You know it's a slow superhero movie news week when apparently leaked (and largely underwhelming) concept art for Justice League makes a big splash. Perhaps it's equilibrium being regained after last week's massive JL info dump, or maybe the pre-Comic-Con-International slowdown is taking effect already. Nevertheless, here are the best bits of news from the world of superhero movies that we could find.
Well here's an unexpected rumor. According to Fatman on Batman producer Matt Key, Marvel Studios and 20th Century Fox—the studio that controls the X-Men and Fantastic Four movie rights—are perhaps more open to a crossover than you might suspect. "I've heard from a few of my sources, my little birds, that Fox and Marvel have... kind of talked," he said during an appearance on the Collider Heroes show. He immediately clarified, "Not really, but like there's interest from Fox, like, 'Ooh, y'know, what they did with Sony and Spider-Man is actually pretty cool, like, maybe...'" The more he talked, the more he seemed to walk back his own rumor: "We're years away from that ever possibly happening," he went on, "but I think that's what it would take: Fox joining hands with Marvel."
Why this could be super: If this turns out to be more than just a random thing that Key said and immediately regretted (hence the subsequent quasi-takeback), this would be a big deal indeed: Marvel's comic book universe finally united on the big screen. But right now, it seems more like the product of an over-excited imagination than anything else. Of course, we could've said that about Marvel and Sony re: Spider-Man a couple of years ago.
If you've been getting excited about Suicide Squad recently, you're not alone. It's apparently the most buzzed-about upcoming movie this year, beating even Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and the Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. That's definitely a good sign for Warner Bros. executives hoping for a strong opening weekend, but as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice made clear, even the greatest pre-release buzz struggles when it has to deal with bad word of mouth.
Why this is super: Whether or not the buzz will translate into box office success (or even a good movie) remains to be seen, but at least it's likely that a lot of people are going to be talking about it one way or another.
Talking to The Verge, Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi answered a question about going from low-budget indie movies to… well, making a Marvel movie. Turns out, he's enjoying the experience so far: "I'm surrounded by really intelligent, amazing people," he said. "I've got access to great minds and great resources. So I'm at a real advantage. In terms of the studio thing, these people don't act like a studio. They're cool, smart storytellers. I've been enjoying hanging out with them." And when asked by WIRED if he expects to be able to bring much of his trademark humor to the movie, given the tone of existing Marvel movies, he said, “They’re allowing me to bring a lot of my sensibility, a lot of my style to this film. I’m amazed with what they’re allowing me to put into this movie." So... let's take that as a potentially good sign?
Why this is super: Waititi's projects to date—What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt For the Wilderpeople, and episodes of Flight of the Conchords—have marked him out as a filmmaker to watch, and definitely someone who could re-energize the Thor series. The notion that he's having fun making Ragnarok suggests that the end product is going to be a movie worth turning up for.
To the fans who saw actor J.K. Simmons working out on social media and got very, very excited for the prospect of seeing a ripped Commissioner Gordon in Justice League: We have some bad news. "This is all coincidental," Simmons told an interviewer when asked if his fitness regimen was for the movie. "After the second and final time that I got hugely fat in my life and when I lost that weight six or seven years ago, I pretty much decided that I was going to stay in decent shape for the rest of my life." What was seen was simply one of his regular workouts, which means, yes: J.K. Simmons could kick your ass any time. Any time.
Why this is super: Does this mean that Simmons was that muscular when he was in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies? Suddenly, we feel robbed that we never got a J. Jonah Jameson/Spidey smack down.
How do you make Japanese audiences more excited about X-Men: Apocalypse? Easy: put Deadpool in the trailer, telling them what is great about what they just watched:
OK, sure, so it's not actually like Deadpool really pops up in the middle of any scenes (next time, perhaps!), but this certainly makes the by-now-familiar Apocalypse trailer worth watching one more time.
Why this is super: It's worth it for the joke about not everyone making it to the end of a Fox movie alone—but let's hope this is just the start of a new trend in which Deadpool critiques other movie's trailers to keep the character in people's minds between now and the release of the sequel. We want to see Deadpool take on Trolls and Ice Age: Collision Course, dammit.
