…Moving on to the DC Cinematic Universe now and last week brought a rumour that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice would be split into two movies, with Part 1 – Enter the Knight arriving in October 2015 and leading in to Part 2 – Dawn of Justice in March 2016. Well, if you were hoping to get to see the World’s Finest in action this year I’m afraid you’re out of luck, as the Man of Steel himself Henry Cavill as said that there’s no truth to the reports, while he also responded to a question about whether the DC ensemble will be better that Marvel’s The Avengers…
…As it gears up to go in production in the spring, David Ayer’s Suicide Squad has lost its leader, with Tom Hardy dropping out of the film due to scheduling conflicts with The Revenant and promotion for Mad Max: Fury Road. According to reports, Warner Bros. is looking to recruit Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler) as Hardy’s replacement as Rick Flag, where he’d join Will Smith (Hitchcock) as Deadshot, Margot Robbie (The Wolf of Wall Street) as Harley Quinn, Jared Leto (The Dallas Buyers Club) as The Joker, Jai Courtney (Terminator: Genisys) as Captain Boomerang and Viola Davis (How to get Away with Murder) as Amanda Waller…
…It looks like we’ve got an inkling when cameras are set to roll on Justice League Part One, with a report this week suggesting that production will commence in the summer or fall of 2016 once Ben Affleck completes work on Live By Night and the newly-announced Strangers on a Train remake Strangers…
…Shifting to the small screen and it didn’t really come as much of surprise this week when The CW officially announced that it has renewed both of its current DC superhero shows, Arrow and The Flash, for a fourth and second season respectively. Meanwhile, it looks like the network could be planning to add a third live action DC series to its schedule, with executive producer Marc Guggenheim hinting at a spin-off for Brandon Routh’s Ray Palmer, a.k.a. The Atom: “The thing that we’ve been talking about is just how do we further expand the universe; and we love Brandon and we love having him on Arrow. We’ve talked in the most preliminary of ways about doing something with Brandon beyond Arrow…”
…Whether The Atom gets a show or not, The CW will be expanding its Arrow / Flash universe with a new animated series from Marc Guggenheim based around the character of Mari Jiewe McCabe, better known as Vixen. Discussing the new project, Guggenheim said: “We’re going to do basically an animated spinoff. It’s going to center on Vixen who, for me, I came to know as a former member of the Justice League. It’s a six-part origin story, but characters from Flash and Arrow are prominently involved. It’s in the continuity and the world. There’s actually a question I’ve been getting on Twitter a lot, “Is Oliver going to find out that Felicity kissed Barry?” That’s actually going to happen in the Vixen cartoon. Part of the fun is that close cohesion. And Vixen’s such a great character. First of all, she represents magic, which is an area that we haven’t explored on either of the two shows just yet. One thing we’re always saying is, ‘Flash is very different from Arrow, Arrow is very different from Flash.’ If Arrow is crime and The Flash is science, Vixen has a big magic component. The other thing is, it’s a strong African-American hero who’s, like I said, a former Justice Leaguer. It’s set in Detroit, as a nod towards those Justice League [Detroit] stories. It’s done with the same love of the source material that we bring to everything…”
…Skipping back to the current shows and this week also brought us a look at the costumes for Firestorm and Heat Wave, along with comments from star Tom Cavanagh and executive producer Andrew Kreisberg about Reverse Flash and news that Charlotte Ross is set to return as Felicity Smoak’s mother Donna in the eigteenth episode of Arrow. Meanwhile, with both series set to return from their midseason break this coming week, we’ve got extended trailers and promotional images for The Flash’s ‘Revenge of the Rogues’ [see here and here] and Arrow’s ‘Left Behind’ [see here]…
…While Greg Berlanti seems hopeful that a crossover between Arrow or The Flash and the upcoming Supergirl despite the fact the shows are on different networks, CBS entertainment chairman Nina Tassler has played down the possibility, stating that: “I think we’ll keep Supergirl to ourselves for a while.” Tassler also went on to offer up a few details about the new series: “There will be [crime] cases, but what [executive producers] Ali Adler and Greg Berlanti pitched was a real series arc for [Kara]. The beauty of it is now with shows like Good Wife and Madam Secretary, you can have serialized story elements woven into a case of the week. She’s a crime solver, so she’s going to have to solve a crime. She’s going to get a bad guy. [Kara will be] a very strong, independent young woman. She’s coming into her own. She’s dealing with family issues. She’s dealing with work issues. It’s a female empowerment story. If you look at the strong female characters we have on the air, it really is resonant of that … We’re big feminists. It’s her intellect, it’s her skill, it’s her smarts. It’s all of those elements. It’s not just her strength, which she does have.” Click here to read the rest of Tassler’s comments, including what they are looking for in terms of casting the role of Supergirl…
…Over at FOX and this week has given us a batch of photos from the Haly’s Circus set of Gotham, which is set to feature in the sixteenth episode of the series, ‘The Blind Fortune Teller’, and will introduce Dick Grayson’s parents John and Mary (with Rob Gorrie set to play John Grayson). Meanwhile, Anthony Carrigan has spoken about portraying the character of Victor Zsasz, while it’s been revealed that The Scarecrow will be heading to Gotham City for the fourteenth episode, ‘The Fearsome Dr. Crane’. Be sure to check out our review of the last episode ‘Rogue’s Gallery’ here, and you can watch an extended trailer and promo for this coming Monday’s episode ‘What the Little Bird Told Him’ here…
…As Constantine begins the final run of episodes on NBC, network executives Jennifer Salke and Robert Greenblatt have discussed the show’s ratings performance, and the chances of a second season. “We wish the show had done better live,” said Salke. “It has a big viewership after [it airs] in all kinds of ways and it has a younger audience, but the live number is challenging. It hasn’t come out in the way we wanted it to, but we love the show. I think it’s fair to say we’re still talking about it.” Greenblatt adds that: “We got on the bandwagon of these shows based on comic books and maybe there are too many of them. It’s a popular series of comics, but it’s not The Flash, it’s not Batman. So maybe it suffers a little bit there. But as Jen said, it’s a show we really like. We love Matt Ryan, who’s the star of it. I think we did right by the fans who didn’t like the film that was made of it. The future is still up in the air for that show.” Meanwhile, you can see a batch of stills and a promo for Friday’s tenth episode ‘Quid Pro Quo’, while DC Entertainment has also released the first episode of a claymation animated series entitled John Con Noir, which sees Matt Ryan reprising his role. Check it out here…
…On the animated DC front, Warner Bros. has released the first trailer for the upcoming animated movie Batman Vs. Robin, as well as announcing the voice cast for the Son of Batman sequel, with Jason O’Mara, Stuart Allan, Sean Maher and David McCallum returning as Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson and Alfred Pennyworth alongside Jeremy Sisto (Six Feet Under) as Talon, Grey Griffin (Avatar: The Last Airbender) as Samantha, Robin Atkin Downes (Superman Vs. The Elite) as The Grandmaster, Peter Onorati (Goodfellas) as Draco, Kevin Conroy (Batman: The Animated Series) as Thomas Wayne and “Weird Al” Yankovic as The Dollmaker…
…With the Hollywood studios scrambling over themselves to launch lucrative superhero franchises, there’s a growing criticism towards the genre in some quarters. However, it seems that There Will Be Blood and Inherent Vice director Paul Thomas Anderson isn’t concerned that comic book movies will lead to the death of cinema – and in fact, he’s a fan of them himself: “Ah, that’s such a fucking crock of shit. “I can’t remember a year in recent memory where there were less complaints about the quality of movies. And what’s wrong with superhero movies, you know? I don’t know. You’re talking to someone that enjoys watching those films. People need to get a life if they’re having that discussion [laughs]. Those movies get a bad rap…”
…It’s been a while since we heard anything from NBC’s upcoming Heroes revival Heroes Reborn, but Friday brought word that Zachary Levi (Chuck, Thor: The Dark World) has signed on for a lead role in the 13-part event series. “There are a few franchises I’ve always wanted to be a part of, and Heroes is one of them,” said Levi on his casting. “Chuck gave me the opportunity to wield some fun powers, but an entire world with superpowers is a world I’ve always wanted to explore. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to work with Tim [Kring], and the awesome team around him, in bringing this to life. Moreover, to be working with NBC again is such a reward in itself, as my bonds and relationships there are deep.”
…And finally, this week’s superhero-related op-eds on Flickering Myth include Pim Razenberg’s Introducing Marvel’s Age of Miracles and Thomas Roach’s Is Hank Pym a villain in Marvel’s Ant-Man? and Would it be wise to split Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice?.
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
