For this week’s Fan Stuff Sunday we have quite the blockbuster filled one. From Marvel V DC, Planet Hulk to Marvel’s Ultimate Alliance, Adkins’ Daken, and much much more!
So prepare yourself for a mountain worth of Marvel news coming to you! We have a vast amount of all things Marvel related this week. We’re talking Deadpool, X-Men: Apocalypse, Captain America: Civil War, Agent Carter, Agents of SHIELD, and a hell of a lot more!
So enjoy!!
DEADPOOL NEWS
Ryan Reynolds took a break from getting hit in the face as Wade Wilson to make a young fan’s day. 15-year-old Calista King paid a visit to the Deadpool set last week, and not only scored a sweet looking sword but was also given a walk-on part in the movie. Reynolds also posted a second image of the Merc With a Mouth relaxing in front of that cheesy electronic fire. By the sounds of things, the bearskin rug must have picked up a couple of stains.
Back in March, Hugh Jackman (The Wolverine) told MTV that he would be interested in appearing in the new Deadpool movie, and now the film’s star Ryan Reynolds (Green Lantern) has been asked if Wolverine will “pop up.”
“God I hope so, that would be really nice,” Reynolds told the Australian website news.com.au while promoting Woman In Gold. “I dunno, we’ll see. It seems like he’s open to it, but it’s gonna be more of a scheduling issue than anything else.”
In the comics, Wolverine and Deadpool have intertwining backstories and beyond that they have done plenty of verbal and physical sparring. Plus, the two actors are close friends. That friendship began on the set of X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), which is the first time Ryan Reynolds played Wade Wilson/Deadpool.
The image below (which we’ve had to split into two unfortunately) is featured in this month’s edition of Empire Magazine, and as you can see, it gives us yet another great look at Ryan Reynolds in costume as Deadpool. This hopefully means Empire will have a cover story on the movie in an upcoming issue as we still don’t know a huge amount about the movie despite a ton of set photos finding their way online recently.
While taking a short break from leaping dramatically over moving cars and murdering Mario Lopez, Deadpool’s Ryan Reynolds had the chance to make one young fan’s dream come true. Tony Acevedo is currently fighting against Hodgkin’s Disease, and recently got the chance to visit the Vancouver set to meet Reynolds and the crew – courtesy of the Make A Wish Foundation.
Based upon Marvel Comics’ most unconventional anti-hero, DEADPOOL tells the origin story of former Special Forces operative turned mercenary Wade Wilson, who after being subjected to a rogue experiment that leaves him with accelerated healing powers, adopts the alter ego Deadpool. Armed with his new abilities and a dark, twisted sense of humor, Deadpool hunts down the man who nearly destroyed his life.
Deadpool is directed by Tim Miller, and stars Ryan Reynolds (Wade Wilson), Morena Baccarin (Vanessa Carlysle), T.J. Miller (Weasel), with Ed Skrein, and Brianna Hildebrand (Ellie Phimister). The movie is scheduled to hit theaters on February 12, 2016.
MOVING ON TO CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
According to Lainey Gossip, who has been nonchalantly dropping some interesting tidbits about the Marvel Cinematic Universe for some time now, the aforementioned African Market sequence is actually the “first big action set piece of the movie […] that kicks off the Civil War.” Apparently, there will be a lot of innocent civilians killed amid the battle between Cap’s new Avengers team and Crossbones, which seems to be the “international incident” mentioned in the official synopsis that will ultimately cause the world governments to enforce some control over superhero activity.
About the Winter Soldier, Lainey Gossip reveals that he will be “the touchstone of the conflict” in Captain America: Civil War especially considering secret identities are not as big of an issue in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as they are in the “Civil War” comic book storyline. Many have been wondering just how Bucky will factor into the superhero-packed adaptation, but we know from Avengers: Age of Ultron that he’s still being sought out by Captain America. And it’s been said that Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) “may be using the government registration” to also help track down the brainwashed super soldier who assassinated his parents, as revealed in The Winter Soldier.
Furthermore, it was recently reported that the Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) will also be hunting down the Winter Soldier for reasons currently unknown, but Lainey Gossip adds that Crossbones also wants the Winter Soldier, or rather his “HYDRA pet,” back under his control. The source then dropped this very intriguing nugget: “Civil War is a critical moment for Sebastian Stan and Bucky Barnes—he has to get everyone on his side by the end of this movie, because his role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to get a lot bigger.”
After visiting the set of Captain America: Civil War over the past few days, star Jeremy Renner, who played the awesome & badass Clint Barton a.k.a. Hawkeye in Avengers: Age Of Ultron, officially suited up this week to shoot his first scenes in the Marvel epic. To celebrate the occasion, Renner shared two behind-the-scenes snaps of him on set, one of which may have revealed an updated logo for the movie. Check out his tweets below:
Perhaps the most exciting thing to come out of last week’s batch of photos from the Civil War set was our first look at Frank Grillo in costume as the villanous ‘Crossbones’. Evidently filming some sort of stand-off against Chris Evans’ Captain America and more than a few of his Avengers pals, this appeared to be one of the movie’s earlier action sequences (although there’s really no way of telling for sure at the moment). Fans excited to see more of Brock Rumlow may be about to be a little disappointed though, thanks to a recent post from the actor’s official Instagram account:
The supremely talented Oscar Isaac was recently a guest on the Monkeys Fighting Robots podcast recently and briefly touched on his work on Star Wars: The Force Awakens and X-Men: Apocalypse. On the latter, Isaac confirmed that he’s already begun filming for Apocalypse and that he’s still digesting the script and developing his take on the character. “I’ve been reading the script a lot and trying to come at for me, a interesting angle. Definitely focusing on the fact he is the embodiment of the second coming of the judgments of god and that energy going in. We’re playing with that. What we are trying to do is make his philosophy and what his mission is, one that is both simple but also holds water, that really makes sense throughout the whole movie. I think Simon Kinberg and Bryan Singer, we’ve been able to come up with something very cool.”
2016 is a crowded and incredibly exciting year for superhero movies, but one release which is flying somewhat under the radar is Gambit, an X-Men spinoff starring Channing Tatum. The actor landed the role after making it clear in interviews how interested in the Cajun character he is, and Fox are currently in the process of hunting for a director. So, just how excited is the actor about the movie?
“I love Gambit,” Tatum says in the latest issue of Empire Magazine. “I grew up in the South; my father’s from Loiuisiana. We’d go to New Orleans and I heard all the dialects. It felt so different from the rest of America; it has its own ancient culture. So I identified with that. And he always felt the most real of the X-Men to me. He’s kind of a tortured soul and he’s not a good guy. But he’s not a bad guy, either. He walks his own path. And of course he plays cards and drinks and is a martial-arts badass!” It sounds like the movie is going to be pretty faithful to the comic books then, but that’s not a huge surprise what with X-Men scribe Chris Claremont writing its treatment.
As for the current status of Gambit, the actor added: “Josh Zetumer just turned in the first draft of the script, and it’s killer. None of us were sure how he was going to deal with the X-Men world. But we’re going to be changing some of the tropes of these movies. It’s always about saving the world (Laughs), but maybe we’re going to shift things a liittle but. There’s so many ways you can take [an origin story]. You could do it like Batman Begins, or a different take and go the Guardians of the Galaxy route. All I can say is, I’m super excited.”
Who is Caliban? He’s a mutant with the ability to sense other mutants within a 25 mile radius, and as well as being a Morlock, Caliban has been a member of X-Factor and X-Force. However, it’s his relationship with Apocalypse which will no doubt come into play in X-Men: Apocalypse. As a Morlock, the character looked pretty emaciated and unimpressive, but he later transformed into a far more impressive figure when he decided to align himself with Apocalypse.
According to ComicVine, “For a while Caliban was known as Hellhound, but was later officially announced as Death, Archangel’s replacement in Apocalypse’s Horsemen. He would use his enhanced senses and strength to locate more mutants for Apocalypse, and his personal anger and rage to punish his enemies.” How much of this will factor into X-Men: Apocalypse remains to be seen.
Well, this is very interesting. The Pepsi sign definitely appears to indicate that the scene below(thanks to Empire) from X-Men: Apocalypse is taking place in the 1980s rather than a desolate future of some sort, and it looks like Cyclops and Jean Grey are wearing costumes which are at least somewhat similar to the uniforms the youngsters have in the pages of All-New X-Men. Hey, at least it’s not black leather anyway. Who they’re battling isn’t clear (Archangel seems like a likely candidate) or what that structure is, but common sense says it all has something to do with the movie’s titular villain!
Photographer Melissa Paradis has managed to get some very nice snaps of a few of the cast members of X-Men: Apocalypse in and around the Montreal set of the movie. As you can see they’re clearly not gearing up to shoot anything here, but, unlike Alexandra Shipp who’s covering her (presumably) white hair with a hat, Olivia Munn’s purple-tinted do is on full display as she pets her pooch. Hopefully we’ll get some pics of theese guys in costume over the next few days.
X-Men: Apocalypse, directed by Bryan Singer (X-Men: Days of Future Past), will hit theaters on May 27, 2016 and stars Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), Michael Fassbender (Magneto), James McAvoy (Charles Xavier), Nicholas Hoult (Beast), Oscar Isaac (Apocalypse), Rose Byrne (Moira McTaggert), Sophie Turner (Jean Grey), Alexandra Shipp (Storm), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Nightcrawler), Tye Sheridan (Cyclops), Ben Hardy (Angel), Olivia Munn(Psylocke), Lucas Till(Havok) and Lana Condor (Jubillee).
FANTASTIC FOUR NEWS
A new international look at Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot has been released it is mostly made up of footage from earlier trailers, but there are some previously unseen shots of Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and the Thing getting used to their burgeoning abilities.
So begins Michael B. Jordan’s letter (via EW) in response to the backlash his casting in Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot received. His character, Johnny Storm aka the Human Torch, was a white guy in the comics so even though Jordan had proven himself a fine actor with roles in the likes of Fruitvale Station and Chronicle, this was always going to be a problem for raci…, err, purists. The actor had commented on this previously in interviews, but this the first time he’s come out with a full, in-depth response.
He goes on to say that he’s stopped being bothered by the negativity, and can see everyone’s perspective when it comes to going against 50 years of comic book continuity. “But the world is a little more diverse in 2015 than when the Fantastic Four comic first came out in 1961,” he continues. “Plus, if Stan Lee writes an email to my director saying, “You’re good. I’m okay with this,” who am I to go against that?”
“You’re not supposed to go on the Internet when you’re cast as a superhero. But after taking on Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four—a character originally written with blond hair and blue eyes—I wanted to check the pulse out there. I didn’t want to be ignorant about what people were saying. Turns out this is what they were saying: “A black guy? I don’t like it. They must be doing it because Obama’s president” and “It’s not true to the comic.” Or even, “They’ve destroyed it!” “Sometimes you have to be the person who stands up and says, “I’ll be the one to shoulder all this hate. I’ll take the brunt for the next couple of generations.” I put that responsibility on myself. People are always going to see each other in terms of race, but maybe in the future we won’t talk about it as much. Maybe, if I set an example, Hollywood will start considering more people of color in other prominent roles, and maybe we can reach the people who are stuck in the mindset that “it has to be true to the comic book.” Or maybe we have to reach past them. To the trolls on the Internet, I want to say: Get your head out of the computer. Go outside and walk around. Look at the people walking next to you. Look at your friends’ friends and who they’re interacting with. And just understand this is the world we live in. It’s okay to like it.”
FANTASTIC FOUR, a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team, centers on four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.
Directed by Josh Trank, The Fantastic Four reboot stars Miles Teller as Mr. Fantastic, Michael B. Jordan as the Human Torch, Kate Mara as Invisible Woman, and Jamie Bell as the Thing. The film is scheduled for release on August 7, 2015.
AGENT CARTER & AGENTS OF SHIELD NEWS
Iain DeCaestecker & Nick Blood had the following conversations talking about the future of Agents of SHIELD in the upcoming third season!
“Director Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) embarks on a deadly new secret mission to protect the world from new threats in the wake of SHIELD’s wars with Hydra and a rogue faction of Inhumans.”
Some good news for Agent Carter fans here. Actress Haley Atwell has revealed that the upcoming second season of the show will run for 10 episodes – 2 more than its debut season. Peggy and co. are set to return to our screens during Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s midseason hiatus, but there’s no word on whether the extra couple of Agent Carter episodes will have any bearing on the length of the third season of Marvel’s flagship series.
Atwell also says that she’ll be crashing the Atlanta set of Captain America: Civil War next week, but she’s most likely just kidding since we know that.
“Dedicated to the fight against new atomic age threats in the wake of World War II, Peggy must now journey from New York City to Los Angeles for her most dangerous assignment yet. But even as she discovers new friends, a new home — and perhaps even a new love — she’s about to find out that the bright lights of the post-war Hollywood mask a more sinister threat to everyone she is sworn to protect.”
When it came to boarding ABC’s Marvel limited series Agent Carter as composer, Christopher Lennertz, who had an interview with Deadline, already had the job before the cameras rolled. More specifically, he served as composer for the Marvel One-Shot: Agent Carter short that was included on the Avengers DVD. The short’s director, Marvel copresident Louis D’Esposito, also helmed Agent Carter’s first episode and served as the series executive producer.
What made Lennertz—a 2006 Emmy nominee for his Supernatural score—the lead contender for the gig was his experience with 1940s-era military music as well as the spy genre sound, respectively accentuated in his scores for the Steven Spielberg World War II videogame Medal of Honor and the 2005 James Bond game From Russia with Love.
“They wanted the music to be smart and lush,” says Lennertz of the direction from the Marvel folk. “(Agent Peggy Carter) isn’t a superhero, but she’s a super spy, and the action music lives in the world of James Bond and Mission: Impossible.”
In exuding Carter’s spirit, Lennertz employed brass indicative of the big band era, specifically French horns for the action scenes, as well as strings. “Peggy is sexy and seductive and with the strings one can slip into espionage and tension,” explains the composer.
At one point, Lennertz’s orchestra numbered 60 members, including a Russian men’s choir for a folk choral piece used in episode five. But one of the most vital instruments that truly captured Carter’s aura was Lennertz’s use of the alto flute. “It feels like a strong woman’s voice, especially as she’s sneaking around” he says of the instrument heard frequently in composer John Barry’s Bond scores. “It also has that spy quality. Peggy is a real ’40s woman—curvy and strong. She can hold a machine gun with the best of them.”
JESSICA JONES NEWS
A couple of weeks ago, Netflix unveiled the latest synopsis for A.K.A. Jessica Jones, which is currently filming in New York and should wrap sometime in July. Since then, however, things have been relatively quiet besides some set photos.
With the show nearing the end of production, that should change soon enough. We should be getting an official logo soon, if not a concept poster, and possibly an official still or two to get fans excited for the release later this year. (As of right now, there is no official release date although it is looking like it’ll be in November or December.)
For now, we have a few photos of Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones) and David Tennant (Purple Man), thanks to the DailyMail, on set to hold us over.
Ever since her short-lived stint as a Super Hero ended in tragedy, Jessica Jones has been rebuilding her personal life and career as a hot-tempered, sardonic, badass private detective in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City. Plagued by self-loathing, and a wicked case of PTSD, Jessica battles demons from within and without, using her extraordinary abilities as an unlikely champion for those in need… especially if they’re willing to cut her a check.
RANDOM TIDBITS
The Amazing Spider-Man Universe is dead. Andrew Garfield will no longer be playing Peter Parker when the wall-crawler makes his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, and Sony’s spinoff plans have been put on the back burner while Kevin Feige looks to repair the damage they did to the franchise.
One idea thrown around by Sony was a female led spinoff, and some “Sony Hack” emails actually addressed the possibility or bringing Emma Stone back as either Spider-Gwen or – seriously – Carnage. That could still happen, and when MTV News caught up with the actress, they asked her if she would be interested in taking on the role. It sounds like she very much is, and while Stone points out that a lot of moving parts would have to come together to make it happen, Marvel and Sony would no doubt have a hit on their hands if they moved forward with Spider-Gwen.
The video is also well worth a watch to see Bradley Cooper’s complete befuddlement at the name as he questions why she would be called Spider-Gwen when Spider-Man isn’t called “Spider-Peter”.
Latino-Review.com reported, and backed up by El Mayimbe, that Asa Butterfield (Hugo, Ender’s Game) had been cast as the new Spider-Man. After that news broke several trades denied Butterfield got the part, but did verify he is the frontrunner.
That same day, a link to that story was posted on Reddit. Nothing unusual about that, except for the fact that Asa Butterfield himself dropped in and made two comments, which he later deleted. He did so using the screename “Stimpers,” which he verified for an AMA years back.
Because Butterfield hasn’t appeared in a lot of projects over the past few years, many outlets have been using old images of the actor when he was much shorter. This has led to a misconception about his height, which Butterfield clarified.
He then deleted those comments. Why? Notice how he didn’t confirm nor deny the report. Was he instructed by Marvel or his agent to delete them?
Some audition tapes were going around for season two of Daredevil, and they appear to be for fan-favourite character Elektra. They’re looking for actresses with martial arts and dance experience, and the two featured here both have very exotic looks.
As you can see, there is no videos here as they have now been removed from many video sites, adding some weight to the speculation that they were meant for the role of Elektra.
Elektra for the uninitiated is a lethal scarlet assassin. Daredevil’s most fearsome enemy as well as his former lover and most renowned as being the greatest assassin in the world.
A few weeks ago, we heard reports that Marvel were interested in hiring director Ava DuVernay to helm one of their upcoming Phase 3 movies – widely rumored to be either Black Panther or Captain Marvel. The Wrap, who originally broke the news, recently sat down with actor David Oyelowo, who received a Golden Globe nod for his portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. in DuVernay’s Selma. The actor insisted that a studio like Marvel would be “smart” to hire his longtime colleague:
“The thing about Ava is everything she touches she elevates. She bakes into it who she is. So, if Marvel is as smart and as brave to go on that journey with Ava, I’m personally the first in line to see what she does with that. I think she’s going to take it in directions that are both exciting and provocative, and different to what you’ve seen thus far. It’s always going to be a Marvel movie, but she is so singular as a director that I think her, plus that brand is an exciting idea.”
While Oyelowo did seem very excited to see his friend join up with the world of CBMs, he himself appeared to be a little more hesitant about the idea of starring in one:
“For me personally, I tread with caution around the notion of those kinds of characters. Depending on which one of them you’re playing, there’s always a danger you’re going to get so identified with this larger than life character, that it could become tougher for audiences to believe you in other roles.”
Check out some fantastic Avengers: Age of Ultron concept art that was recently posted by Marvel Studios’ conceptual designer Josh Herman, and the visual effects company MPC (Moving Picture Company).
Josh uploaded the work he did on Iron Man’s Mark 45 armor (along with Phil Saunders), Hulkbuster armor (along with Josh Nizzi), the villainous Ultron (along with Ryan Meinerding and Charlie Wen) and various designs for the peacekeeping robots known as the Iron Legion.
MPC released four images featuring designs for the interior of Avengers Tower, formerly known as Stark Tower. We got a good look at during the party scene that Ultron (voiced by James Spader) crashed. What a party pooper.
And that is that for another Marvel Madness. Hopefully you are all stocked up on all things Marvel for this week! Check back next week for more!
To no one’s surprise, Avengers: Age of Ultron is another smash hit for Disney and Marvel Studios. And as the Joss Whedon-directed sequel continues its success at the box office, conceptual artwork is surfacing online from the “Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron: The Art of the Movie Slipcase” book, which is currently available on Amazon. Revealing some great early costume designs for the Scarlet Witch (with her trademark headband), as well as for Quicksilver, Ultron, and the original team, some concept art can be seen below. For your consideration the conceptual artists are Ryan Meinerding, Andy Park, Phil Saunders, Charlie Wen, and Jack Dudman!
Well will you look at that it is another Wednesday which means another Marvel Madness! This week’s edition we have an Ant-Man poster, Civil War promo art, Joss revealing all, Ruffalo talking HULK, Spider-Man directors?, and much much more!
By way of a thank you for making Avengers: Age Of Ultron a “global event”, Marvel has released a new theatrical poster for their next movie, Ant-Man. This international one-sheet features Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) surrounded by friend and foe alike.
In “Ant-Man,” Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) approaches master thief Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) with a suit that grants him the ability to shrink in size but increases his strength! Scott must embrace his inner hero and put the suit to good use and save the world under Pym’s leadership.
Ant-Man stars Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Corey Stoll, Evangeline Lilly, David Dastmalchian, Michael Pena, Bobby Cannavale, Abby Ryder Fortson, Judy Greer, Wood Harris John Slattery and Gregg Turkington. The film opens July 17, 2015
Umberto Gonzales has given us our first promo art for the upcoming Marvel movie, Captain America: Civil War, and as you can see, Steve’s suit hasn’t been changed all that much from Avengers: Age of Ultron, but it does have quite a bit more red and maybe a slightly more armoured look. He’s going to need that extra protection too, especially as Iron Man appears to be in a version of the “Bleeding Edge” armour from the comic books. The circular arc reactor Joss Whedon was so fond of also appears to be gone, while the helmet gives off something of an Ultimate vibe
Also speaking to MTV, Chris Evans stopped short of calling Captain America: Civil War an Avengers film. Instead, he revealed that Civil War is more of a “setup man” for Avengers: Infinity War. Said Evans, “Captain America: Civil War is the jumpoff into Avengers: The Infinity War. Civil War is going to be the setup for the real battle. So yeah, there are a lot of people – a lot of people in Cap 3.”
Watch the video above to see the rest of the Age of Ultron cast discuss appearing in Civil War and coyly tease where their allegiances may lie between Captain America and Iron Man.
Captain America: Civil War is directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, and confirmed cast members include: Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers / Captain America, Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton / Hawkeye, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier, Daniel Brühl as Baron Zemo, Frank Grillo as Brock Rumlow / Crossbones, Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson / Falcon, and Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa / Black Panther. The film is set for release on May 6, 2016.
Age of Ultron Spoilers Incoming*
CinemaBlend asked him if Aaron Taylor-Johnson took the role of Quicksilver because he knew that it would be a one-and-done part, that he wouldn’t be locked into a lengthy Marvel contract, like other actors. And according to Aaron Taylor-Johnson, that wasn’t the case, at all. The actor told me during our exclusive interview:
No, because… I still feel like, you know, they were the best. I mean, I thoroughly enjoyed working on [this movie], and would love to do, I would love to being doing more movies with the guys at Marvel. Maybe there will be some case where that might happen. Again, I’m not sure, but…”
At that point, I pointed out that no one really dies in the MCU. Nick Fury and Special Agent Phil Coulson both “died” on screen, but found ways to return. Elaborating on that, Aaron Taylor-Johnson admitted to me:
I’d love to find what that loophole is, because I think they’re the best guys I’ve worked with in a long time, and yeah, you know, it’s cool.”
While talking with Empire Magazine, Avengers: Age of Ultron writer/director Joss Whedon talked about the shocking death in the movie, the new line-up at the end, what part Loki would have played in the film, his hopes of having Captain Marvel and Spider-Man in the film, and the Hulk in space rumors.
Here’s some of the things he talked about but check out the podcast down below!
Whedon revealed that there were never any real plans to send the Hulk to space, and that there are still no plans for a Planet Hulk movie, at least not that he knows of.
“You know, I never intended to shoot him into space. What I wanted to do was indicate that he might. I wanted the sky above him to be slightly thinner. A few stars. Because, you know, I put in, very specifically, the line, ‘Where in the world am I not a threat?’ And I wanted to leave people with the idea that, if this is the last movie, that he may have left the world behind, because I think there is something enormously poetic about that. There is also something enormously misleading about that, because they don’t plan to make Planet Hulk, as far as I know, so they were like, ‘No, just sky, no stars,’ which was less poetic, but still very beautiful.”
One of the weirder digressions in Avengers: Age of Ultron has Thor seeking answers to questions that crop up in a nightmare sequence. It feels tacked on, almost as if it were part of a much longer storyline that was whittled down into near-incoherence. As it turns out, that’s exactly what it is.
Director Joss Whedon reveals what we’re missing in the final cut of the movie, and with that added context, it makes much more sense.
Whedon explains what was supposed to happen.
There was a 195-minute cut of this movie. The original scene was that Thor went to speak to the Norn and how it would work was that he’d go in the pool and the Norn possess him, basically, and Erik Selvig asks all the questions, and the Norn, speaking through Thor, give the answers. So Chris [Hemsworth] got to do something different, and he really threw himself into it, and he did a beautiful job, but it wasn’t well regarded by the test audiences and I feel it’s probably largely because it was a rough cut with no effects, but also because it’s something that in a Thor movie would work brilliantly, but in this movie is just a little too left of centre.
The Norn are, essentially, goddesses of destiny within the Marvel universe. I’m betting one of them is the mystery woman in the cave who was spotted in early trailers for Avengers: Age of Ultron, but got cut before the film hit theaters.
Whedon admitted that integrating Thor into Avengers: Age of Ultron was a challenge, but thought the subplot he finally came up with was “a huge win.” Unfortunately, the execs didn’t seem to agree:
The dreams were not an executive favorite. The dreams, the farmhouse, these were things I fought [for]. With the cave, they pointed a gun at the farm’s head and ‘Give us the cave’. They got the farm. In a civilized way – I respect these guys, but that’s when it got really unpleasant. There was a point when there was going to be no cave, and Thor was going to leave and come back and say, ‘I figured some stuff out.’ And at that point I was so beaten down, I was like, ‘Sure, okay… what movie is this?’ The editors were like, ‘No no, you have to show the thing, you just can’t say it.’ I was like, ‘Okay, thank you, we can figure this out!’ You can tell it was beaten down, but it was hard won.
In his latest round of Avengers: Age of Ultron post-premiere interviews, director Joss Whedon has revealed that he filmed an ending with a very different outcome. And for anyone who’s seen the film can probably guess, that outcome involves a living and breathing Quicksilver, who perished in the film’s final act.
Whedon revealed to the Empire Film Podcast that he fully intends for Quicksilver to stay dead:
It felt very disingenuous for me, especially the second time around, to make what I refer to as ‘a war movie’ and say that there is no price and everybody walks away. In this movie, we’re saying, ‘Prove to me that you guys are heroes.’ And he’s the guy that does it. I knew it would be resonant, and make everything else work better and matter more. The city in the air, that’s just an explosion – Wanda’s grief, that’s extraordinary.
It’s not ultimately up to Whedon, though, and he’s well aware of that fact. In fact, he planned for the possibility that he would be overruled.
I said to Aaron, ‘The only way you’ll stay alive is if the Disney executives say, “Hey idiot, this is a franchise, and we need all these people and you’re not allowed to kill them off!” We did actually shoot him in the last scene, in an outfit, with his sister. We also shot him, waking up, saying, ‘Ah, I didn’t really die from these 47 bullet wounds!’
*End of Spoilers
Whedon addressed the Avengers Age of Ultron Spider-Man rumors. Speaking about the Avengers lineup at the end of the movie, he revealed:
I wanted all those people. I said, it would be great if we could just add a few more, if we could have a Captain Marvel there, that you’ve made a deal for. And they talked about it. I was like, ‘And Spider-Man, we could do that too, cause Sony had approached us during the first movie about a little integration. So I would have put both of them in, but neither of the deals were made. And then they were like, ‘We’re making a Captain Marvel movie and we’ve got Spider-Man as a property,’ and I’m like, ‘I’ve already locked my film, you fuckers! Thanks for nothing.’
Here’s the podcast to listen to your heart’s content:
Collider had a chat with the HULK himself, Mark Ruffalo, they talked about Avengers: Age of Ultron, his movie contract with Marvel, Hulk’s involvement in Captain America: Civil War, and more!
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Mark Ruffalo:
Discusses worst job before acting and his old boss. [01:31–5:00]: Talks about most memorable moment on the set of Avengers: Age of Ultron, his movie contract with Marvel, Hulk’s involvement in Captain America: Civil War, and why we haven’t seen a new standalone Hulk film. [5:01–9:10]: Discusses the future of Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in regards to the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron and beyond, his discussions with Joss Whedon, and twists in the film. [9:11–11:00]: Talks about deleted scenes in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and teases Now You See Me 2.
If you saw AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, and the box office returns indicate you probably did, you likely noticed multiple scenes in the film that address the potential casualties as a result of Ultron’s actions as well as those of the Avengers themselves. This is a stark contrast to the events in both MAN OF STEEL and THE AVENGERS, two films criticized in different ways for the way they tackled the civilian body count in their respective scenes of city-wide destruction.
In an interview with Vulture, director Joss Whedon responded to why they felt it was necessary to represent the carnage responsibly.
“Absolutely, yes. Something that Kevin and I talked about from the start was that we’d seen a little bit of a trend in movies where the city gets destroyed and the heroes say, ‘We won!’ And I’m thinking, Define ‘win.’ [AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON] gets back to what’s important, which is that the people you’re trying to protect are people. We knew that we wanted to play with a lot of big, fun destruction, but at the same time, we wanted to say, ‘There’s a price for this.’ So we got very specific about it, because whether the Avengers are heroes or not is called into question in this movie, or whether the hero as a concept is still useful for society. It sort of becomes the central issue in the final battle, and it’s also a good way for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to be put at a disadvantage.”
During an appearance on the Conan show on Monday night, Jeremy Renner opened up about the trouble that he got into for calling Black Widow a slut.
“It was a joke, off-colored, whatever, but yeah, I’m unapologetic about a lot of things,” said Renner. “But yeah, I got in a lot of Internet trouble. I guess that’s a thing now.”
Renner added, “I was asked the question like, so Black Widow’s been linked to Hawkeye, Iron Man, Bruce Banner, and Captain America, so what do you think about that. Well, I said, ‘It sounds like she’s a slut.’ Now, mind you, I was talking about a fictional character and fictional behavior, but Conan if you slept with four of the six Avengers, no matter how much fun you had, you’d be a slut.”
Collider recently spoke with Hardy, and touched on superhero movies with the actor. Hardy was set to star in the supervillain team-up film Suicide Squad, but had to drop out. Nevertheless, he still wants to do a comic book movie, and at the top of his list is The Punisher:
Collider: I heard Warner Bros. has a few more superhero movies, maybe one or two that they’re developing [Laughs].
HARDY: I want The Punisher… I want The Punisher, or Splinter Cell, I want something…I don’t know what I want.
You as Punisher could be very interesting.
HARDY: I’m not big enough to be The Punisher, I’m 5’9” [Laughs].
But I actually think that adds to the character.
HARDY: Frank Castle, I would love it. Is that him, isn’t it?
Yeah. It’s Frank Castle.
In the following interview with MTV News, Daredevil star Charlie Cox reveals which specific comic book storyline featuring a team-up between the Man Without Fear and Spider-Man he’s particularly fond of, as well as his desire to make that a reality on the big or small screen.
The British actor also comments on his character’s role in the likes of Civil War and the New Avengers, and seems hopeful that he will end up becoming part of one of those in Marvel’s Phase 3 slate. Cox also expresses disappointment that real-life friend Andrew Garfield is no longer Spidey.
Deadline are reporting that Marvel Studios have narrowed their search for the director of the Untitled MCU Spider-Man. They sat that these are in contention for the director’s chair: 50/50 and Warm Bodies writer/helmer Jonathan Levine; Ted Melfi, writer/director of Golden Globe-nommed St. Vincent; Pitch Perfect helmer Jason Moore; John Francis Daley & Jonathan M. Goldstein, the directors/writers of the updated version of John Hughes’ Vacation; and Napoleon Dynamite and Don Verdean writer/director Jared Hess.
Deadline also gives us a possible plot-line for the movie itself saying that Kevin Feige and his producing accomplice Amy Pascal are planning an arc that will tell the Spidey story over three to four movies, each covering a year of high school for Peter Parker, who’ll already have been bitten by the radioactive spider so we don’t have to see that all over again.
Slight AoU Spoilers
As we know, Thanos will try and assemble all of the Infinity Gems before we get to Avengers: Infinity War part one and two. Even though we have a pretty long way to go before we lay eyes on this film, you can keep your knowledge of the MCU fresh. How so? You can check out a handy new infographic constructed by IGN, which tells you everything you’d want to know about the infinity stones we’ve seen so far.
Ant-Man will be in theaters July 17, 2015; Captain America: Civil War – May 6, 2016; Doctor Strange – November 4, 2016; Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – May 5, 2017; Spider-Man reboot – July 28, 2017; Thor: Ragnarok – November 3, 2017; The Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 – May 4, 2018; Black Panther – July 6, 2018; Captain Marvel – November 2, 2018; The Avengers: Infinity War Part 2 – May 3, 2019; Inhumans – July 12, 2019.
Phew! That’s a wrap for me for this week’s Marvel Madness, click here for other things and don’t forget to come back next week for more Marvelous news!
The following video takes a closer look at the work which went into bringing the Hulk vs. Hulkbuster fight to life in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and it’s revealed that the plan was for the Green Goliath to go grey during the time he spend under the control of the Scarlet Witch. A specific reason for that not happening in the movie isn’t given, but it sounds like Marvel decided to keep him his original colour, possibly overruling Whedon’s original plan. Who knows, but as merchandise was made for a grey “Savage Hulk”, it might have been a choice made at a fairly late stage in production.
Ant-Man will be in theaters July 17, 2015; Captain America: Civil War – May 6, 2016; Doctor Strange – November 4, 2016; Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – May 5, 2017; Spider-Man reboot – July 28, 2017; Thor: Ragnarok – November 3, 2017; The Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 – May 4, 2018; Black Panther – July 6, 2018; Captain Marvel – November 2, 2018; The Avengers: Infinity War Part 2 – May 3, 2019; Inhumans – July 12, 2019.
Amid all the chaos and superhero action in Avengers: Age of Ultron, it’s revealed that Clint Barton aka Hawkeye not only has a secret home in the country, but also a family consisted of a pregnant wife (played by Linda Cardellini), a son, and a daughter. During an interview with Zap2it, Jeremy Renner finally discussed the reveal and ultimately getting to explore a different side of the archer.
“We did speak together about some of his stories and secrets, and they just couldn’t be implemented into the first one,” Renner said of working with writer/director Joss Whedon on Clint’s backstory. “It just didn’t have room for it. Even the backstory stuff and secrets revealed in this one weren’t quite the ones we talked about.” About those initial secrets, Renner teases, “I still can’t talk those because they can still happen, and they’re just as cool — even more so now.”
“It felt like Hawkeye was almost introduced as a new character, because he’s never really been explored prior with any sort of depth at all,” Jeremy Renner continued. “I love the fallibility of a superhero who’s really just a guy with a really high skill set, and Joss was able to come up with a really cool idea. [Hawkeye] can kind of be a really fantastic grounding rod for the group. These are all things we talked about as far as the reason why he’s needed on the team, ultimately.”
On Barton’s happy home sort of providing a tonal balance in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Jeremy Renner explained, “I think we’d all get pretty bored if it was just a bunch of killing of robots and slinging of arrows and slinging of hammers. It comes back to Clint’s story: Don’t we all just want to go home and have a life and be happy? Captain America battles with that. If you don’t know the plight of these flawed heroes, then what’s the point of it all? I think the intimate moments and the character development is crucial to especially movies like this. What comes up next, it’s ‘[Captain America: Civil War].’ It’s going to be arguing and trying to destroy each other. [ laughs]”
When asked if we’ll see Clint Barton’s family again, Renner would only say, “That’s hard to say; it’s beyond my pay grade, ultimately. I think just knowing that it’s there is one thing, but we’ll see,. I have no idea what they want to do.” We may find out in Captain America: Civil War May 6, 2016.
Idris Elba let slip last year that he had filmed an Avengers: Age of Ultron scene with Tom Hiddleston, but while Heimdall does make an appearance in the Marvel sequel, Loki is nowhere to be seen. Evidently, Hiddleston’s cameo was left on the cutting room floor, as Joss Whedon now confirms.
“We did shoot something, but it didn’t play,” the Age of Ultron writer-director told MTV News. “The movie has so much. It’s so filled. We didn’t want it to feel overstuffed. I really wanted to have Loki in it, but I understood the decision that there were now too many voices in the chorus. Whedon added, “At some point the embarrassment of riches is actually embarrassing.”
Perhaps, Tom Hiddleston’s cameo will be included in the many deleted scenes to be featured on the Blu-ray and DVD* release for Avengers: Age of Ultron. In the meantime, we can still expect the God of Mischief’s full-fledged return in Thor: Ragnarok on November 3, 2017.
*Amazon a few days ago showed that Marvel has plans for an extended cut and alternate ending for Avengers: Age of Ultron when it reaches DVD and Blu-ray. The information came from an email which was sent out by Amazon with a link to pre-order the sequel. Well, the online shopping service has now sent out another – to UK customers – which reveals that the information they sent out “may not be correct” because “the studio hasn’t yet confirmed which special features will be included.”
That all makes sense, especially when Avengers: Age of Ultron has only just come out in the UK. However, it’s hard to imagine that Amazon just plucked this information out of nowhere, so it could just be that they’ve had a telling off from Disney for revealing something they shouldn’t have. We’ll have to wait and see, but it will probably be a long time until we get any sort of confirmation
At the recent Los Angeles press day for the film, Collider landed an exclusive interview with Joss Whedon. He talked about memorable moments from filming, his first cut, deleted scenes, if he planted any hidden Easter Eggs, how the finished film compares to what he thought going in, future plans now that his Marvel contract has ended, the full version of “Save or Kill”, and more.
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Ant-Man will be in theaters July 17, 2015; Captain America: Civil War – May 6, 2016; Doctor Strange – November 4, 2016; Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – May 5, 2017; Spider-Man reboot – July 28, 2017; Thor: Ragnarok – November 3, 2017; The Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 – May 4, 2018; Black Panther – July 6, 2018; Captain Marvel – November 2, 2018; The Avengers: Infinity War Part 2 – May 3, 2019; Inhumans – July 12, 2019.
As we look forward into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we see Captain America: Civil War, Ant-Man, and…Spider-Man! In a new interview with Crave Online, Marvel CEO Kevin Feige reveals that they’ve had plans for that character (Spider-Man) for a long time and says how he will web his way into the MCU. “Spider-Man we knew about when we were doing that announcement in October. We’ve been thinking about it as long as we’ve been thinking about Phase Three.” He then continues, “In Spider-Man’s very specific case, where there have been two retellings of that origin in the last whatever it’s been – [thirteen] years – for us we are going to take it for granted that people know that, and the specifics. It will not be an origin story. But, with great power comes great responsibility. It is inherent to who his character is. But we want to reveal it in different ways and spend much more time focusing on this young high school kid in the MCU dealing with his powers.”
Besides the Wall-Crawler, he also talked about one of the other heroes that just recently entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Daredevil! Feige reveals that he hasn’t yet watched the full series, but he’s very excited about adding him into the MCU. “I don’t know. I think once something is back in the universe, as certainly Daredevil is, it’s all fair game. It’s just adding more toys outside the sandbox that we can grab to pull in the sandbox. I hear D’Onofrio’s awesome in that. I haven’t seen the whole show.”
Even though Daredevil isn’t a super-powered hero, Feige does talk about a group of super-powered heroes who we will be seeing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s future very soon (The Inhumans)! “I think they’re beginning to seed a lot of that in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show, but the notion from the comics that I think is interesting, is the notion of needing to have this DNA that could be activated by the [Terrigen] Mists, which is what’s so cool about Inhumans to me.” As you know, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. debuted Marvel’s first Inhumans! Will the show carry over into the big screen film? Kevin Feige certainly thinks so! “I think they’re beginning to seed a lot of that in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. show, but the notion from the comics that I think is interesting, is the notion of needing to have this DNA that could be activated by the [Terrigen] Mists, which is what’s so cool about Inhumans to me.”
When asked if he would want to reacquire the X-Men franchise from Fox, just as he did with Spider-Man and Sony Pictures, Feige answered in the positive, saying “Well, the answer would always be “yes,” I think, to getting them back. But I think they have a solid plan over that at Fox for a while.”
For those of you who have not seen Avengers: Age of Ultron yet, it’ll be best that you DO NOT read the rest of this interview and more, for it contains SPOILERS!
For those of you who HAVE seen the film (or those of you who do not care about spoilers), let’s get started shall we? Captain America: Civil War, as most of you saw, was set up in Avengers: Age of Ultron, mainly in that awesome scene where The Vision was born! When asked about whether or not Iron Man will have an “Iron Army” fighting against Captain America, Feige responded, “They’re not fighting a lot of Iron People, I’ll tell you that. There’s a lot of people in the movie.” He then elaborated, “Well, there’s a lot of references I think are great. Some of it is just the tension bubbling up between friends, which is why I showed that log-chopping scene at the event last October, if you remember. Some of it is, Thor finally realizing something’s going on here, in a galactic sense. Somebody’s screwing with us. He’s going to go off and investigate that, and the Tesseract, and the orb in Guardians [of the Galaxy], the sceptre in this movie”
Infinity Stones huh? Feige reveals that we’ve already seen the Mind Stone in the Vision, the Space Stone (the Tesseract), The Aether, and The Orb, but there are two that are still missing. “It’s definitely the Mind Stone that is now in the Vision. Space, you’re right. Time and Soul are the two that are not accounted for. Basically there are two we haven’t introduced yet, but the others are more or less accounted for.”
Time has put together an infographic that maps out the connections between Marvel’s movies and television series, including the Netflix Defenders shows, ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.and Agent Carter, current films Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man, and Phase 3 movies like Captain America: Civil War, Thor: Ragnarok, and Captain Marvel.
The Age of Ultron’s mid-credits stinger revealed that, Thanos has officially seized an Infinity Gauntlet and declared that he’ll collect the Infinity Stones himself. Of course, the Gauntlet—which holds all six of the Marvel Universe’s Infinity Stones—was last seen in Odin’s trophy room in Thor. This lead some viewers to wonder how Thanos broke into Asgard’s vaults and took the gauntlet so easily.
But, Marvel Studios Head Kevin Feige recently clarified that Thanos’ gauntlet is not the same one on Asgard. Meaning: the Marvel Cinematic Universe has two Infinity Gauntlets. As Feige put it:
“There are two different gloves,” he told CinemaBlend. “That was not Odin’s vault that you see at the end.”
Ant-Man will be in theaters July 17, 2015; Captain America: Civil War – May 6, 2016; Doctor Strange – November 4, 2016; Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – May 5, 2017; Spider-Man reboot – July 28, 2017; Thor: Ragnarok – November 3, 2017; The Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 – May 4, 2018; Black Panther – July 6, 2018; Captain Marvel – November 2, 2018; The Avengers: Infinity War Part 2 – May 3, 2019; Inhumans – July 12, 2019.
Avengers: Age of Ultron has opened with an amazing $201.2 million worldwide after just a few days of release. The sequel is outpacing The Avengers by 44%, and has so far only actually debuted in 44 markets. There are still many more to go, including North America next Friday (where it’s expected to gross upwards of $200 million during its opening weekend). It reaches China on May 12th, another territory which will give the movie a massive boost. The chances of it topping the $1.5 billion haul of The Avengers are looking very good at this point. Avengers: Age of Ultron was #1 in all territories, and those at the top were South Korea ($28.2M), the UK ($27.3M), Russia ($16.2M), Brazil ($13.1M), Australia ($13.1M), and France ($12.4M).
Joss Whedon has said that his original cut of Avengers: Age of Ultron was around three hours long, and I can tell you that there were a lot of scenes in the trailers which didn’t make it into the theatrical cut. It appears as if they will end up being more than simple deleted scenes though, as an Amazon email blast has gone out to UK consumers offering them the chance to pre-order the movie. That same email mentions that the Blu-ray will include an extended version and alternate ending, and it’s hard to imagine that the online retailer just plucked that information out of thin air!
Whedon has already promised that the home release will be packed full of material, though it is a little surprising that Marvel aren’t holding back an extended cut for somewhere a little further down the line to get fans to buy the movie twice (similar to what Peter Jackson did with The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies). Based on this though, that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Speaking with MTV UK, the Avengers: Age Of Ultron cast engaged in a game of ‘Would You Rather’ while also discussing their favorite deleted scenes, the funniest BTS moments, the entire franchise in a minute, and their dream Avengers line-up!
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