In this edition of The Week in Spandex, we look at Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Captain Marvel, Inhumans, Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Agent Carter, Daredevil, A.K.A. Jessica Jones, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Spider-Man 3, Gotham, The Flash, Arrow, Constantine, Supergirl, Powers and more…
Happy New Year all! Here we are with the first Week in Spandex of 2015 – a year that will bring us three superhero movies in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man and The Fantastic Four (if you’re thinking that’s a low number, fear not – 2016 has TEN!), and we’ll kick things off with the first of those, as Marvel Studios announces that a brand new trailer for Age of Ultron is set to arrive a week on Tuesday (January 12th) during the College Football Playoff National Championship Game on ESPN. Coinciding with the news came an official shot of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and friends (which we’d already seen as a screengrab from the first trailer), along with a LEGO Age of Ultron comic book preview [see here], and some brand new promotional artwork for Ultron (James Spader), The Vision (Paul Bettany), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Hakweye (Jeremy Renner) and Captain America (Chris Evans), as well as character profiles for Ultron and The Vision offering up a little back-story [see here and here]…
…Sticking with Age of Ultron for a moment and it seems that Marvel gave some consideration to having The Abomination appear in the sequel, with Tim Roth saying there was early talk of him reprising the role of Emil Blonsky from The Incredible Hulk: “They were going to [bring me back]. They did [have discussions]. They were thinking, in The Avengers 2 or something. There was a movie we could do that at one point, but way back when. It just kind of got swept under the carpet I guess. That would be hilarious…”
…With the first trailer for Ant-Man confirmed to arrive this coming Tuesday during the series premiere of Agent Carter, an “ant-sized” preview has arrived online, along with a banner showing off some promotional artwork from the Peyton Reed-directed movie, which features Scott Lang’s (Paul Rudd) Ant-Man alongside the villain of the piece, Yellowjacket (Corey Stoll). UPDATE: – You can check out a “human-sized” verison of the teaser here…
…Into the Woods star Emily Blunt has once again addressed the rumours linking her to the role of Carol Danvers in 2018’s Captain Marvel, stating that: “No one’s offered me it officially, so it’s … [laughs] very unofficial. I think it’s fan-casting, which is always very nice. But nothing official has been offered, for sure.” Blunt then went on to discuss turning down the role of Black Widow in Iron Man 2, as well as that of Peggy Carter in Captain America: The First Avenger: “It was never the right time, really, and it just didn’t work out scheduling-wise with those two. It’s always a difficult thing to talk about, because it’s not fair to the actresses who ended up playing them, you know? It just wasn’t the right time.” So, is Captain Marvel the right time..?
…And Vin Diesel has once again teased his potential involvement with another of Marvel’s 2018 releases, posting an image of himself wearing and Inhumans t-shirt, with the caption ‘Are You Inhuman?’. This isn’t the first time the Guardians of the Galaxy star has made reference to the Inhumans movie, having hinted on several previous occasions that he could be set to take on a role in the film…
…According to KDramaStars, one of – if not the – worst website on the internet when it comes to false reporting, Marvel Studios is looking to replace Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man in 2019 and has identified his replacement for Iron Man 4 in Ty Simpkins, a.k.a. Harley Keener, a.k.a. the kid in Iron Man 3. As with all of KDramaStars’ previous scoops, I’m pretty confident we can dismiss this one as fiction… although Gwyneth Paltrow does seem a little concerned about Pepper Potts being recast with a younger actress, with Paltrow responding to a question about whether she’d like to return to the role by stating: “I don’t know, I’d like to do it. But they might swap me out for an 18-year-old Pepper Potts or something…”
…In a couple of other bits and pieces from the big screen side of the MCU, ILM has released a Behind the Magic featurette delving into their visual effects work on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and artist Andy Park has posted some concept art from Guardians of the Galaxy, showing an early design for Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace), as well as the attack on Xandar…
…On the small screen and Marvel will launch its second TV show this week as Agent Carter premieres on ABC, and this week has brought us a new featurette for the series, while Hayley Atwell has also spoken about what we can expect from the show in terms of tone: “Part of the Marvel Universe’s winning formula is that they respond well to their fans’ expectations of what they want, but they also take it a step further and sell it with lots of new surprises. So it’s been fun to play Peggy … someone who other people have seen as being very capable, but in this series we get to see the psychological and emotional cuffs of someone who’s living a double life and is having to adapt and keep herself afloat. I think that’s what’s kind of fun about playing her … you’re seeing different aspects of who she is that we haven’t seen before in the other movies… I think what [fans] will love probably most about the show is its sense of fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. There’s always a twinkle in its eye. It’s very tongue in cheek. So you’ve got these fantastic high-production sets and costumes and action sequences, which we can always expect from Marvel, but you’ve also got the humor and quality of warmth in it, which we haven’t really seen before. To me, that’s what has been what’s most fun about it, but it’s also what’s going to keep the show running.” Read the rest of Atwell’s comments here…
…Click below to continue on to the second page for Daredevil, A.K.A. Jessica Jones, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Spider-Man 3, Gotham, The Flash, Arrow, Constantine, Supergirl Powers and more…
Originally published January 3, 2015. Updated November 29, 2022.
