In this edition of The Week in Spandex, we look at Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Agent Carter, Daredevil, Avengers: Infinity War, Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, X-Men: Apocalypse, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Justice League, The Flash, Arrow, The Atom, Vixen, Supergirl, Gotham, Constantine, Batman Vs. Robin, Heroes Reborn and more…
It’s the 200th Week in Spandex and so we’ll start it off with the most-anticipated superhero movie of 2015 as Marvel Studios gave us another look at their first movie offering of the year with the release of a second trailer for Joss Whedon’s hotly-anticipated sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron, which you can watch here if you were living under a rock this week and somehow missed it. Meanwhile, Marvel Entertainment has previewed its April Movie Variant comic book covers for Ultron Forever, which uses the SDCC promo art from Age of Ultron featuring Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson)…
…Captain America: The Winter Soldier directors Joe and Anthony Russo have confirmed that Black Widow will be back for 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, with Scarlett Johansson joining the previously confirmed Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Mackie, Chadwick Boseman, Sebastian Stan, Frank Grillo and MCU newcomer Daniel Bruhl – a cast that has led Mackie to describe the sequel as “Avengers 3.8“: “Cap 3 is gonna be everything you can imagine. Cap 2 was really Avengers 1.5, and Cap 3 is gonna be Avengers 3.8.” You can read the rest of Mackie’s comments here, which includes his thoughts on whether he’d like to see Sam Wilson taking on the mantle of Captain America in the future…
…Latino-Review dropped its first big scoop of 2015 this week, and sure enough it was denied within a couple of hours. The site reported that Sony and Marvel had reached a deal for Spider-Man to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the wall-crawler allegedly making his debut in Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1. Mere hours later, Sony responded to the report, claiming that it was an “old rumour” with “no validity whatsoever”. Still, with the Spider-Man franchise seemingly in all kinds of trouble, don’t be too surprised if Marvel does reach a deal for the web-slinger by the time we get to Infinity War…
…With speculation still running wild that Spider-Man will one day return home to Marvel, James Gunn was asked how he thinks Spidey would get along with the Guardians of the Galaxy: “Peter Parker is known for having a great sense of humour so I think he would get along pretty well with some of the Guardians, he would probably get on okay with Rocket, he would probably get on okay with Quill. He may have a harder time with Drax, he probably wouldn’t understand the sense of humour… I don’t know about [Spider-Man] joining the MCU. We will see about that. It’s a long shot…”
…Gunn also touched upon the 2017 sequel Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and whether we’ll get to see any focus on the origin of Rocket Raccoon: “I have all his origin stuff planned out, I’ve had it for a long time, whether or not or how much of it we’re going to see in Guardians 2 I’m not exactly sure.” And as for the chances of a Rocket solo movie, Gunn is certainly excited by the prospect: “I would love that, it would be great…”
…In other bits and pieces from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, some new concept art from Ant-Man has arrived online, along with a video showing James Gunn busting out his Baby Groot dance moves. And on the awards front, Guardians picked up two gongs at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, winning Best Hair & Makeup and Best Action Movie, as well as securing Oscar nominations for Makeup & Hairstyling and Visual Effects – the latter of which it will contend alongside Captain America: The Winter Soldier and X-Men: Days of Future Past…
…Following its third episode ‘Time & Tide’ [read our review here], Marvel’s Agent Carter will be taking a break for a week before returning on January 27th with the fourth episode ‘The Blitzkrieg Button’, and you can check out a promo here, along with a behind-the-scenes shot of Stan Lee alongside Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter), Dominic Cooper (Howard Stark) and James D’Arcy (Jarvis) here…
…Much like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter hasn’t really set the ratings on fire, with the third episode dropping to a 1.5 with 5.1 million viewers – down 1.8 million from the premiere, and down 200,000 from the midseason finale of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. However, it seems that ABC is still firmly behind its Marvel offerings, with network president Paul Lee shrugging aside any concerns over ratings: “We feel very optimistic about [Agent Carter’s ratings]. S.H.I.E.L.D. is actually a great and powerful show for us, [it’s 18-49 demo rating with seven days of DVR playback playback] pops up to a 3.0, it brings in a male audience for us and it’s creatively really strong now. We left a great cliffhanger at the end of Christmas and now it’s going to come back with some fantastic storylines. And to have Agent Carter in the [S.H.I.E.L.D. hiatus] gap doing sort of double what we were doing there last year is great for us.” Lee also revealed that “we love Marvel”, and “have ambitions for Marvel in the future…”
…Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. star Clark Gregg has shared his excitement over the possibility of exploring the world of the Inhumans when the ABC series returns for the second half of season two: “Inhumans represents a different chapter [for the show]. At least in the comics, the Inhumans, they’re a race of people who’ve been transformed. They’re mutants, more or less. I’ve always loved that part of the comics. They’re people who have evolved differently, and that generates a lot of fear. Some people want to annihilate them. Some people want to lock them up. Some people want to register them. Some of them become superheroes. Some of them become monsters. I find that particularly germane. Are we going to accept the people who are different, or are we going to try to wipe them out?… I’m excited by it. I think the Inhumans is a big, cool part of the Marvel universe, a great story. And we’ll set up something. We’ll get to explore it. I’m glad they’re entrusting us with it, and I think that they’ll take what they’re going to do with it, and it will connect. And yet, we’ll have the freedom to kind of make our show be our show.” Gregg also went on to discuss a possible big screen return for Agent Coulson, stating that: “I really want to explain to the Avengers, that I didn’t just lie to them. So I would really like it for that reason, yes. But I’m having an awfully good time where I am...”
…As we await the first trailer for Marvel’s Daredevil, a new teaser image from the Netflix series has arrived online showing the sign for Nelson and Murdock Attorneys at Law, while showrunner Steven S. DeKnight has responded to a host of fan questions on Twitter, as well as defending Ben Affleck’s performance in the 2003 movie…
…The Fantastic Four was in the headlines again this week, and no, it wasn’t because we got our first look at some promotional material. Following a dubious report from a “Fox employee” who offered up some thoughts – “the movie isn’t a complete trainwreck” – Flickering Myth’s Luke Owen caught up with producer Matthew Vaughn and creative consultant Mark Millar, both of whom were full of praise for the film, with Vaughn stating that he’d seen a cut and “if you like Chronicle, then you’ll like this.” Still, that didn’t stop a rumour from emerging which claimed that Fox feels the Josh Trank-directed reboot is a “mess” and needs major, multi-million dollar reshoots. However, producer Simon Kinberg was quick to clarify that the reshoots were “3-4 days of additional photography”, as well as revealing that we’ll finally get our first look at the film when the trailer lands alongside Kingsman: The Secret Service on February 13th (or earlier, if it’s going to be attached to the UK release on January 29th)…
…If you were hoping to see Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen reprising the roles of Professor X and Magneto in 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse, then you may be disappointed to hear that Stewart has revealed Bryan Singer is yet asked the pair back: “I was learning quite a lot more about it last night, and it is going to be looking very much at the earlier lives of all our characters. And so I don’t think we’ll be making an appearance.” The film will bring back James McAvoy (Professor X), Michael Fassbender (Magneto), Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), Nicholas Hoult (Beast) and Evan Peters (Quicksilver), while Oscar Isaac (A Most Violent Year) is set to play Apocalypse…
…Click below to continue on for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Justice League, The Flash, Arrow, The Atom, Vixen, Supergirl, Gotham, Constantine, Batman Vs. Robin, Heroes Reborn and more…
