“Avengers: Age Of Ultron” Official Movie Poster

Here is the first official movie poster for “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” with all of the cast front and center.

If you have a magnifying glass, this poster also confirms that Anthony Mackie is reprising his role as The Falcon from “Captain America: Winter Soldier.” Both Thor alumni Idris Elba (Heimdall) and Stellan Skarsgård (Dr. Erik Selvig) are also returning from proof of their cast names appearing on the poster.  I tried my best to zoom in on it and highlight it below.

Definitely glad to see that Captain America, the leader of the team, is highlighted in this poster as opposed to the original “Avengers” poster where he was way in the background and they basically made Robert Downey Jr. the focus:

Funny thing is that after this official poster was released, Marvel released another poster with Robert Downey Jr. as the focus, just in case:

“Avengers: Age Of Ultron” Opens on May 1st, 2015.

Robert Downey Jr. Shares His “Iron Man” Character Poster From “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” And Also Hints Of Some Big News Coming Next Week

Robert Downey Jr recently revealed through his Twitter account the official character poster for Iron Man from “Avengers: Age Of Ultron.” I am sure this will be the first of many character posters that will eventually make its way into movie theater lobbies.

What is even more exciting is that he teased us that there will be a big announcement next week.

Of course I couldn’t help but speculate as to what it could be:

1. Marvel will officially announce that “Spider-Man” will be in “Captain America: Civil War” This is probably the most probable. During the announcement of the Sony and Marvel Spider-Man deal, they announced that Spider-Man will “first appear” in a Marvel movie prior to the new “Spider-Man” movie opening in 2017.
2. Marvel and Sony will announce that they have cast an actor to play “Spider-Man.” Very possible since “Civil War” starts shooting in April.
3. “Captain America: Civil War” will be split into two parts. This is wishful thinking on my part. There is so much material in the original Civil War comic book that there is no way that they could come close to being faithful to the original source material. Besides Captain America, Iron Man and hopefully Spider-Man, there is a huge lineup of superheroes involved. Civil War is one group of superheroes against another group of superheroes. You can’t squeeze all of that into one 2 hour movie.
4. Robert Downey Jr. will announce an extension to his contract with Marvel. Maybe showing up in “Guardians Of The Galaxy 2?” This could somehow tie the Guardians universe with the Avengers so that they could come together for “Avengers: Infinity War.”
5. New Trailer For “Avengers: Age Of Ultron” revealing “The Vision” for the very first time. This is very likely but definitely last on my list as to what I would prefer to see happen.

We should find out next Thursday and I will definitely let you know.

*And just as I was witting this article, Marvel released the official character poster for The Hulk.

 

Tom Rothman Named New Chairman Of Sony Pictures; Does This Mean “Big Trouble” For “Spider-Man?”

Last week we had possibly the best news ever when it was announced that “Spider-Man” was coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. What a difference a week makes because this week we received some of the worst worst news ever. Tom Rothman is now in charge of Sony Pictures. What makes this such bad news? This guys track record is horrible when it comes to comic book movies and just movies in general. Tom Rothman was originally over at Fox and here are some of the questionable things that he did:

1. Rothman is rumored to be majorly responsible for all of the hate between Fox and Disney/Marvel.
2. Rothman was against the movie “X-Men” being made and went out of his way to cut the budget for the film. The first “X-Men” movie was the first superhero movie to reignite the public’s interest in superhero movies after the disastrous “Batman And Robin.” Comic book movie fans owe a lot to this movie.
3. Rothman was responsible for causing Brian Singer to leave as director of “X-Men: Last Stand” and then he hired Bret Ratner, one of Hollywood’s worst directors. Rothman went onto micromanage the film resulting in the worst X-Men movie ever made.
4. Rothman had his hands all over “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and forced director Gavin Hood to make changes that he was firmly against. So many changes were made by Rothman to the final movie that Gavin Hood eventually came out and said, “This is not my movie anymore.”
5. Rothman refused to have any Sentinels in any “X-Men” movies while he was head of the studio.
6. Rothman was behind the cloud version of Galactus that appeared in “Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer.”
7. Rothman personally blocked the movie “Deadpool” from ever being made. The movie “Deadpool” was recently announced to be in production but it is mostly because Rothman left.
8. Rothman was behind the movie release of “Elektra.”
9. Ridley Scott and James Cameron were going to work together and make a sequel to “Aliens” and Rothman said no and decided to go with “Aliens Vs. Predator” instead.
10. Rumor is Rothman does not like comic book movies and he only names himself as producer for those comic book movies that guarantee him a huge paycheck and then he tinkers with them and they become a disaster.

It’s not all bad news though. I mentioned last time that with the new “Spider-Man” deal that Marvel has creative control of Spider-Man, which includes the upcoming solo film. Several people pointed out to me that in the press release Sony still has creative control. I found this hard to believe because Sony made the deal with Marvel because they knew they were having trouble with the “Spider-Man” franchise and they wanted to have similar success that the Marvel movies were experiencing. It made me wonder, why would Sony have creative control and why would Marvel agree not to have creative control? I recently read this in Bigassdigest.com and it confirms what I originally stated:

“Everything I have heard is that Marvel is calling most of the shots on this new movie. There’s been a lot of language in the press to help Sony avoid some embarrassment, to make this look less like admitting defeat.“

That sounds more feasible than Marvel not having any creative control and Sony having all of it.

Latino Review goes on to explain this even more in depth:

Avi Arad and Matt Tolomach, producers of the Amazing Spider-Man movies (and Arad being attached to the property since it’s initial sale) are producers for Spider-Man in name only.

We have information from a source suggesting there is no financial involvement whatsoever and no direct creative control over Spidey coming from the old guard. Amy Pascal still has a say in the Mom-and-Pop arrangement she has with Feige, but Disney didn’t want to unite Pearlmutter, Arad and Feige in earnest. This is the solution.

What does that mean? It means Marvel might have a bit more control than we thought. It means the new Spider-Man has been insulated from BOTH Avi Arad and new Sony head, superhero property curse, Tom Rothman.

As I had mentioned previously, there are many things that we will probably never know about the Spider-Man deal that exists with Disney/Marvel and Sony. I am sure that Disney was well aware of any possibility and probably knew that Amy Pascal was going to be replaced and who the likely candidates were. I don’t think they would have agreed to the deal if they did not have certain assurances and could also protect themselves. And I am sure one stipulation was “you wanted our help, don’t interfere in the direction we are taking the character.”

Rant: Seriously, why do corporations sometimes hire the worst possible candidates for high level positions? This guy seems like your typical corporate jerk who takes credit for everything and throws everyone else under the bus when someone is needed to blame. He seems like he thinks he knows better than everyone else and loves to throw his power around. I can never understand why people like this are constantly rewarded. Of all of the atrocities that he was responsible for, there was going to be an Aliens sequel where both Ridley Scott and James Cameron both agreed to be on board and he said no? This man should not even be allowed to work at a 7-Eleven.

Sources: Deadline, Latino Review, Bigassdigest

Preview Of Marvel’s “Star Wars #3”

Looks like Darth Vader still doesn’t know that Luke Skywalker is actually his son and he still hates his guts. In this issue, Han Solo and Princess Leia commandeer an AT-AT, C3PO has a license to drive the Millennium Falcon and Vader is about to take on the above mentioned AT-AT with a light saber!

“Star Wars #3” will go on sale on March 11th, 2015.

Source: StarWars.com

First Clear Image Of Marvel’s “Daredevil”

The magazine Film Ink has given us our best look at Daredevil so far by featuring “The Man With No Fear” on it’s front cover.

Rant: We better be seeing the classic red “Daredevil” costume very soon because if he is going to be wearing black pajamas throughout the first season, I’m not watching it. That’s like Batman not having his mask and cowl. That’s not Batman, that is just Bruce Wayne looking for trouble. This costume is fine if this is his first attempt at Daredevil but the character needs to look more like the iconic Daredevil. It makes no sense to be just showing us the black costume in promotions and not just revealing his red costume. Even if this was a motion picture, they would have revealed it by now. Don’t screw this up Marvel, you have a great track record with remaining loyal to the comics and the trailer looks great too.

Here are some of Daredevil’s costume that would be completely acceptable to me:

* Marvel just released this new poster as I was writing this. Well, there is red in there, but not the red I’m looking for.

Marvel’s “Daredevil” will premier exclusively on Netflix on April 10th, 2015.

Stan Lee Draws An Image Of “Spider-Man” For A Young Fan With Autism

This is a great story. The New York Times reported that Jamel Hunter, an 8 year old boy with autism, was celebrating his birthday with friends and family. Jamel’s favorite hero is Spider-Man and Jamel’s mother went out of her way to have Spider-Man images displayed throughout the birthday party.

Stan Lee read about the story and was moved and wanted to do something to help. Stan Lee is Spider-Man’s creator and he has always played the role of writer, not artist. But Stan decided this one time that he would draw a very special picture of Spider-Man for Jamel. New York Times writer, Michael Wilson, delivered the drawing to Jamel, with Lee’s signature in the corner.

Here are some pictures of Jamel with Stan Lee’s gift:

Source: New York Times

New “Ant-Man” Promo Art

Some new promo art for the upcoming Marvel movie “Ant-Man” has recently hit the internet. Lets’ take a look at what we could expect from the movie based on the concept art below.

“Ant-Man” will open on July 17th, 2015.

Sideshow Collectible Corner

“The Hulk” From “Avengers: Age Of Ultron”

Sideshow Collectibles and Hot Toys have done it again. Check out this amazingly detailed premium figure of The Incredible Hulk as seen in “Avengers: Age Of Ultron.”

Sideshow Collectibles and Hot Toys are thrilled to officially present the Hulk Deluxe Sixth Scale Figure Collectible Set from this epic blockbuster!

The movie-accurate collectible figure is specially crafted based on the image of Hulk in Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. This deluxe set specially features two newly developed angry and screaming Hulk head sculpts with rolling eyeballs, a specially painted muscular body and a newly sculpted interchangeable Hulk smash pose upper body.

The Hulk Deluxe figure is available for pre-order exclusively through Sideshow Collectibles. The cost is $374.99 and expected to ship sometime in the fourth quarter of this year.

That’s it for this time!