Presenting our weekly round-up of all the biggest news stories from the world of movie superheroes…
Due to the impending deadline for Holy Franchise and a review of Batman Live that’s in the works, there’s a slight change of format with this edition of ‘The Week in Spandex’… in fact, it’s more a collection of links, but fear not as there’s still plenty of superhero goodness to go around…
…Not content with dominating the multiplexes, Marvel Studios now look to be embarking on a major television push; head of television Jeph Loeb discussed a host of upcoming projects during the Marvel TV Comic-Con panel, including the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man and Hulk: Agents of SMASH, along with live-action outings for Hulk, Cloak and Dagger, Mockingbird and aka Jessica Jones (aka Alias), the latter of which is said to feature Luke Cage and Carol Danvers…
…Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who will serve as producer on the upcoming live-action Hulk series, also had a few words about the project for IGN, stating that its unlikely to have any connection to the character’s portrayal in The Avengers. Del Toro is also invited fans to pitch him their idea for the next big superhero movie, so if you think you’ve got what it takes head on over to Total Film…
…And speaking of The Avengers’ Hulk, we also got our first looked at the revamped Mark Ruffalo angry green giant courtesy of a fine series of interlinking character posters from Joss Whedon’s upcoming superhero ensemble. Thankfully it seems they’ve abandoned the hairy chest idea that was floating around a while back, but we’re still yet to see any sign of pants…
…In other Avengers news, Marvel released a teaser of the teaser (yes, really) along with the final scene of Captain America: The First Avenger which you can view over at Yahoo. Meanwhile fans here in the UK will be able to catch the film a few weeks earlier than anticipated as Disney announce a UK release date of April 27th, 2012…
…On the subject of Captain America, our very own Trevor Hogg has written an excellent piece over at CGSociety looking at the visual effects behind The First Avenger, which includes interviews with a number of the film’s VFX supervisors and some excellent before-and-after images. Be sure to check it out, along with a similar article on Green Lantern…
…A couple of weeks back we heard that Marvel had reacquired the right to The Punisher and now you can add Blade to their ever-expanding roster of potential properties, although Marvel CCO Joe Quesada has warned fans not to expect either of the characters to pop up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe any time soon…
…Edgar Wright took over from co-writer Joe Cornish in delivering the weekly “we’ve just handed a draft of the script in” line for their Ant-Man adaptation, telling MTV News the screenplay has been written with a view to making a “standalone genre film”, for which no pre-existing Avengers knowledge is required…
…A new international poster for Sony’s reboot The Amazing Spider-Man has been released (which you can see over to your right there), coupled with a press release from the studio stating that Andrew Garfield’s webslinger will also arrive in IMAX 3D when the film hits cinemas on July 3rd, 2012…
…Nicolas Cage returns as Johnny Blaze in next year’s sequel-cum-reboot Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (with footage going down a storm at Comic-Con last weekend) and now Empire have posted a handful of high quality images featuring Cage and co-star Idris Elba, who really seems to be in every other film these days…
…And finally, the cast and crew of The Dark Knight Rises have arrived in Pittsburgh for the next stage of the shoot, holding a press conference on Thursday which you can check out here. According to Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, Christopher Nolan’s swansong will see the return of the Batcave, with a set said to be under construction on the MGM lot. Meanwhile, JustJared have secured some spy photos featuring Tom Hardy in his full Bane outfit, which doesn’t look too great if I’m being honest. Hopefully he’ll look a bit better once he ditches the sheepskin coat.
Originally published July 30, 2011. Updated December 6, 2019.
