We’ve quite a bit of catching up to do after skipping our round-up last week to present our 3rd annual Superhero Showdown; the past fortnight has seen plenty of gossip and developments, including movement on the supporting cast for Superman: Man of Steel, possible plotlines for both The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers, some new X-Men: First Class posters, a great shot of the Red Skull from Captain America: The First Avenger and bits and pieces on everything from Thor to Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. So, without further ado (well, maybe just a brief spoiler warning), let’s get the catch-up underway…
Casting rumours have been heating up on Zack Snyder’s Superman: Man of Steel since it was first revealed that British actor Henry Cavill would be donning the red cape for the Christopher Nolan-produced reboot. Midweek brought the first official announcement since Cavill’s casting with the news that Academy Award-nominee Diane Lane (Unfaithful) has secured the role of Kal-El’s ‘Ma’, Martha Kent. This had been preceded by rumours that Kevin Costner was a “person of interest” for Jonathan Kent, and while there’s yet to be confirmation, it looks as if the Kent family will be complete before too long.Martha Kent is presumably one of the three female roles that were mentioned a few weeks back, with another said to be Ursa, the villainous right-hand-woman of fan favourite General Zod. According to Variety competition for the part has been whittled down to either Alice Eve (She’s Out of My League) or Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds) now that Rosamund Pike (Barney’s Version) has signed up for sword and sandals remake Wrath of the Titans. Other names banded about - presumably for Lois Lane, unless Snyder goes all Smallville with his origin story - include Rachel McAdams (Sherlock Holmes), Malin Akerman (Watchmen), Jessica Biel (The A-Team) and Olivia Wilde (Tron: Legacy).
Although Snyder had previously denied that General Zod would appear as the villain, THR also reported last weekend that Viggo Mortensen is currently first choice to step into the role made famous by Terrence Stamp in Superman II. Mortensen’s involvement is far from confirmed however, particularly as he’s in final negotiations to join Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron in Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman, and has also long been linked with a return to Middle-Earth to reprise his role as Aragorn for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit. Elsewhere, there’s also been talk that Daniel Day-Lewis could be in contention for an as-yet-unspecified-but-no-doubt-evil role.
Turning now to Christopher Nolan’s other project and the director has confirmed to MTV what pretty much everyone suspected anyway… The Dark Knight Rises will be his last Batman movie: “We're very much excited about really finishing a trilogy and giving a conclusion to our story. And that's what we're doing.” So, there we have it from the horse’s mouth, although you could argue that finishing the trilogy is not the same as finishing up with the Batman universe, and I’m sure that Warner Bros. will do their utmost to tempt Nolan back if and when The Dark Knight Rises storms the box office next July. Will they succeed? I’d wager no.Elsewhere in Gotham City, Anne Hathaway was talking to Oprah earlier in the week when she referred to her character in The Dark Knight Rises as ‘Catwoman’, rather than the official line of ‘Selina Kyle’. First cinematographer Wally Pfister, now the actress herself. I guess the secret’s out then and, if the recent ‘scoop’ from Badass Digest is to be believed, Catwoman will be an ally of Christian Bale’s Dark Knight who teams up to fight against Talia al Ghul’s League of Shadows and her enforcer love-interest Bane (Tom Hardy). Quite the mixed tag-team match-up but nothing new really as fan speculation has been going down these lines for quite some time and, with Marion Cotillard on board, Talia is certainly looking like a strong possibility. Finally, Batman on Film also received word on possible new toys for Bruce, including an "aerial Bat-Vehicle" of some kind.
With all this DC talk you’d be forgiven for thinking Warner Bros. has a monopoly on 2012 but Marvel Studios will of course fire back with their own superhero epic The Avengers from director Joss Whedon. Although the film isn’t due to start shooting until April, word came this past week that a teaser trailer has already been shot and could debut alongside this year’s Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, while LatinoReview dropped some possible info on the villains. Specifically, that the main bad guy will be Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who uses the cosmic cube from The First Avenger to summon the Skrulls to invade earth and square off against the likes of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner).
While we're on the subject of The Avengers, Captain America director Joe Johnston gave an interesting interview to InsideMovies earlier in the week, which also included an exclusive first look at Hugo Weaving's Johann Schmidt in all his Red Skull glory. Everything about The First Avenger is looking pretty great at the moment and I'm expecting good things from the first trailer, which is said to be arriving any day now.Meanwhile two new posters have debuted for Thor over at IGN, one of which is a character banner featuring Thor, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and Heimdall (Idris Elba), and the other, well it's an overly red one-sheet featuring the Mighty one himself.
Other recent bits and bobs that caught the eye…
…Nicolas Cage spoke to FEARnet about Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, revealing that the upcoming superhero sequel will see him portraying Johnny Blaze and Ghost Rider as separate entities after the stunt daredevil undergoes an exorcism…
…An unsubstantiated Wikipedia edit suggested Marvel had regained the rights to Daredevil after Fox cooled interest in their recently announced reboot. Given the lack of fanfare around such a major reacquisition you should probably flag this one for deletion…
...Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming 60s-set prequel X-Men: First Class received a couple of new character posters featuring Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender), while Empire debuted a new image featuring Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) and Emma Frost (January Jones) of the Hellfire Club in their swinging secret lair…...In an interview with Empire, Ryan Reynolds discussed his costume for the upcoming superhero flick Green Lantern, while ComicBookMovie posted a couple of new images taken from Empire’s feature (they aren’t that exciting, believe me)...
...Staying with Reynolds, he also had a few words about the proposed Deadpool movie stating that the X-Men Origins: Wolverine spin-off / reboot is “still in the works”. Robert Rodriguez is said to be attached to direct from a script from Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Zombieland), although scheduling could prove tricky with Reynolds also contracted to Green Lantern 2...
...Elizabeth Hurley and Cary Elwes have signed up for David E. Kelley's Wonder Woman pilot starring Friday Night Lights' Adrianne Palicki as the Amazon Princess, and will be joined in the cast by Tracie Thoms (Death Proof) and Pedro Pascal (The Adjustment Bureau)...
...Details were revealed on the forthcoming arena spectacular Batman Live, which kicks off its world tour here in the UK in July and will tell the story of Dick Grayson's origins as The Boy Wonder...
…And finally we got our first look at Marvel Entertainment’s new X-Men anime via a brief Japanese teaser trailer (which does look rather ‘anime-y’, doesn’t it?). The upcoming half-hour series set to be joined by Blade, Iron Man and Wolverine later this year. Check it out...
Gary Collinson
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