Presenting our weekly round-up of all the big news stories from the world of movie superheroes…
Well, it had to happen sooner or later, but Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises has finally taken a back seat this past week, allowing rival superhero flicks The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man to grab the headlines as Marvel and Sony presented fans with exciting new footage from their upcoming comic book adaptations.
We’ll start things off with The Avengers, with Marvel debuting a fantastic new TV spot during last Sunday’s Super Bowl that presented a brief glimpse of Loki’s (Tom Hiddleston) alien army, along with a superb shot of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and the Incredible Hulk (a CGI-enhanced Mark Ruffalo) all assembled together for the very first time (which occurs around the 41s mark on the extended TV spot). If you’re reading this article, then I’m sure you’ve already seen it for yourself (and if not, why the hell not?), but if you’d like to watch it again, then take a look here and be sure to check out a breakdown of the trailer over at Total Film. Meanwhile, it also seems that MTV Geek may have uncovered the identity of The Avengers’ mysterious alien race, having captured some shots of figurines from an upcoming board game taken at the New York Toy Fair, which do bear a striking resemblance to the Skrulls. Perhaps that rumour about a ‘Skrull-in-all-but-name’ alien race was on the money after all…
Although Marvel’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man was absent from the Super Bowl, Sony more than made up for it during the week with the arrival of the second theatrical trailer from their upcoming reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man. As well as setting up the story through Peter’s (Andrew Garfield) interaction with the likes of Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), George Stacy (Denis Leary) and Dr. Connors (Rhys Ifans), the trailer also provided our first look at Ifans post-transformation as Spider-Man’s CG nemesis the Lizard, not to mention plenty of wise-cracking, web-slinging action. As with The Avengers, Total Film put together a nice breakdown of the trailer, while ComicBookMovie have also delivered an overwhelming amount of HD screencaps for fans to devour. In other Spider-Man news, rumours of a Spidey cameo in The Avengers have been laid to rest once and for all, with Andrew Garfield telling MTV that “he didn’t get the call”. Meanwhile, it also seems the actor has one eye on Sony’s next reboot, with Bleeding Cool reporting that Garfield hinted he’d like to see the studio go down the Ultimate Spider-Man route of featuring Miles Morales, the current incarnation of the web-crawler in the Ultimates universe. Perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves a bit, but if Sony’s previous time-frame is anything to go by, we should expect to see Ultimate Spider-Man swinging onto screens some time in 2022…
After the recent confirmation that Matthew Vaughn has signed on to direct a sequel to X-Men: First Class, it seems that Fox have also cleared the way (at last!) for Hugh Jackman to reprise his role as Logan for The Wolverine, with BoxOfficeMojo reporting that a release has been pencilled in for July 26th, 2013, meaning that the adamantium clawed mutant will join the likes of Iron Man 3, Thor 2 and Man of Steel as part of next year’s superhero slate. It has of course been a troubled road for The Wolverine, with director James Mangold stepping in as a replacement for Darren Aronofsky, who departed the project last year just as it seemed that production was about to get underway. Jackman is busy working on Les Misérables at the moment, but a spring start date has been rumoured for The Wolverine and while we’re yet to receive official word from Fox about the release date, BoxOfficeMojo are usually bang on the money. Should it prove accurate, you’d have to imagine that we won’t get to see the First Class sequel until 2014, where it could potentially be joined by the long-rumoured Deadpool spin-off. Or maybe that’s expecting just a little too much…
Wrapping up the best of the rest…
…This Friday sees the arrival of 2012’s first comic book adaptation as Nicolas Cage returns for a second outing as Johnny Blaze in the sequel/reboot Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Following on from a short Super Bowl ad from last Sunday, Sony have released yet another TV spot, along with a few clips over at Yahoo! Movies, MSN and Dread Central, while Collider also got their hands on twelve minutes of behind-the-scenes footage. Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, Spirit of Vengeance sees Cage joined by Idris Elba, Ciarán Hinds, Violante Placido and Johnny Whitworth, along with Connor MacLeod of the Clan McLeod himself, Christopher Lambert…
…Although it’s been a quiet time for Batman fans this past week, Tom Hardy did take the time to provide a response to fan concerns over Bane’s voice in The Dark Knight Rises, telling MTV that: “I trust Christopher Nolan implicitly. I’m not worried at all about people understanding him mumbling away, but I have seen some brilliant stuff online about it. ‘Mmmm… Batman doesn’t beat up retards!’, which I thought was very funny. I enjoyed that…”
…As The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes prepares to return to screens for its second season this April, Supervising Producer Joshua Fine (Wolverine and the X-Men, Planet Hulk, Thor: Tales of Asgard) took a moment to chat in depth to Marvel Animation Age about the popular series; if you’re a fan of the show, be sure to have a read…
…And finally, the cast of CW’s Arrow pilot continues to come together, with Variety announcing that David Ramsey (Dexter, Blue Bloods) has signed on to portray the newly-created character of John Diggle, “a former military man now working as a bodyguard for hire who soon finds he is trapped in a battle of wits, loyalty and trust.” Meanwhile CW’s development head Thom Sherman told Entertainment Weekly what to expect from the project, which will star Stephen Amell (The Vampire Diaries, Hung) in the title role of Oliver Queen: “It’s very provocative and sophisticated and edgy. It’s not as comic book-y as Smallville or other [superhero projects] from other networks… [Queen] doesn’t have any superpowers, he’s a very grounded character like a Jason Bourne — we use the term ‘Rambo’. His skill-set is that he’s an archer, but he also has physical strength and prowess. He’s clever and able to devise ways of taking down a bad guy that are unique and fun to watch.” Let’s hope so, otherwise this could quite easily go the same way as last year’s Wonder Woman pilot.
Holy Franchise, Batman! – Arriving this June.
