Hero Express: Iron Man 3 Armors, Mark Millar Joins Fox, & Ben Affleck Still Says No To Justice League!

Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop sometimes SPOILER filled shop through the top five stories in comic based Film & TV news!

Iron Man 3 Shows Mark VIII On Set In Miami

Robert Downey Jr. may have injured his ankle during shooting, but Shane Blacks Iron Man 3 is still pushing ahead. Not sure if Robert is back at shooting but his new suit certainly is. The new Mark VIII suit made its debut at this year’s Comic-Con and was met with mixed opinions. I wasn’t a fan originally but it has grown on me a bit since then and I would like to see this suit in action. Where’s the trailer at already, Marvel?

The blue suit to right is apparently not the Iron Patriot like we originally thought but instead is allegedly going to be Rhodey’s new War Machine armor. We mainly think this because of the clear US Air Force insignia stamped on the side of the new armor. I do not like the fact that the War Machine armor is almost exactly the same in appearance to the Iron Man suit! I think it will get confusing in a fast fight scene with them flying through the skies with explosions left, right, and center.

Images via [Collider]

Mark Millar To Take Control Over Fox’s Marvel Films

What a prestigious role to play with such a well-respected film company. Congratulations Mark. Oh by the way I am clapping slowly. Not shocking that Fox decided to do this since Marvel made billions on The Avengers and then got director Joss Whedon to helm their Marvel Cinematic Universe for Phase Two.  So Fox wants their remaining Marvel properties to work a little more coherently under the watchful eye of Mr Millar. Nothing wrong with that, though I’d prefer if they would just give them back to Marvel. That’s clearly not going to happen so they might as well try and make them good.

Mark Millar has a rich history with comics and to be honest he is a smart choice to oversee Fox’s comic films. His most noticeable works are The Authority, The Ultimates, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Ultimate Fantastic Four, Civil War, Wanted, and Kick-Ass. In August 2007, he also won the Stan Lee award at Wizardworld in Chicago. He has the right background and so we will have to just wait and see what impact his involvement in the next Fox films will be. Fingers crossed its good.

These are Mark Millar’s words on taking the job:

“I really like the Fox team, love this bold new direction they have for their franchises and am proud to be working alongside some of modern cinema’s biggest talents. James Mangold is incredible, Matthew Vaughn’s one of my closest pals, and Josh Trank gave us, in my opinion, one of the greatest superhero movies of the last decade with Chronicle. The invitation to join this crew was maybe the coolest phone call I’ve ever had,” Millar said with characteristic understatement in a statement accompanying the announcement. Describing his new role as a “dream gig,” he continued, “I spent 10 years working at Marvel and am really happy with the work I did on the comic side of things, so the idea of working with these characters now in a brand new medium is enormously exciting for me.”

Interview via [Comic Alliance]

Ben Affleck Still Says No To Directing A Justice League Film

Talking to MTV, Ben Affleck has explained that he doesn’t want to direct any Justice League movie and he doesn’t understand where the rumors started. He never suggested to anyone he wanted the part or that he was approached for the directing role by Warner Bros. So in his defense the theory kind of came out of nowhere and I find it funny that he has to explain that point from now on.

These are his words about the suggested directing role:

“What happens is that there’s a lot of bloggers and Internet interest around superhero movies, so there’s regularly a rumor that comes up, obviously [with regard to] ‘Justice League’ once ‘Avengers’ happened they think, ‘Well it would be crazy not to make “Justice League,”‘ and I’m sure they will. I guess I should be flattered, and I’m sure it will be cool. I’ve seen some of the stuff from the new Superman movie and that stuff is awesome. I think they took a really cool, real approach to Superman, which no one has done before, so if that trend continues I’m sure ‘Justice League’ will be great.”

The reason that he won’t be involved, he says, is that he finds that he doesn’t really care to work on superhero movies at the moment, thanks to his experience with Fox’s Daredevil in 2003. But that he may work on a superheroes film in the future:

“I had a negative experience with the one comic book I liked, it was just a movie that didn’t work… It’s such a shame because first of all ‘Daredevil’ [is] a great book, great idea and then right after that they figured out that it was better to make the movies good and then they started making them cool and investing in them. I felt like I was in the 1930s with that outfit, the trousers: ‘Hey chum, hold up there! This fella’s trying to rob a bank!’ It was a drag but I did love it as a kid and they’re rebooting it.”

News via [Comics Alliance]

Captain America Looking for a Female Lead

Captain America is going into production early next year, but they still haven’t picked a female lead. The new lead is going to be a romantic interest to Steve Rogers, and although fans may know that Sharon Carter would be a safe bet as she is the niece of Steve Rogers Wartime love Peggy Carter. The real question though is who will play the role of the Captain’s new love interest.

The short list so far appears to include Jessica Brown Findlay (Downton Abbey), Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones), Teresa Palmer (I Am Number Four), Imogen Poots (Fright Night) and Alison Brie (Community). They do appear to have got a mixed group of women for the role which makes for endless speculation. I think with Alison Brie having already worked with the directors of this film that she has a strong chance of getting the role, not to mention the draw she would bring from the loyal fans of Community (Yeah, she’s HOT!). But that’s just my theory as the casting could go to any of these ladies, to be honest they have all done some very interesting work and I am sure they would do a great job.

Why wouldn’t we put this picture up?

News via [Coming Soon]

Patrick Stewart Possibly Returning to X-Men

Rumors of a fourth X-Men film have been floating around the nerd vine for a while after X-Men: The Last Stand nearly destroyed the franchise. What a terrible film. The separate X-Men films First Class and Wolverine put us more at doubt that a fourth film would get made, but that they would continue the other independent X-Men stories. Well it might be more likely to happen now that Patrick Stewart teased us with a reply to a fan at the Montreal Comic Con this year.

SuperHeroHype reports:

At the 2012 Montreal Comic Convention, he was asked by a fan about returning to the series and he replied “I think there is every possibility” and then began to say the names of his female co-stars “Halle Berry! Famke Janssen! Rebecca Stamos! Anna Paquin!” Stewart then said, “yes, I’ll be reprising…”

Yes, he could just be messing with us. Yes, he might just be saying that he’d like to be in an X-Men film again. But with the sequel to First Class titled X-Men: Days of Future Past there might be a chance for him to reprise his role as present Professor and play along side his younger counterpart, which I would love to see and is perfectly possible in the time travel story line of Days of Future Past.

That’s it for this week!

Anna Kendrick for Capt. America 2! Or Not…

You may have seen her when she first appeared in Up in the Air, or maybe when she was in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  Oh, please tell me you didn’t see her in any of the Twilight films.  If you did, that’s unfortunate, but at least you know about her then. Anna Kendrick is one of those actresses you definitely want to remember so fifty years from now you can say to your grandkids, “I remember some of her first performances.” Recently, Kendrick’s name has buzzed about the geek world not just because of her voice talents lent to ParaNorman, but also because she is up for the lead female role in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Both Imogen Poots and Felicity Jones are also being considered for this position; one of them will most likely be playing Peggy Carter’s niece, Sharon Carter, though this character has only been rumored and not confirmed. [Ed. Note – both of whom have starred opposite of Anton Yelchin; Poots in Fright Night and Jones in Like Crazy] Now that all the female lead choices have been revealed, the blood bath has already begun.  Heated arguments about which actress should get the lead have already popped up all over the internet, with most being in Kendrick’s favor.  Brendon Connelly of Bleeding Cool says, “If we’re thinking of the casting in a ‘credible’ way, with both creative and commercial integrity, I think Kendrick probably has the edge on most counts: she’s cut-yourself sharp, well-known and well liked, and has great acting chops” [BleedingCool].

Cinemablend agrees with Connelly’s analysis of the female lead.  Though both Poots and Jones are British and have the upper-hand in the accent realm, Cinemblend believes we should “never rule out Kendrick, who snagged an Oscar nomination for her first major role in Up in the Air, and seems tenacious enough to tackle a natural British accent in no time” [Cinemablend].

Yet don’t be too sure, state many film, comic book, and geek fans.  Many believe Kendrick is not right for the role, right down to her looks.  One person commented on Cinemblend’s report that “Imogen Poots looks and sounds like a great actress to play Peggy Carter’s niece in Cap 2. She looks more like Hayley Atwell than either Anna Kendrick or Felicity Jones, and she’s much better looking than Kendrick or Jones.”  Some argue that looks are not everything, but others have pointed out that Kendrick is plainly too young for the niece of a woman from the 1940s.

My thoughts?  I have never seen Jones or Poots act before, but I have watched Kendrick, and I think she’s wonderful.  Based solely on my previous impressions of her, I think she could pull off a British niece of Peggy Carter, but I do agree with those who have said she looks too young for the role.  I would prefer to see a natural-born British woman who is slightly older steal the screen in The Winter Soldier, but I don’t want to make any judgement calls until I see Jones and Poots act, either in The Winter Soldier or otherwise.

Grizzly Review: Fright Night (2011)

Being such an uber fan of the 80’s classic that was the original Fright Night, I went into this one with excitement and apprehension. Were they going to do something completely different than the original or stick to the same thing? Luckily they did a little bit of both. They changed a few things, but gave plenty of nods to the original and what they did change was actually pretty cool.

So we start off with pretty much the same premise as the original Fright Night. There’s a young kid named Charlie Brewster (Anton Yelchin) who lives with his mom (Toni Collette), has a girlfriend and all of the normal teenage problems you would expect. Luckily that’s where the remake changes things up a bit. The relationship between Charlie and Ed was different, as they were nerds-in-arms in the past, but now Charlie is one of the “cool guys” who won’t talk to Ed to maintain his status. I was pretty surprised at how fast they jumped into the “he’s a vampire” mode, but it didn’t kill the movie for me. It’s not long before Charlie is suspecting that there’s something more going on with his new neighbor Jerry than meets the eye.

I never thought that Chris Sarandon could be replaced as the smooth talking, hooker slaying vampire from the original, but Colin Farrell really took that role and ran with it. He was excellent as the vampire lord, looking like he had a ball playing the part the whole movie. Chris Sarandon had a great cameo in the movie that made me grin ear to ear and it’ll be easy enough for you fans of the original to catch, trust me.

Anton Yelchin and Imogen Poots did fine as Charlie and Amy respectively in the movie. They may not have been the most interesting characters in the flick, but I didn’t hate them either. Yelchin is great in pretty much everything up to this point, such as Kyle Reese in the most recent Terminator and Chekov in Star Trek which we’ll see more of in the next year or so. Christopher Mintz-Plasse played “Evil” Ed perfect, compared to his annoying counterpart from the 80’s Stephen Geoffreys. Honestly I’m not sure if Mintz-Plasse can play anything except the dorky outcast kid that he is notoriously famous for since the creation of the Hawaiian organ donor Mc’Lovin in Superbad. Is that a bad thing?

The biggest role that it seemed like the movie kept under wraps until the release of the movie was that of Peter Vincent. We knew that Doctor Who veteran David Tenant would be playing the Las Vegas Illusionist, but other than a couple of publicity pictures there wasn’t much in the way of footage of him. I was skeptical because of how much I adored the Roddy McDowell ‘Peter Vincent’, because there is no way that anyone could replicate that character. Thankfully Tenant took the character and made it his own. At first it seemed like he was channeling Russell Brand, but after about five minutes I began to see he wasn’t as annoying as his fellow countryman. Peter Vincent was definitely a drunken mess to start out, but they pulled out a twist in there that made him have a far more integral part to the story that surpassed the original.

I can’t help but give the movie a 5 out of 5 grizzlies based on what it was, plus I’m a little biased with my love for the original. It was a horror movie that gave me everything I wanted from it and then some, with a bit of humor injected here and there.

It honored the original that it was derived from while still maintaining its own separate identity. I’m definitely disappointed that the movie didn’t fare so well in the box office, limiting its chances for a sequel. Though perhaps based on its modest budget we may still see the continuing adventures of Charlie Brewster and Peter Vincent. And now, check out the awesomeness that is the musical version of the original Fright Night below!

Fright Night: Doctor Who, Checkov, and Vampires…

Finally! Finally there is a trailer for the reboot of 1985’s vampire tale, Fright Night! With an August 2011 release it certainly took them long enough. The original Fright Night had some pretty cheesy moments to be sure, but Chris Sarandon looked great in his vampire form, and put on a great performance as Jerry Dandridge; the smooth talking vampire next door. Roddy McDowell was more than superb in his role of Peter Vincent the Great Vampire Killer, and his role is now filled by ‘Doctor Who’ star: David Tennant.

The premise of the movie is simple yet fun, which is all you really need from a vampire movie in my opinion:

Charley Brewster is a regular kid with the normal problems of a teenage life, but his problems only get bigger as his new neighbor Jerry moves in. Due to the urging of his friend Ed and some snooping of his own Charley deduces that Jerry is in fact a vampire. And what’s worse is that Jerry knows that Charley knows… and even more worse no one believes Charley.

Also, you might recognize our hero Charley, played by Anton Yelchin who has made a name for himself the last couple years with roles like Chekov in Star Trek and as a young Kyle Reese in Terminator: Salvation. Kid is up and coming!

I’m thinking that looks pretty damned good. It can’t surpass the original no matter how cheesy it was, but this new one I am looking at as a completely different film, rather than a step by step remake. It looks like a hybrid of Disturbia and The Lost Boys to tell you the truth – and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Colin Farrell looks like he was born to play a vampire and I initially has misgivings with him being cast in the role, but it seems like he is back in demand with Fright Night, Horrible Bosses and the new Total Recall all set to come out in the near future. I was disappointed we weren’t given a glimpse of Tennant as Peter Vincent, but I suppose it’s good to not spoil everything with a trailer. I can even live with Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin’ Fogel) being cast as Evil Ed, because lord knows the original played by Stephen Geoffreys was a bit annoying at times. And Geoffreys has had an interesting filmography since Fright Night (Ahem! Porn!)…

I’m interested to know what all of my fellow Fright Night fans think of the new trailer. Worth seeing or not? I’m pumped for it in a big way, a big reason being that Hollywood has been dropping the ball on Vampires in general since the Twilight craze. True Blood is even hard for me to watch, but it’s a hell of a lot better than Twilight.

Sound off below people!