In this edition of The Week in Spandex, we look at Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain Marvel, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Iron Man 4, Agent Carter, Daredevil, A.K.A. Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Sinister Six, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Shazam, Gotham, The Flash, Constantine and more…
Well, here we are at the final Week in Spandex of 2014 (Happy New Year to one and all!), and it’s been another great year for the superhero genre on both the big and small screen (okay, maybe not for Spider-Man fans…), as the year’s four big superhero movies all surpassed $700 million at the global box office (with a suprise box office champion in Guardians of the Galaxy), and DC launched three new shows in Gotham, The Flash and Constantine. And of course there’s plenty to look forward to in 2015 too, with Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man and The Fantastic Four incoming, along with TV shows such as Marvel’s Agent Carter and Daredevil, the animated Guardians of the Galaxy, and more potential DC shows in Supergirl and Krypton. As always, we’ll be bringing you all the news here in the Week in Spandex, but first let’s wrap up the last few bits and pieces from 2014…
…We’ll start things off with Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, who revealed this week that he originally planned to kill of Stan Lee with the Marvel legend’s cameo in this year’s space opera, while he’s also posted a rather lengthy response to repeated questions about whether the Guardians will meet up with the Avengers on the big screen, stemming from his latest comments where he said that the Guardians franchise “does not exist as a prequel” to Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1 and Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2. You can read what he had to say here…
…Before we get to Infinity War, Earth’s Mighiest Heroes will reassemble this coming May for Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Mark Ruffalo has shared a few thoughts on Bruce Banner’s role in the film, as well as his relationship with his angry alter-ego The Hulk: “Banner’s been living in Stark Tower. They’ve been working side by side and Bruce has his own lab now. He’s doing work that augments Tony’s own, which could lead to an experiment going wrong… His relationship with Natasha [Scarlett Johansson] deepens. There’s something similar about the two of them. I see them as lost souls. They’re kindred in some ways. [Banner’s] ability to handle the Hulk really gets thrown into question in this film. The hard part is coming back. Hulk doesn’t want to cede his place. It’s much harder to come back from being Hulk than it is to get into him. I think there’s a whole other chapter we haven’t seen yet where you find the other nuances within [The Hulk]. The battle of identity going on between him and Banner is all about establishing dominance. The only thing that Hulk is really afraid of is Banner. That’s an interesting dynamic…”
…There seems to be a lot of support for Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow, Into the Woods) for the part of Carol Danvers in 2018’s Captain Marvel, and the actress has responded to the rumours this week, stating that: “It’s funny ‘cause I’m hearing this Captain Marvel thing from a lot of people. I have no official offer, whatsoever. No one’s called. I don’t know where the hell it’s come from, in all honesty. For me, I just think that the part has gotta be awesome. I just want to play great parts, and it’s sometimes hard to find within those big superhero movies. The female parts are not usually great, but recently, they’ve been better. I don’t know. It has to be the right thing.” Meanwhile, be sure to check out Thomas Roach’s op-ed Five Actresses Who Could Play Captain Marvel…
…In other bits and pieces from the big screen side of the MCU, the first trailer for Ant-Man has been classified, meaning it should be with us very soon indeed (alongside the premiere of Agent Carter, perhaps?), Scott Derrickson has shared some (fan created) artwork of Benedict Cumberbatch for Doctor Strange, and speculation about Iron Man 4 has once again reared its head thanks to a tweet from Robert Downey Jr. (be sure to read Thomas Roach’s Is Iron Man 4 Closer Than We Think?)…
…Ahead of its two-hour January 6th premiere, ABC has released a new trailer for Marvel’s Agent Carter [see here], as well as a batch of images from the following week’s third episode, entitled ‘Time & Tide’ [see here]. Meanwhile, showrunner Steven S. DeKnight has announced that production has wrapped on Marvel’s first Netflix series Daredevil, while Mike Colter (Halo: Nightfall) has been confirmed as securing the role of Luke Cage in A.K.A. Jessica Jones, where he’ll star alongside Krysten Ritter (Breaking Bad) before headlining his own series…
…Marvel Entertainment celebrated Christmas by releasing a special holiday episode of Marvel Super Heroes: What The – ?!, which sees Thanos forced to impersonate Santa Claus as part of his latest scheme against the Inhumans. Check the video out here…
…During a promotional interview for his new film Kingsman: The Secret Service, Matthew Vaughn has been speaking about his original plans for X-Men: Days of Future Past, and how much of his vision remained after Bryan Singer took over directing duties: “I’d say 90%. I mean, we worked on the script [Simon] Kinsberg and I. It was a really tough decision for me, because I pulled out just because I’d finished the Kingsman: The Secret Service script at the same time and I was like ‘My god if I don’t make a fun spy movie right now, somebody else’s going to do it.’ And I think there’s five coming out next year now. So we’re going to be the first of it not the last. Bryan [Singer] did a few things, which I thought were genius that weren’t in my script. I had Juggernaut breaking into the Pentagon, he changed it to Quicksilver and did that fucking brilliantly, I have to add. My idea was the sentinels at the end, I wanted them to look like Mystique. I thought there should be thousands of mystiques attacking them in the future. He changed a few more of the mutants, but it was pretty close. Yeah, it was pretty close…”
…Click below to continue on to the second page for The Sinister Six, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Shazam, Gotham, The Flash, Constantine and more…
Originally published December 27, 2014. Updated November 29, 2022.
