Posts Tagged ‘Comic Book/Superhero’
Marvel has released two movie trailers for Iron Man 2 thus far (first on here, second one here). Our friend Vic from screenrant decided to edit the footage from both trailers into an extended trailer that runs almost four minutes in length. The result is surprisingly pretty cool (but obviously, the collective footage nothing we haven’t seen before). You can watch it now, embedded after the jump.
While Marvel Studios still has yet to announce their final choice for Captain America, they have revealed their choice to play the film’s villain. HeatVision reports that Hugo Weaving (The Matrix, Lord of the Rings) is in final talks to play the villainous Red Skull in The First Avenger: Captain America.
In the comic books, Red Skull is Johann Shmidt, appointed by Adolf Hitler as the “head of Nazi terrorist activities with an additional large role in external espionage and sabotage.” According to Marvel.com:
“Hitler gave Schmidt an unique uniform with a grotesque red skull mask, and he emerged as the Red Skull. His role was the embodiment of Nazi intimidation, while Hitler could remain the popular leader of Germany. … He was spectacularly successful, wreaking havoc throughout Europe in the early stages of World War II. The propaganda effect was so great that the United States government decided to counter it by creating their own equivalent using the recipient of the lost Project Rebirth, Steve Rogers, Captain America. The two counterparts soon clashed in what would be a series of engagements throughout the war, ending with a final battle that left the Skull buried under the rubble of a bombed building. Because he was immediately exposed to an experimental gas there, he remained in suspended animation for decades. Johann was eventually rescued in modern times by the terrorist organization, HYDRA. The Skull quickly subverted a cell to his own ambitions of world conquest and the death of Captain America. “
Discuss: What do you think about Hugo Weaving as Red Skull?
Previously:
The five remaining contenders “in serious contention” for the role of Captain America are Mike Vogel (Cloverfield), Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy), Wilson Bethel (Generation Kill, The Young and the Restless) and Chris Evans (Fantastic Four). In addition to John Krasinski, the list of actors who tested for the role, but are now out of the running includes Chace Crawford (Gossip Girl), Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights), Michael Cassidy (Privileged) or Patrick Flueger (Brothers). The offer for this role will be around $300k for this first film, bundled into the contract that requiremes a nine-film option that will include additional Marvel films. Director Joe Johnston previously stated that casting needed to be complete by March 1st 2010 (a date that has now passed) as filming is set to begin at the end of June in the UK.
- When the shortlist was released on February 24th, it was revealed that Marvel wanted each actor on a 30-day hold during the testing (so that the Ryan Reynolds scenario where he took a role as Green Lantern just as Fox was preparing to commit on an approach to Deadpool won’t be repeated. Fox later moved forward with Reynolds and Deadpool regardless).
- The film will be shot in 2D High Definition, with a visual style Johnston describes as “a bit different,” trying to interpret the visual style of the more recent comics “into a film in a way that I think hasn’t been tried before” [Collider]
- A possible synopsis leaked for the film:
Born during the Great Depression, Steve Rogers grew up a frail youth in a poor family. Horrified by the newsreel footage of the Nazis in Europe, Rogers was inspired to enlist in the army. However, because of his frailty and sickness, he was rejected. Overhearing the boy’s earnest plea, General Chester Phillips offered Rogers the opportunity to take part in a special experiment… Operation: Rebirth. After weeks of tests, Rogers was at last administered the Super-Solider Serum and bombarded by “vita-rays.” Steve Rogers emerged from the treatment with a body as perfect as a body can be and still be human. Rogers was then put through an intensive physical and tactical training program. Three months later, he was given his first assignment as Captain America. Armed with his indestructible shield and battle savvy, Captain America has continued his war against evil both as a sentinel of liberty and as leader of the Avengers.
It looks like Sam Worthington is going to have another block to bust and another tentpole to erect because he’s the first talent to be tapped for a new, big-screen take on Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future. If you don’t know Dan Dare, then I expect you simply aren’t English. He’s as famous over here as Tintin is, at the very least, but is probably even less well known in the US than that Belgian boy reporter.
Created in 1950, Dare is a comic strip hero that proved more lastingly famous than Eagle, the comic he appeared in, just as Judge Dredd is a bigger brand than 2000AD or Batman than Detective Comics. He’s been compared to Buck Rogers, and I suppose that makes a lot of sense. Can you see Sam Worthington in the role of a proud Brit fighter pilot? To me, it seems like a particularly good fit for him… well, accent aside.
And Pajiba, who broke the story, seem to agree.
After Margaret Thatcher… er… did what she did to Britain, it was time for Dare to be reinvented. The patriotism had to be dialled down a notch, to say the least, and Grant Morrison was just the man for the job. His take on Dare, though it amounted to only one storyline, is probably my favourite so far and saw the former space hero jaded by his exploitative government, reluctant to continue being pushed around as a pawn or abused by their propaganda efforts. However, everything about this aggressively political reinvention, particularly it’s nihilistic conclusion or it’s Soylent Green-topping subplot, pretty much rules it out as source material for any studio-funded franchise film.
More recently, Garth Ennis and Gary Erskine created a short series of Dare stories for Virgin Comics (see the image at the head of the post). They were neither the stiff-upper-lip, gung-ho-cheerio business of the original Eagle strips nor the confrontational revisionism of Morrison’s version, but they definitely skewed more towards the latter. Of all of the Dan Dares I’ve met in my comics reading life, this one seems the most in step with current fashions for the blockbuster movie. Maybe this is simply because it was created with an eye on big screen adaptation, like everything else that Virgin published.
Pajiba note that the film is now a priority for Warner Bros. so we should be seeing more action soon. If they haven’t already asked Ridley Scott to direct, I’ll eat my own bodyweight in Hovis. My prediction is that the key supporting players, from Dare’s sidekick Digby to Professor Jocelyn Peabody will actually be played by genuine Brits, and that the Mekon, Dan Dare’s huge-headed alien nemesis, will be a motion capture creation played by somebody at least as posh-sounding as Ralph Fiennes.
Disney and Lionsgate have released a batch of new posters for Toy Story 3 and Kick-Ass. We have a short roundup, after the jump.
Lionsgate has released two new “Call to Action” character posters for Kick-Ass on MTV. Click on through to see the posters in high res.
And check out the International Toy Story 3 Poster which brings the focus back to the original Toy Story toys. [pixarblog]
Remember when DC Entertainment president Diane Nelson denied that Christopher Nolan was overseeing the new Superman film? It’s stories like this that make the movie rumor business so sketchy, because an official denial doesn’t always mean that something isn’t true. We know now that Nolan is overseeing Superman for WB as David Goyer writes the script based on a story by Nolan and Goyer. We know this because Nolan is talking about it. The director promises good things for the next Superman, and his wife, producer Emma Thomas, denies a few other recent rumors.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Nolan is ‘now doing the hard work’ on a script for Batman 3, based on a story by Christopher Nolan and Goyer.
The LA Times has quotes from Nolan and Thomas about Superman. The big one is from Nolan, speaking about the story that Goyer pitched to him when they were stalled for ideas for Batman 3:
It’s very exciting, we have a fantastic story. And we feel we can do it right. We know the milieu, if you will, we know the genre and how to get it done right…[it] is a way of approaching the story I’ve never seen before that makes it incredibly exciting. I wanted to get Emma and I involved in shepherding the project right away and getting it to the studio and getting it going in an exciting way.
A further quote suggests that we shouldn’t expect a team-up of Batman and Superman, at least from Nolan. The LAT describes Nolan’s Batman films as creating a world in which Batman is the only hero, and that is expected for Superman as well. “Each serves to the internal logic of the story,” says Nolan. “They have nothing to do with each other.”
As to the specific approach, Nolan is cagey. He won’t talk villains or any real specifics.”We’re approaching it in a not dissimilar way [to the Batman films] in terms of trying to find an incredible story in a way that audiences can engage with it the way they engage with contemporary action films,” he says. He explains that the high-profile casting of the original Richard Donner Superman is what led him to his casting approach for the Batman films, so it is appropriate that Nolan is coming around to Superman now.
Will it be called Man of Steel, as previously reported? “I don’t know where this stuff comes from,” says Emma Thomas. But by ’stuff’ she could be referencing a number of different rumors mentioned by the LA Times: the Man of Steel title, the inclusion of Lex Luthor and/or Braniac, and more far-fetched rumors of a period piece. That leaves us at square one with respect to having real details.
With respect to Batman 3, Christopher’s brother Jonathan Nolan is currently writing the script, and few other details are being allowed out. Christopher Nolan says the villain won’t be Mr. Freeze, insists that the primary character ensemble from the previous two films will return, and that it will end their story. He explains,
The key thing that makes the third film an great possibility for us is that we want to finish our story. And in viewing it as the finishing of a story rather than infinitely blowing up the balloon and expanding the story…I’m very excited about the end of the film, the conclusion, and what we’ve done with the characters. My brother has come up with some pretty exciting stuff. Unlike the comics, these thing don’t go on forever in film and viewing it as a story with an end is useful. Viewing it as an ending, that sets you very much on the right track about the appropriate conclusion and the essence of what tale we’re telling.
The big question now is: who will direct both Superman and Batman 3? Nolan says he won’t direct Superman, and no other director has yet been named. As for Batman 3, Nolan is keeping quiet while he finishes Inception, but the LAT is certainly under the impression that he will helm the film. As the site says, “Nolan, for the record, also won’t confirm that he is actually directing the third Batman film but, well, of course he is, but Inception isn’t in the can yet and it’s against his code.”
I can’t stop chuckling about Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. That’s the Broadway musical version of the character that has gone way over budget ($50m+) and features music from Bono and The Edge. Granted, I have a great love for the show’s director, Julie Taymor, and perhaps she can pull this one out of the fire, but the whole enterprise seems like a fatally flawed attempt to shoehorn a character into the wrong environment.
Now, just as the musical is set to begin a preview period that has been delayed multiple times, it has lost a lead actress. Evan Rachel Wood is gone, leaving Turn Off the Dark in need of a new Mary Jane.
According to Variety, producers of the show acknowledged that Wood had left, due to a ’scheduling conflict’. That leaves leads Reeve Carney as Peter Parker and Alan Cumming as the Green Goblin. (The latter being a genuinely cool bit of casting.) The show will likely go on. If a lack of funds didn’t derail it in 2009, a little recasting problem isn’t likely to throw it off, either. There has been too much invested to let a good career move by Evan Rachel Wood kill the project now.
Meanwhile, there’s an interesting little tidbit about the Spider-Man film reboot in an LA Times article about what the various Oscar winners from this past weekend’s ceremony will be getting up to next. The LAT says that Kathryn Bigelow passed on directing Spider-Man before the offer went out to Marc Webb.
That’s not a huge deal, and Bigelow was likely one of many people approached. But given the recent intersection of her career and that of ex-husband James Cameron, who once planned to make his own Spider-Man movie, it is a neat little detail. In all likelihood, she passed so as not to be in thrall to Sony for the next several years, and who can blame her? She’s apparently still got Triple Frontier on deck, as well as the HBO pilot The Miraculous Year.
As the release date for Kick-Ass gets closer, original comic creator Mark Millar is already looking towards the comic sequel to his original creation, and the film sequel that will hopefully ensue. As such, he’s talking about the direction the story will go, and dropping some big notes and spoilers along the way.
Did I say spoilers? Yep! If you haven’t read and/or seen Kick-Ass yet (hey, not the most unlikely thing, as I know Lionsgate has done a few screenings for comic shop employees, for example) then you might want to tread carefully here.
Comicbookmovie.com pulled quotes from Millar out of the film companion book Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie.
To begin, the second volume of Kick-Ass will see the hero unmasked. That’s a favorite idea amongst comic writers (when you’ve got a guy in a mask, the natural idea is to strip it away, unless the character is Judge Dredd) and Millar’s young hero won’t get off easy.
One of my favourite ideas in superhero comics is the exposure of the secret identity… I like the idea of doing that to somebody like Kick-Ass, who’s going to have real-world ramifications if his secret identity gets exposed. I wanted that in the first volume but there was just no room, so I shifted it all into the second volume.
The sequel movie talk comes out when discussing the character of Red Mist, played on film by Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Here’s where the real spoilers start.
Red Mist surviving, becoming the super-villain was always planned, but the idea was that he was going to be a more minor character in the first film. Then we saw what Christopher Mintz-Plasse was capable of! Also, I really like the idea of somebody who people were relaxed watching on screen doing horrible things… the second movie, it’s going to get very, very dark what goes on with him…So the idea of McLovin’ and the fun Red Mist doing something horrible is genuinely quite disturbing when you see it happen. We couldn’t have got away with that with another actor. The minute we saw his performance, we were looking at each other and realised how good he was and what we could do with him in the future…
This is an official promo book, so I expect to hear Millar highly endorsing all the actors’ performances (and Millar likes to talk…a lot… in the first place) and I really wonder if this is the movie where Mintz-Plasse can break the McLovin mold.
Disney has announced a release date for the Robert Zemeckis’ produced adaptation of Berkley Breathed’s children’s book Mars Needs Moms! and Paramount Pictures has confirmed the release o fthe Steven Spielberg-directed 3D performance capture adaptation The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn. Details after the jump.
Mars Needs Moms! will hit theaters on March 11th 2011 in Digital Disney 3D and likely in IMAX 3D as well (considering Disney’s deal with the IMAX company). The performance capture film is being directed by The Prince of Egypt/The Time Machine helmer Simon Wells and stars Seth Green, Joan Cusack and Dan Fogler. Here is the book description for Mars Needs Moms!:
Milo doesn’t get it: What’s the big deal about moms? They’re just slavedriving broccoli bullies. Yet they are worshipped the world over! Perhaps even the galaxy over-because here come Martians and they’re after one thing only: moms. Milo’s mom in particular. Who better to drive them to soccer practice and to pizza parties? That’s quite a long way to come for a mom-could it be that Milo has been overlooking something special?
From Pulitzer Prize–winning comic strip creator of Bloom County and bestselling author Berkeley Breathed comes a funny, poignant book about how the unique love that binds our families can be overlooked in the rush and tumble of everyday lives . . . especially those of disgruntled little boys.
Paramount Pictures has confirmed that the Steven Spielberg-directed 3D performance capture adaptation The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn will hit theaters on December 23rd 2011. Official Plot Synopsis follows:
Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Jamie Bell (”Billy Elliot,” “Defiance”) as Tintin, the intrepid young reporter whose relentless pursuit of a good story thrusts him into a world of high adventure, and Daniel Craig (”Quantum of Solace,” “Defiance”) as the nefarious Red Rackham. Bell and Craig are joined by an international cast that includes Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Gad Elmaleh, Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook.”The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn,” from a screenplay by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish, is produced by Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Kathleen Kennedy, is the first in the series of 3D motion capture films based on the iconic character created by Georges Remi, better known to the world by his pen name “Herge” and is due for release in 2011. Executive producers are Nick Rodwell, Stephane Sperry and Ken Kamins. Paramount Pictures will release domestically and in all English speaking territories and Asia, excluding India. Sony Pictures Releasing International will distribute the film in Continental Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America, India and the remainder of the world.
sources: EW, Box Office Mojo
A couple weeks ago a short list was leaked, containing the actors that Joe Johnston was considering for Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, in The First Avenger: Captain America. The list included John Krasinski (The Office), Scott Porter (Speed Racer, Friday Night Lights, Caprica), Mike Vogel (She’s Out of My League, Cloverfield) Michael Cassidy (Smallville) and Patrick Flueger (Brothers, The 4400), Chace Crawford (Gossip Girl) and Garret Hedlund (Tron Legacy).
Earlier today we ran a story linking Fox 411 (and a previous Cinematical) report stating that Office star John Krasinski is Marvel’s top choice for the part, after reading four times for producers and recording two costumed screen tests. The Fox report claimed that producers are having Krasinski read with multiple actresses up for the female leads, to ensure chemistry. Of course, many comic book fans were not happy with the choice, calling him too small and unmuscular for the role of the scientifically engineered super soldier.
Now Mike Fleming is reporting that Krasinski is out of the running for the role of Captain America, and that Marvel has expanded its search slightly. Details after the jump.
Of the original contenders, only two remain “in serious contention”: Mike Vogel (Cloverfield) and Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy). Marvel has also added Chris Evans to the mix. Vogal and Hedlund have a very similar look. I’m not sure what comic book fans will think of Evans, as the actor has already appeared in the Marvel Film Universe as Johnny Storm/Human Torch in the Fantastic Four films. Hedlund is my biggest concern about the upcoming Tron sequel (I didn’t think he came off good in the short clips in the new trailer). Hedlund was apparently on Marvel’s original wish list but was unable to test for the role at first due to “scheduling conflicts.”
Update: Heat Vision adds that Wilson Bethel, who starred in HBO’s Generation Kill and The Young and the Restless, is also one of the producer’s top contenders.
In addition to John Krasinski, the list of actors who tested for the role, but are now out of the running includes Chace Crawford (Gossip Girl), Scott Porter (Friday Night Lights), Michael Cassidy (Privileged) or Patrick Flueger (Brothers).
Director Joe Johnston previously stated that casting needed to be complete by March 1st 2010 (a date that has now passed) as filming is set to begin at the end of June in the UK.
Discuss: Which of the three actors listed above would make the best Captain America?
Krasinski/Captain America comic image source: hijinksensue
The majority of comic book fans seem to be upset that John Krasinski is the top choice to play Captain America in Joe Johnson’s big screen adaptation The First Avenger: Captain America? Our friends at HijinksEnsue made a comic strip to show just how wrong (or awesome?) this potential casting might be. Check out the entire three frame comic strip below.
via: Collider
