The Week in Spandex - Green Lantern, The Dark Knight Rises, X-Men: First Class and more...

Our weekly round-up of all the talking points from the world of movie superheroes...



With Green Lantern arriving this coming week Warner Bros. have really ramped up the publicity with eight new clips from the film, in addition to a host of video interviews featuring director Martin Campbell, screenwriter Greg Berlanti, producers Geoff Johns and Donald DeLine and stars Ryan Reynolds (Hal Jordan), Blake Lively (Carol Ferris), Angela Bassett (Dr. Amanda Waller), Geoffrey Rush (Tomar-Re), Mark Strong (Sinestro), Michael Clarke Duncan (Kilowog), Peter Sarsgaard (Hector Hammond), Temuera Morrison (Abin Sur) and Tim Robbins (Hammond). If that's not enough to satisfy your Green Lantern thirst, then you might want to check out this series of press junket videos along with fifteen minutes of B-roll footage from the upcoming film.



Moving on to Warner Bros. big superhero offering of 2012 and a few new set photos have emerged from the shoot of The Dark Knight Rises. Now, there's been a lot of talk these past few weeks about Alfred (Michael Caine) ending up in the hospital, where it's rumoured that Bane (Tom Hardy) will attack Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) and possibly throw the billionaire out of a window. Quite how Bruce would manage to survive such a fall is anyone's guess (I mean, it's pretty high - take a look for yourself), but the bigger question is, just who is that masked man? Bane? Black Mask? Some random League of Shadows goon? Or maybe it's the stuntman that Anne Hathaway clocked...



Elsewhere, ComicBookMovie got an unconfirmed ‘scoop’ (presumably from someone who’d just finished reading Knightfall) about a major plot point in The Dark Knight Rises, while in other Batman news we got a look at some concept art for James Gordon and Catwoman, albeit from the upcoming DC Original Animated Movies adaptation of Frank Miller's Year One, which you can check out here.



X-Men: First Class opened last weekend and while it seems to have been well received by the fan community the 60s-set prequel hasn’t exactly set the box office alight. First Class topped the US chart with a debut weekend of $55.1m, the second-lowest of the X-Men franchise after Bryan Singer’s original, while here in the UK it was saved from the wooden spoon by two days of preview screenings, giving it an opening haul of £5.4m. First Class currently sits on a world-wide gross of $148m, and at this rate it’s going to struggle to overtake Thor in the race for 2011’s biggest superhero movie, especially given the competition it will face this month from the likes of Super 8, Green Lantern, Cars 2 and Transformers: Dark of the Moon.



Shifting over to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and a new TV spot for Captain America: The First Avenger has given us the first words from the Red Skull himself, Hugo Weaving, in advance of the new trailer premiering tomorrow at the Hero Complex Film Festival. Chris Evans (Captain America), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) and Mark Ruffalo (The Incredible Hulk) have also dropped a few brief updates about Joss Whedon's The Avengers, while a Twitter user by the name of Lionheart3rd seemed to be providing updates directly from the shoot until his account was disabled. ComicBookMovie managed to collate the tweets, which don’t contain all that much to be honest but – if true – do serve as extra confirmation that aliens will be present in the film, which I think everyone pretty much suspects to be the case by now anyway. If they are, it’s probably a good time to make it official.



Rounding up the best of the rest...



...Last week director David Slade teased some info on his upcoming Daredevil reboot and now Fox have announced that Fringe writer Brad Caleb Kane has been hired to pen the screenplay, which will be based on Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's acclaimed 'Born Again' run. Still now word yet on potential candidates to replace Ben Affleck as the Man Wihout Fear...



...Ryan Reynolds had a few words for MTV about Deadpool, praising director Tim Miller and explaining that the X-Men Origins: Wolverine spin-off is likely to be "pretty nasty, and pretty hard", while he's likely to start the film after his next project R.I.P.D...



...Sticking with the various X-Men spin-offs, a couple of weeks back it was revealed that eight directors were under consideration to take over from Darren Aronofsky on The Wolverine. Well, now we can scratch Mark Romanek off that list as the Never Let Me Go director confirmed to DigitalSpy that he is officially out of the running, while Doug Liman and Antoine Fuqua have also moved on to other projects...



...It's been rumoured that we'll get our first look the trailer for next year's The Amazing Spider-Man when Transformers: Dark of the Moon hits cinemas later this month....



...And finally, be sure to enter our fabulous Superman giveaway for your chance to win The Superman Motion Picture Anthology on Blu-ray, along with seasons 1-9 of Smallville on DVD!

Gary Collinson

The Week in Spandex - X-Men: First Class, Captain America, The Dark Knight Rises and more...

Our weekly round-up of all the big talking points from the world of movie superheroes...



The big news is of course the release of Matthew Vaughn's Cold War-era mutant prequel X-Men: First Class, which I have to say I found to be a little over-rated. Don't get me wrong, it's enjoyable, but in my opinion it really doesn't justify all the hype that's been coming its way this past week (you can check out my full review here). Nevertheless, Vaughn's done a good job setting things up for the next two installments in the 'First Class Trilogy', which I'm sure will be announced once the opening weekend figures come in for this first outing, while James McAvoy has been discussing a potential sequel over at Hero Complex.



Anyway, a whole raft of clips and TV spots have made their way online this past week to further promote the release of First Class (I'm sure by now someone could do a pretty good job of editing the whole film together from these), along with a couple of interesting bits and pieces including a three-part roundtable interview with Matthew Vaughn at ObsessedWithFilm, a video interview with screenwriter Jane Goldman at IGN and an insight into the VFX process courtesy of Rhythm & Hues which you can read over at Comicus (scroll down for the English version). Finally, Vaughn and January Jones have also been answering fan questions over on the Facebook X-Perts Q&A (and no, they didn't answer that one).



Also stepping up the publicity this week ahead of a July release is Marvel Studios' Captain America: The First Avenger, which debuted three new promo images - featuring Chris Evans as Cap, Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter and Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull - along with a few TV spots, one of which featured snippets of new footage. Meanwhile TFA storyboard artist Martin Asbury updated his website with some of his work from the film, which could possibly contain a few spoilers but really is worth checking out. Oh, and while we're on the subject of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, expect The Avengers to have quite a presence at the Licensing International Expo (which runs from June 14th-16th in Las Vegas), with ComingSoon.net delivering a sneak preview of a promo poster for the upcoming superhero ensemble.



Along with The Avengers, another big movie expecting to make a splash at the Licensing Expo is Christopher Nolan's final Batman feature The Dark Knight Rises, with Batman-News.com speculating that it could play host to the reveal of the latest Bat-vehicle in much the same way that the Batpod debuted back in 2007 (oh, and a couple of purported viral videos have sprung up on Youtube, most likely fakes but you can take a look here if you haven’t seen them already).



Wrapping up the best of the rest...



...After confirmation earlier this week that Sony will be taking The Amazing Spider-Man to Comic-Con, there's been talk from directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor that Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance will be the next superhero flick to follow suit...



...New Daredevil director David Slade has been busy on Twitter recently, teasing an announcement on the upcoming reboot while confirming that he was never attached to the proposed Justice League of America movie, nor a potential reboot of The Shadow...



...Green Lantern's arrival in cinemas is now less than two weeks away and Warner Bros. have recently debuted a new website entitled Green Lantern Creator, which features some new shots of the alien characters and gives fans the opportunity to create their own member of the Green Lantern Corps...



...CosmicBookNews have posted an article that gathers together all of the Man of Steel rumours that have been doing the rounds lately, while original Superman director Richard Donner took part in a interesting interview with Hero Complex to promote the release of Superman: The Motion Picture Anthology Blu-ray box set that arrives on June 13th...



...Another DC superhero who looks set to be coming to the big screen is Hawkman, with BleedingCool reporting that the proposed film is "part Indiana Jones / The Da Vinci Code, part Ghost". Head over to the site to read the full logline that's doing the rounds...



...For anyone out there still remotely interested in NBC's Wonder Woman pilot, iFanboy posted an in-depth review which also features some previously unseen images, including what looks to be a shot of Wonder Woman's plane...



......And finally, while it doesn't really have anything to do with movies, DC Comics have announced plans to relaunch all of their titles with new #1s, which one can only assume to be the major announcement that was scheduled for this month's Hero Complex Film Festival.

Gary Collinson

The Week in Spandex - X-Men: First Class, The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man and more

Our weekly round-up of all the big talking points from the world of movie superheroes...



As you’d expect with just days to go until the UK release of X-Men: First Class, the mutant marketing machine has gone into overdrive this past week and, judging by the critical reception so far, it seems as if Matthew Vaughn has overseen a return to form for the X-Men series, if not a franchise best. Vaughn took part in an in depth roundtable earlier this week (the transcript of which can be seen over at HeyUGuys) and he’s also been talking potential sequels with HitFlix and MovieWeb (along with the on / off status of Kick-Ass 2), while ScreenRant posted highlights of a press conference with the First Class cast.



There is of course a special guest cameo in X-Men: First Class, which we won’t ruin here (despite the fact it’s really not all that surprising anyway) but if you’re desperate to get your hands on anything X-Men then over twenty minutes of b-roll footage has made its way online that you can check out at ComicBookMovie. There’s also been a million or so more TV spots, posters, banners and what have you, but frankly it’s just too damn exhausting to keep track of them all. One thing that did prove pretty interesting though was Patrick Stewart’s comments about himself and Ian McKellen being up for another X-Men film, and with Bryan Singer linked to X4 and X5 it looks as if Fox is really going to get its money worth out of the franchise over the coming years.



And, on that very subject, the studio are also keen to push on with their latest Wolverine spin-off, with Variety reporting that eight directors are under consideration to replace Darren Aronofsky on the Hugh Jackman mutant actioner. Those said to be in the frame to helm The Wolverine are Jose Padilha (Bus 174, Elite Squad), Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith), Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Brooklyn's Finest), Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo, Never Let Me Go), Justin Lin (Fast & Furious, Fast Five), Gavin O'Connor (Pride and Glory, Warrior), James Mangold (Walk the Line, Knight and Day) and notable commercials director Gary Shore. What, no Gavin Hood?



Along with the first reveal of Tom Hardy as Bane, last week brought word of three new arrivals to the cast of The Dark Knight Rises and now you can add another two to the ever-growing list. The latest additions to Christopher Nolan’s Batman swansong are Brett Cullen (Ghost Rider, Lost) and Chris Ellis (Catch Me If You Can, Transformers), with Cullen portraying a judge and Ellis featuring as a priest in what you’d imagine to be minor roles.



Meanwhile it’s also been revealed that Matthew Modine’s character is called Nixon and is described by Showbiz411 as “a politician and a key villain”. Batman’s certainly going to have his hands full in The Dark Knight Rises and it really seems like Nolan’s throwing everything he has into this final outing, which is rumoured to be getting a teaser trailer in time for the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.



Rounding up the best of the rest...



…Another film that could be increasing its roster of villains is Marvel’s The Avengers, with LatinoReview reporting that the cosmic tyrant Thanos could be in line for an appearance in Joss Whedon’s superhero ensemble, while Industrial Light & Magic have updated their site to announce that they’ll be handling VFX duties…



...Having finished up principal photography on The Amazing Spider-Man, Sony have released a rather bland teaser poster and logo for the upcoming reboot, while Marvel legend Stan Lee has spilled the beans on his cameo appearance and revealed a little info about a showdown between Andrew Garfield's webslinger and Rhys Ifans' Lizard...



...According to Hero Complex, DC executives Geoff Johns and Jim Lee are planning a major announcement for the Hero Complex Film Festival on June 11th, which is said to concern "the future of Superman and the entire DC Universe". ComicBookMovie are speculating that this could be official confirmation of a Justice League movie, but I'd be surprised if that didn't come direct from WB. Could it have something to do with the messy dispute over the Superman rights? We’ll find out soon enough…



...Green Lantern is set to arrive in cinemas next month and this past week a new clip emerged featuring Michael Clarke Duncan’s Kilowog and Ryan Reynolds’ Hal Jordon, while io9 posted an article about the make-up used to turn Mark Strong into Sinestro. And there’s me thinking they’d just used cheap-looking CGI for all the aliens…



...And finally, for those of you out there distraught over missing out on the opportunity for a glimpse of Wonder Woman's Adrianne Palicki in a pair of skimpy, star-spangled knickers, you may be able to satisfy some of those cravings here.



X-Men: First Class Press Conference Report...

Gary Collinson

The Week in Spandex – The Dark Knight Rises’ Bane, Green Lantern 3D trailer, X-Men: First Class and more

Our weekly round-up of all the talking points from the world of movie superheroes...

Well, just when it was shaping up to be a quiet week in the land of cinematic superherodom what goes and happens? Warner Bros. deliver the first image of Tom Hardy as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, that’s what! Things all kicked off with the launch of the official website accompanied by some creeping chanting, which then went through audio software to reveal #thefirerises, a Twitter account that promised to reveal a fraction of the image with every new follower. Fortunately some clever cyber-sleuth managed to get their hands on the full picture, which presents a tantalising glimpse of Batman’s latest foe.

Principal photography on Christopher Nolan’s sequel was officially announced earlier this week, but of course filming has already taken place in India and the UK and it’s probably a wise decision to release the image given all the set photos that have been emerging from the London shoot. Much like the reveal of Heath Ledger’s Joker, it’s done a mighty fine job in getting fans talking; not only does it confirm that Bane will be sporting a mask (borrowed from Mortal Kombat’s Scorpion, by the looks of things), but it’s also probably a safe assumption that he’s sporting some kind of burns, what with the whole ‘the fire rises’ thing going on. Meanwhile Variety also broke the news that Nolan has added a further three actors to the ever-growing cast – Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket) will play a character called Nixon, while Tom Conti (Derailed) and 11-year-old Joey King (Ramona and Beezus) will feature in as-yet-unrevealed roles.

Sticking with Warner Bros. for the moment and yesterday also brought the debut of the third trailer for Green Lantern, Martin Campbell's big-budget, VFX-heavy DC adaptation. Aimed at the 3D market, the trailer (which you can see at the bottom of this article) is pretty epic in scope and should do a good job of further selling the film to fans, although I'm personally not so sure how this one will go down with the general movie-going public. In other Lantern-related bits and pieces, both Ryan Reynolds and Mark Strong have been taking part in interviews to discuss the film, while Total Film announced that director Martin Campbell has no plans to return for any potential sequel.

While we're on the subject of Ryan Reynolds, the actor also had a few words to say about the the upcoming X-Men spin-off Deadpool during an interview with Comic Book Resources about Green Lantern. Describing it as "a deconstruction of superhero movies," Reynolds stated that he had no problem starring as two superheroes but effectively ruled himself out of contention for The Flash: "I always thought if I did a Deadpool film, I wouldn't do a Flash movie". Meanwhile Robert Rodriguez, who was long rumoured to be in the running for Deadpool, has told MTV that his involvement only ever went as far as reading the script but he has high hopes for the final product: "It's going to be a cool movie. I don't want people to think it's going to stink! Not at all. It's a great script and action-packed and it's a great character. But it's like, 'He turned it down! He dropped out!' Well, I was never in the project!"

Mutant prequel X-Men: First Class is set to arrive here in the UK a week on Monday and ComicBookMovie have collected a whole host of stills that includes pretty much the entire roster, along with a few more TV spots that you can see here and here. Elsewhere James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender were the latest cast members to undergo the X-Perts Q&A on the official X-Men Facebook page, while Nicholas Hoult spoke to IGN about portraying Beast and Zoe Kravitz (Angel Salvadore) also had a few words about her role in the film. One person who won't be popping up in First Class however is Stan Lee (maybe that's something to do with his insistence that Bryan Singer is directing?), although the Marvel legend has confirmed that he will appear for his customary cameo in The Avengers, which leads us quite nicely into this week's round-up of the latest happenings from the Marvel Cinematic Universe...

Firstly, Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) took part in a fan Q&A with Empire and revealed that he has no idea whether Ant-Man will make an appearance in the upcoming ensemble, while Thor star Stellan Skarsgård revealed that Joss Whedon was responsible for directing the post-credits sequence in Marvel's most recent offering. Newsrama also put out a report earlier this week suggesting that Thor is underperforming compared to other Marvel efforts (I guess they must have forgot to take into account the film's world-wide haul, which at $376m and counting is already more than $100m ahead of The Incredible Hulk), but that hasn't had any impact on Marvel's plans for a sequel, with CinemaBlend reporting that The Enchantress and The Executioner are under consideration for Thor's next adversaries.

Wrapping up the best of the rest...

...If you cast your mind back to last year when Sony announced their then-untitled Spider-Man reboot, you may remember a few eyebrows being raised over suggestions that the film's budget would be a mere $80m. Well, it seems that figure was a gross underestimate, as actor and stuntman Richard Norton let slip that the actual budget for The Amazing Spider-Man stands at a whopping $220m...

...NBC chairman Robert Greenblatt has gone on record to explain the reasoning behind the network's decision to ditch Wonder Woman. Greenblatt told EW that "we did what was best for the schedule" but felt that "they made a really fine pilot and Adrianne Palicki did a fantastic job". Hmm... doesn't quite add up, that one. Nevertheless there may still be hope for Wonder Woman fans, with Greenblatt suggesting that the pilot could be shopped around to alternative networks...

...And finally, yesterday brought the sad news that wrestling legend Randy 'Macho Man' Savage has died in a car accident in Florida, aged 58. In addition to his hugely successful ring career, Macho Man enjoyed a number of film and TV roles, including his appearance in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man as Bonesaw McGraw.


Gary Collinson

The Week in Spandex - The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers and more...

Our weekly round-up of all the talking points from the world of movie superheroes...

As I’m sure we’re all aware, filming kicked off on the The Dark Knight Rises last weekend with early spy photos suggesting the inclusion of Ra's al Ghul's mystical Lazarus Pit. Well, since then a scene description has emerged that, if true, would go some way to explaining the presence of Josh Pence (Young Ra's) and Tom Hardy (Bane) on set. Obviously there's the chance of spoilers, but if you're interested check it out here. Meanwhile Xnet (via BadAssDigest) reported that Israeli actor Alon Abutbul (Munich, Body of Lies) has been cast as a ‘mad scientist’, and while there’s already talk of Hugo Strange it’s probably best to wait until we hear some kind of official announcement on the casting before everyone gets too excited.

Elsewhere in The Dark Knight Rises camp, an article in the L.A. Times suggested that the film's budget is estimated to be "at least $250m", up from an expected figure of around $185m. It’s quite an interesting piece and goes on to reveal some some behind-the-scenes tension between Warner Bros. and financing partner Legendary Pictures over potential profit sharing on the sure-to-be-huge sequel, with WB allegedly looking to increase their percentage as their lucrative Harry Potter franchise draws to a close. Next up for Christopher Nolan and company is a trip to London for a four day shoot starting this coming Monday, with Christian Bale expected to be in attendance at the Farmiloe building, which stood in for Gotham City's Police HQ in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Expect a flood of spy photos in the coming week.

Moving on and you'd have to have been living under a rock these past few months not to have seen a photo of Andrew Garfield's new-look web-slinger swinging around New York City, but thanks to SplashNews we now get a look at some of the other characters from The Amazing Spider-Man including Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field), not to mention Garfield in his Peter Parker attire. HeyUGuys also grabbed a few words with Martin Sheen about his role in the upcoming reboot, and while we all know how that will end up, thanks to a super-spy you can get an early peak at Uncle Ben’s death scene right here.

With Marvel's latest superhero blockbuster Thor currently sitting atop the box office both here in the UK and in North America (with a world-wide gross in excess of $283m to date), the focus now begins to shift towards their next offering, Captain America: The First Avenger. While we await the second trailer from Joe Johnston's WWII-set actioner we did get a good look at the wardrobe for the agents of HYDRA, while French magazine L'Ecran Fantastique posted a few details about Captain America in a piece that also suggested that both Ant-Man and Wasp would be making an appearance in The Avengers. It had of course been thought that Ant-Man was being back for his own movie from Edgar Wright, which he has co-written with Joe Cornish (see Cornish talk about the script here), so whether this is accurate or not remains to be seen.

While we're on the subject of The Avengers, DailyBlam delivered an insight into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s presence in the upcoming ensemble, suggesting a host of familiar names will join Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), including the likes of Alexander Goodwin Pierce, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, Wendell Vaughn, Jasper Sitwell, Clay Quartermain, Jack Truman, Abigail Brand, Larry Young and Jimmy Woo. It also seems that the cast could swell further with reports that Gwenyth Paltrow may (briefly) appear as Pepper Potts, while Derek Luke is confirmed to reprise his First Avenger role as Gabe Jones. And, if that’s not enough to feed your Cinematic Universe cravings for another week then you might want to check out an interview with Thor’s Chris Hemsworth, who spoke to Hero Complex about working with Joss Whedon and squaring off against Chris Evans both on screen and at the box-office, while Kevin Fiege chatted to Box Office Magazine about all things Marvel.

It's now just over two weeks until the release of Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class (May 30th here in the UK and June 3rd in North America) and ComicBookMovie have gathered together two new TV spots and a clip, while IGN posted an interview with Jennifer Lawrence about her role as the shape-shifting mutant Raven Darkholme in the upcoming prequel. Lawrence is also the latest cast member to complete the X-Perts Q&A on the official X-Men Facebook page, with Michael Fassbender (Magneto) and Zoe Kravitz (Angel Salvadore) next to take the challenge. Meanwhile British boy-band (or should that be middle-aged-men-band) Take That have been confirmed to deliver the official X-Men: First Class song 'Love Love', and if you weren't 'fortunate' enough to catch their performance on the National Movie Awards you can check it out here.

And finally, it’s probably not much of a surprise to learn that NBC have opted against commissioning a Wonder Woman series based on David E. Kelley's pilot. Wonder Woman has been on the back foot ever since that disastrous first costume unveiling and you have to wonder how this could impact Warner Bros.’ plans for a big-screen adaptation currently rumoured for 2013. If you're interested, AICN have posted a report that gives us a few details on the pilot, while Thor star Jaimie Alexander has been talking about passing on the opportunity to portray the Amazon Princess, feeling that the approach was "all about her boobs". Hmm… maybe it’s a shame it got the chop, then.

Gary Collinson

The Week in Spandex - The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers production updates and more

Our weekly round-up of all the big talking points from the world of movie superheroes...



It really is an exciting time in superherodom at the moment with filming now underway on two of 2012’s big summer offerings, The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers. This week’s column provides an update on all the gossip coming out of both camps so it’s probably a good time to say that there may be a few potential spoilers ahead. But only minor though, I promise. Meanwhile there’s still plenty going on this year with Thor (finally) hitting North American cinemas and X-Men: First Class and Green Lantern set to arrive next month, and we’ll also be touching upon The Amazing Spider-Man, The Wolverine, Ant-Man and more…



We'll start things off with Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises, which started filming in India's Mehrangarh Fort yesterday and continues today. Despite the fact that Christian Bale was the only actor thought to feature in this part of the shoot, the Hindustan Times reported that Bale would not be in attendance and suggested that the scene may include antagonists from the League of Shadows. Then, late yesterday, some set photos emerged showing a pool filled with green liquid that seems very likely to transform into the Lazarus Pit in post-production, especially when locals have reported that Josh Pence has been seen around the area. So how will this fit into the plot? Well, my guess - if it does turn out to be the Lazarus Pit - is that we'll see Ra's using the pit in a flashback and Bruce will use it later on to heal himself from the injuries he sustains at the hands of Tom Hardy's Bane.



In other Dark Knight news, Batman-on-Film posted a few further details about the shoot from a reliable source who states that filming in Pittsburgh will only last around three weeks before the production heads to the UK and New York City. Meanwhile the majority of the work is expected to take place in Los Angeles and it's also thought that an official synopsis will arrive soon. Elsewhere, a casting call on ActingAuditions points to Juno Temple's character being that of Holly Robinson, a juvenile prostitute and associate of Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle who first appeared in Frank Miller's classic comic series Batman: Year One, while the LA Times posted an article with further speculation that Marion Cotillard's 'Miranda Tate' is not all that she would appear.



Moving on and as with Nolan, director Joss Whedon has done a pretty good job of keeping a tight lid on The Avengers, although of course it seems that someone forgot to send Samuel L. Jackson the memo. The fallout from the alleged script leak continued this past week as FilmFanReview reported that production had shut down until rewrites could be completed. The story was pretty much debunked immediately by Marvel, but FilmFanReview soon posted an update stating that their sources say it’s legit and Marvel are just covering their tracks. Now I could be wrong, but you have to expect the major Hollywood media to be all over such a story if it were true and let’s be honest, even if the pages that hit the net are real, why would they bother rewriting it?? I mean, it hardly gives anything away – Bruce Banner transforms into the Hulk. Well, no shit. According to our sources, Tony Stark puts on the Iron Man suit, Captain America chucks his shield and at one point, Thor even finds himself in Asgard…



While we’re on the subject of The Avengers, Marvel Studios supreme Kevin Feige has confirmed that there’s absolutely no chance of Hank Pym / Ant-Man making an appearance in the superhero ensemble, which could add fuel to the possibility of a solo flick in the near future. Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish have recently turned in a new draft and if it does become a reality then I wouldn’t put it past Marvel to pull one of their last-minute post-credits acts come summer 2012. Feige has also been talking further potential instalments in the Cinematic Universe, discussing spin-offs for Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and S.H.I.E.L.D. with The Playlist, and updating everything from Iron Man 3 and Doctor Strange to potential Disney-backed animations in an interview over at Collider.



Sticking with Marvel for the moment and after banking over $100m internationally to date, Kenneth Branagh's Thor finally arrived in North American cinemas yesterday (read our reviews here, here and here). Marvel legend Stan Lee has been tweeting his approval of the film, while Kevin Feige has been talking up a sequel and explaining that screenwriter Don Payne is already working on developing the story. As for a director, it seems Branagh is open to a return: "I am not sure I am done with Thor's universe, or if it is done with me. I guess it will likely depend on how massive it is and how the reviews are, and then schedules and all that nonsense."



Wrapping up the best of the rest...



...The Amazing Spider-Man is close to wrapping principal photography after a lengthy six-month shoot and The Daily Mail has posted a few photos which confirm that Andrew Garfield's Spidey will be swinging his way around New York via the traditional wire method as opposed to the CGI work used in Sam Raimi's earlier trilogy. Meanwhile the article also contains an image of a heavily disguised Rhys Ifans, who seems to be going to some lengths to keep his appearance as The Lizard under wraps (check out those green eyebrows!)...



...Warner Bros. released a new trailer for their upcoming DC Comics adaptation Green Lantern earlier this week that features a host of new footage including glimpse of Peter Sarsgaard's villainous Hector Hammond. While the buzz seems to be picking up for the Ryan Reynolds-starrer, some of the CGI still seems a bit iffy and the studio must be hoping that the recent increase in the VFX budget will pay off come the film's opening on June 17th...



...X-Men star Hugh Jackman took part in an interview to promote his new live theatre show and talk shifted to The Wolverine, with Jackman stating that he hopes to get underway with production this October. The Wolverine is currently without a director following the departure of Darren Aronofsky earlier this year, while the likes of David Slade (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse) and Duncan Jones (Source Code) have been mentioned as possible replacements...



...In other X-Men news, Matthew Vaughn's mutant prequel X-Men: First Class arrives here in the UK in less than four weeks time and the promotional machine continues to roll on with the release of a new international poster and a character banner featuring stars Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Alex Gonzalez, January Jones, Kevin Bacon and Jason Flemyng. There’s also been some new character videos, while Fox have also released details of the special edition box set for the film's Blu-ray release, and you can check out all the new images over at ScreenRant...



...A piece of original art from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns featuring Batman and Carrie Kelley's Robin has been sold for a whopping $448,125 at auction, making it the single most valuable piece of American comic art ever sold...



...And finally we end with the sad news that the Academy Award nominated actor Jackie Cooper has died aged 88. Cooper, who as a child star was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his leading role in Skippy (1931), was best known to comic book fans as Perry White, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Planet, having appeared in all four of Christopher Reeve's Superman movies.

Gary Collinson

The Week in Spandex - The Avengers assemble as Pixar say no to Marvel

Our weekly round-up of all the talking points from the world of movie superheroes including The Avengers, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern, The Dark Knight Rises, Man of Steel and The Amazing Spider-Man…

Warner Bros. may have grabbed most of the attention these past few weeks with casting announcements on The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel but this week’s column is all about Marvel (well, pretty much all, anyway), with Monday gone marking the official beginning of principal photography on their epic superhero ensemble, The Avengers. Director Joss Whedon revealed the news himself via a statement on Whedonesque, with the principal cast members – the likes of Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Chris Evans (Captain America), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Mark Ruffalo (The Incredible Hulk), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill), Tom Hiddleston (Loki) and Stellan Skarsgård (Professor Erik Selvig) – expected to commence filming this coming week.

To mark the occasional the studio quickly released the first official set photo along with a press release that seemed to indicate a slight name change to Marvel’s The Avengers (is that really necessary?). We also managed to get a few scraps of info about the upcoming film throughout the week, with Mark Ruffalo stating that he has “a couple of lines as the Hulk” and describing his character as “the teammate none of them are sure they want on their team”. Chris Evans also revealed that Captain America will find himself in new threads, while Paul Bettany confirmed that he is set to reprise his role as the voice of Jarvis from Iron Man. Meanwhile a guy going by the name of XXXBobSmith claimed to have a copy of the screenplay for The Avengers and released a couple of pages in an effort to sell the script on to interested sites. Judging by the images the script certainly looks as if it could be legit (see for yourself here) and if so, then I hope Mr. Smith gets enough to pay for a decent lawyer.

Of course before we get to The Avengers we have two lead-in movies from Marvel Studios this year in Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. Kenneth’s Branagh’s Thor opened officially in UK cinemas yesterday (read my review here and another from Liam Trim here) and with three days of preview screenings you’d have to expect the God of Thunder to topple Justin Lin’s Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist when the weekend box office figures are in. If you aren’t quite fully Thor-ed out yet, be sure to check out MTV's interview with Kenneth Branagh and a ‘Making of Thor’ feature that Total Film posted earlier in the week. Finally, on the Captain America front, Chris Evans and Samuel L. Jackson embarked on some last-minute filming in Times Square, which you’d imagine to be for the customary post-credits scene. You can check out some footage and images at Collider.

Moving on to the X-Men franchise and Fox have released another two trailers for Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming prequel X-Men: First Class, which hits cinemas in less than five weeks time. X-Men: First Class was the clear winner in our poll to find your most anticipated superhero film of 2011 [see the full results at the bottom of this article] and while the film’s poster campaign has been less than stellar the trailers really do look promising. In other First Class news, Hero Complex posted a preview of the film that includes comments from both Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, while the official X-Men Facebook site continued to update their ‘X-Perts’ Q&A series with Jason Flemyng (Azazel) the latest to take on fans’ questions. There’s also an interesting article over at Heat Vision about the dispute that’s taken place over the writing credits on First Class, which seems to have been resolved after the WGA stepped in to try and clear things up.

Another film arriving later this summer is Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds as the first human Lantern, Hal Jordan. Yahoo debuted a couple of new character posters featuring Sinestro (Mark Strong) and Kilowog (Michael Clarke Duncan) along with the final one-sheet, with MTV releasing a promotional banner that gives us a good look at the Green Lantern Corps. Elsewhere Martin Campbell and screenwriter Greg Berlanti took part in an interview with Hero Complex in which they talked about how the upcoming film differs from other superhero efforts, while Variety announced that Warner Bros. are pumping an extra $9m into the VFX budget but remain confident that the film will be ready for its planned release date of June 17th.

Wrapping up the best of the rest…

… Pittsburgh may be doubling for Gotham City in Christopher Nolan’s final Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises but it seems that the production is also set to take in the Indian city of Jodhpur for two days of filming at Mehrangarh Fort in early May. Christian Bale is the only actor mentioned in the article but my guess would be that the location is either filling in for Peña Dura or somehow linked to the League of Shadows…

…Michael Shannon’s General Zod has found his “right-hand bitch” for Zack Snyder’s Superman reboot Man of Steel and thankfully it’s not Lindsay Lohan. Variety broke the news that German actress Antje Traue (Pandorum) has been cast as Faora and joins a cast that so far includes Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Diane Lane and Kevin Costner…

...The Amazing Spider-Man is also set to swing into cinemas in 2012 and actress Emma Stone (Gwen Stacy) has revealed that the six-month shoot on the Andrew Garfield-headlined reboot will draw to a close in mid-May...

...Disney COO and Pixar legend John Lasseter has moved to put an end to fan speculation surrounding a possible Pixar - Marvel team-up, telling IGN that "we've done superheroes here ourselves and so we have that kind of history with Brad Bird doing The Incredibles"...

...And finally, we've been running a poll over the past couple of weeks to find your most anticipated superhero film of 2011 and the results are now in. Take a look...

X-Men: First Class - 31% (165 votes)
Captain America: The First Avenger - 24% (130 votes)
Green Lantern - 22% (121 votes)
Thor - 21% (116 votes)

Gary Collinson

The Week in Spandex - The Dark Knight Rises, Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns deliver a Bat-overload

Our weekly round-up of all the talking points from the world of movie superheroes…



For the fourth week in the row Warner Bros. deliver the top story of the past seven days with the long overdue confirmation that both Joseph-Gordon Levitt and Marion Cotillard are to reunite with their Inception director Christopher Nolan on next year’s The Dark Knight Rises. JGL had been linked to everyone from Robin to Hugo Strange and Alberto Falcone, while Cottilard was expected to portray Talia al Ghul, but speculation once again proved wide of the mark with the release of an official press release on Tuesday stating that: “Cotillard will appear as Miranda Tate, a Wayne Enterprises board member eager to help a still-grieving Bruce Wayne resume his father’s philanthropic endeavors for Gotham. Gordon-Levitt will play John Blake, a Gotham City beat cop assigned to special duty under the command of Commissioner Gordon.”



So, could there be more to these roles than what we’re being led to believe? The possibility still remains that ‘Miranda Tate’ could be a cover for Talia al Ghul, especially given the double-identity of her father in Batman Begins, and of course the news that Josh Pence has been cast as a younger Ra’s for a flashback scene. As for John Blake, JGL is a pretty big name to have as an inconsequential character so you have to expect him to have an important role within the story (as Bleeding Cool discovered, the name does have history in the Batman comic line although something tells us it’s not the same guy). The Dark Knight Rises really is assembling an A-list cast with Gordon-Levitt and Cotillard joining the likes of Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman for Nolan’s final outing in Gotham City, which starts filming next month [and, if you’re desperate for anything TDKR-related, you might want to check out this purported set photo featuring a bulked-up, shaven-headed Tom Hardy].



In other big news for Bat-fans, THR revealed some details about the upcoming DC Universe Animated Original Movies adaptation of Frank Miller’s seminal comic book series Batman: Year One (as well as a couple of first-look images that you can see here). Executive produced by Bruce Timm (Batman: The Animated Series) and directed by Sam Lui (The Batman) and Lauren Montgomery (Superman/Batman: Apocalypse), the cast will feature Ben McKenzie (The O.C.) as the Caped Crusader alongside Bryan Cranston (Malcolm in the Middle) as Gordon, Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica) as Detective Sarah Essen and Eliza Dushku (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as Catwoman. The animated film is expected to premiere at the SDCC in July before a home-video release towards the end of the year. Meanwhile there’s also been talk back over at Bleeding Cool that work is already underway on an animated version of another of Frank Miller’s classic tales, The Dark Knight Returns. Here’s hoping (and hoping it's done right).



Shifting now to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which as you’d expect has been working overtime in the wake of Thor’s world premiere in Sydney this past weekend. Naturally the cast and crew have been doing a host of promotional interviews (if you're interested, there's one at the bottom of this post featuring Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston), while a poor-quality video has hit the net revealing the post-credits sequence – check it out here if you really want to spoil yourself. Despite losing out at the top of the Australian box office to Fast Five, Thor has been picking up plenty of positive reviews and one thing’s for sure, it’s not going to face much competition from The Asylum’s latest knock-off, Almighty Thor, that features a ‘stellar’ cast including Kevin Nash as barely-comprehendible Odin and Cody Deal as an Uzi-wielding God of Thunder.



Elsewhere, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige also had a few words about the future of the Cinematic Universe post-Avengers in an interview with D23: The Official Disney Fan Club (via IGN): "Thor will go off into a new adventure, and Captain America will continue to explore the modern world in another film of his own. We hope that holds true for the characters appearing in that film — Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the spy organization, S.H.I.E.L.D. —all of whom are more than worthy and capable of carrying their own films. And, we've got a lot of other characters we're prepping and getting ready for film debuts: the world of martial arts, these great cosmic space fantasies, Dr. Strange, and the magic side of the Marvel Universe. There are many, many stories to be mined." Let's just hope that by 'mined', he doesn't mean 'milked' - throw into that mix Iron Man 3, an Avengers sequel, and mooted projects such as the Inhumans, Black Panther and Luke Cage (a part which Isaiah Mustafa – a.k.a. the Old Spice Guy – continues to lobby for in a recent chat with SuperHeroHype) and it really looks as if the Disney machine is about to go into overdrive.



Another Marvel property that’s been busy this past week (as always) is X-Men, with Fox releasing yet another new poster (pictured) and a second international trailer for X-Men: First Class that gives us a sprinkling of new footage and a good look at the story between Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender). The trailers have done a pretty good job of selling the upcoming prequel, which is fortunate seeing as the poster campaign has been average at best. Meanwhile IGN posted an interesting interview with Bryan Singer in which the First Class producer discusses the inspiration behind the film, the inclusion of the Hellfire Club, character selection, the series’ continuity and potential sequels.



Wrapping up the best of the rest...



...A tweet suggested that construction is underway on a Fortress of Solitude for Zack Snyder's upcoming Superman reboot Man of Steel, featuring Henry Cavill, Michael Shannon and Amy Adams...



...Green Lantern continues to step up promotion ahead of its arrival this summer, with Warner Bros. releasing an extended TV spot and a couple of new posters featuring Hal Jordon (Ryan Reynolds) and Tomar-Re (voiced by Geoffrey Rush)...



...It seems as though it's not only Adrianne Palicki's costume that's undergone some last minute changes on the Wonder Woman pilot, with io9 reporting that David E. Kelley's teleplay was heavily rewritten during the shoot to beef up the action...



...And finally, while last week brought word that The A-Team's Bradley Cooper was being lined up to star in Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's proposed reboot of The Crow it now seems that The Weinstein Company have thrown a spanner in the works by threatening legal action over Relativity's attempts to sell the distribution rights (to anyone but themselves, you'd guess).



Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston on Thor...

Gary Collinson

The Week in Spandex - Man of Steel, The Dark Knight Rises, X-Men: First Class and more

Our weekly round-up of all the talking points from the world of movie superheroes…

We start things off this week with the news that character actor Michael Shannon (The Runaways, Jonah Hex, Boardwalk Empire) has signed on to Zack Snyder's upcoming Superman reboot Man of Steel as bearded baddie General Zod, a role made famous by Terence Stamp in the original Superman and Superman II. Shannon won the part against rumoured competition from the likes of Viggo Mortensen and Edgar Ramirez and his casting seems to have been met with a positive response from the fan community. Shannon joins a cast that so far includes Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Diane Lane and Kevin Costner, and he had a few words about meeting with Snyder and Cavill in a short interview posted earlier this week.

Sticking with Metropolis for a moment and LatinoReview posted some potential spoilers from a 'reliable source'; concerning the film's Batman Begins-style approach, Man of Steel will go into some detail retreading - sorry, rebooting - Superman's origin and includes both Kal-El's Kryptonian parents (with Daniel Day-Lewis having been under consideration for Jor-El as opposed to Zod) and his infant homeworld, which is apparantly going to look a bit like Coruscant. Oh, and the female villain - yes, the one Lindsay Lohan has been linked to - isn't Ursa, but rather Faora, the comic-book character that served as the inspiration for Zod's 'right hand bitch'. If the past few weeks are anything to go by, expect more Man of Steel announcements tomorrow.

Moving on and Christopher Nolan continues to populate the cast of The Dark Knight Rises, with Variety reporting that a trio of actors are up for supporting roles. Daniel Sunjata (Rescue Me, Grey's Anatomy) is tapped to portray a 'courageous special forces operative' and Diego Klattenhoff (Mean Girls, Lucky Number Slevin) a 'rookie cop looking to make a difference', with Burn Gorman (Layer Cake, Torchwood) also said to be under consideration for an unspecified part. Furthermore, Lost's Richard Alpert - a.k.a. Nestor Carbonell - is in talks to reprise his role as the Mayor from The Dark Knight and should negotiations go smoothly they'll join a burgeoning cast that includes Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Juno Temple, Josh Pence and - if and when they finally get around to confirming it - Marion Cottilard.

The first superhero movie of the summer hits this weekend as Marvel Studios' Thor receives its world premiere in Sydney, Australia. We've been inundated with promotional material over the past month and the marketing machine continues to roll on with the release of a couple of cool Thor apps and a behind-the-scenes featurette that features the thoughts of Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman and Kenneth Branagh, along with a brief glimpse into the world of Asgard. Finally, if you're interested in spoiling yourself further, AICN posted a pretty good breakdown of the Thor footage show at the Kapow Comic-Con in London last weekend.

Elsewhere in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and with filming about to commence on The Avengers, we're starting to get a few scraps of information about Joss Whedon's upcoming superhero ensemble. Hemsworth and Captain America: The First Avenger's Chris Evans had a few words about the scale of the project, promising that there'll be "plenty of conflict" between Earth's Mightiest Heroes, while Mark Ruffalo suggested in an interview that his version of the Hulk could be sporting a full-on gamma-enhanced chest rug. And, looking further ahead, Captain America screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely spoke to MTV and briefly touched upon their approach to the post-Avengers Cap sequel.

Another franchise planning well in advance is Fox's X-Men; in addition to a host of spin-offs (more on those in a second), X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn and producer Bryan Singer talked to Total Film about possibilities for the remainder of the proposed trilogy, including shifting the action to the 70s and 80s for the next two installments. Meanwhile Harry Knowles over at AICN got word that Moon and Source Code director Duncan Jones was set to meet with Fox about stepping into Darren Aronofsky's shoes on The Wolverine, despite a reported lack of interest in the project. Finally, it's also been announced that Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool project is now going by the name of X-Men Origins: Deadpool, which begs a couple of questions: a) haven't we already seen Deadpool's (hideous) origin in X-Men Origins: Wolverine?; and b) why on earth would they want to associate the new film with that disappointing mess, especially when it's meant to be a reboot of the character?

And the best of the rest…

...A while back we heard that Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) and Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) remained attached to their live-action Ant-Man feature for Marvel Studios, and speaking at the Kapow Comic-Con last weekend the pair confirmed that they had just delivered a second draft of the screenplay...

...Could Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy have competition for Andrew Garfield's affections in The Amazing Spider-Man? SuperHeroHype discovered a casting call for an "actress to portray beautiful red-headed teenage girl for featured background", which immediately opens up the possibility of a cameo by Mary Jane Watson...

...Oscar-nominee Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile, Daredevil) is close to a deal to lend his voice to Kilowog in Martin Campbell's Green Lantern, joining a cast that includes Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong, Angela Bassett, Tim Robbins, Temuera Morrison, Taika Waititi and recent addition Geoffrey Rush...

...And finally, THR have announced that Bradley Cooper (The A-Team, Limitless) has started negotiations with Relativity Media to star in their remake of The Crow, which is of course based on James O'Barr's gritty underground comic series. The project seems to be coming together quickly, with Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) coming on board just last week and production expected to get underway later this year.

Gary Collinson