Our weekly round up of the latest stories from the world of screen superheroes, including Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., All Hail the King, Thor: The Dark World, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, Batman vs. Superman, Arrow, Gotham, Justice League: War, Stan Lee’s Mighty 7 and more…
Well, the holidays are well and truly over, 2014 is in full swing, and the superhero news has been coming thick and fast this week. We’ve got plenty to get through in this edition of The Week in Spandex and we’ll start things off in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the first superhero offering of the year Captain America: The Winter Soldier; along with seven new stills and new character images of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) and The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Chris Evans has spoken about his third outing as Cap, touching upon the arc for the Man Out of Time in the solo sequel: “I don’t think Marvel’s ever done anything like this. [Directors] the Russo brothers said right from the start that we were really doing a ’70s thriller. And I think just Cap’s abilities mesh well with that kind of genre. I mean, his powers are very meat and potatoes. Faster. Stronger. Punch. Kick. That works with those types of movies. It would be more difficult to put, say, Hulk in that kind of context… We really haven’t explored his adjustment period. In The Avengers we had so many characters you have to address, you don’t really have time to sit with any single one. In this movie there’s a lot going on for Steve. He’s trying to acclimatise to the modern world. I don’t want to give too much away, but it’s about trying to find how he fits. He’s a man from the 1940s. He’s just woken up. For everybody else, it’s been a slow burn to get to where we are in 2014. But for him, suddenly there’s the Internet, cellphones and The Patriot Act. The technology’s new to him and so is the access the government has to that technology…”
…Looking slightly further ahead to August and director James Gunn has discussed the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy, or more specifically the character of Rocket Raccoon: “We needed a raccoon [Oreo] to study how he looked and his behavious, so that our on-screen raccoon, which is generated through CGI is realistic. Our Rocket is based on a combination of our voice actor, Bradley Cooper, our on-set actor, my brother Sean Gunn, the movements and behavior and look of Oreo, as well as my own animation… Bradley is one of those actors that can do drama and comedy equally well. He can do character work as well as being a leading man. These are important qualities in the role of Rocket – which is a lot more dramatic than you might think.” Meanwhile, rumours of an animated Guardians of the Galaxy series have resurfaced this week, with reports suggesting that the show is set to become the latest addition to Disney XD’s Marvel Universe programming block after Ultimate Spider-Man, Avengers Assemble and Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.…
…It’s been rumoured this week that Earth’s Mightiest Heroes could be heading to South Africa to shoot scenes for next year’s The Avengers: Age of Ultron, sparking more speculation about whether the King of Wakanda Black Panther could be set to feature in the hotly-anticipated sequel, while Marvel chief Kevin Feige has spoken in depth about the three confirmed new characters in Ultron (James Spader), Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen): “Joss Whedon had a great idea for [Ultron] and how to use him to unify the Avengers again and acquire their services once more. He was a favorite. Joss and I were on the production of the first Avengers movie and we started having conversations about Ultron, and how he could come about and how we could adapt his origin to the continuity of the Cinematic Universe. It literally was just little discussions between takes but thankfully Joss files all that kind of stuff away in his brain. Then when the time arrived, he started outing it, so he went back to that and built a very good story.” And as for the Maximoff siblings, Feige stated that, “It’s always a balance with any movie, not to overwhelm it with too many story elements. Certainly when it comes to comic book movies, you can fall into the trap of having too many villains and in the case of team-based movies, having too many heroes. But what Joss has in mind to bring those characters into the story happens in a very natural fashion over the course of the story. It’s also the tradition of the Avengers to switch up the roster every now and again and to have new characters coming in. It’s just part of the fun, but we wouldn’t have included them if it had just been a case of ‘Oh, we want two new figures, two new costumes.’ It very much flows with the story that Joss is creating.”
…For the past year or so, there’s been a lot of debate about whether Hank Pym or Scott Lang will be donning the Ant-Man suit in Edgar Wright’s long-awaited adaptation, and the British filmmaker has now all but confirmed that the Phase Three feature will include both characters, with Wright posting an image from The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes episode ‘To Steal An Ant-Man’, which is based upon Marvel Premiere #47 and deals with Scott Lang’s theft of Pym’s Ant-Man suit. Meanwhile, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. star Clark Gregg has offered his opinion on the casting of Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues‘ Paul Rudd as he miniature hero: “What I love most about the movies from Iron Man to The Avengers is the sense of humor, and to have someone in the world who’s going to really slam the not taking himself too seriously component out of the park is perfect. I hope [Rudd] does a lot of films with them and he comes onto our show, I love that idea. I love that idea. I think he’s amazing and, for me, what’s great about Marvel is the kind of outside the box casting that they’ve done, starting with Robert Downey Jr. who now seems so perfect, but I think was a little bit of a tough sell at the first moment. People who you don’t associate initially with superhero movies is what works so well for Ant-Man, who’s so smart and has an intellect…”
…And on the topic of Agent Coulson, the mystery surrounding his resurrection was explained… kind of… but not really… as Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. returned with its midseason premiere ‘The Magical Place’ (in the States at least – it’s not set to return to Channel 4 here in the UK until March some time). However, the promise of the big reveal failed to halt the dwindling ratings for the much-maligned Marvel show, with the episode pulling in a 2.1 rating in the 18-49 demo, tying with the midseason finale for a ratings low . You can read Anghus Houvouras’ review of ‘The Magical Place’ here, and we’ve also got a promo and clip from the next episode ‘Seeds’. Meanwhile, in other Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. news, it’s been announced that Marvel legend Stan Lee is set to make a guest appearance in the show next month for what is being described as a “big role”…
…Ben Kingsley had already announced that he’d reprised the role of Trevor Slattery from last year’s Iron Man 3 for a Marvel short, and now it’s official that the next Marvel One-Shot All Hail the King will revolve around the drunken British actor post-arrest, with Scoot McNairy’s (Argo) reporter interviewing the incarcerated Trevor during a search for the Ten Rings terrorist organisation (the short also takes place inside Seagate Prison, setting up a possible Luke Cage tease / Easter egg ahead of Power Man’s Netflix series). Check out the first batch of images from the One-Shot right here, along with a few comments from Iron Man 3 screenwriter Drew Pearce…
…All Hail the King is set for release in the States next month as a special feature on the Blu-ray release of Thor: The Dark World, and Flickering Myth’s Trevor Hogg spoke to VFX supervisor Jake Morrison about his work on the solo sequel, with Morrison shedding some light on creating the visual effects for Chris Hemsworth’s second solo outing as the God of Thunder. You can read the interview here…
…Moving on to the Amazing Spider-Man franchise and this week has brought us three new international posters for the upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as Sony’s marketing department gets as much mileage out of their floating Electro and Spidey-with-his-back-to-the-camera images as possible, along with a new image of Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy and another two viral articles, the first of which deals with Dr. Curt Connors’ (Rhys Ifans) incarceration post-Lizard transformation, and the second hinting towards The Clone Saga with a mention for Miles Warren, a.k.a. The Jackal. Meanwhile, Dane DeHaan has talked about his role as Harry Osborn, his relationship with Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), as Oscorp’s role in creating Spider-Man’s Rogues Gallery: “When you first meet Harry he’s just graduated from high school, and he has to come back to New York to help deal with Oscorp, and its legacy, and his father. He also sees Peter Parker for the first time in a long time; they were childhood friends. So it’s really about Harry having a friendship with Peter and an allegiance to Peter, but also being the heir apparent to Oscorp, and having to deal with that. Yeah, and it’s a friendship that… I mean, they haven’t been friends for such a long time, but they definitely both feel like they used to be best friends, and ideally they would love to rekindle that friendship. It’s becoming very obvious that all of these villains are originating from within Oscorp, in one way or the other. There are things that Harry feels he owes Peter, and things he needs from Peter, there are things he feels he needs from Spider-Man, and then there’s his responsibility to Oscorp. It’s a very complicated storyline, really cool and dynamic…”
…On the 20th Century Fox front, a new batch of images from X-Men: Days of Future Past has given us our first official look at Quicksilver (the emphasis in on ‘silver’) as portrayed by American Horror Story star Evan Peters in the Bryan Singer-helmed sequel, with Pietro included on a new still alongside daddy Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and a non-wheelchair bound Professor Xavier (James McAvoy). If you’re yet to see it, you can view the image here, along with a new still of Wolverine and Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and a couple of hi-rez versions of previously released images featuring Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and Bishop (Omar Sy)…
…In other X-Men news, Girls star Evan Jonigkeit has stated that he’s set to portray a younger version of Toad in Days of Future Past, taking over the role from Ray Park who played the character in the original X-Men, while Bryan Singer has revealed that he’s yet to officially sign on to the director’s chair for the recently-announced follow-up X-Men: Apocalypse: “I’m co-writing the story and I’m producing it. I’m negotiating to direct. We’re in the process. We’re trying to figure it out, schedules. My desire would be to direct it.” And as for the rumours that Days of Future Past will set up Apocalypse with a post-credits tease, Singer claimed that a decision is yet to be made: “”I’m still deciding that. Something that happens in this movie causes what’s going to happen in that movie. It will also address historical mutant-cy, meaning the deep past, mutant origins and things like that. It’s something that’s always intrigued me when we think about our Gods and our history and miracles and powers…”
…With Warner Bros. and director Zack Snyder gearing up to go into production on Batman vs. Superman, we should expect a flood of official news and not-so-official speculation about the Man of Steel sequel over the coming weeks. This week saw the old Bryan Cranston / Lex Luthor rumours rearing their ugly head once again with an AMC affilitated podcast claiming the Breaking Bad star is “confirmed” (it’s since been denied, and excused as the “inexperience” of the podcasters using the wrong terminology, as opposed to simple hit-baiting), while a few plot rumours have been thrown up, suggesting a possible Batmobile chase, a Black Widow / Iron Man 2 sized “cameo plus” role for Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, no Martian Manhunter, Aquaman or Batman villains, and that the film is “a true Man of Steel film”, rather than a Justice League movie. Read more here and here…
…We know of course that Ben Affleck is set to don the cape and cowl as Batman alongside Henry Cavill’s Superman, but prior to the casting of Batfleck, there were many names linked to the Caped Crusader, including Scott Adkins (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Expendables 2), who was the subject of an online fan campaign lobbying Warner Bros. to cast the British action star and martial artist. Well Adkins has revealed that he did in fact audition for the role, as well as offering up his thoughts on the process and Ben Affleck’s Bat: “They asked me to audition, yeah. And… so I did. But that’s as far as it went. I know there was a big campaign on the internet which was great for the free publicity but I think that’s because obviously Batman’s a martial artist, that’s his superpower, isn’t it? People are disappointed that he has not been shown off as the martial artist that he should be. I guess I look like Bruce Wayne… I wasn’t crossing my fingers, I wasn’t holding my breath, it was great to have the opportunity to audition and let some of those people up in the higher positions know who I am and look at me. But I never expected it to happen. But that whole thing on the internet was just… I am flattered! But Ben Affleck I think is gonna do an amazing job, I’ve always been a huge fan of his and maybe when I’ve won an Oscar, I’ll get the kind of luck that he’s got! But it’s not luck is it? He deserves it…”
…The CW’s Arrow returns from its midseason break this week with ‘Blast Radius’; check out a promo, clip and Producer’s Review featurette for the episode, which sees the introduction of another DC villain, Shrapnel: “Oliver must tackle a new threat to the city when bombs start to go off in Starling City. Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) discovers the person setting them off is Mark Sheffner (guest star Sean Maher), a man who goes by the nickname Shrapnel. Arrow discovers Shrapnel’s next target is Sebastian Blood’s (guest star Kevin Alejandro) “Unity Rally” and tries to talk the alderman out of hosting it, but he refuses. Arrow sets off to stop the bombing, but Shrapnel tricks him and traps him in a bomb-laced antique store where he is unable to move without setting off the device. While Felicity helps Oliver, Diggle (David Ramsey) races to the plaza to find the bomb before it goes off. Meanwhile, Roy (Colton Haynes) continues to hide his new strength from Thea (Willa Holland) but, after she witnesses his super strength in action at the rally, she demands answers. Laurel’s (Katie Cassidy) suspicions about Sebastian grow stronger once she learns that he grew up with Cyrus Gold, the man who killed Lance’s (Paul Blackthorne) partner. After Donner (guest Star Dylan Bruce) refuses to help her investigate, she turns to Arrow (Stephen Amell) for help…”
…Fox Television’s Jim Gordon pilot Gotham has moved a step closer towards production with Danny Cannon, director of Judge Dredd and the pilots for the likes of CSI, Nikita, Alcatraz and The Tomorrow People, signing on to direct and executive produce the pilot episode for the show, which is being developed by Bruno Heller (The Mentalist). It’s unclear at this point when the pilot is scheduled to shoot, but it’s said that Gotham is a priority for Fox, and as such it’s expected to go to series…
…Ahead of its release next month, Warner Bros. has dropped a new image from the animated movie Justice League: War featuring Batman in possession of Green Lantern’s Power Ring, as well as the first clip, which depicts the very first meeting between The Dark Knight and The Emerald Warrior. Justice League: War is set for release on Blu-ray and DVD on February 4th, with a voice cast that includes Jason O’Mara (Life on Mars) as Batman, Alan Tudyk (Firefly) as Superman, Michelle Monaghan (Source Code) as Wonder Woman, Justin Kirk (Weeds) as Green Lantern, Christopher Gorham (Covert Affairs) as The Flash, Shemar Moore (Criminal Minds) as Cyborg, Sean Astin (The Lord of the Rings) as Shazam, Steve Blum (Young Justice) as Darkseid, Bruce Thomas (Birds of Prey) as Desaad, and Rocky Carroll (NCIS) as Silas Stone…
…Before they team up in Batman vs. Superman, The Dark Knight, Man of Steel and Amazon Princess are all set to appear on the big screen together this year in brick form in Warner Bros.’ animated comedy The LEGO Movie – where they’ll be voiced by Will Arnett (Arrested Development), Channing Tatum (21 Jump Street) and Cobie Smulders respectively – and this week brought two character posters featuring Batman and Superman, which you can see here and here…
And finally, ahead of its release this summer, we’ve got the first clip from the upcoming animated feature Stan Lee’s Mighty 7, an original superhero property from the comic book legend which centres on a group of aliens who crash land on Earth and move into Stan Lee’s house to learn everything there is to know about being a superhero. Joining Lee in the voice cast for the movie are Armie Hammer (The Lone Ranger), Christian Slater (True Romance), Mayim Bialik (The Big Bang Theory), Teri Hatcher (Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman), Darren Criss (Glee), Sean Astin (The Lord of the Rings), Jim Belushi (Underdog), Michael Ironside (Total Recall) and Flea (The Wild Thornberrys). Watch the clip here.
Holy Franchise, Batman! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen – Available now via Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.