Stuart Gordon: Iconic FIlmmaker Behind Re-Animator And From Beyond Dies At 72

“That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.” – H.P. Lovecraft

Movie News Roundup! New Godzilla Revealed, Transformers 4 Poster Arrives & New Release Date for Ant-Man Movie!

There has been a ton of movie news recently, so much so in fact that we at Grizzly Bomb decided to combine some of the news for an easy to digest package. First off is the news that finally an image of the new Godzilla has come online. Due to be released in 2014, we have had quite a few teaser shots of him (the most notable showing his scaly tail), but now we get to see his actual head (originally from Yahoo Movies).

Now this reviewer is not entirely up to speed on the Godzilla mythology having (to my shame) seen only a few brief clips of the movie franchise itself. But from what I have seen from this poster is that the design is very much akin to the older, original Godzilla than the more heroic faced hero he later became and it certainly does not look anything like the first American remake of the creature. There is also a great amount of detail that has gone into the facial design and to be quite honest it is looking pretty darn awesome. Keep checking with Grizzly Bomb for more information as it arrives.

So from a film this reviewer knew nothing about to a film that quite a few people will wish they knew nothing about, the new Transformers movie Transformers 4: Age of Extinction. Now the franchise does have its fans but for a lot of people, Michael Bay’s explode-a-rama of guns, robots and CGI has ruined the fun of Transformers and has become a parody of the action genre. That being said, this film does appear to be trying to sort the previous films problems out and take the movie in a new direction with Mark Walhberg starring and Bay teasing the inclusion of the fan favorites the Dinobots (check out the link here). The new poster release seems to be doing the same thing with a rather restrained image (originally from Inside Movies).

There is plenty we can take from this poster. For a start who is facing extinction? The sand covered logo is clearly a warped Decepticon badge so are they the ones who are going to be deleted or are they the ones doing the exterminating? With the possible inclusion of the Dinobots, are they the ones in charge of the coming devastation? If so that would be great to hear Grimlock shouting when he is about to crush a Decepticon. Or could it even be the human race that is on the chopping block? Hopefully more will be revealed before its release on June 27th, 2014.

Finally, we nip over to Marvel who have tons of new work in the pipeline but for now, its focus has gone back to a film that keeps popping its little head up every few months, Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man movie (thanks to Hollywood Reporter for the information). Looks like Marvel may be worried about the competition from the recently released news that Sam Mendes and Daniel Craig’s new Bond film because they have changed their original release date of November 6^th 2015 (the same month the new Bond film is coming out) to July 31^st 2015 (only one release for that month and it’s Peregrine’s Home for Peculiars). It does mean superhero fans will not have long to wait for their hero fix and will be jumping head first into Phase 3. With Avengers: Age of Ultron scheduled for May 1^st 2015 and the untitled DC team up of Batman and Superman coming July 17^th 2015, it seems the summer of 2015 will be chocker block full of heroes.

Edgar Wright May Have Found His Ant-Man! Rumors and Speculation Ahead! [UPDATED]

There has been a lot of Marvel discussion lately regarding the recent announcements of the 3 mystery release dates, but not a lot of talk about the first film of Marvel’s Phase Three; Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man. So you can probably imagine that today we will be discussing some Ant-Man rumors that have been swirling.

There isn’t really a question as to why we haven’t heard much from Ant-Man, because we’ve known for a while that Wright wouldn’t start production on Ant-Man until after The World’s End wrapped up, which is pretty much now as it gets ready for release. There have been a lot of names thrown around as star of Ant-Man, most common being Nathan Fillion due to his sheer awesomeness and connections to Joss Whedon. Also, he’s a Geek god and would no doubt draw a crowd to the film, but we have to STOP ASKING FOR NATHAN FILLION AS ANT-MAN! Sorry, sorry, it’s hard to let go.

The World’s End: First Trailer for the New Flick From the “Shaun of the Dead” Team

First they had a show in the UK called Spaced, which was a bit hit or miss, but worth a watch. Then, in 2004 the creative team of Nira Park, Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost made a movie; Shaun of the Dead. It was a huge cult hit and created for them a loyal fan following here in the states. Three years later they returned to make Hot Fuzz. This was maybe even better than Shaun of the Dead, though met with less fanfare. Shortly after that Wright, Frost, and Pegg made a short without producer Park which was included in the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double feature Grindhouse. In 2011, Pegg and Frost reunited with Park to do the movie Paul, but Edgar Wright this time was not involved. So now, the four of them are all back together again for what looks to be another gem; The World’s End (not to be confused with This is the End). 

Two Ant-Man Teasers! One Imaginary, The Other Real! *UPDATED*

Whenever teaser footage is “leaked” there’s always this infinite battle between the internet and movie companies. They for some reason don’t want everyone to see the teaser, and talk about the teaser, and share the teaser and generally do their PR jobs for them. Or maybe they DO, and by hiding it from us like it’s a weird reverse double bluff situation, we’re playing right into their hands? Which is silly, since this footage that was released is from a test reel that was premiered at SDCC last year, and not even technically a teaser. Regardless, the outcome of the studio censorship is it tends to make sharing and viewing these leaked teasers difficult, and sometimes that can lead to a disparity from your expectations and what actually happens. For instance, I thought the teaser was going to be something totally amazing and mind-blowing.

In fact, if I was to describe my imaginary teaser for Ant Man, I would say my favorite scenes were definitely the parts where Ant-Man finally, finally did what we all thought he would do, and shrunk down and crawled up a guard’s pants.

Then as the guard was trying to take off his pants, he ran up his leg and dove into the guard’s penis through his pee hole, and then rapidly expanded himself while in his urethra, tearing the guard’s dick open horribly, then kicking him through the groin out his butthole, in a fantastic display of gore worthy of an old Giallo film! The next few scenes were of him running around inside the other guards inner ear canal, using the harmonic balance and special lower hertz frequencies to sort of “puppeteer” the guard, making the guard punch himself repeatedly in the face over and over before ripping out his own eyes, in what I thought was a great homage to the work of Lucio Fulci. Then Ant-Man expanded inside the man’s head, creating a head explosion that possibly tops the infamous one from Scanners.

This one.

It all ended pretty perfectly when Ant-Man then turned to the camera, pointed his fingers and said his new catch phrase: “It aint easy being cheesy!”, which I found a bit gauche, but I supposed we’ll get used to it.

Right. Well that’s NOT what the Ant-Man teaser was. Here it is as long as it’ll stay up, which probably isn’t long.

VIDEO REMOVED BY VIMEO

Marvel’s Ant-Man Trailer from Anthony Green on Vimeo.

See? Instead of my imaginary awesomeness,  it was a fairly interesting fight scene of Ant-Man clearing a hallway with two guards in it, and instead of ripping their dicks or heads open from the inside, he just kinda punches them in the teeth maybe? It was more interesting than it sounds, but only just so. I think my version is a lot better, but for SOME REASON Hollywood has yet to take any of my ideas or use any of the scripts I send their offices detailing my outlandish plans to fix the movie business. I think it’s all a conspiracy against me. Anyway, here’s some screen caps, and gifs courtesy of [Buzzfeed]:

 

Those are some pretty neat GIFs, but these stills give you a better look at the actual Ant-Man suit, albeit a blurry one. Keep in mind these images are only from a test reel, so the final costume will probably look a lot different.

So all in all, that’s pretty cool, but as always my version is better. But I have trust in Edgar Wright and I presume when the flick rolls by in 2015 it’ll still be pretty great.

More Marvel Characters to Big Screen: Dr. Strange Joins Ant-Man in Phase 3…

As a DC girl it’s a tough pill to swallow, but I think we have to admit that Marvel is much better than DC when it comes to movies. There is no denying that The Avengers and it’s “feeder” movies, have done incredibly well. So well that the people at Marvel have decided to let some much lesser known heroes make the leap to the big screen.

If you were to ask the average Joe-schmo walking down the street to name some Marvel superheroes you’d more than likely get an assortment of Spider-Man, the Hulk, and Wolverine. You’d also get quite a few Batmans and Supermans, but that’s a rant for another day. The chances you’d have someone bring up Ant-Man and Doctor Strange are slim, unless they are comics readers of course.

That is all about to change in the coming years though because Ant-Man and Doctor Strange are set to make their big screen debut. Both of these projects have been the subject of rumor and speculation for what seems like an eternity, so it’s nice to finally have some kind of date attached. As of right now, Ant-Man is scheduled for a fall of 2015 release with Doctor Strange following sometime in 2016.

No casting announcements have been made for Ant-Man, but it already has a director and no surprise here, it’s Edgar Wright.

For years now, whenever you heard about a possible movie about Ant-Man, you heard about Edgar Wright. Wright has been the driving force behind getting Ant-Man made and has written the script as well. He’s the man behind such classics like Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead and even the fantastic but short-lived Spaced. Given that track record we have to wonder- will Ant-Man have a role for either Simon Pegg or Nick Frost? We’ll have to wait and see.

All we know about Doctor Strange is that Marvel’s Kevin Feige is a fan.

[quote]”‘Doctor Strange,’ which I’ve been talking about for years, is definitely one of them,” he confirmed. “He’s a great, original character, and he checks the box off this criteria that I have: he’s totally different from anything else we have, just like ‘Guardians of the Galaxy.’ He’s totally different from anything we’ve done before, as is ‘Ant-Man,’ which keeps us excited.”[/quote]

There’s been no director announcement but it wouldn’t be a movie of the geek persuasion if Guillermo del Toro’s name wasn’t thrown around at least once. Apparently the script has been finished and now it’s just biding it’s time. When a director is attached, I’d like to suggest a name for the Sorcerer Supreme- Joe Manganiello. Yes he was Flash Thompson in 2002’s Spider-Man and then again in 2007’s Spider-Man 3 but by the time Doctor Strange makes it’s way to theaters almost a decade will have passed so I think it could work. Tall, dark, handsome, brooding… I’m on to something here.

Both of these projects are still in pre-production so everything is subject to change, but for now let’s just enjoy the possibilities of what’s to come.

Avengers 2: Possibly Featuring Vision and Ant-Man?

We all know what’s slated for Phase 2 of the Marvel movie plan. The ambitious three year plan will culminate in The Avengers 2, which is due to melt your eyeballs on May 1st, 2015. One of the big questions though is what characters will be introduced in the sequels (Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Captain America 2) and the new flicks in the fold (Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man) that might be involved in the Avengers sequel. Right now we’re going to concentrate on two of the heroes that could make their way into the lineup: The Vision and Ant-Man.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

First, the Vision stuff. There’s been a lot of chatter about the Vision and who should be cast. Vin Diesel has been the one major actor that wants to throw his hat in the ring. According to GammaSquad, the Diesel himself posted a profile pic on his Facebook of the Vision before taking it down.

Obviously if we got our news from Facebook pages, all I would gather is people like to shove political views down my throat, claiming their intelligent views are supreme despite the fact they can’t tell the difference between the words “your” and “you’re”. Basically we’re going to take this with a grain of salt. While I have no doubt that Vin is lobbying heavily for this role, we are going to take the ‘wait and see’ approach. After all, he’s not even the popular choice to take on the role. That would be…

Agent Coulson himself, Clark Gregg. Despite the creepiness of seeing someone take the initiative to plant the seed in our heads with the image above (courtesy of Comics Alliance), you have to admit it would be cool despite the fact that it would go against the extremely convoluted comic canon, which frankly there is no way they’ll adhere to anyhow.

Of course, we all know what happened to Agent Coulson in The Avengers, and if you don’t, stop reading right now and go watch the damn movie. Regardless, Nerd Reactor asked Clark Gregg about the upcoming S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show. For spoiler reasons, I’ll let you know that the link throws out Agent Coulson’s status in the Avengers movie in the first sentence so *SPOILER ALERT* I guess.

Now let’s  explore what Gregg had to say about the Vision:

“You know the Vision is synthetic with a soul, sort of, and he’s an amazing character who I loved when I used to read those comics. I love the idea of Coulson as that guy, but I don’t know if that’s in the cards.”

I love Agent Coulson. He felt like part of the team, having brought them together for the finale, and being in all the films because Samuel L. Jackson can’t be the only one building his IMDB resume by the minute. Again, this would defy the comic continuity, but who knows, I think we can trust Joss Whedon to make the right decision on this one, right?

As for that next character, Ant-Man. We know that Edgar Wright is doing At World’s End with his boys, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost right now. Where does that land the Ant-Man movie? SlashFilm is saying that we could see it in two different scenarios: After The Avengers 2 movie, or perhaps even in the middle of Phase 2. The biggest indicator is that they are citing sources stating that after Thor 2 is done filming, that Ant-Man will occupy the same lot immediately afterwards. Of course, he’d also be into post-production on At World’s End so this could prove to just be wishful thinking. Marvel also seems to want to keep to the schedule of two Marvel movies each year, and with Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 occupying 2013, and Captain America 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy taking on 2014, there might not be enough room for Ant-Man.

However, if we stick to the Vision showing up in the Avengers sequel, we NEED Hank Pym to show up and set the stage – so stay tuned. I’m sure we will have more news as it comes because it seems to be coming out at a good pace now with the hype slowing building.

James Gunn in Negotiations to Direct Newest Marvel Project “Guardians of the Galaxy”

In one of the many post-Avengers Marvel movies hitting theaters before 2015’s The Avengers 2, it’s possible that James Gunn will join Kenneth Branagh, Joe Johnston, Jon Favreau, and Louis Leterrier as the directors who made all the pre-Avengers movies possible. With Guardians of the Galaxy, Gunn hopes to introduce a plethora of new characters to the franchise, like Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, with Thanos as a villain, a being audiences were only able to catch a glimpse of at the end of The Avengers.

With a somewhat obscure filmography as a director, Gunn will be another addition to the already unorthodox list of names chosen to direct the films. Gunn is known for writing and directing Slither and Super, while also writing the two live-action Scooby Doo movies as well as the Zack Snyder directed Dawn of the Dead remake. I’m a huge James Gunn fan, and after hearing this and the talks of an Edgar Wright-directed Ant-Man have me thinking that Marvel is going to go in a new direction. Previously considered for the job were Peyton Reed (Yes Man) and Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden (Half Nelson, It’s Kind of a Funny Story), but it was Gunn’s ability to blend horror and comedy that landed him the job. Serves him right, too. He’s been doing stuff way smarter and funnier than the traditional studio fare, and I hope his break into the mainstream is a successful one. And yes, I know, I’m not the biggest fan of the Marvel movies. Yes, I’m “that guy” who didn’t like The Avengers. And yes, even the people who claim they love me also call me an asshole on a regular basis due to this. Do I deserve it? Probably. But am I also excited with the new direction Marvel seems to be taking with its films now that it’s owned by Disney (who, surprisingly enough, makes the best action movies these days). [Ed. Note – No they don’t.]  With Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man 3, and Nick Fury to hit theaters before The Avengers 2, I’m interested in seeing how this massive story line is extended even further. And by the way, I think the titles for the Captain America and Thor sequels are badass while Iron Man is stuck with a generic number title. What’s up with that? Guardians of the Galaxy is set to release on August 1st, 2014.

Your Writer/Director for The Avengers 2 is…

Joss Whedon, come on down! You’ve just been chosen to continue on the path of greatness and while adding to your god-like status amongst the human population! According to several news sources, ranging from the Hollywood Reporter, EW.com, Newsrama etc., Joss Whedon is back in the saddle as your writer and director for Marvel’s The Avengers 2.

In the deal, Mr. Joss “I Own The World, Bow Before My Awesomeness” Whedon, signs a deal with Marvel Studios that keeps in the fold through the end of June 2015. In that, he will cover his duties as director and writer for The Avengers 2, as well as helping develop a live action series for ABC and, according to the Marvel Studios’ press release, “will also contribute creatively to the next phase of Marvel’s cinematic universe.” Basically, as I have read it, he will take the Jon Favreau role in making sure that the universe that Marvel Studios has cultivated will be ushered into the next set of movies, culminating in The Avengers 2 movie. You can bet that the TV show will deal in the Avengers universe and it is safe to say that it is NOT the Guillermo del Toro Hulk series being developed for ABC apparently. Excited much? Yessir. Let us face it, Joss Whedon knows his characters and his television. While not successful all the time in terms of nielsen ratings, his television shows always are great and at least will cater to the cult crowds and die hard geeks his drops his wisdom on. Plus if it’s set in the Marvel Universe, umm, insta-hit?

A live feed from the Whedon household after the deal

From a Hollywood perspective, this should be zero surprise of course. The Avengers has made 1.5 BILLION worldwide. A large part is because not only the commercial acclaim of putting together the most brilliant way to market your movie (uhh, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger? Yeah, those were basically marketing teasers for that movie, profitable ones too at the very least), but the critical acclaim that got people coming back for more. The onus on Whedon and Marvel was making sure the characters were enjoyable to watch and developed to where they both electrified the screen individually AND as a team. Whedon solidified the Marvel Studio’s universe in this movie because he made sure this ambitious project did not implode like a dying star. With egos and sheer enormous size of this project, this could have been an unmitigated disaster with everything that was going on but instead, Mr. Firefly himself controlled the movie and its stars (and the future of this universe) and made sure the next several movies are events flicks that people of all walks and sizes will need to see.

So let’s recap, this will be Joss Whedon’s universe for the next three years and with Iron Man 3 for May 3rd, 2013; Thor: The Dark World in November 8th, 2013; Captain America: The Winter Soldier for April 4th, 2013; Guardians of the Galaxy launching on August 1st, 2014; with possibly Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man figuring into the equation too, this will probably confirm Avengers 2 hitting theaters in 2015, right when the contract ends. Not too mention the TV show that, crossing my fingers and just a hypothetical guess, will probably be S.H.I.E.L.D. related? Excited? You know it baby. So much that this ScarJo pic will be used to match the badassness of this news.

CCI 2012: Marvel Studios Panel! Winter Soldier, Ant-Man, & The Guardians of the Galaxy!

It’s here. It finally happened. My most anticipated panel of this year’s CCI has arrived and started with a bang. I’ve got a few great news stories to discuss with you today, not the least of which is Iron Man’s new armor, Cap and Thor sequels officially titled, and the announcement of Marvel Studios’ 2014 movie! Let’s get to it.