tse (Watchmen) has been hired to pen the remake of The Crow, to be directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) and starring Bradley Cooper (The A-Team) as Eric Draven.
