Parallel Universes: Arresting Supermen

Remind me how effective handcuffs and armed guards are when dealing with super human strength.

Loki in The Avengers (2012)

'John Harrison' in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Superman in Man of Steel (2013)

Lucasfilm: New Star Wars Animated Series

Rumblings came from the Star Wars side of the galaxy today. It's pretty cool news for fans of The Clone Wars animated series: Fall of 2014, on Disney XD, a new animated series called Star Wars Rebels will be set in the time period between Episodes III and IV. Many of the same production and creative design team from the Clone Wars series will work on this new project.

I'm excited. It'll be fun to see more animation out of Lucasfilm since they showed an increasing ability with the medium over the last few years, plus now they've got all of Disney's resources to work with.
You can view the entirety of the official press release here. 

Disney's Lone Hope

The Lone Ranger, due out early July, needs to be good, for Disney's sake. While they may not admit as much, Disney's live-action brand has been suffering. Their most recent endeavor Oz: The Great and Powerful garnered some pretty harsh reviews, squeaked out marginal box-office profits, and did not come close to achieving the (expected) same success as Disney's 2010 addition of Alice in Wonderland. By any account, Oz did better by far than last years John Carter, which lost Disney around $80 million and tarnished their studio's season. That followed on the heels of the fourth installment of the Pirated of the Caribbean series and the sequel/reboot Tron: Legacy, both which were good enough to have sequels in the works, but while Tron and Pirates 4 made money at the box-office, they had mixed reviews form critics. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies have gotten worse and worse reviews as the series progressed (most agree that the first Pirates was a very strong film, but that was released ten years ago).

Adver-Treking

You've probably seen plenty of ads for the new Star Trek due out this weekend, but have you seen all the commercials with a Star Trek theme? It would seem that there's a lot of joint-advertising going on, and some of it is a lot of fun.

Boldly Going This Friday

Initial reviews for Star Trek Into Darkness are good. Despite some detractors, Rotten Tomatoes has the film at a commanding 88%.

If you're pumped up for the release later this week, here's some Star Trek morsels to keep you hungry.

There's always somebody trying to compare Star Trek to Star Wars, something that really shouldn't be done as one is good science fiction and the other more science fantasy, and its begin done more and more with the prospect of Abrams lined up to direct the first of Disney's new Star Wars films. CNN ran a bit on their website, but it didn't really do wither franchise justice. Neil deGrass Tyson lent his opinion to the debate, letting us know that he grew up loving Trek never really could get into Wars, landing him in the camp that enjoys a dose of real science fiction over its cousin science fantasy. That's different from Abrams, who admitted to Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's mock news program The Daily Show that he grew up loving Star Wars but could never quite get into loving Star Trek, at least until he really got involved making the new films. Maybe Neil deGrass Tyson just needs to be cast as a Jedi in the new Star Wars film to figure out he can love it too.

Also, there's this: Karl Urban has stated emphatically that J.J. Abrams will be involved in future Star Trek film projects, even if he isn't in the director's chair. Star Wars duties aside, Abrams will continue to be involved at some level with the future of Star Trek, which is a good thing, considering he fits the formula for nerd-in-control means a good film.

For something else, here's a short clip of J.J. Abrams talking about the film title:

Go Ape

In the world where apes rule over men, the biggest news this past weekend was the first officially released photo from the set, featuring Andy Serkis in his motion capture gear riding a horse. A month ago there were a bunch of set photos that got passed around the web, but this one's getting the most buzz. According to some, it signifies a tying into the original films, a good sign for fans of the classic '60s film series.

Besides this, a casting list and general plot outline was released by Fox. It looks like the film is a promising one:

“A growing nation of genetically evolved apes led by Caesar is threatened by a band of human survivors of the devastating virus unleashed a decade earlier.  They reach a fragile peace, but it proves short-lived, as both sides are brought to the brink of a war that will determine who will emerge as Earth’s dominant species.

Andy Serkis, celebrated for his performance in the last film, reprises his role as Caesar. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes also stars Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell, Toby Kebbell, Kodi Smit-McPhee, EnriqueMurciano, Kirk Acevedo and Judy Greer.”

Modern Marvels

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a fun one. With all that's going on, and its divisions between studios with X-Men still under control of FOX, there's certainly a lot to talk about.

There's Disney Animation's announcement of a new Marvel film, the apparent prologue to Iron Man 3, studio advice to DC on how to do a Justice League movie justice, and tweeted pictures from the X-Men set, including Wolverine and a very groovy looking Professor X.

However, the biggest buzz is following the release of Iron Man 3 and speculation as to who will return in future films, especially considering how different contracts have been negotiated and which ones are currently up, specifically golden boy of the franchise, Robert Downey Jr.

The most recent news came from some comments made by Mark Ruffalo, who said that fans shouldn't worry to much, although the actors would really be some of the last to know the outcomes from different casting decisions. This came after all sorts of discussion about the contracts, which apparently favor some actors over others to a very large degree. Robert Downey Jr. reportedly got paid $50 million for Avengers compared to cast mates getting up to $200,000 for the picture, something he may push to even out in future films. There have been rumors of his impending retirement from the franchise, but so far that seems more likely to be at least after Avengers 2. Marvel Studios has said that someday they will have to move on from Robert Downey Jr. and do a sort of James Bond things, indicating that there may be no end in sight for the ever growing franchise.

S.H.I.E.L.D Your Eyes

What do you do when you own both a major studio linked to a huge world of characters that have been shaped into a multi-billion dollar movie franchise and also one of the big 3 original TV networks?

You use them of course.

Coming this Fall, on ABC, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is being brought to you by Joss Whedon, the man behind the Avengers and TV cult favorites like Firefly. While there have been rumors abounding, and much excitement at this first look, now we have a preview. 

Check this out:

We'll see how this plays out. While comic fans will be familiar with how S.H.I.E.L.D. work, as a TV series, it might work a bit like Fringe or The X-Files set in the Marvel universe, and that could be really cool, especially considering its a tie into the already existing movie franchise. 

Time Warner certainly took advantage of their large bag of tricks when they produced the show Smallville for their own CW, but though it featured Superman and other familiar characters, there were no tie ins with any of the Superman films. There are some rumors circulating that their current show Arrow may feature a link to the Green Lantern film, but those rumblings may have to rest until we know more about plans for a possible Justice League movie (although that project could have no ties to the Ryan Reynolds version of GL).

Whatever happens in the DC world, Marvel is certainly taking bold steps in linking their film franchise to a new TV series. 

Way to use all your cards Disney. You certainly have a lot to play with. 

New X-Men Image: Kitty Pryde

Bryan Singer tweeted another picture from the set of Days of Future Past, this one of Ellen Page geared up to go as Kitty Pryde.

Here it is:

Return of the King: DC's Chosen Son is Back to Claim His Throne

Zack Snyder, the director of the much anticipated Man of Steel due to be released this June, recently made some comments about the superiority of DC heroes compared to the heroes of the Marvel universe. Snyder argues that DC heroes occupy a higher strata than Marvel's heroes, who are a rather flashy group that while fun, are in a large way just spectacle. Snyder says that DC heroes are better at being purely archetypal and aren't cheaply interchangeable. While those types of comments are surely inflammatory, it seems clear that Snyder is the right kind of fan to be behind this next Superman.

The fact is is that Superman is the king of the Superhero Movie. Superman wasn't only the first superhero movie, it was superhero movies, not just defining the genre but embodying it. It spawned four sequels (Superman Returns being a sort of quasi Superman V), and even though most people think Superman II was the last good Superman movie, the film series still stand as the foundation of superhero flicks. 

In Superman's absence, we saw the rise of Batman in several forms and the large surge of Marvel heroes. Batman movies did something in making a superhero grounded and gritty in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy that no one else has done; In a lot of ways Batman has been set apart from all other superheroes, even those, like Superman, who are apart of the DC universe. As Batman has been set apart, Superman may have been set above. He's a standard, and something hard to grasp, a difficulty we all saw when Bryan Singer, so celebrated at his work with X-Men films, tried his hand at Superman Returns. Zack Snyder has set out to reclaim Superman with Man of Steel, adapting him for the 21st century,  but ensuring he's back to claim what is his. He is king of the superhero movie, and while I'm sure he'd be happy with how Tony Stark and his Avenger pals have taken care of it for him in his absence, the king is back and has come to reclaim his genre.

Let's see if he's again ready to rule.

Also there's this: 

There is no Kryptonite in the new Superman flick, which excites me because that eliminates the single 1-dimensional weakness of previous Supermen and opens up new exciting possibilities for vulnerabilities. I talked with a friend who thinks a single weakness of kryptonite is lame, and he was then worried that eliminating it was a bad thing. While I don't know what they're going to do in the place of kryptonite, I'm excited to find out, and I think the omission is a good thing. Here with a good breakdown is IGN News:

Super Rundown 5/3/2013

So Iron Man 3 is out today. That's awesome. Here's the breakdown for some other movie news for this week:

In the Marvel universe:

• Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are set to appear in Avengers 2, at least for now, something that will surely complicate some things since they're originally X-Men characters, and Fox still has rights to all things X-Men. That'll probably change some character details if Marvel Studios fleshes them out, and also take away possible plot lines for Fox as  they continue making X-Men movies without these two characters, characters who are the children of Magneto.
• Rumor has it that Marvel is looking to cast Black Panther, which could be cool if he were also included in Avengers 2.
• Ghost Rider has reverted from Sony back to Marvel, so Marvel Studios has control of the character, something that should comfort fans of the deadly biker since its now out of Nick Cage's reach. 
• Joss Whedon let some hints slip about what's in store for Thanos in future films and ideas about Avengers 3.
• Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, had a sweet interview with Huffington Post. In it he discussed the future of Marvel movies and the joys in coordinating a shared movie universe. 
• And Bryan Singer released another image from the set of X-Men: Days of Future Past, this one including Wolverine. I'm stoked for that movie. 

In other news, J.J. Abrams is looking to John Williams to score the new Star Wars film. That should appease some skeptical fans. 

And lastly, Star Trek revealed a new Klingon look. 

That's the Super Rundown for this week. There was also some Man of Steel commotion around some comments Zack Snyder made, but that warrants its own post.

Happy weekend. Go stick it to the man and put some money in his pockets by going to see Iron Man 3. It's purportedly amazing.
Personally, I'm planning on supporting my local Hollywood investors on Saturday when I go see the movie. Should be good.