In this edition of The Week in Spandex, we look at Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Daredevil, A.K.A. Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Big Hero 6, The Fantastic Four, Deadpool, Suicide Squad, Green Lantern, The Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, Lucifer, Valiant, ABCs of Superheroes, Powers and more…
Over the past few years, Marvel Studios has firmly established itself as one of the big players at the San Diego Comic-Con International, but with the likes of Warner’s DC ensemble Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and fellow Disney subsidiary Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens expected to feature heavily, it seems that Marvel may have made the decision to skip Hall H this year. According to Guardians of the Galaxy helmer James Gunn, Marvel won’t be attending SDCC this July, so we may have to wait until Disney’s D23 Expo or the New York Comic-Con in October before Kevin Feige and company tease us with some Phase Three goodness…
…And speaking of Mr. Gunn, the director took some time to answer fan questions about Guardians of the Galaxy 2 this week, during which he reiterated his previous comments that Captain Marvel will NOT feature in the cosmic sequel, as well as denying the speculation that Venom or his symbiote counterpart will make an appearance in the 2017 release…
…After the launch of its third trailer last week (which set a new record for views, raking in a whopping 35 million plays in just 24 hours), Marvel has now dropped a couple of new Avengers: Age of Ultron character posters featuring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Quicksilver and Elizabeth Olsen(‘s stunt double?) as Scarlet Witch, while AMC Theaters debuted a trio of unofficial promotional posters which are designed to promote AMC Theaters’ upcoming Ultimate Marvel Marathon and Avengers double bill…
…Director Scott Derrickson (Sinister) has taken to Twitter to tease a potential scene from Doctor Strange, posting an image from the Sorcerer Supreme’s comic book run which seems to indicate that – despite reports to the contrary – Stephen Strange’s origin will be explored in the Benedict Cumberbatch-headlined 2016 release…
…With a vacancy for a friendly neighbourhood wall-crawler, this week saw EastEnders star Sam Strike linked to the role of Spider-Man, owing to the fact that he announced he’d been cast in a U.S. film. Always keen to come across like they have the inside track on all things superhero, Latino-Review quickly debunked the story and took a speculative stab-in-the-dark, stating he “probably” got cast in Deadpool or X-Men: Apocalypse. As it happens, the role in question was that of Leatherface in the upcoming Texas Chainsaw Massacre prequel. BOOM! SCOOP DEBUNKED! Although he does wear a mask, I guess…
…In other Spidey-related casting chatter, Bates Motel star Freddie Highmore has thrown his hat into the ring to play Peter Parker: “Obviously, I would love to be considered. That would be fantastic. I guess we’ll just see how things go. You always feel like you can identify with [Spider-Man]. He’s that kind of guy at school who wasn’t perhaps in the really cool group, but who was extremely intelligent and managed to find confidence in being Spider-Man — in this other side to his life.” Meanwhile, after being cut from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and declaring she had no interest in returning to the role of Mary Jane Watson in The Amazing Spider-Man 3, Insurgent star Shailene Woodley has now had a change of heart, declaring that she’d love the chance to return to the role of Mary Jane Watson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe…
…Shifting to the small screen and with less than a month to go before its Netflix premiere, a rather splendid new trailer has been released for Marvel’s Daredevil, as well as a new image of Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page and details of six supporting players. Meanwhile, Vincent D’Onofrio has been speaking in depth about the series, as well as responding to a question about whether The Kingpin is likely to pop up in A.K.A. Jessica Jones or Luke Cage. Read what he had to say here…
…UK fans will have to wait until March 27th for the show’s midseason premiere, but the second half of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season two is well underway in the US, with Lady Sif making her return to the show this past Tuesday, and you can see a poster of the Asgardian warrior here, as well as reading our review of the episode ‘Who You Really Are’ here. ABC has also released a couple of posters for the next episode ‘One of Us’ featuring Cal and his team of supervillains [see here], along with a promo [see here] and batch of stills [see here], while we’ve also got a selection of images from the following week’s episode ‘Love in the Time of Hydra’ [see here]…
…Big Hero 6 crossed the $600 million mark at the global box office this past week thanks to a strong second weekend in China, making the film Disney’s third highest-grossing animated film of all time behind Frozen ($1.2 billion) and The Lion King ($987.5 million). And with those kind of numbers, it comes as little surprise that Disney could be eyeing a potential sequel, with Genesis Rodriguez stating that: “There’s rumblings of something else happening. I mean yesterday I just saw that it’s the third most grossing Disney animated feature, so this is huge for them. I doubt that they wouldn’t want to do another one. It was a huge success. Just like comic books, you could make it a complete different story and the superheroes reunited to attack someone else. So it’s a perfect little setup they got for a sequel if they wanted to…”
…Click below to continue on for The Fantastic Four, Deadpool, Suicide Squad, Green Lantern, The Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, Lucifer, Valiant, ABCs of Superheroes, Powers and more…
Originally published March 14, 2015. Updated November 29, 2022.
