…If you were hoping that 20th Century Fox would deliver a surprise at Comic-Con by unveiling its upcoming reboot of The Fantastic Four, then it seems you’re out of luck, with writer-producer Simon Kinberg claiming that the studio has no SDCC surprise in store for Marvel’s First Family: “I can definitively officially tell you that there will not be anything from The Fantastic Four at this year’s Comic Con. We are still very much in the middle of shooting and we don’t want to show anything until it’s ready and it’s not ready yet. We want the first stuff that we show from the film to really blow people away, and it will but we have got to wait until it’s ready. We are hopefully going to be refining the way the people see the Fantastic Four movies. There are so many things we are doing different from the previous film and so many things different from other comic books films. When we really step forward we want it to be with our best foot forward. Instead of rushing something together for the Con we’d rather really wait until we have that perfect first image, perfect first sequence and first scene to show people. And I know that there’s a lot of people that think that’s the big surprise from Fox this year at the Con and knowing that I’m talking to a reporter and I’m going on record that I’m saying unfortunately that will not be a surprise for the fans of Comic-Con this year…”
…Kinberg also offered up a few words on Fox’s other upcoming Marvel movie X-Men: Apocalypse; as well as discussing the plans for the introduction of Channing Tatum’s Gambit, he also detailed how Apocalypse fits in with X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Apocalypse: “We think about these X-Men movies as spread over – X-Men: First Class, Days of Future Past to Apocalypse was imagined as a trilogy for us. It’s the Origin stories in some ways of Charles, Raven, Hank and Eric and we will be settling things up in Apocalypse that will be generating new stories. We look at it globally as to where to mutants fit into the world. That’s why we jump from the 60’s to the 70’s and now the 80’s. We really want to be able to track the progression of the world and where do mutants fit in that world. It’s a pretty radical thing to do in any movie but certainly in a superhero franchise where you are jumping a decade each time you make a film. The reason that it is globally is that we wanted to be able to track the impact of mutants and the emergence of mutants into the world. Personally, we are very clear from the beginning as to how Charles, Eric and Raven especially dovetail, duck and weave in and out of each others lives. We were building, in some ways, a trilogy that is a story of three people; a brother, a little sister and another man who comes, in some ways, as a brother and how that sister leaves with the new brother. The war for that sisters’ soul between these two men defines First Class, Days of Future Past and Apocalypse. That’s a larger story we are telling even though each of those films is its own coherent and complete film. You can look at the arc of those three characters almost like a television show arcing over three complete episodes…”
…It looks like Sony has finally decided how to proceed with its Spider-Man universe post-The Amazing Spider-Man 2, with the studio announcing today that The Amazing Spider-Man 3 has been pushed back from its original June 10th 2016 date and will now hit in 2018. In the meantime, Drew Goddard’s The Sinister Six will fill the gap, with the supervillain ensemble now given an official release date of November 11th, 2016…
…Over at Warner Bros., and while we await a possible announcement at Comic-Con about the future of Warner’s DC movie universe, Dwayne Johnson has been talking more about his upcoming role, dropping a huge hint that he could be set to portray the character of Shazam: “DC and I have been talking for a couple of years now about trying to find whatever the right character is… There’s a character out there that we’re gonna announce very soon that I’m gonna play and I’ll just say this. He has the power of Superman, and it’s not Green Lantern, by the way. Believe me, John Stewart, he was a character I wanted to play but there was already a version of Green Lantern so now we’ve gone in a different direction. But this character has the power of Superman, he can throw down… Just say the word, that’s all I’m going to say…”
…Should Warner Bros. decide against showcasing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and its various Justice League plans at Comic-Con, fans will have to make do with the various DC TV shows on offer, including The CW’s tag team of Arrow and The Flash. This week, it’s been revealed that the character of Plastique is set to feature in The Flash, while executive producer Andrew Kreisberg detailed how Warner’s movie plans impact and restrict their TV universe, as well as discuss the upcoming two-hour crossover between the two shows: “Both Episode 8 of Arrow and The Flash will be a two-part cross-over. Not to toot our own horns, but I think we’ve designed it in a way that, if you’re not watching The Flash, you can just enjoy it from the Arrow perspective, where these crazy Flash people show up for an episode, and vice versa. We don’t want to be brazen and assume that everybody is watching both shows. Hopefully, they will be. I think it’s one of those things where, if you’re not watching both shows, whichever show you’re watching, it will all make sense to you. But at the same time, if you are watching both shows, you’re really gonna get a fun, cool two-night event…”
…And Kreisberg wasn’t done, as he also took a moment to tease the new villain set to go up against Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen when Arrow returns for its third season: “Slade had a very specific agenda [in season two] — he was out for revenge and had set up this elaborate five-year plot. What’s interesting about the villain in season three is that he doesn’t necessarily disagree with [Oliver]. He doesn’t have any personal animus towards the Arrow, and he actually in some ways has a very similar worldview. [But] the Arrow is thinking too small. In some ways, as Oliver is struggling with whether or not he can be the Arrow and Oliver at the same time, the villain of season 3 is saying, ‘Being Oliver Queen is what’s holding you back from fulfilling your true destiny.’ So it’s a very interesting dynamic, but it is tied in the same way that Oliver last year was wrestling with, ‘Am I a hero or a killer?’ The theme of identity is tied up very much in how the villain is presented to Oliver.” So, Ra’s al Ghul..?
…Meanwhile, we’ve also just had our first look at Colton Haynes’ Roy Harper suited up as Arsenal in a new promotional image from the third season of Arrow, which you can see here…
…Ahead of its world premiere at SDCC on Saturday, FOX has launched a new viral site for Gotham entitled Gotham Chronicle and released some new character artwork of Detective Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie), while Bruno Heller has been speaking about the characters of Poison Ivy (or rather Ivy Pepper), The Joker, Harvey Dent and Professor Hugo Strange, all of whom are set to feature in the first season of the Batman prequel series. Read what he had to say here and here…
…And finally, on the animated side of things, it seems that Marvel has renewed Avengers Assemble for a third season (despite the fact that second season is yet to get underway), but DC fans will be disappointed to hear that there are no plans to bring Young Justice back, with the Comic-Con tease for the teen superheroes actually referring to the Blu-ray release of the first season.
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.
