Well, just when it was shaping up to be a quiet week in the land of cinematic superherodom what goes and happens? Warner Bros. deliver the first image of Tom Hardy as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, that’s what! Things all kicked off with the launch of the official website accompanied by some creeping chanting, which then went through audio software to reveal #thefirerises, a Twitter account that promised to reveal a fraction of the image with every new follower. Fortunately some clever cyber-sleuth managed to get their hands on the full picture, which presents a tantalising glimpse of Batman’s latest foe. Principal photography on Christopher Nolan’s sequel was officially announced earlier this week, but of course filming has already taken place in India and the UK and it’s probably a wise decision to release the image given all the set photos that have been emerging from the London shoot. Much like the reveal of Heath Ledger’s Joker, it’s done a mighty fine job in getting fans talking; not only does it confirm that Bane will be sporting a mask (borrowed from Mortal Kombat’s Scorpion, by the looks of things), but it’s also probably a safe assumption that he’s sporting some kind of burns, what with the whole ‘the fire rises’ thing going on. Meanwhile Variety also broke the news that Nolan has added a further three actors to the ever-growing cast – Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket) will play a character called Nixon, while Tom Conti (Derailed) and 11-year-old Joey King (Ramona and Beezus) will feature in as-yet-unrevealed roles.
Sticking with Warner Bros. for the moment and yesterday also brought the debut of the third trailer for Green Lantern, Martin Campbell's big-budget, VFX-heavy DC adaptation. Aimed at the 3D market, the trailer (which you can see at the bottom of this article) is pretty epic in scope and should do a good job of further selling the film to fans, although I'm personally not so sure how this one will go down with the general movie-going public. In other Lantern-related bits and pieces, both Ryan Reynolds and Mark Strong have been taking part in interviews to discuss the film, while Total Film announced that director Martin Campbell has no plans to return for any potential sequel.While we're on the subject of Ryan Reynolds, the actor also had a few words to say about the the upcoming X-Men spin-off Deadpool during an interview with Comic Book Resources about Green Lantern. Describing it as "a deconstruction of superhero movies," Reynolds stated that he had no problem starring as two superheroes but effectively ruled himself out of contention for The Flash: "I always thought if I did a Deadpool film, I wouldn't do a Flash movie". Meanwhile Robert Rodriguez, who was long rumoured to be in the running for Deadpool, has told MTV that his involvement only ever went as far as reading the script but he has high hopes for the final product: "It's going to be a cool movie. I don't want people to think it's going to stink! Not at all. It's a great script and action-packed and it's a great character. But it's like, 'He turned it down! He dropped out!' Well, I was never in the project!"
Mutant prequel X-Men: First Class is set to arrive here in the UK a week on Monday and ComicBookMovie have collected a whole host of stills that includes pretty much the entire roster, along with a few more TV spots that you can see here and here. Elsewhere James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender were the latest cast members to undergo the X-Perts Q&A on the official X-Men Facebook page, while Nicholas Hoult spoke to IGN about portraying Beast and Zoe Kravitz (Angel Salvadore) also had a few words about her role in the film. One person who won't be popping up in First Class however is Stan Lee (maybe that's something to do with his insistence that Bryan Singer is directing?), although the Marvel legend has confirmed that he will appear for his customary cameo in The Avengers, which leads us quite nicely into this week's round-up of the latest happenings from the Marvel Cinematic Universe...Firstly, Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) took part in a fan Q&A with Empire and revealed that he has no idea whether Ant-Man will make an appearance in the upcoming ensemble, while Thor star Stellan Skarsgård revealed that Joss Whedon was responsible for directing the post-credits sequence in Marvel's most recent offering. Newsrama also put out a report earlier this week suggesting that Thor is underperforming compared to other Marvel efforts (I guess they must have forgot to take into account the film's world-wide haul, which at $376m and counting is already more than $100m ahead of The Incredible Hulk), but that hasn't had any impact on Marvel's plans for a sequel, with CinemaBlend reporting that The Enchantress and The Executioner are under consideration for Thor's next adversaries.
Wrapping up the best of the rest...
...If you cast your mind back to last year when Sony announced their then-untitled Spider-Man reboot, you may remember a few eyebrows being raised over suggestions that the film's budget would be a mere $80m. Well, it seems that figure was a gross underestimate, as actor and stuntman Richard Norton let slip that the actual budget for The Amazing Spider-Man stands at a whopping $220m...
...NBC chairman Robert Greenblatt has gone on record to explain the reasoning behind the network's decision to ditch Wonder Woman. Greenblatt told EW that "we did what was best for the schedule" but felt that "they made a really fine pilot and Adrianne Palicki did a fantastic job". Hmm... doesn't quite add up, that one. Nevertheless there may still be hope for Wonder Woman fans, with Greenblatt suggesting that the pilot could be shopped around to alternative networks...
...And finally, yesterday brought the sad news that wrestling legend Randy 'Macho Man' Savage has died in a car accident in Florida, aged 58. In addition to his hugely successful ring career, Macho Man enjoyed a number of film and TV roles, including his appearance in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man as Bonesaw McGraw.
Gary Collinson
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