…On the small screen side of the MCU, British actor Simon Kassianides (Quantum of Solace) has signed on to appear in the second season of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for a major recurring role as “Bakshi, a confident right-hand man who’s not afraid to do the dirty work.” Kassianides joins fellow newcomers Lucy Lawless (Xena: Warrior Princess) as Isabel Hartly, Reed Diamond (Dollhouse) as Daniel Whitehall and Nick Blood (Trollied) as Lance Hunter for the second season of the show. Meanwhile, IGN has video interviews with the cast and crew of both Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter, which give us some idea about what we can expect from the latest round of Marvel’s TV offerings…
…Marvel’s latest animated movie Iron Man & Captain America: Heroes United hit shelves this past week, and you can check out a clip from the direct-to-video feature here, which sees Iron Man (Adrian Pasdar) and Cap (Roger Craig) taking part in a little combat training…
…Iron Man & Captain America: Heroes United isn’t the only animated Marvel movie we’ve got this year, with Disney also set to released Big Hero 6 in theaters in November, and this week has seen the arrival of a couple of international posters for the film [see here], as well as a new TV spot [see here]…
…If you weren’t fortunate enough to be in Hall H last Saturday or managed to catch the leaked Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice footage featuring Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight and Henry Cavill’s Man of Steel before Warner Bros. had it taken down, then fear not as one YouTuber has recreated the entire thing using action figures and you can watch it right here…
…As with Comic-Con, it’s been fairly quiet on the DC Cinematic Universe front this week, although Guillermo del Toro did offer up a few more words about his plans for Justice League Dark, indicating that he’d be open to tying the movie in to the world of the upcoming Constantine TV show: “Right now the plans are to make it a feature [rather than a TV series]. e are deep in the screenplay writing phase. I think we see eye to eye [Warners and DC and myself] on what the movie is and I think it will serve really well as a movie. We came in and I tried 2 or 3 different structures for the screenplay. I wrote a 75 page template for the universe… that takes a year… We needed to create a new story. Then we need to go to a screenplay writer. One draft takes between 6 and 8 months. It really takes a while… The only thing I made clear to them [the Constantine TV show] is that the TV series will not affect the movie and they said that’s okay. Now if we see the TV series and we can mesh with it or cast the same actor depending on where the movie is going then I would be happy to consider [meshing with the show]…”
…In a few bits of DC casting news, it has been revealed that J.R. Ramirez (Power) has signed on to play Ted Grant – a.k.a. Wildcat – in Arrow, with the character described as “a former boxer who now runs a gym for underprivileged youth. A man with a mysterious past, he will play a pivotal role in Laurel Lance’s (Katie Cassidy) arc this season”. Meanwhile, Kelly Frye (Rake) has bagged a role in The Flash as Plastique, “a fetching young redhead who was a bomb specialist with the Army before she was injured by an IED in Iraq. Since being exposed to the Central City explosion, she can turn any object into a bomb with just a touch of her hand.” Meanwhile, over at FOX, Dexter star David Zayas has swapped Miami for Gotham City, with the actor set to appear as mob boss Sal Maroni in the Batman prequel series Gotham…
…Speaking of Batman, the classic 1960s television show is set for its long-awaited home-entertainment release in November with the arrival of Batman: The Complete Television Series, and to mark the occasion Mondo has released a special Batman ’66 poster featuring Adam West and Burt Ward’s Dynamic Duo alongside a selection of the most famous faces from the Rogues Gallery; take a look here…
…On the animated front, we’ve got a clip from the upcoming DC Universe Animated Original Movie release Batman: Assault on Arkham, which you can watch here. The direct-to-video feature takes place in the same universe as the blockbuster Arkham video game series, and hits shelves on August 12th…
…And finally, if you were hoping to catch up on all the big superhero news coming out of the San Diego Comic-Con, be sure to check out the midweek SDCC Edition of The Week in Spandex, which covers all of the big news including Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and the numerous live-action and animated TV offerings.
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.
