Presenting our weekly round-up of the biggest news stories from the world of movie superheroes…
Well, it’s been a great time for superhero fans this past week, with the official release of the teaser trailers for The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man, along with a leaked trailer for The Avengers and a host of goodies coming out of Comic-Con. I was going to start things off this week by discussing the three trailers, but it’s probably a little unfair on The Avengers to judge it from a low-quality bootleg so that will have to for the time being. In the meantime, check out this awesome fan-made animated trailer for The Dark Knight Rises, which is quite simply awesome…
So, yesterday’s Comic-Con schedule delivered two big superhero panels, giving fans a look at footage from The Amazing Spider-Man and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, both of which went down pretty well indeed by all accounts. You can see a video of Andrew Garfield introducing the panel with an impassioned speech to fans over at ComicBookMovie, who have also collected together a couple of detailed reports about the eight minutes of footage, which included a first look at Rhys Ifans’ Lizard, described by SuperHeroHype as “a lot like Killer Croc, with a vaguely human face.” As for Nicholas Cage’s return as Ghost Rider, it seems that directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have went all out to please fans with their sequel/reboot and by the sounds of it the film could be a lot of fun. Take a look at AICN’s report here.
Although there isn’t a dedicated Marvel panel at Comic-Con, the studio have been pretty active at the event, displaying Chris Evans’ redesigned Captain America suit for next year’s big team up, along with the release of some new character posters featuring Cap, Iron Man, Black Widow and Hawkeye (with Thor and The Incredible Hulk set to follow, presumably). Captain America: The First Avenger is out now in North America (with a UK release this coming Friday) and opened with $4m from midnight screenings (slightly more than X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern and Thor), with BoxOfficeMojo predicting that it could wrestle the top spot at the box office away from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 when the dust settles this weekend. Regardless, sequel talk is already well underway, with screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely discussing some of the possibilities in an interview with The Playlist.
Wrapping up the best of the rest…
…Even though filming has been underway for quite some time, Christopher Nolan is still adding to the cast of The Dark Knight Rises. The latest actor to join the highly anticipated sequel is Christopher Judge (Stargate SG-1), although there’s no word yet on his character…
…After talk of Kurt Jonstad (300) coming in to tackle rewrites on the screenplay for Zack Snyder’s Superman reboot, Warner Bros. have now pushed the release date of the film back from 2012, with Man of Steel now set to take flight on June 14th, 2003. Filming is still expected to get underway next week however, with a cast that includes Henry Cavill, Michael Shannon, Amy Adams, Kevin Costner and Diane Lane…
…DC Animated Universe legend Bruce Timm turns his hand to another superhero later this year with the all-CGI Green Lantern: The Animated Series, and AOL TV delivered a short clip from the Comic-Con sizzle ree. Meanwhile Timm has also revealed the next slate of DC Universe Animated Original movies will include Justice League: Doom, Superman vs. The Elite and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, with Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill mentioned as potential cast members…
…Eco-superhero Captain Planet looks to be heading to the big screen for a live-action adventure courtesy of Transformers: Dark of the Moon producer Don Murphy. The series ran for six seasons back in the early 90s and was pretty popular back in the day, but surely the well isn’t that dry just yet…
…Hellboy star Ron Perlman and director Guillermo del Toro have both been talking about the possibility of a third outing for the demonic Ted Danson-lookalike, but with del Toro changing his projects as often as his socks it could be some time before we get to see the conclusion of his trilogy…
…A few videos from the canned Wonder Woman TV pilot have popped up online and judging from the clips, its pretty easy to see why it didn’t get out of the starting blocks. I think Wonder Woman would have had to do more than talk about her tits to get people to tune into this one…
…And finally, progress finally seems to be moving forward on The Wolverine now that Fox have secured a new director in James Mangold and Hugh Jackman had a few words about the next outing at the SDCC, including details of the villain: “I will be filming Wolverine 2 in October. Chris McQuarrie has written a fantastic script and it should turn out really good. I’ll fight the Silver Samurai in it so that should be exciting.”
Holy Franchise, Batman! – Coming 2012.
Originally published July 23, 2011. Updated November 29, 2022.
