At a BAFTA event this past weekend, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice star Henry Cavill spoke out about the recent rumor that Batman v Superman might be split into two films. Continue reading
New Animated VIXEN Series Will Be Set In ARROW Universe
There’s a new superhero animated series coming to CW Seed called Vixen, which will be set in the same universe as CW’s Arrow and The Flash. The show will include appearances by both of the main heroes, and it’s being developed by Arrow producer Marc Guggenheim. The news was announced at the Television Critic’s Association press tour yesterday.
Miles Teller Explains Why He Signed On For Fantastic Four 3
Fantastic Four‘s very own Mister Fantastic, Miles Teller, said in a newly-released interview with Digital Spy that he signed on for the Marvel Comics adaptation, in no small part, because it wasn’t Spider-Man.
What makes that a good thing? Well, Teller said that he didn’t particularly want to carry a massive franchise like a superhero tentpole all on his own.
“If it was Spider-Man, that entire movie’s on my shoulders and that’s a more isolating experience,” he said.
“I don’t know if I would be into it, but the fact that it’s a movie that I knew we’d share… the superhero world, that’s a whole different animal. That’s a pretty serious commitment.”
That quote might sound somewhat troubling, given the fact that the Josh Trank-directed film is shrouded in controversy — “It isn’t my fault if it flops” is an easy translation to make there.
It’s more likely what Teller means is that the cast of up-and-comers he’s working with mean not only the pressure, but also the obligations in terms of filming time, sequels and the press tour fall more evenly on the group. Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara and Jamie Bell will be just as in-demand as Teller is, and the fact that they’re all acclaimed actors thought to be “on the rise” means the others are likely attractive to work with.
Fantastic Four will open in theaters this August.
Avengers: Age of Ultron Trailer 2 is Here!
Following its debut on the College Football Playoff National Championship on ESPN, Marvel Studios has now brought online the new Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer, which you can watch using the player below!
Avengers: Age of Ultron is the epic follow-up to the biggest Super Hero movie of all time. When Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, are put to the ultimate test as the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. As the villainous Ultron emerges, it is up to The Avengers to stop him from enacting his terrible plans, and soon uneasy alliances and unexpected action pave the way for an epic and unique global adventure.
Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron stars Robert Downey Jr., who returns as Iron Man, along with Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk. Together with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and with the additional support of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Don Cheadle as James Rhodes/War Machine, Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill and Stellan Skarsgård as Erik Selvig, the team must reassemble to defeat James Spader as Ultron, a terrifying technological villain hell-bent on human extinction. Along the way, they confront two mysterious and powerful newcomers, Wanda Maximoff, played by Elizabeth Olsen, and Pietro Maximoff, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and meet an old friend in a new form when Paul Bettany becomes Vision.
Written and directed by Joss Whedon and produced by Kevin Feige, Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series “The Avengers,” first published in 1963. Louis D’Esposito, Alan Fine, Victoria Alonso, Jeremy Latcham, Patricia Whitcher, Stan Lee and Jon Favreau serve as executive producers. Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron opens in theaters on May 1, 2015.
CBS Head Talks Supergirl Series, Shoots Down Potential for CW Crossover
Last year it was revealed that yet another DC series was making the leap to television with “Supergirl,” which already has a series commitment from CBS. Speaking at TCA today (via Variety), CBS Entertainment chairman Nina Tassler opened up about the series in development, saying:
“We fell in love with the pitch. She’s a great character. I love the superhero genre….There is a human drama there. We’re watching an evolution to the way superhero characters are portrayed.”
Tassler confirmed they’re still in the process of casting and conflicted with previous reports that the series could crossover with The CW’s series, adding:
“That’s a different network so I think we’re going to keep Supergirl to ourself right now.”
Nerd Report later asked Tassler about the pitch for the character that she fell in love with, which she laid out as follows:
“It’s a wonderful amalgamation of the mythology of the character with kind of a very modern coming of age. She’s a very strong, independent young woman and she’s coming into her own. She’s dealing with family issues. She’s dealing with work issues and it’s a female empowerment story. You look at the strong female characters we have on the air, it really is resonant of that.”
Set to feature a slew of DC characters including Cat Grant, James Olsen, Winslow ‘Wynn’ Schott (Toyman) and Hank Henshaw (Cyborg Superman), the pilot was written by Ali Adler (“No Ordinary Family”) and Greg Berlanti (“Arrow,” “The Flash”). They will also executive produce along with Sarah Schechter and Warner Bros. TV.
New Details on ASH VS. EVIL DEAD Series
A few new details have surfaced regarding the upcoming Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell horror series Ash Vs. Evil Dead, which fans are all pretty freakin’ excited about! The episodes will be half an hour long, and in an interview with IGN, Starz head Chris Albrecht talked about the upcoming series.
“The half hour idea was their idea. And I can tell you it’s a chock-full half hour.”
Well, it’s good to know that those 30 minutes are going to be packed full of all kinds of great stuff. When asked where the series will shoot, he said,
“We are shooting it in New Zealand. We’ll have to import some cars that drive left hand and import some signs because it kind of takes place in classic American towns or cities.”
I’m curious about the show taking place in classic American towns and cities. It sounds like there’s going to be some traveling going on. In a previous interview with EW, Campbell used The Walking Dead as a reference point and explained how it will be different.
“It’s about as big of a counterpart to Walking Dead as you could program because Walking Dead is unrelentingly grim and hugely popular. We’re going to give people a little of the old fashioned slapstick: horror and comedy. The beauty of Starz is there’s no content issues. Let’s face it: fans want the carnage and the mayhem. So we intend to give them quite the explosion of viscera. Most of it directed at me, unfortunately.”
Campbell also talked about some of the other, younger characters that will be joining Ash on his adventure against the deadites, They haven’t been cast yet, but he explained,
“One is a male-bonding situation, and the other is a father-figure deal, since Ash could have a daughter the same age as this character. Hopefully we’ll pull Ash out of his loner-veteran mode and get him back into being a human being again.”
There has been speculation that the daughter could be the character Mia, who was played by Jane Levy in the Evil Dead remake. There’s no confirmation of that, but I think it would be cool if that ended up being the case. As for when we will see the show premiere, Albrecht said,
“I think most likely it will be fourth quarter [of 2015]. End of third quarter, fourth quarter, something like that. We’ve got a lot of shows this year. We’re very, very excited.”
Sounds pretty great what do you think?
Billy Dee Williams Returns as Lando Calrissian on Star Wars Rebels!
According to Big Shiny Robot, that old smoothie Lando Calrissian returns to a galaxy far far away for this week’s episode of “Star Wars Rebels,” voiced by none other than Billy Dee Williams himself! Check out some screenshots and more info below. Continue reading
ARROWs Spinoff Series for ATOM
The CW seems to be planning another spinoff series for Arrow based on Brandon Routh’s character Atom, a.k.a. Ray Palmer. The news for the Atom spinoff show first came in an interview with Arrow executive producer Greg Berlanti, who told THR,
“We’re in very early talks in a very general idea that we haven’t gone deeper on yet.”
This is a great character, and I love Routh in the role. I can’t wait to finally see him in costume, so it would be fun to see a series that centers on this character. Berlanti continued:
“We just love this universe and we want to keep growing it. We are trying to do more of what we enjoy, and it’s true: the shows are so plentiful with characters and storylines. There’s a region of the universe that we felt like we haven’t dealt with yet that we’d like to deal with.”
Routh would return to reprise his role if they did move forward with the project. In a separate interview with The Nerdist, producer Marc Guggenheim went into more a little more detail on the potential series.
“The thing that we’ve been talking about is just how do we further expand the universe; and we love Brandon and we love having him on Arrow… He’s a joy to write. Brandon’s so terrific and embodies the role so well that when we talk about how to further expand things, he’s a natural person to talk about. It’s like Brandon said on the panel, originally when we met with him we just wanted to bring a great character onto the show and we wanted a great actor to play him. That’s really how it always starts. With the exception of Grant Gustin on Arrow last year, there’s never been a [decision] to bring in a character with the intention to spin them off. It’s always, ‘What services the show the best?'”
The discussion them moved on to the costume that they are developing for Atom.
“Maya Mani did the design that she always does. It’s her best costume, and that’s really saying something. It’s coming together beautifully. Brandon just did his third fitting with it, and it’s the most ambitious costume we’ve ever done on the show. One of the things I like about it is we did it without consideration of a spinoff. We did it because this is a cool thing to have on Arrow.
“Our goal when we had an idea to do a super suit was ‘How do you do it in a way that’s not Iron Man?’ That’s the trick creatively. Because we don’t want to duplicate Iron Man, we want to do our own thing. So there’s a lot of practical elements to the costume that on Iron Man they have done with CG. We’re gonna do it practically.”
As for when we will actually see the suit in Arrow, Guggenheim explained,
“It is only in so far in that it’s one of those things that I’ve got to get clearance to talk about. But I finally know. Unlike every other time I’ve done an interview, where it’s like, ‘It’s when the suit’s ready!’ [Laughs.] Now I finally know what episode it’s going to be.”
To early rto tell we have to wait and see what happens! what are your thoughts?
Interview: Brandon Routh on Suiting Up as Atom
Brandon Routh joined the cast of “Arrow” this season as Ray Palmer. Comic book fans know Ray Palmer as The Atom, and sure enough, Routh’s Palmer revealed his plans to build a powered suit named A.T.O.M. We’ll see how quickly Palmer suits up when “Arrow” returns January 21, but now we know that Routh has already tried the A.T.O.M. suit on.
The CW brought the casts of “The Flash” and “Arrow” to speak with the Television Critics Association and we got a one on one with Routh. Right after our interview, Routh joined a panel for “The Flash” and “Arrow” where producers said they were considering an A.T.O.M. spinoff. If that happens, we’ve got an early interview with the next DC universe star, but for now at least, the next superhero to join the ever-expanding “Arrow” universe.
SuperHeroHype: Superman Returns was before Geoff Johns became CCO of DC. Did you have a relationship with him back then?
Brandon Routh: No, he was not, to my knowledge anyway, involved. I think that was maybe at the beginning of all his involvement. We actually met for the first time in person yesterday. He’s awesome.
SHH: Does the DC world feel different in the television milieu they’ve created than the film world?
Routh: That’s a hard question. Just TV and film are different animals, but I definitely feel that DC, Warner Bros. and CW are handling the television entities in a great way, with “Arrow” and “Flash” really creating a great world and supporting the characters really well. The way they’re making the effects so seamless, with Firestorm taking off and that looking so cool. A.T.O.M.’s hologram suit looking totally legit, it’s feeling really pretty epic.
SHH: So we’ve seen the A.T.O.M. plans. How do you feel about the prospect of putting on another costume?
Routh: It’s cool. I was a little wary at first. I never really thought that I’d play another hero in the DC world having played kind of the pinnacle of them all. But it’s been a lot of fun bringing Ray to life. The suit is pretty awesome and very different than Superman’s suit, so I’m excited about the potential of actually being out and being seen moving, getting into action with it.
SHH: When you got the role of Ray Palmer, did you start reading Atom comics?
Routh: I did, because I didn’t really know too much about Atom before. It wasn’t essential because the character is being re-envisioned a little bit for the show, but it’s great for me to be able to understand the history and there’s a couple different iterations of it. Like, right now I’m reading “Sword of the Atom,” which is a cool series in the early ‘80s where actually he doesn’t really even size change that much because he’s afraid he might blow up because of what’s happening. What remains is his brain in all the thing, his leadership quality that he has that exists in both what we’re creating now and what’s in the comics of what I’ve read.
SHH: He was never a corporate executive.
Routh: No, that’s totally a new thing to make him able to take over Queen Consolidated. That adds another cool go-getter aspect to him which I think is fun, which is where a lot of his passion and energy comes into the fact that he’s a self-made man in this way. He’s created this huge empire for himself. Now that he’s reached the pinnacle, what is he going to do? He had this tragedy in his life and now he’s going to give back. It’s a cool story.
SHH: He comes across as very sincere, and that might just be because of you and our associations with you. Obviously he’s earned Felicity’s trust, she believes in him. Do you feel he’s sincere or are you throwing some shade at us?
Routh: [Laughs] No, for me it’s absolutely sincere until the writers or producers tell me otherwise. To a fault, I’m sincere to a fault with my characters. I want them all to be the good guy. It’s hard for me to turn the bad guy on, because I just want to be the good guy intrinsically. I think it’s one of the reasons for casting me too is the history that I bring with me as Brandon. You really feel like this guy is here to stay and that even though they put this little edge on him of he’s hounding Felicity to get him to work for him, I don’t think he’s too much of a jerk or crazy person. As far as sincerity, I think everything he’s doing is out of sincerity at this point.
SHH: When you got the role, did they tell you it would eventually come to fruition as Atom/A.T.O.M. or was it just Ray Palmer?
Routh: No, they told me that Ray Palmer would become Atom at some point. When that happens, who knows, but that was the eventuality.
SHH: Have they taken your measurements for potential costumes?
Routh: Oh yeah, we’re into it. You’ll definitely see the suit before the end of the season.
SHH: Have you tried it on already?
Routh: I have. It’s pretty epic. It’s very cool. I’m very excited.
SHH: It looks so technological because he’s inventing it, so does it feel different than the Superman suit?
Routh: The basis of the suit, all those suits are kind of similar. They have that same tight fitting quality that are kind of inherent in pretty much everything, if only just to make everything else, all the other layers on top fit snugly and look good. So there’s that aspect of it but it’s a very powerful feeling. The best way to describe it is it’s an Iron Man/RoboCop-ish feel, but different from all those too. Like, something you haven’t seen, exoskeleton as you can see from the hologram, that’s pretty badass.
SHH: Have you done action in it yet?
Routh: Just like moving, trying to see how it feels, if it’s grabbing, if it’s tight. Because I’m going to be in it for some time, we want it to be as comfortable as possible. So jumping around, a little light jog. It’s a whole different deal.
SHH: Have you worked on any of the shrinking effects yet?
Routh: There’s been none of that right now. I don’t even know what the capabilities of the suit are other than that it makes me look cool. Everything’s gone into just building the suit first. Everything else comes after.
SHH: I loved Superman Returns, but what DC is doing in the film world now is so ambitious with Batman v Superman and Justice League with all the standalone characters. Have you been impressed to watch what direction they’re going in?
Routh: I think they’ve got a big slate now. They’ve said this movie’s coming, this movie’s coming out, which I think is good. It gives them a bar to go and you have to make sure you reach the bar. So I think that’s cool and having a strong path is [important]. When it started out, everyone said, “Oh, superhero movies, they’re doing well. Okay, now they’re doing really well.” Now having a plan helps everyone feel more confident that they’re going towards something, just like the TV side is building bigger and bigger. There’s Flash. What comes next? There’s all these other DC properties on other networks popping up and really strengthening the brand and the DC universe.
SHH: I have to ask, have you seen Man of Steel?
Routh: I did, yes. I think Henry did a great job.
“Arrow” returns Wednesday January 21 at 8 P.M. EST.
WOW WHAT A CHANGE FROM SUPERMAN TO THE ATOM! sounds like we are in for a full packed second half of the season! It has also bee reported that the flash and the arrow have been picked up for another season!
Michael C. Hall has been Casted in Disney’s PETE’S DRAGON
Dexter star Michael C. Hall will reprise his role as our favorite serial killer in Disney’s live action remake of Pete’s Dragon! I’m totally just kidding, but that would be pretty funny. Seriously though, the actor has joined the film project, and he joins Robert Redford, Bryce Dallas Howard, Wes Bentley, and newcomer Oakes Fegley as Pete.
The film revolves around Pete and his best friend Elliot, who is a dragon. The movie will not be a musical like the original 1977 version. This version will be more of a straight narrative, and the Dragon will be CGI.
David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) will direct from a script he wrote with Toby Halbrooks. I’m a big fan of Hall’s work, and it is good to see that he landed another movie role.
I think i might always see hall as dexter i dont know if i could watch him in a beloved childrens animated/live action movie. I grew up on petes dragon he was my favorite! So I dont know if the two would do any justice together! but i could be wrong lets see what happens!