Presenting our weekly round-up of the big news stories from the world of movie superheroes…
The Dark Knight Rises may no longer be looking to Occupy Wall Street but Christopher Nolan certainly has ambitious plans for his third and final Batman feature, with a member of the Official Dark Knight Rises Community posting an image of himself on Facebook in a Gotham City SWAT costume and letting slip that the New York segment of the shoot will include the largest fight scene ever filmed in the Big Apple. According to OnLocationVacations, this rumble is expected to consist of more than 1000 extras and will take place in a Gotham overrun by Bane: “After months of chaos, the cops return and the ‘good guys’ battle it out with the ‘bad guys’ for the streets of Gotham.” The report says that both Christian Bale and Tom Hardy will be present in full costume as Batman and Bane, respectively.
While the big fight sequence is still to come, Christian Bale and Joseph Gordon-Levitt have already been snapped filming scenes at Wayne Enterprises (a.k.a. the NYC Trump Tower) as Bruce Wayne and Gotham police officer John Blake, while a new set video shows the GCPD in a shoot-out with some of Bane’s thugs [update – a new video has also popped up featuring a nose-picking JGL getting in on the action]. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. have declined to comment about the rumoured prologue for The Dark Knight Rises being attached to IMAX prints of Tom Cruise’s upcoming action sequel Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, which came after AMC Theatres revealed that the six-minute preview will only be shown on 70mm IMAX screens (an update they have since retracted).
Switching to Batman’s World’s Finest partner, and plenty of set pictures have made their way online from the Man of Steel shoot this past weekend, the majority of which show a shirtless, bearded Henry Cavill filming rescue scenes against a giant green-screen backdrop [images here and here and a video here]. In other Superman news, CosmicBookNews posted alleged details of the climactic sequence from Zack Snyder’s reboot, stating that the final showdown between Kal-El, Zod (Michael Shannon) and Faora (Antje Traue) will take place in Smallville and features a “pissed off” Superman looking for revenge after Zod attacks the Kent Farm. Meanwhile Michael Shannon also provided a brief update on his fight with Russell Crowe’s Jor-El – telling DigitalSpy that it’s “going to be maybe a minute long”, while the actor also hinted to Empire that the Kryptonian general is unlikely to utter the catchphrase, “kneel before Zod”. Bah!
Moving on to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it’s been pretty quiet on The Avengers front this past week, although ComicBookMovie did post an update on the ‘Leviathan’ that was first mentioned back in September, with a source reaffirming their stance that the CGI creation “is indeed a giant creature… reptilian-like, with horns coming out of its head.” Still, with next year’s team-up currently in post-production under director Joss Whedon, the studio seem to be wasting little time in moving forward with their next round of features as the Salisbury Post announced that Marvel will soon commence pre-production on Iron Man 3 in North Carolina. So far we know little-to-nothing about the sequel, save for the fact that Robert Downey Jr. will return as Tony Stark under new director Shane Black, who is also co-writing the screenplay with Drew Pearce (No Heroics). With pre-production imminent, then expect to hear some casting news in the very near future, with the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg all likely to return. Question is – will we see Jon Favreau back as Happy Hogan?
In other Marvel sequel news, Captain America: The First Avenger screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely spoke about their plans for Chris Evans’ second solo adventure, telling TheHDRoom that there will be some WWII action, but the primary setting is present day: “Most people know the story of Captain America as the story of this man out of time, and because The Avengers is such a big movie, and because Joss Whedon has so many moving pieces, we’ve been left with room to explore Cap entering the modern day wondering, ‘What is all this? What’s happened to the world’ and so on.” Meanwhile actor Neal McDonough (Dum Dum Dugan) also had a few words for ABC News about his hopes for the sequel, along with a potential Nick Fury spin-off: “I’m really looking forward to the Nick Fury films. Sam Jackson and myself will be partners in that one. And I know Sam is really excited about doing it. So fingers crossed we start that one up pretty soon.”
Wrapping up the best of the rest…
…Any American Ghost Rider fans out there with some half-decent Photoshop skills may want to take a look at the ‘Face of the Fan Contest’ for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, where you can submit up to three fan-made posters for the chance to win tickets to the premiere of the movie and have your design become part of the marketing campaign. Meanwhile, you may also want to check out the latest interview with directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor over at MTV Splash Page, during which they reveal that Nicolas Cage’s Johnny Blaze will hellify a 700-foot strip miner to use as a weapon (and that the Academy Award-winner actually pisses fire)…
…Rhys Ifans has been promoting his latest film, the Elizabethan thriller Anonymous, with talk naturally shifting to his role as The Lizard alongside the likes of Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in next years reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man. Describing the ‘father-son’ dynamics of the story, Ifans also had plenty of praise for director Marc Webb. Read what he had to say over at Movieline…
…Despite bidding farewell to the Joker just last week after almost twenty years of voicing the character, Mark Hamill has since went on to suggest via his Twitter that an animated adaptation of Batman: The Killing Joke would be enough to tempt him out of retirement. Warner Bros. have just released Batman: Year One as part of their DC Universe Animated Original Movies line, and with a two-part take on Batman: The Dark Knight Returns in production, perhaps Alan Moore’s classic one-shot will be next on their slate…
…In other animated DC news (well, sort of), Adult Swim have released the first clip from Robot Chicken’s upcoming parody of DC Comics, which sees Green Lantern Hal Jordan taking on his nemesis Sinestro. The animated special is expected to premiere in 2012…
…Last week Chloë Moretz hinted that “a little bit of news is coming” with regards to Kick-Ass 2, and The Scottish Sun has added to the speculation by stating that the sequel “is about to be announced” as comic book scribe Mark Millar launched his own company, Millarworld Productions. Presumably Matthew Vaughn would hand over the director’s chair (to Millar, perhaps?), while the same article suggests that Vaughn is also looking at two more of Millar’s properties – Superior, a tale about a superhero diagnoses with multiple sclerosis, and his upcoming limited series, The Secret Service, which was co-directed by the X-Men: First Class helmer…
…Director James Mangold took part in a lengthy conversation with The Playlist to discuss his plans for The Wolverine. Describing the upcoming Japan-set adventure as “an intense psychological and action-packed character piece” as opposed to “the conventional, ‘will Wolverine and his compatriots save the world from this thermonuclear device’”, Mangold likened the film to Chinatown and The Outlaw Josey Wales, and also passed on his thoughts about replacing Darren Aronofsky on the long-delayed project…
…And finally, James McAvoy spoke briefly to TotalFilm about reprising his role as a young Professor Charles Xavier for a sequel to Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class: “One thing I liked about our one was that it was different from the other three films where the X-Men are the good guys, Wolverine’s figuring out who he is and Magneto is the bad guy. [First Class] was a completely different thing. Magneto [Michael Fassbender] wasn’t a bad guy, we were friends. We’re now set up to go back to the way the other movies are, so we’ve got to try to be cleverer than that.”
Holy Franchise, Batman! – Coming 2012.
