…20th Century Fox has released a series of four interlocking character posters for August’s Fantastic Four reboot featuring Mister Fantastic (Miles Teller), The Invisible Woman (Kate Mara), The Human Torch (Michael B. Jordan) and The Thing (Jamie Bell) [see here], while producer Simon Kinberg has clarified the confusion surrounding the recent character bios which described Reed Richards’ as warping the space around him, making it appear that his body is stretching: “I think it was confusing. I was a little confused by it myself. The intent was to try to explain the power with some sort of scientific explanation, but most of his powers defy what we know about physics. The upshot of it is that he stretches in his movie. That is his power. That’s the simplest explanation. There’s the shot [in the trailer] where his hand’s in a restraint, and the arm stretches in to get out of the restraint. And there will be more as more materials come out, certainly. I would say that it is among the harder visual effects to render in a way that feels real and visceral and physical, like we want the powers to feel. But, yeah. He stretches. That’s what he does…”
…Fox has kicked off production on X-Men: Apocalypse this week, with some first look set photos landing online featuring Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Jubilee (Lana Condor), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) and Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee), while director Bryan Singer also took to social media to release an official shot of Nightcrawler, as well as a behind-the-scenes image of Jean and Jubilee; meanwhile, we also got some concept art from the 2016 sequel, while Simon Kinberg commented on the new young cast members – specifically Cyclops, Storm and Jean – and their roles in the film: “They’re as much a part of the movie as our main cast. Scott is not yet the squeaky-clean leader. Storm is a troubled character who is going down the wrong path in life. And Jean is complex, interesting and not fully mature. It’s fun to see someone struggling with their powers when you know one day they’ll become the most powerful person in the world…”
…James Gunn has revealed he had the opportunity to work on a superhero movie fifteen years prior to Guardians of the Galaxy, having penned a treatment for a Silver Surfer movie for Fox: “Little known fact: When I first moved to LA in 1999, one of the first people I met on a meeting was an exec at Fox. He told me they wanted to make a Silver Surfer movie, and I might be right for that, so I wrote an extensive treatment. It was a huge story, cosmic as hell, and featured the Silver Surfer turning on Galactus (but no Fantastic Four – this was before the first FF film). At the same time, I was approached by director Jay Roach and his producer Shauna Robertson about writing a live-action Spy Vs. Spy film. That film seemed more likely to get made, and I loved Jay and Shauna, so I took that gig instead. It was my first studio film job. Of course, in eventuality, neither movie ever got made. But people liked the Spy Vs. Spy script, so I got a lot of work because of it. That said, I sometimes wonder what it would have been like had I truly jumped into the cosmic Marvel pool 16 years ago…”
…Coinciding with the Incredible Hulk’s latest outing in Avengers: Age of Ultron, the folks at Screen Junkies have decided to give the Honest Trailer treatment to the Green Goliath’s first big screen outing in Ang Lee’s Hulk, and you can watch it here…
…Ben Affleck was spotted on the set of Suicide Squad this week, which also led to speculation that he could be there to film a potential scene between the Dark Knight and Jared Leto’s Joker for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Sure enough, Latino-Review decided to shoot for a scoop, claiming that there’ll be a flashback sequence in Dawn of Justice showing the Clown Prince of Crime beating Jason Todd’s Robin to death, something they’ve been peddling for months. Personally, after receiving a WB cease and desist for an article concerning the fate of another character, I’m inclined to write it off as guesswork…
…On the subject of cease and desists from Warner Bros., the studio were quick to pull two promotional images of Affleck’s Batman this week, although they don’t seem to have any issues with leaked concept art of Batman and Superman, as well as Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman (which leads me to think they may not be 100% genuine, but who knows?)…
…In addition to Batman’s potential Suicide Squad appearance, it has also been revealed that Alex Meraz (Twilight: New Moon) has joined the cast of the David Ayer-helmed supervillain ensemble in an as-yet-undisclosed role, while we also got our first look at Will Smith as Floyd Lawton, a.k.a. Deadshot, thank to some spy photos of the star on set in Toronto…
…The Hollywood Reporter posted an article this week which suggested that Warner Bros. is struggling to launch a cohesive DC movie universe, stemming from its decision to adopt a “filmmaker-driven” approach. This has reportedly led to a lack of overall direction, with directors having full creative control over individual movies, and numerous writers being hired to write competing scripts for the likes of Wonder Woman and Aquaman in what is described as “throwing shit against the wall to see what stuck”. The report certainly raised some concerns, although Flickering Myth’s James Garcia sees a “filmmaker-driven” approach as a positive not just for the DC movie universe, but the superhero genre as a whole – read his op-ed here…
…Now that he’s unemployed, Joss Whedon has admitted that he’d like to take a stab at a DC movie for Warner Bros.: “I’d be like ‘I have all these joke ideas.’ And they’d be like ‘No, we don’t do that here.’ I desperately wanted to do a Batman film – who doesn’t? And I wanted to do Wonder Woman. I was a Marvel kid growing up, but I was always DC-curious. And I see myself on the spectrum in between.” And as for Wonder Woman, which Whedon was attached to for several years a decade ago, he added: “I don’t care who she’s seeing now. We don’t talk much. And I wish her well! I worked really hard on that movie and it meant a lot, but I don’t know if what I was trying to do would fit in with what their vision is. I’m excited to see it so I just want them to make it so I can see it…”
…Turning to DC’s small screen properties and this Monday sees the season finale of Gotham, with Fox giving us a sneak peek at ‘All Happy Families Are Alike’ with the release of a promo, which you can watch here…
…The CW has released an ‘Endgame’ promo for The Flash which teases the final episodes of the show’s first season [watch it here], while this week has also brought plenty of promotional material for this week’s ‘Grodd Lives’ in a trailer and promo [see here], extended trailer [see here] and images [see here], along with a batch of stills from the following week’s episode ‘Rogue Air’ [see here]. And of course, you can check out Jessie Robertson’s review of this past Tuesday’s episode ‘The Trap’ here…
…The Wolverine star Rila Fukushima makes her debut as Katana in this week’s episode of Arrow, entitled ‘This Is Your Sword’, and you can take a look at a trailer and promo here and batch of images here, while we’ve also got a poster featuring Laurel’s Black Canary here, and Jessie’s review of Wednesday’s episode ‘Al Sah-Him’ here…
…And finally, with Daniel Cerone set to meet with NBC execs in the coming weeks to pitch a second season of Constantine, the showrunner has urged fans to show their support for Matt Ryan’s supernatural detective by taking to Twitter with the hashtag #SaveConstantine. So Hellblazer fans, what are you waiting for? Get on over to Twitter and get tweeting!
Gary Collinson is a writer and lecturer from the North East of England. He is the editor-in-chief of FlickeringMyth.com and the author of Holy Franchise, Batman! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen.
