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!
Why are Cyclops and Jean Grey battling it out with Storm? Who knows, but perhaps this version of the character will start off on the site of Apocalypse before seeing the light and siding with Charles Xavier’s X-Men! We’ll have to wait and see on that one, but the concept art above is a much better quality version that what we saw previously. And hey, no more black leather!
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).
“X-Men: Apocalypse” director Bryan Singer released a photo of himself standing in front of the Cerebro set on his Instagram, revealing the size and scope of Professor Xavier’s most famous mutant-locating device.
In the comics, Professor X created Cerebro in order to locate and recruit mutants for his school. The device appeared frequently in Singer’s original X-Men film trilogy, even becoming a plot device during “X2.” A prototype version appeared in “X-Men: First Class” and became fully functional in “X-Men: Days of Futures Past.”
Singer teased construction on the Cerebro set earlier this year and released some concept art that may indicate some changes on Cerebro’s design, though Singer’s latest tease looks more in line with its traditional film appearance.
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).
So this week we have quite the blockbuster filled Fan Stuff Sunday, from Spider-Man to Superman, we can watch the sheer talent some fans have unfold right in front of us right here! To breakdown the rundown this week, we have Alex Luthor gives us a look at what we could get for Marvel’s Spider-Man, Lord Mesa brings us more of the same adorable art, Ryan Crain shares his concept of what a terminator would look like, and Adeel of Steel presents Kal-El’s journey to Earth!
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!
This Sunday is chocked full of amazing spectacles to gaze upon for your pleasure, soul and possbly more! We have a Wonder Woman and Avengers VS Alien/Predator trailers, fan art showing us that the White Canary rises, a very anarchist Arrow, and of course more!
This week’s Marvel Madness is chocked full of Matthew McConaughey, Chris Pratt’s movie contract, Daredevil, James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy 2, the colour of Psylocke’s hair, and much much more!
Following his breakout roles in Mud, Magic Mike, Dallas Buyers Club, and “True Detective,” actor Matthew McConaughey has been more in-demand than ever before and apparently Marvel Studios and Warner Bros. wanted him in their respective cinematic universes. Speaking with Variety, McConaughey was asked if he’d ever consider being in a superhero movie and revealed that he has been courted by both studios before.
“I’ve read some Marvel and DC scripts and I’ve talked about working with them on some scripts, none of which I’ll share with with you what they are — or were. Yeah, I’ve circled some of those. Nothing has been right for me yet. But I’m sure open to it.”
McConaughey was then asked what would convince him to be a part of one, saying:
“It’s very simple for me. I look at the script. Is the opportunity exciting? Is the money that comes with it exciting? Sure. Is it the possibility of going, ‘Hey you can get on a train and it can be a franchise and you could do 3, 4, 5, and have a great time as some kind of superhero or anti-hero.’ But I would also look at something like that and say, ‘Hey, in success that means you are on the train for a while.’ Contractually, you’re going to return to the character over and over. It’s something I asked myself is it something I’d want to return to. Would I be excited to go back and put the shoes on the character again? Going and doing the press tour with that group of people again? I always ask myself those questions again. It starts with the story and character.”
When Marvel Studios began building their cinematic universe they have the foresight to lock up their future movie stars to multiple films, removing the possible contractual potholes that could appear down the road. Now that Guardians of the Galaxy has grossed a gazillion dollars fans of the MCU are interested in knowing how many films its star Chris Pratt is obligated to do. GQ got some answers.
Guardians of the Galaxy was the making of Pratt, but however effortless it may have seemed on-screen, the movie’s deft combination of action and comedy, sincerity and levity, didn’t come easily.
“[Guardians director] James Gunn had a hard time working with me for about the first half of the movie,” Pratt explains. “He’ll say—and I wouldn’t want to be quoted [sounding like I was] saying this about myself—I’m a much more cerebral person than you may expect. You may see this guy who’s sort of like goofy and funny and doesn’t give two shits, but really I’m thinking a lot, in my head below the surface.” Too much, in fact, so that sometimes Pratt would lose track of the natural instincts Gunn had liked. “It’s a little bit like a Venus flytrap,” says Pratt. “If you stick your finger in and it closes, it takes like a week to open back up. So he had a hard time working with me because he’d tell me something, or I’d do something, and the next thing you know he couldn’t get me back to where I started originally.”
“I think that he had gotten a lot of success over the past few years being the funny sidekick,” says Gunn, “which means that he always has to juggle to entertain everybody. And the truth is, Chris didn’t trust himself to just be Chris Pratt—and how desirable that is to an audience.”
“I thought I was bad,” Pratt concurs. “I thought I was doing bad acting. I would just think: My bullshit meter’s going off. This screams inauthentic to me.” Pratt says that Gunn had little patience with this. “He’s like, ‘Who gives a shit what you think? I don’t fucking care!’ “
He’d literally say that?
“Yes! He’d be, ‘It’s not your fucking movie, dude, it’s mine! Trust me and shut the fuck up and do what the fuck I tell you, and scream it!’ He’s like, ‘More! Louder!’ I would get pissy because as an actor, you sometimes hate that direction: Louder, faster. But it’s true—sometimes you have to be louder, speak more clearly, let the words do the work, and just get out of the way.”
“I think being the center of focus on the actual movie set,” says Gunn, “and having to learn this balance, which I think he had never learned before, of both allowing himself to be the center of attention while simultaneously realizing in what areas he is completely unimportant—that’s what being a movie star is, and it’s a very difficult balance for someone to learn.”
They say the suit makes the man, and with a hero whose look has become as iconic as Daredevil’s, that applies ten-fold.
With the Netflix Original Series “Marvel’s Daredevil,” the creators behind the series had to reimagine Matt Murdock’s classic suit to fit in with the grounded, street-level tone of the series. In order to accomplish this, they looked to the team of designers and costume artists at Marvel Studios—headed up by Ryan Meinerding—to take a crack at some of the visuals and designs for the series.
“Joe Quesada got in touch and asked if I could help out,” recalls Meinerding. “Our whole team actually did designs, [including] Rodney Fuentebella, Andy Park, Jackson Sze, Josh Nizzi, and Anthony Francisco. I think we all did a round of designs as fast as we could, and they settled on one of mine. Beyond that, we did our normal process of modeling the head and the cowl [in] 3D with Josh Herman, and then I was involved throughout the costume creation process.”
Marvel CCO–and one of the series’ Executive Producers–Joe Quesada, known for an immensely influential run as the artist on Daredevil’s comic series, also had a hand in the series’ designs.
“The starting point is always story,” explains Quesada. “We had to come up with a logical reason as to how someone with Matt Murdock’s means and ability to actually make a costume could make that dramatic of a leap from the vigilante costume to the super hero [suit]. Once that logic was in play, which was the Melvin Potter of it all, we had to build to that point. I think if we had gone to that red costume too soon, it would have caused a lot of viewers to bump on the material, because it was so grounded in the real world.”
The “Melvin Potter of it all” refers to the character who, in the series, actually helps Matt build his final Daredevil suit. Having a character like Potter, a mechanic, actually develop and build the costume in the series gave the team a basis to work off of.
“The tone that was really communicated was the sense of realism that they were going for,” relates Meinerding. “I think the way that [manifested itself in] the costume was through the armor and making it feel a little bit more padded than you traditionally think of Daredevil being. When we do these designs, there’s a concept of grounded and a concept of reality. The grounded nature that they brought to the vigilante costume was the simplicity and effectiveness, because you’re trying to conceal your identity but also [have to be] mobile enough to fight. “When you do a super hero costume in that world, it’s hard to be as real as you need to be, because you’re making it heightened. So you try and find the touchstones for that with armoring pieces that you would want armored, like your shins and your forearms for blocking and hitting as well as having things be riveted on. The overall layout of that costume is really that it’s meant to look like a Kevlar vest with stuff underneath it. That’s what we were going for.”
Quesada commends Meinerding’s work, commenting on many of those “touchstones” added to the design.
“One of my favorite parts of the costume is that if you look very, very closely at some of the way the armature is attached to the costume, you can actually see rivets,” Quesada elaborates. “There was something about that particular element that I told Ryan, we should lean into that a little bit because that is so quintessentially New York and how the city itself is constructed. And Melvin Potter, being who a guy who’s working on engines [and] a bunch of different things, rivets seem like something he would use. Ryan also did some great stuff with respect to the placement of blacks against the red, the way that the darker portions of the mask are constructed to really give the full feeling of when comic artists draw that mask and rim light it in red while leaving the center portions black.”
Daredevil’s cowl remains one of the most defining characteristics of his look, lending him the nickname of Hornhead, so that in particular had to come out just right.
“The horns are iconic, and we had to be careful as to how we handled them,” remarks Quesada. “I think what Ryan did is absolutely spectacular, when you really look at the structure of the helmet and the horns, because those can be done in a way where they actually look silly. He created an architectural design, an angular design for the horns, that just feels natural to the cowl.”
As Quesada hinted, bringing that cowl to life wasn’t as simple as slapping a couple of horns on and calling it a day.
“One of the most interesting things about Daredevil, that I hadn’t fully appreciated before I started working on the character, is that I think that head is one of the most difficult heads to design for a live action context,” confesses Meinerding. “Because if you have a mask like Captain America’s, it’s difficult in it’s own ways, but you still have the actor’s eyes coming through. So you get performance, you get a sense of who they are, of their expression, of what they’re doing. [As a result] the bottom half of the face matches the top half, in terms of expression. With Daredevil, because half of his face has to be covered and has its own expression and the actor’s face is going to be doing something else, it’s actually a very difficult challenge to come up with something up top that’s not going to bump with something down below.”
In the end, one more element had to fall in place before Daredevil’s final suit could fully harken to the iconic look from the comics.
“The billy clubs, designed by Andy Park, were also very important,” stresses Quesada. “There was a discussion early in the process, because Charlie Cox [and his stunt double] Chris Brewster are both right handed, of having the billy clubs holster on the right leg. But Daredevil wears those billy clubs on the left hand side. So while it would have been easier to place the holster on the right we all felt that we had to keep to the classic profile and keep them on the left. It made life a bit more difficult for Charlie and Chris, but they caught on pretty quickly. No matter how you sliced it, they were going to have to holster the billy clubs without looking because lets face it, DD would have no need to look.
“Ultimately I think the silhouette is always what’s really important. Does it look heroic? Does it look like our character? If he stands on the parapet of a roof and turns his head and we see those devil horns, is it Daredevil? I think that’s where Ryan succeeded and exceeded all of our expectations. It’s Daredevil.”
Kicking off Marvel’s 2017 plans, the second year of “Phase 3″ of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the first year the studio will have three theatrical releases, will be the sequel to surprise hit Guardians of the Galaxy. Writer and director James Gunn was confirmed to helm GOTG 2 before its predecessor even opened in theaters and he’s already working hard developing the followup.
Over the weekend, Gunn held another live Q&A session via Twitter’s Periscope livestreaming app, and spoke quite a lot about Guardians of the Galaxy 2. In responding to questions, he explains that he’s been rushing to get the sequel’s script done and has already completed a draft, only now finally taking a breather. He’s aiming to complete it before heading to Columbia next month to shoot his next film, The Belco Experiment, which he is writing and producing.
As we reported in early April, Gunn was very quick to submit a lengthy 70-page story treatment to Marvel’s creative committee, not long after pitching a story for the sequel which Gunn claims is “risky” for Marvel in how different and original it is compared to the comics. The “story about fathers,” as Gunn labels it already has at least one draft of the script done which he’s revising and tweaking. Production begins next February so there’s still a long while before concrete details begin leaking out from him and Marvel Studios.
What we do know from this latest Q&A is that one new main character will be joining the team in GOTG 2 and from our talks with Gunn during the Guardians of the Galaxy press junket, he made it clear that he wants at least two female members on the team in the next film. He also hinted that someone familiar may join the team. If it’s not an Avenger (which Gunn has also hinted at in the past) an easy guess would be Yondu (Michael Rooker) who in the comics is a future member of the team and who we know has a major part in the sequel as well, returning alongside his right-hand man, Kraglin (played by James Gunn’s brother, Sean Gunn).
When asked about casting newcomers for Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Gunn revealed that the process has already sort of begun. He’s already talking with someone about playing the character he has in mind, a new Guardian, as he labels it. We don’t yet know who that is, but in terms of the core Guardians of the Galaxy roster, we’re guessing based on Gunn’s words since the first movie came out, that there will be two additions to the team: someone we’ve met and someone we haven’t who he’s talking to now – even if it’s informal talks at this point.
Star Wars creator George Lucas thinks that a new Howard The Duck movie could be a hit—so long as Marvel Studios rendered the titular fowl in computer generated imaging.
“Someday, I hope, Marvel will make a new version of Howard the Duck, and you’ll see it could be a good movie,” Lucas told Wired Magazine. “A digital duck will make that thing work.”
This comment may prompt an eye-roll or two from those familiar with Lucas’ career. Though celebrated as the creator of Star Wars, Lucas has been equally criticized for his over-reliance on CGI effects in the Star Wars prequels, and for stuffing CGI effects into his classic Star Wars trilogy for the “Special Editions” released in 2004.
Interestingly, Lucas served as executive producer on Marvel’s 1986 Howard The Duck movie. Though nary a pixel was to be found, the film is still generally regarded as one of Marvel’s worst. But now that Marvel Studios has brought the character (in full CGI) into their cinematic universe through Guardians of the Galaxy, perhaps Lucas will get his wish.
Phil Lord spoke briefly to The Hippojuice Podcast (via /Film) about the upcoming animated Spider-Man film he and Chris Miller have in early development at Sony Pictures, although it doesn’t sound like there are any solid details to share quite yet.
NON-MCU STUFF!
X-Men: Apocalypse hair designer Felix Lariviere has confirmed, via Twitter, that Psylocke will have purple hair in X-Men: Apocalypse.
In the comics, Psylocke is a British woman and natural blonde. She dyed her hair purple during her early pursuit of a modelling career. Even after Betsy was forced to body swap with the Asian assassin Revanche, she continues to be drawn with purplish hair (black with a purple shine, at its subtlest).
Olivia Munn will play Psylocke in X-Men: Apocalypse. I’m sure fans will be eager to see the results of her purple dye job.
The X-Men: Days of Future Past – Rogue Cut Blu-ray release will feature a sneak peek at the upcoming Fantastic Four movie.
The Fantastic Four preview is part of the over 90 minutes of never before seen special features promised to be included with the release, in addition to the Rogue Cut itself. The Rogue Cut Blu-ray also includes the theatrical version of Days of Future Past.
The Rogue Cut will add 17 minutes to the theatrical cut of X-Men: Days of Future Past, including a restored action sequence featuring Rogue (Anna Paquin) breaking out of a Sentinel controlled prison camp.
Other special features included on the Rogue Cut Blu-ray are:
Audio Commentary by Bryan Singer and John Ottman for the Rogue Cut Audio Commentary by Bryan Singer and Simon Kinberg for the theatrical cut. Mutant vs Machine X-Men: Unguarded Gallery Second Screen App
X-Men: Days of Future Past – Rogue Cut will be released July 14.
And that’s all folks! Hope you have been now inundated with all things Marvel for awhile, BUT be sure to check back next week for more!
A bunch of X-Men related news has been released during the week so I decided to collect all of that and put it into this X-Men Excellence news omnibus just to make it easier for you and me both!
Potential plot and casting details for X-Men: Age of Apocalypse have hit the Internet, giving fans the most detailed description of the upcoming X-film yet.
The updates come from a casting call for the film’s Quebec production location. While the casting agency’s description of the film could have stemmed from rumors instead of actual word from Fox Studios, it does provide a possible road map for the film’s overall direction. And if the casting call’s words are to be believed, it looks like Apocalypse will indeed include Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine and Channing Tatum’s Gambit. Just cross our claws and playing cards that this description actually holds some truth.
Here’s the full description:
If you would like to be part of the X-Men: Apocalypse Starring Jennifer Lawrence – Movie Casting Call in 2015 please read the info below:
It has all lead to this. All of the battles (both outside and within the group), action, relationships and time travel that the uncanny X-Men have endured have lead to this, their biggest story ever – X-Men: Apocalypse. Following the universe changing events of 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past comes this epic mutant adventure and with it a number of casting opportunities for performers of all ages.
X-Men: Apocalypse will follow the super powered mutants battling their most powerful foe yet, the devious and devastatingly dangerous Apocalypse. This legendary villain uses his incredible abilities to alter his physical form, access other mutant superpowers and telekinesis to recruit a cult-like group called the Four Horsemen to be his servants and do his bidding in an all out war against the X-Men.
The cast of X-Men: Apocalypse will feature a who’s who of X-Men characters and some of Hollywood’s most talented performers playing them including Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games) as Mystique, Channing Tatum (21 Jump Street) as Gambit, Oscar nominee Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave) as Magneto, Golden Globe nominee James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland) as Charles Xavier, Academy Award nominee Hugh Jackman (Les Misérables) as Wolverine, 2-time Golden Globe nominee Rose Byrne (Neighbors) as Moira MacTaggert, Nicholas Hoult (Warm Bodies) as Beast, Olivia Munn (The Newsroom) as Psylocke, 3-time Screen Actors Guild Award nominee Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones) as Jean Grey, Kodi Smit-McPhee (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) as Nightcrawler, Alexandra Shipp (Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B) as Storm, Tye Sheridan (The Stanford Prison Experiment) as Cyclops and Golden Globe nominee Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens) as the villain Apocalypse.
Variety reports that Fox has signed “The Fault in Our Stars” director Josh Boone to direct the X-Men spinoff “The New Mutants,” which introduces several new characters to the “X-Men” movie universe.
Boone will also co-write the script for the untitled project with Knate Gwaltney. Producers are Simon Kinberg with Lauren Shuler Donner.
Boone’s “Fault in Our Stars,” starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort, was a surprise hit for Fox, with over $300 million in worldwide grosses on a $12 million budget. He’s also attached to direct Stephen King’s “The Stand” for Warner Bros. and has said that the studio is planning a four-part franchise.
Created by Chris Claremont and artist Bob McLeod in 1982, the New Mutants comic book followed a new, younger group of students at the Charles Xavier School For Gifted Youngsters. The original team consists of Cannonball (invulnerable human rocket), Karma (telepath), Mirage aka Dani Moonstar (manifests empathic 3D illusions), Sunspot (solar powered flight and strength) and Wolfsbane (werewolf transformation). Rather than trying to save the mutant race, the New Mutants stories typically focused on what it meant to grow up away from home, possessing awesome and terrible super powers. Typical themes tackled by Claremont and McLeod included teenage angst, hormones, diversity, discrimination and acceptance.
Fox’s “X-Men: Days of Future Past” delivered solidly for the studio last summer with $748 million in worldwide grosses. It’s dated Ryan Reynolds’ “Deadpool” for Feb. 12, followed by Bryan Singer’s “X-Men: Apocalypse” on May 27, 2016, and its developing another Wolverine movie with Hugh Jackman, as well as a “Gambit” project with Channing Tatum attached to star.
Boone also appears to be a super X-Men fan as by the following tweets prove that he is the personification of X-Men fandom!
Ryan Reynolds has taken to Instagram to reveal a brand new image from Deadpool. It doesn’t reveal too much about the movie and is a little less humorous than previous efforts, but that makes it no less awesome! The photo was clearly taken when they were shooting on that overpass in Vancouver, and this is a really fantastic shot of the popular Marvel character in action. Reynolds also Instagrammed a photo of himself in the Deadpool costume “trying to kill” Mario Lopez again!
Star Ryan Reynolds (X-Men: Origins: Wolverine) has been gifting fans with teaser images like the ones above for a few months now showcasing the fan favorite Deadpool doing well… Deadpool-esque things. Early last month, he also appeared with ExtraTV’s Mario Lopez (Saved By The Bell) in an elaborate April Fool’s Day prank video that announced that the film will indeed be rated R.
We see from above another behind-the-scenes snapshot of Reynolds and Lopez together on set and now, the full video from the set visit has been released featuring Reynolds fully decked out in his Deadpool costume. Check it out below:
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.
Director Bryan Singer has once again returned to Instagram to share a behind the scenes photo from the set of X-Men: Apocalypse. This one features a young girl flanked by bow and arrow wielding soldiers, along with the caption “The past catches up”.
After that mysterious image of a youngster in a forest clearing surrounded by armed soldier types, Bryan Singer has released another head scratcher from the X-Men: Apocalypse set. As the director explains himself in the accompanying text, this is a “mutant guided incoming owl” – so what can we glean from that? Canadian Alpha Flight member Snowbird can transform into a large white owl, but she wasn’t a mutant in the comics and didn’t actually control animals which is what seems to be happening here. Do any of the other characters from this movie fit that description?
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).
What does the world do if it is danger of both Alien and Predatorial attack, call the Avengers! But don’t hold your breath for that film as it is only a trailer! It’s not the only trailer for this Fan Stuff Sunday as I have a Captain Marvel one too plus a bunch of fan-art from Boss Logic, Lord Mesa, CAMW1N, Will Brooks, and Sandara.
UPDATE: There’s Captain America as Amber Heard, Iron Man as Kate Beckinsale, Bruce Banner as Mila Kunis, Thor as Jennifer Lawrence, Hawkeye as Shailene Woodley, Loki as Kristen Stewart, and…Chris Pine as Black Widow! Despite being a little rough around the edges, these are very creative and have really gotten people talking on social media. The manips are the work of 18 year old Tumblr user Agnes.
The X-Men: Days Of Future Past – Rogue Cut will arrive in stores on Blu-ray/DVD on July 14th, which is a significant date in the history of the franchise as its also the date the original X-Men film premiered in the year 2000. Director Bryan Singer went on to tease the new cut, which will include about 17-20 minutes of new footage, now including Anna Paquin’s scenes as fan favorite mutant Rogue and also including new scenes with Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique and Nicholas Hoult’s Beast, amongst others. He didn’t say much more, but he did take us on a quick tour of a steel mill set made for the currently shooting X-Men: Apocalypse that he says Michael Fassbender’s Magneto is going to have some serious fun at.
You can pre-order the Rogue Cut on DigitalHD by clicking HERE.
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