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, The Avengers 3, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Defenders, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, The Spectacular Spider-Man, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Batman vs. Superman, Watchmen, The Flash, Arrow, Constantine, Heroes Reborn and more…
Well, it’s March, which means we’re only a few weeks away from the start of the 2014 superhero season as Marvel Studios gets things underway with the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (out March 26th here in the UK), and this week has brought us a new featurette for the Phase Two solo sequel entitled ‘Conspiracy’, which features comments from Chris Evans (Captain America), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Anthony Mackie (Falcon), Robert Redford (Alexander Pierce) and Marvel chief Kevin Feige [watch it here]. Meanwhile we’ve also got a new character poster for Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson, a.k.a. Falcon, along with character promo artwork for Cap, Black Widow, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) [see here]…
…Looking ahead to August and Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn has spoken briefly about Thanos, seemingly downplaying expectations that we might get to see an adaptation of the classic limited series The Infinity Gauntlet within the Marvel Cinematic Universe: “”Here’s the thing, truthfully the Marvel Cinematic Universe takes out of both the 616 and Ultimate Marvel Comics universe, and then they recreate some elements themselves. What Thanos wants in the comics is not necessarily what Thanos wants in the movies; we don’t know yet…”
…In other Guardians of the Galaxy-related news, Game of Thrones star Jason Momoa has explained why he passed on the role of Drax the Destroyer (subsequently filled by WWE star Dave Bautista), as well sharing a few thoughts on his auditon with Chris Pratt (Star-Lord): “I think it’s perfectly cast. Dave is perfect for that role, for Drax. It didn’t really fit in my time because I’ve done so many things where I don’t say much and I’m colored up and I have my shirt off again. I made a conscious choice to turn down some movies that were action-based to direct Road to Paloma so people could see that side. I want my children to see their father happy. It’s not that it’s not a good role, it just wasn’t the right thing. I was on Stargate: Atlantis for four years playing a similar character called Ronon, who was an alien who didn’t say much and grunted. I’ve been there and done that, whether people have seen it or not. You want to stretch… One of the funnest auditions I’ve ever done in my life was with [Chris]. He’s phenomenal. He’s going to kill it. It’s going to be amazing. It’s a whole Han Solo vibe. It’s going to be a phenomenal movie. I’m glad that he is the lead of that. He’s funny as hell, man. He can improv; he just acts circles around me. It was really, really fantastic.” Meanwhile, Momoa – who has been strongly rumoured for a DC role in Batman vs. Superman – did admit that there are superhero characters he’d like to play, although he’s keeping his cards close to his chest for the time being: “There’s definitely some, absolutely. I was a huge comic book fan, and I still am… I’m not going to tell you the ones I collect, because then you’d know…”
…Despite the fact that production has only recently kicked off (check out some more set photos and video of the Hulk’s rampage in Johannesburg here), it seems we’ll be getting our first official look at Joss Whedon’s eagerly-anticipated sequel The Avengers: Age of Ultron later this month. On March 18th, ABC is set to give us a “front row seat to the inception of Marvel Studios, the record-breaking films, the cultural phenomenon, and further expansion of the universe by Marvel Television” with the one-hour special Marvel Studios: Assembling a Universe, which will include new footage from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy, along with a first-look “sneak peek” at Age of Ultron…
…While we’re on the subject of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Iron Man 3 screenwriter and All Hail the King writer-director Drew Pearce appears to have confirmed that Whedon will be back for The Avengers 3 during an interview where he was asked if the latest Marvel One-Shot [check out the poster here] would have any repurcussions for the Marvel Cinematic Universe: “One of the things when you’re a writer or director in the Marvel universe is you come in, you leave some tasty morsels dangling at the end, and maybe you’re the one who comes in and picks them up again next time, or maybe it’s someone else, or maybe they just hang there awhile and that’s fine too. Despite any cliffhanger-ness to the short, I also don’t feel like it’s unsatisfying. That’s all you can really hope to do. Unless you’re Joss [Whedon] and you’re making Avengers 2 and 3, and then you have a pretty good idea if you’re making the next one or not…”
…In a few other bits and pieces from Phase Three, it’s been reported that Patrick Wilson (Watchmen, The Conjuring) is set to join Paul Rudd (Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues) and Michael Douglas (Behind the Candelabra) in the cast of Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man; Kevin Feige has dismissed reports linking directors Mark Andrews (Brave), Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair), Dean Israelite (Welcome to Yesterday) and Jonathan Levine (Warm Bodies) to Doctor Strange, as well as shooting down talk of Johnny Depp starring as the Sorcerer Supreme [read his comments here]; and Full Metal Jacket and The Dark Knight Rises star Matthew Modine has thrown his hat in the ring for the role of Stephen Strange, posting a photo of the Master of the Mystic Arts with the caption: “#Marvel I’d like to play #Doctor Strange – let’s make this happen” [see here]…
…On the small screen, ABC has released the first four minutes of this week’s episode ‘T.A.H.I.T.I.’ via IGN, which sees Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his team dealing with the aftermath of Skye’ (Chloe Bennet) shooting in the previous episode, and we’ve also got a clip from ‘T.A.H.I.T.I.’ which you can view here, along with a batch of images from the next episode ‘Yes Men’ featuring Jaimie Alexander reprising her role as Lady Sif from Thor and Thor: The Dark World as she comes to Midgard in search of The Enchantress’ sister Lorelei (Elena Satine; Smallville)…
…In other Marvel Television news, Disney CEO Bob Iger, Marvel CCO Joe Quesada and New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo held a press conference to announce that Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Luke Cage are heading to NYC, giving New York State its largest ever production commitment with a $200 million deal to shoot the shows. Check out some highlights from the press conference, and here’s the official description from the press release: “This pioneering agreement calls for Marvel to develop four serialized programs totaling 52 one-hour episodes culminating in a four to eight episode mini-series programming event. Led by a series focused on Daredevil, followed by Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Luke Cage, the epic will unfold over multiple years of original programming, taking viewers deep into the gritty world of heroes and villains of Hell’s Kitchen, New York. Netflix has committed to a minimum of four, thirteen episodes series and a mini-series event in which the Marvel characters from the first four series team up as The Defenders, much like The Avengers…”
…And on the animation front, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are heading to the Savage Land in this weekend’s episode of Marvel’s Avengers Assemble, entitled ‘Savages’: “When Tony becomes too reliant on his tech, Cap challenges him to go without it for one full day. Not only is the challenge accepted but is made far more complicated when Tony takes them to the Savage Land where they stumble upon Justin Hammer who they’ll have to battle completely tech-free!” Watch a clip from the episode here…
…Moving on to Sony’s Amazing Spider-Man franchise and both director Marc Webb and star Andrew Garfield have once again spoken about the possibility of the web-slinger making a cameo appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (short version – they’d both love it), while Webb admitted that there’s previously been “efforts that were made, but obviously nothing came to fruition” [read their comments here]. Meanwhile, it’s also been confirmed that Webb will return to the director’s chair on 2016’s The Amazing Spider-Man 3, and Sony chief Amy Pascal has revealed that the studio plans to use the spin-offs Venom and The Sinister Six to deliver “Spider-Man movies every year.” Of course, before we get to those movies there’s still the small matter of this year’s sequel The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and with its release date fast approaching Sony has debuted not one but two more trailers for the film, as well as an extended international TV spot [see here and here] and a couple of Daily Bugle viral articles [see here and here]…
…In other Spidey news, it’s been announced that the short-lived animated series The Spectacular Spider-Man is set for a Blu-ray release on April 22nd, with a 4-disc collector’s edition set to include all 26 episodes of the two seasons, along with bonus features that includes The Spectacular Spider-Man Music Video and the featurettes Stylizing Spidey and Spider-Man: Re-Animated; you can check out the cover art for the Blu-ray set here…
…With a second trailer seemingly on the horizon, Bryan Singer dropped a few seconds of unseen footage from May’s X-Men: Days of Future Past this week, giving us a brief new look at the likes of Past Professor X (James McAvoy), Future Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Bishop (Omar Sy), Colossus (Daniel Cudmore), Warpath (Booboo Stewart) and of course Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Meanwhile, although previous reports suggesting that Fox harbours ambitions to cross its X-Men franchise over with its rebooted The Fantastic Four have been denied, the studio’s Marvel overlord Simon Kinberg has admitted that they’re interested in bringing the two Marvel franchises together, telling Empire that: “It’s something we are interested in creating. If its possible for the movies to inform each other in ways that make the experience of each film more satisfying…”
…Producer Joel Silver (V for Vendetta, Non-Stop) has spoken about his attempts to get a live-action Watchmen movie off the ground in the early 90s alongside director Terry Gilliam (The Zero Theorem), which Silver says would have been “MUCH better” than the version we got in 2009 courtesy of Zack Snyder: “It was a MUCH much better movie. Oh God. I mean, Zack [Snyder] came at it the right way but was too much of a slave to the material. [We were working from] a Sam Hamm script–who had written a script that everybody loved for the first Batman – and then [Gilliam] brought in a guy who’d worked for him to do work on it [Charles McKeown, co-writer of Brazil]. What he did was he told the story as-is, but instead of the whole notion of the intergalactic thing which was too hard and too silly, what he did was he maintained that the existence of Doctor Manhattan had changed the whole balance of the world economy, the world political structure. He felt that THAT character really altered the way reality had been. [McKeown] had the Ozymandias character convince, essentially, the Doctor Manhattan character to go back and stop himself from being created, so there never would be a Doctor Manhattan character. He was the only character with real supernatural powers, he went back and prevented himself from being turned into Doctor Manhattan, and in the vortex that was created after that occurred these characters from Watchmen only became characters in a comic book… So the three characters, I think it was Rorschach and Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, they’re all of the sudden in Times Square and there’s a kid reading a comic book.. and he’s like, ‘Hey, you’re just like in my comic book.’ It was very smart, it was very articulate, and it really gave a very satisfying resolution to the story, but it just didn’t happen. Lost to time…”
…Things have fallen pretty quiet on the Batman vs. Superman front lately (despite all those rumours / speculation that we’d get our first look at Ben Affleck as The Dark Knight by the end of February), although Superman Returns star Kevin Spacey did offer a few thoughts on the casting of Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor in the upcoming Man of Steel sequel, stating that: “First of all, I think [Jesse Eisenberg] is a remarkable actor. He’s just going to fucking own it. I think it’s a great idea and I wish him the best with it…”
…DC fans might not have had much to get excited about when it comes to the big screen, but on the TV front we have had our very first look at Grant Gustin in costume as The Flash in The CW’s upcoming Arrow spin-off pilot, while it’s also been revealed that Michelle Harrison (Emily Owens, MD) has signed on to play Barry’s mother Nora. Shooting on the pilot will get underway later this month, with a cast that also includes Candice Patton (The Game) as Iris West, Jesse L. Martin (Law & Order) as Iris’ father Detective West, Danielle Panabaker (Friday the 13th) as Caitlin Snow / Killer Frost, Rick Gosnett (The Vampire Diaries) as Eddie Thawne, Broadway star Carlos Valdes as Cisco Ramon / Vibe, Tom Cavanagh (Ed) as Harrison Wells and original Flash star John Wesley Shipp in an as-yet-unrevealed role…
…The battle comes home as Slade Wilson (Manu Bennett) and Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) meet face-to-face in Starling City in this week’s episode of Arrow, entitled ‘The Promise’, which executive producer Marc Guggenheim says “makes the season finale we did last year look like a student film.” Be sure to check out two promos [here and here], along with the Producer’s Review featurette for ‘The Promise’, which is described as follows: “THE TURNING POINT — Oliver is shocked when he learns that Slade has come to Starling City. Back on the island, as Oliver, Slade and Sara (Caity Lotz) prepare to take over the freighter from Ivo (guest star Dylan Neal), Sara pulls Oliver aside and tells him he needs to kill Ivo to prevent him from telling Slade what happened with Shado. Oliver feels immense guilt over the situation but realizes Slade’s growing rage from the Mirakuru makes him unpredictable and he could turn on his friends if he thinks Oliver is to blame. Oliver agrees to kill Ivo and the battle begins.” And, if you’re wanting another glimpse at the Suicide Squad as they’re to appear in the show, head on over to Green Arrow TV for six new images from the March 19th episode…
…If a new rumour is to be believed, Matt Ryan’s (The Tudors, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior) John Constantine looks set to come up against fan-favourite villain Papa Midnite in NBC’s forthcoming television pilot. True or not, expect to hear movement on casting over the coming weeks on Constantine, which has David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight Trilogy, Man of Steel) and Daniel Cerone (The Mentalist) writing and Neil Marshall (Game of Thrones, The Descent) directing…
…Kevin Conroy is set to lend his voice to The Dark Knight once again this year for the animated movie Batman: Assault on Arkham, and during a recent interview he reflected on his 23 year run as the definitive voice of Gotham’s Dark Knight Detective: “I had absolutely no expectation that this job would turn into what it became. I started recording it in 1991, and it went on the air on Fox in 1992 as a prime time series. Then over 23 years, it just evolved from Batman: The Animated Series to The Adventures of Batman and Robin to Justice League and then Batman Beyond. Since then, there’s been the direct-to-video movies and now the Arkham games. He’s such an iconic character. He’s such a part of the American cultural landscape. It’s an amazing thing to be a part of and to have contributed to. Like all actors, you never know where your career is going to go. You plan for things and you train for things, but you never really know the direction you’re going to go. So I had no idea that I was going to end up doing voice acting for animation and that I’d be voicing Batman. But it wound up working really well. The show is just a really good marriage of what I brought to the character and what Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, Andrea Romano and all the people putting the series together were looking for…”
…Any fans hoping that Beware the Batman would return to Cartoon Network this month are out of luck, with the CG-animated series once again absent from the schedules in March and all but confirming that the show has met the same fate as Young Justice and Green Lantern: The Animated Series. So, for the time being, that just leaves Teen Titans Go!, and you can check out a clip and images from this coming week’s episode by heading over to The World’s Finest…
…And finally, in a surprising piece of news, it’s been announced that NBC is reviving the formerly-popular TV show Heroes for a new 13 episode event series from original creator Tim Kring, which is described as a “stand-alone story” and is set to air on the network in 2015. “The enormous impact Heroes had on the television landscape when it first launched in 2006 was eye-opening,” said Jennifer Salke, NBC’s Entertainment President. “Shows with that kind of resonance don’t come around often and we thought it was time for another installment. We’re thrilled that visionary creator Tim Kring was as excited about jumping back into this show as we were and we look forward to all the new textures and layers Tim plans to add to his original concept. Until we get closer to air in 2015, the show will be appropriately shrouded in secrecy, but we won’t rule out the possibility of some of the show’s original cast members popping back in.” You can watch a teaser for Heroes Reborn here.
Holy Franchise, Batman! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen – Available now via Amazon.co.uk
