Weekly News Round Up 11/09/14

Weekly News Round-Up

World Of Warcraft's Tribute to Robin Williams

WOW have implemented their tribute to the late and great Robin Williams in the form of a genie. When you rub its lamp, he comes out and says "INFINITE COSMIC POWER! Itty bitty living space," an obvious take on the Genie quote from Disney's Aladdin. The area also features Mork's crashed egg spaceship and some toys, likely a reference to Williams' role in Toys.
RIP Robin and thank you Blizzard for the tribute to a truly fantastic man.

James Gunn on Guardians Of The Galaxy 2/

Stan Lee on Black Widow

At DragonCon in Atlanta this past weekend, everyone's favourite super-director James Gunn put to sleep the rumours of Captain Marvel aka, Carol Danvers, appearing in Guardians Of The Galaxy 2. According to Collider, Gunn said that he would be avoiding 'earthlings' and will be keeping the focus on Star Lord and the gang. He does plan to include more female characters (woohoo!) from the Guardians side of Marvel Comics.

At an entirely separate convention this past weekend, Fan Expo Canada in Toronto, Stan Lee offered his thoughts on the much-needed Black Widow movie. According to CBR, "The chances are she will  have her own movie because eventually all the superheroes are going to have their own movies. They are already working on Ant-Man, Doctor Strange and the Black Panther, and there are others I am not allowed to talk about."

I'm pretty certain that Black Panther hadn't yet been confirmed, so he might have let that one slip 'accidentally!' (Although we all know how clever Marvel are with their marketing...)

I'm definitely up for a Black Widow movie, its definitely needed!

Who would you want to see play Black Panther? 

Check out our suggestions below!

  (L - R: Idris Elba, Jamie Foxx, Michael B. Jordan, Will Smith, Anthony Mackie, Terrance Howard)

Elba definitely has the gravitas for such a character, not to mention the physique. Foxx is impossibly cool, although perhaps not right visually. Michael B. Jordan is young and upcoming and has already cut his teeth on superheroes with the fantastic Chronicle. Will Smith is... Will Smith. Anthony Mackie has the physique and bad-assery. Howard definitely has the right look.

However, one problem... Almost all of these guys have already featured in Marvel movies or are appearing in upcoming ones! The only viable suggestion from these is Will Smith! 

Hmm... Race discrimination in the mainstream media is something that needs to be addressed methinks!

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson is cast as Black Adam in Shazam!

In more casting news, everyones second-favourite wrestler (Hi, Bautisa!) has been officially cast as Black Adam in DC's upcoming Shazam! movie. See Johnson's official announcement via Twitter below;

Why Stan Lee's original GOTG cameo was scrapped

There's been a handful of speculation as to why the originally planned cameo for Stan Lee in Guardians Of The Galaxy was scrapped. Many people were calling out Disney for disallowing it, but James Gunn has swept in to clear up the confusion, along with a behind-the-scenes pic!

Here's Gunn's commentary on the matter, along with the hilarious photo of Lee's stand-in!

'#‎gotgpicoftheday At a panel on Sunday at Dragoncon, I talked about a deleted @realstanlee cameo in Guardians, and promised the folks there I’d post a photo on Instagram - so here it is! As you can see, this is not Stan, but a double. In the original cut of the film, when the Guardians enter the Collector’s museum, Rocket looks over and sees Cosmo the dog in one display case, Quill looks over into another display case and is surprised by a tentacle slapping against the glass, and Groot looks over and sees, in another display case, Stan Lee. In one take, Stan Lee just slowly turns up his finger, flipping off Groot. We shot this footage with a Stan Lee double because Stan wasn’t able to come to the UK at the time. The plan was to shoot Stan in the same lighting when I was back in LA, and we’d digitally replace the double’s head with Stan’s actual head (not quite as difficult as it sounds). Although I thought the cameo was funny, I thought the flipping off joke was too similar to the moment earlier in the film where Quill flips off the Nova Corps, so I excised that part of it immediately. A couple of the guys at Marvel thought Stan Lee in a case was too broad of a joke in general, and that it took the audience out of the movie. I argued about it for a bit, but we ended up not keeping it in the film. In a pretty typical case of Internet-journalism-telephone, articles online yesterday said that Disney forbade the scene because of standards . However, that’s incorrect - no one at Disney ever even saw the scene, and it was cut solely for creative reasons. #‎gotg'

X-Men: Apocalypse to shoot in 2015

Canadian newspaper Journal De Montreal is reporting that X-Men: Apocalypse will begin shooting in April next year in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Construction on the set for the film will begin at the end of this year at Mel's Studio, which is where Days Of Future Past was shot. Currently, no-one has officially signed on to star in the film, but we'll undoubtedly see the cast return for this movie, based around the infamous mutant villain, Apocalypse.

Promo art for Avengers: Age Of Ultron

Spotted at an international products expo, this piece of promo art gives us our first proper look at the team altogether, including Paul Bettany's Vision! I'm not a big fan of Bettany at all, but I trust in Marvel! Due for an April/May 2015 release, its not long until we undoubtedly get more and more promo material. I can barely contain myself!

The image comes from the Instagram account of YeongJip.

Captain America 3 title has been 'planned for years'

Those amazing Russo brothers! They've been teasing again! During their interview with Crave Online, they teased that the official title has been planned for years over at Marvel Studios.

"If you've been talking to Kevin (Feige, President of Marvel Studios) the title has been in place probably for ten years in his brain," said Joe Russo. "It's all part of the road map that he's laid out, and it's all part of the bigger plan." When asked if they were building towards Cap 3 in The Winter Soldier, Joe said, "Yeah, I think the way Kevin does it is there are big pieces that he knows he wants to build towards, but the way that you get there is open to interpretation and improv a little bit. That's defined by who gets involved with the project, the writers and directors involved in the project. The big thing we knew we had to deal with in Captain America 2 was the fall of Hydra. Similarly, there is a very, very big idea at the centre of Captain America 3. But how we get there is all up to us. And I think why Marvel has been so successful is because it's been such a clear plan, that everything is interconnected and they're building emotional capital with each movie that you can then trade off of in the next film."

Yikes. They also later promised more Falcon action! Yes! It's gearing up for a May 2016 release, which is a painfully long time to wait!

What 'big plan' do you think Cap 3 holds for us?

I'm personally hoping it'll be something regarding Bucky taking over the Cap mantle... I don't think we'll see Civil War hit the big screens though as there are too many characters currently in the hands of other companies (Spidey, etc.) 

What do you think? What would you like to see happen in Captain America 3?

Supergirl TV series confirmed

Arrow/The Flash executive producer Greg Berlanti has confirmed that we are indeed getting a Supergirl TV series!

CBR spoke to Berlanti at PaleyFest 2014 and while he had to remain tight-lipped, he did reveal this little nugget of info, "We're just starting to work on it. We haven't gone to the networks yet, so. I'll be happy, very excited to talk about it once we know where its home will be and that kind of stuff, but not at this moment."

Berlanti will be developing the show, with help from writer Ali Adler. According to Deadline, this will be a "new interpretation of the Supergirl character and her story," and that the show won't simply be called 'Supergirl.' Rumours are the show won't end up on The CW, so I suppose we'll have to wait and see who picks it up! 

Hopefully it won't be another Wonder Woman situation where the show gets dropped before it has a chance to kick off! While I don't have many feelings towards Supergirl, I'm all for more female heroes taking their place on-screen!

Who would you cast as Supergirl?

Check out our ideas below!

 (L - R: Dianna Agron, Hayden Panettiere, Julianne Hough)

Agron, of Glee fame, not only looks the part but has the sweet smile perfect for Supes' cousin. Panettiere has already wowed the geek world with her work on Heroes, but would you like to see her don the blue and red spandex? We know she can kick ass, but enough ass to be Supergirl?

Hough is undoubtedly the closest physically to Supergirl, do you think she could pull off the Kryptonian?

Drax will have a 'significant role' in Avengers 3

According to a wrestling website, PW Mania, Dave Bautista is currently restructuring his contract with Marvel to allow a higher wage due to the huge success of Guardians Of The Galaxy. In the process, they specifically mention that the actor is slated to appears as Drax in Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 and that he will also have a 'significant' role in The Avengers 3, which seemingly confirms my suspicions that Avengers 3 will see a big crossover happening. Avengers 3 is aiming for a 2018 release.

Check out the blog every Thursday for the weekly news round-up!