Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop totally SPOILER filled shop through the top five stories in comic based Film & TV news!
Ryan Reynolds: Green Lantern No More?
Reynolds future as the Green Lantern Hal Jordan has been a question since his poor showing in the summer flobbuster Green Lantern. Last time on Hero Express we discussed some of DC future movie plans, starting with their plans for a Justice League movie. Looks like Reynolds chance at a role in these future movies is dwindling fast. Indie Wire reports:
We’ve already heard that Warner Bros. has considered scrapping the already-written “Green Lantern 2” sequel and starting over from scratch, and it appears they’re serious about a total overhaul. In a Variety piece about this very subject—WB’s next phase and plan to exploit the DC Comics properties they own—the trade says the studio is still “figuring out whether to bring back Ryan Reynolds as the Green Lantern in a sequel to last year’s actioner or relaunch the character in a completely new way.” For Reynolds, who had a disastrous 2011 in his attempt to be a leading man, this is pretty grim news.
While this news is probably not an outright shock, it’s certainly the first time it’s been reported that WB has considered dropping the star and completely wiping the slate clean. As noted, Warner Bros. recently hired Micheal Goldenberg (ironically one of the writers on “Green Lantern”) to write a new “Wonder Woman” script and revealed that “Gangster Squad” scribe Will Beall had been working on a “Justice League” script for over a year now. The gears are certainly turning a little bit faster than they have been now that the uber-successful Marvel tentpole “The Avengers” has surely been a sore spot over on the competitive WB lot.
So nothing says for sure that Reynolds is out, but I’m pretty sure that Reynolds is out. Despite what this awesome fan-made poster says:
Marvel & Pixar Crossover Movies?
Now before you get excited by the thought of the Fantastic Four and The Incredibles crossing over, that’s not what I’m talking about. As most people know, Marvel was bought by Disney, which also owns Pixar. This led to some speculation over whether or not we would ever see a Marvel/Pixar collaboration. Most signs pointed to no, as Pixar is known for original properties, and Walt Disney Pictures is capable of making a similar animated film anyway. But some recent news shows that it’s not totally out of the realm of possibilities. Splashpage reports:
Our peers over at Collider recently had the chance to sit down with Pixar Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter while he was promoting the studio’s upcoming flick “Brave.” The conversation eventually turned to working with Marvel on a future project, and Lasseter didn’t shoot down the idea.
“Well, I can’t say anything about that because Marvel just got—[they’ve] been a couple years as part of the Disney company, we’ve been six years as part of the Disney company. And at Pixar, we stay focused on making original films,” he hedged. “Even our sequels are kind of created internally and we come up with ideas [on our own]. I’m also leading the Walt Disney Animation Studio and all of that. These studios are filmmaker driven studios, so if a filmmaker comes to me and says, ‘Hey, I wanna do this,’ then I would be really open to it.”
So I take this to mean that while there may be no plans at present, if anyone from the Pixar studio felt they wanted to crossover to the marvel side and bring one of those properties to Pixar, it may happen. Or may not. And for those curious, here’s a look at what Justice League might look like done by Pixar. Click here for more pics:
Man of Steel Costumes Sneak Peaks!
Every year the Licensing Expo is held which basically shows around all the materials that companies can buy into to help promote a specific film or production company. it’s usually a great place to view some early posters for movies that are pretty far down the horizon. in this case, the promo material for Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel showed off a bunch of the costumes that will be featured in the film. /Film reports:
With post-production well underway, Zack Snyder‘s Man of Steel has been off the grid for several months. The director has been in the editing room working towards a release date that’s almost exactly a year away. He says it’s “gigantic and crazy” and most people seem to think the first footage from the film will be at San Diego Comic-Con. Until that happens, though, fans have become rabid for new information and finally we have some.
Today brings the biggest Man of Steel update in some time as Warner Bros. and Legendary brought three of the film’s costumes, including Jor-El and Kal-El, to the floor of Licensing Expo 2012 in Las Vegas.
Definitely some cool costuming, but we’ll have to wait to see some footage before I can really decide how it will all look in action.
Venom To Tie Into The Amazing Spider-Man?
We spoke a little about the plans for a Venom spin-off, but with The Amazing Spider-Man heading into theaters soon the question remains. Will Venom (or Eddie Brock) feature any way into The Amazing Spider-Man? Collider reports:
The press conference for The Amazing Spider-Man, Tolmach suggested that there may be a shared universe for between the upcoming Spidey reboot and the Venom film. Tolmach explained [via Hollywood.com]
“I’m trying to say to you without giving anything away is hopefully all these worlds will live together in peace someday… look for the worlds to make sense with one another.”
It’s an idea that makes sense in a post-Avengers world where simply having one superhero simply will not do. Much like the comic books, vast new worlds must be constructed and producers would obviously like to have projects with the same kind of crossover potential (or rather, the box office riches such a crossover could bring).
Speaking about Venom as an individual project, Arad said:
“It’s an Eddie Brock [Venom’s alter ego] story. “We want to be as close to the comics as possible. Especially in Eddie Brock’s story. But again, pseudo-sceince is becoming science. All these tidbits about webs, artificial webs, is a huge industry now. Spiderwebs have unique qualities that will be huge for communications, fibers, and so forth. So we have taken the approach that we want to make the huge amazing movie about Eddie.”
I think that would be a good way to make Venom cool again. No one wants to go into the movie with the taste of Spider-Man 3‘s Venom left on our tongue. If your already rebooting Spidey throw in a nod to Eddie, let’s get this ball rolling. It might be the only way we’ll get to see Spidey vs. Venom vs. Carnage, which would be the sweetest form of nerd porn I can even imagine. And I watch a lot of nerd porn. Anyways, Splashpage made a list of 5 villains we could see in Venom that’s worth checking out.
Animation Station! Avengers Assemble, Hulk & The Agents of S.M.A.S.H. & Teen Titans Go!
I think we should all take a moment of silence as I deliver the news that The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes has been cancelled. Yes, the greatest Avengers cartoon ever, along with one of the best Marvel shows ever is saying goodbye. And as a further kick to the face, they will be renewing Ultimate Spider-Man for a second season. This displeases me. It also displeases Hitler.
publishing. That cast is Hulk; the Red Hulk; Skaar, who’s the teenage barbarian Hulk, She Hulk — who’s actually been a character in the Marvel Universe for 30 years; and a relatively new character, A-Bomb. He’s more of a Blue Hulk. And together they are Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.”
As for what “S.M.A.S.H.” stands for? Don’t bother asking. “They’re Hulks, it can stand for anything they want it to,” said Loeb.
Aside from “Agents of S.M.A.S.H., ” Loeb and Marvel TV are also planning the just announced “Marvel’s Avengers Assemble,” a new show that will replace the currently running “Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.” According to Loeb, “Assemble” will more closely resemble the vision seen in cinemas this summer, with one notable exception: the addition of Falcon, a superhero commonly associated with Captain America.
“Falcon is going to be the eyes of the viewer,” said Loeb. “He’s a new member of the Avengers so he’s walking through our stories wide-eyed and with wonder and amazed to be a part of it. He’s a little younger than the rest of the cast and a little greener, so he adds an interesting dimension to the team that we think will play really well with the audience.”
And not to be outdone, DC announced another new-ish series to join their pretty awesome line-up. Although I’m not sure how I feel about it. Many of us remember Teen Titans, the odd and kid friendly series that ran for 5 seasons and appealed to other people that weren’t me. They then brought back the characters and voice actors back as a series of shorts during Cartoon Network’s DC Nation programming block called Teen Titans Go! Now it looks like they are going to be bringing the show back again as a full on series. ScreenRant reports:
According to Cartoon Network, the TTG! shorts, featuring a chibi style version of the team, have proven popular enough to warrant joining the growing ranks of DC Nation sometime next year. Right now, the DC-centric animation block features Young Justice and Green Lantern: The Animated Series, but will have an all-new CGI animated Batman series, Beware the Batman added to the line-up very soon.
Despite the gap between the end of Teen Titans and this stylistically different version of the team, Teen Titans Go! has managed to secure the familiar voice talents of the original cast including: Scott Menville (Robin), Khary Payton (Cyborg), Greg Cipes (Beast Boy), Tara Strong (Raven) and Hynden Walch (Starfire).
An official press release from the network stated:
“Character-driven comedy is the order of the day as this new take on the super hero series focuses on the funny business that happens between saving the world and living together as teenagers without adult supervision. They may be super heroes who save the world every day … but somebody still has to do the laundry! With the ability to turn into any animal or detach their robotic limbs, teenage pranks reach a whole new level. And even super heroes have to take Driver’s Ed. to get a license – especially after wrecking the Batmobile on an unauthorized joy ride to impress a girl!”
Not sure how I feel about this. I mean, with Young Justice ruling the superhero animation world, it seems redundant to have a separate Teen Titan series telling conflicting stories to the far superior YJ. But 2 hours of DC Nation sounds like a good deal, so I’ll accept it for now.
That’s it for this edition of the Hero Express! Click here for more!
Don’t forget to sound off in the comment section below about any of our top stories!
Grizzly Bomb 