Presenting our weekly round-up of the big news stories from the world of movie superheroes…
Christopher Nolan and the cast and crew of The Dark Knight Rises have been busy filming in New York this past week, and as you’d expect, it’s been tough to keep track of all the spy photos and set videos that have been popping up online over the past seven days. On Sunday, Wall Street was closed off for the filming off a bank robbery sequence, which included appearances from Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s John Blake and Matthew Modine’s Nixon. With regards to Nixon, CosmicBookNews posted a rumour claiming that Modine will be portraying a CIA special agent, although quite why he’s sniffing a pair of frilly pink knickers in these Daily Mail photos remains a mystery. Perhaps he’s trying to pick up Catwoman’s scent? Anyway, as the week progressed Christian Bale and Anne Hathaway were spotted on set (see here), while we also got details of some scenes filmed at Newark City Hall featuring Morgan Freeman and Marion Cotillard, along with a few shots of the Batwing hovering over Bane’s mysterious ‘doomsday device’. Meanwhile, the first pictures and videos are also starting to emerge of the epic 1000-person strong battle between the GCPD and Bane’s mercenaries, which you can see here and here, along with more shots of Christian Bale’s Batman fighting Tom Hardy’s Bane in what appears to be a continuation of the scenes filmed in Pittsburgh back in August.
In other news from The Dark Knight Rises, it seems that the rumoured six minute prologue that will be attached to IMAX prints of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol won’t be the only glimpse at Nolan’s final Batman feature that we’ll get this year, as Batman-on-Film revealed that a new theatrical trailer will accompany Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows – both of which are released on December 16th. If true, you’d have to imagine that both of these will appear online by Christmas, ensuring a happy holiday season for fans of the Dark Knight. Finally, in a clever marketing ploy, Warner Bros. are also offering us the chance to become part of The Dark Knight Rises, with composer Hans Zimmer extending an invitation for fans to record and upload a chant that could become part of the movie’s soundtrack. Take a look for yourself here.
Henry Cavill has been talking about his role as the Last Son of Krypton in a couple of press interviews for Immortals this past week, with British actor explaining to io9 that he sees the American icon as ‘a universal image’ and telling Fox All Access that he’s based his Superman interpretation on the comic books, rather than the performances of George Reeves and Christopher Reeve (seems Cavill has forgotten about Brandon Routh, but who can blame him?). Meanwhile Cavill’s Man of Steel nemesis Michael Shannon has also spoken about his character, General Zod, to EW Inside TV, shedding some light on the confusion over his costume(s): “There’s two different modes. There’s something that I have to wear a motion-capture suit for, because if I actually wore it, I wouldn’t be able to move. It’s a very big…thing. I actually don’t know what it’s going to look like, I just know that it’s very cumbersome. There’s another thing that I wear that’s an actual costume. It’s pretty simple. There’s no paisley or anything.”
Earlier in the week Jason Flemyng announced to DigitalSpy that work was already underway on the screenplay for a sequel to Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class, with SuperHeroHype quickly following up the story by revealing that Simon Kinberg (X-Men: The Last Stand, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Sherlock Holmes, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) has been tasked with penning the script. According to Flemyng, he hopes to be back in the role of Azazel by next summer and given the ridiculously fast turnaround time on the first movie, perhaps X-Men: Second Class will join Man of Steel, Thor 2 and Iron Man 3 in 2013’s cinematic superhero line-up. If so, it should be a good year for X-Men fans, providing Fox can avoid any more hitches with The Wolverine, that is. On the subject of Hugh Jackman’s oft-delayed Japanese adventure, check out director James Mangold’s most recent comments over at MTV.
Things have been pretty quiet on the Marvel Cinematic Universe front recently, although The Avengers star Tom Hiddleston continued his quest to enter the Guinness Book of Records for the most interviews about a movie still in production when he spoke to LSQ.TV about Joss Whedon’s upcoming superhero ensemble, comparing it to The Magnificent Seven and stating that it takes inspiration from the team’s first outing in The Avengers #1 (1963). Elsewhere, Iron Man 3 director Shane Black also took part in a Q&A at the Long Beach Comic Con last weekend, during which he confirmed that Robert Downey, Jr. would be joined by returning cast members Gwyneth Paltrow and Don Cheadle, before shooting down any chance of the Mandarin popping up as the bad guy, calling the villain a ‘racist caricature’; we can also assume that Whiplash won’t be back, given Mickey Rourke’s recent criticism of Marvel Studios over their treatment of his character – and their breaking of Jon Favreau’s testicles – during production of the underwhelming Iron Man 2.
Wrapping up the best of the rest…
…Marvel’s head of television Jeph Loeb took part in a video interview with ComicBookResources, during which he discussed a number of potential small screen projects including the Guillermo del Toro-produced Hulk series and the Ultimate Spider-Man animated show, along with the possibility of Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson making it to the making it to the box for his own television series…
…MTV Splash Page have posted more of their interview with The Amazing Spider-Man star Rhys Ifans, with the actor explaining a little about the motivation of his character, Curt Connors, and his relationship with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). Meanwhile a recent casting call suggested that the upcoming reboot will be returning to New York City this month for reshoots (under its working title of Fiona’s Tale), which usually isn’t too good of a sign…
…And finally, in an intriguing case of what might have been, filmmaker John Carpenter has revealed that back in the 70s he was approached to write a script for a Spider-Man feature, while discussions were also held about Batman. It would certainly have been interesting to see what Carpenter could have done with either character (Kurt Russell as the Dark Knight, perchance?), especially during the period he was churning out classics such as Halloween, The Fog, Escape from New York and The Thing.
Holy Franchise, Batman! – Coming 2012.
