“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:
- 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.
- Marvel and Sony will announce that they have cast an actor to play “Spider-Man.” Very possible since “Civil War” starts shooting in April.
- “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.
- 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.”
- 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:
- Rothman is rumored to be majorly responsible for all of the hate between Fox and Disney/Marvel.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.”
- Rothman refused to have any Sentinels in any “X-Men” movies while he was head of the studio.
- Rothman was behind the cloud version of Galactus that appeared in “Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer.”
- 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.
- Rothman was behind the movie release of “Elektra.”
- 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.
- 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!
I can’t even fathom why they hired Rothman at Sony!?!? If someone has that poor of a track record, why hire him? Especially someone who is anti super hero movies (which honestly I can’t think of any other movie Sony has put out recently). It’s almost like putting Bernie Madoff in charge of the Federal Reserve right? It doesn’t make sense.
Anyway, I’m anxious to see what Robert Downey Jr’s tweet is about. Honestly I’m hoping that it is to say that there will be an Iron Man 4. Iron Man 3 seemed to provide closure on his story, but then all of a sudden he is back in Age of Ultron with lots of suits (though he blew them all up as a sign to Pepper that he choose her over his suits…). Then something ticks inside of Iron Man to spark a “civil war” with the Cap, but ultimately everybody reunites for the Infinity Wars. As someone who has never read the comics, I think an Iron Man 4 would help clarify things.
And yes I agree I certainly hope Daredevil has a better costume than the one in the promo poster. Because that looks like the quality of something I could have done…
I have seen this happen so many times in corporate America. It is mostly politics. The right person doesn’t always get the job and they go with someone that is extremely confident in himself, which I am assuming Rothman is. And I am sure he promised them a lot under the table, like bringing in possible non superhero related deals with some of his past clients. But yeah, he seems like a mess. It’s sad because it does sounds like the parent company in Japan puts confidence in Sony Pictures that is run in America but they have proven that they don’t know what they are doing. I am sure that the heads of Sony Japan told Sony Pictures that they wanted Pascal out after the email leaks and they got rid of her and then the board suggested and hired Rothman. And they are setting themselves up for failure. The good thing is it makes it a lot easier for them to fail and even more easier for Disney to eventually pick them up in the future. Hopefully at a discount.
I’ll give you my best guess as to what I think is going to happen that will start Civil War, in the movies. SPOILERS: I think all of the scenes that we have seen of the Hulk fighting the Hulkbuster (Iron Man) will lead to the public and politicians into not trusting superheroes and public demand wants all superheroes under a tight leash. Since Tony is also responsible for the creation of Ultron, he feels guilty and wants to work with the government and make sure that all superheroes are registered and monitored. Captain America always fighting for freedom, sees this as an invasion of the heroes rights and is strongly against it. Cap has also lost faith in the government especially after what happened in Winter Soldier with SHIELD and HYDRA. So the two of them will butt heads and half of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be on Caps side and the other half will be on Iron Man’s side. How Spider-Man comes into Civil War is that he basically finally comes forward and chooses a side. Even though none of the Avengers have ever mentioned Spider-Man in the movies, they know of him and he has already been established. For whatever reason, they just never bothered with him before because they felt they were a strong enough team without him. Now all of a sudden, Spider-Man comes forward and tells Tony that he wants to be on his side, or Tony convinces him. Peter is torn though because he has always looked up to Captain America and it doesn’t sit well that he is now fighting against him, instead of with him. At some point Peter realizes that he may be on the wrong side, especially after seeing Tony’s aggressive methods to win at any cost. Spider-Man and Iron Man battle each other and Spider-Man joins Cap’s side. That should be the end of Part 1. And that is why this needs to be 2 movies because anything less is just going to rush it worse than what they are doing now.
Robert Downey Jr really hit the lotto when he was cast as Iron Man. Prior to that, no one would hire him because of his drug addiction issues and incarceration. Now he renegotiated his contract to be in Avengers 3 for around $100 million dollars, which is insane for one actor. But Disney gave it to him. I’m not sure how much he is making for Civil War, but it’s probably close. I do like him a lot and he does a great job as both Tony Stark and Iron Man. I kind of feel bad for Chris Evans because I think he is doing just as good a job, if not better, and he is not making anywhere near that money and they have him under contract until Avengers 3 and I doubt they will bring him back. I do think they will kill off Captain America in the movies, then Bucky/The Winter Soldier may play him for a few years. Sebastian Stan has a 9 picture deal with Marvel and I am sure they didn’t sign him just to play Winter Soldier. But I eventually think the real Captain America will be back, but it wont be Chris Evans. They all are like James Bond, easily replaceable. Damn if Disney ever buys Sony, they will own James Bond too, I think. lol And yes, I thought that was a complete waste of money to destroy all of those Iron Man suits, but its a movie. It would be funny if they start Avengers where Tony wakes up and you find out it was just a dream.
They are starting to rush things with the movies. The cool thing is that they really have so many good stories that they can do. I thought Avengers 3 was going to be World War Hulk, which would be a sequel to Planet Hulk, if they had given the Hulk his own movie, but they didn’t do it. I was sure they were going to do Planet Hulk based on the popularity of the Hulk in Avengers. I really was shocked that they went with Age Of Ultron, especially since they hinted at Thanos at the end of the first movie. Civil War should have came way way down the line. Hoping again that they had reached a deal with both Sony and Fox to bring in all of those characters and that could have easily have been a trilogy. The good thing is with Rothman out of Fox, maybe things will calm down between Disney and Fox. I would love to see Wolverine fight the Hulk and both parties have to come to an agreement to let that happen. And one of Wolverine’s best stories is Old Man Logan and the Hulk is the bad guy in that one. Would love to see that one day.
My next article I am going to talk more about Daredevil’s suit. It’s funny just as I finished this article I read that the producers or Charlie Cox, one of them, said that there is indeed going to be a red suit. But I spent so much time writing my rant that I said, I will pretend I just didn’t read it and then I will discuss it next time. LOL
I think Chris Evans does a fantastic job as Captain America. Those are my favorite movies of the solo Avengers, followed by Thor and then Iron Man. Iron Man 3 grossed 1.2 billion worldwide, Iron Man 2 grossed 623 million world wide, and Iron Man 1 585 million. If I were Disney that is a well I would go to again and again even if Downey is a jerk about his salary. By contrast Winter Soldier grossed 714 million world wide and the original cap movie brought in 370 worldwide (and arguably Evans should get a similar salary as RDJ in my opinion).
I know there had originally been plans of putting Oscorp tower in the New York skyline during the first Avengers, but doesn’t introducing Spider Man kind of poke some holes in the MCU continuity? New York was destroyed in both The Avengers and in The Amazing Spider Man 2, yet no one in either universe made mention of that fact. Don’t get me wrong I’m excited for Spider Man to be in the MCU, but for someone like Feige who keeps an iron thumb on the continuity found in the movies, this could prove problematic (as could introducing the X Men).
One other thing I noticed is that Marvel also recently acquired the rights to the Punisher, he seems like a character that is prime for developing.
When Chris Evans was originally cast, I wasn’t to happy because I remembered him as The Human Torch in Fantastic Four and I loved what he did with that character and just didn’t like the idea that he was two superheroes especially in the Marvel Universe. I liked him in the first Captain America movie but he totally won me over in The Avengers and then he sealed it in Winter Soldier. The only thing that drives me crazy with their portrayal of Captain America is I have never liked how they did his costume and you would think that would be fairly easy. The newest version in Ultron looks like a huge improvement but it’s not perfect. Downey was just at the right place at the right time. If Chris Evans would have done Captain America first, he would have been getting all of the money that Downey got. Maybe. People immediately fell in love with Iron Man and a lot of it had to do with Downey’s charm. Even in the Avengers you can tell that he stands out the most because he does such a great job with the character. I give Whedon a lot of credit for what he did with the Avengers because he managed to give everyone a decent amount of screen time and it worked. The only one who I felt got short changed was maybe Thor a little. And out of Iron Man, Captain America and Thor, the Thor movies get the least love. I really enjoyed both of those movies but they never get critical praise and I always feel like Hemsworth gets left out. Another thing with Hemsworth is even though playing Thor has helped him get work in Hollywood, his other movies haven’t been successful. I have a feeling that Disney realizes they can spend less money on him if they want and he’ll take it. I honestly don’t blame Downey though becasue he knows that after he is done with Iron Man he is going to take a huge pay cut. He is another one who’s movies really didn’t take off when he wasn’t playing Iron Man. Downey did help build the Marvel Cinematic franchise and I guess he deserves it. He also seems very grateful too.
I agree with you about the continuity issues but I believe that Feige and his staff have some kind of plan already mapped out. I had heard stories, and they were mostly fan made stories that during Amazing Spider-Man you see towards the end that Spider-Man gets help from construction workers while trying to get to Oscorp Tower. The reason why there is a ton of cranes is because they are fixing all of the damage that occurred during the Avengers. That actually does make sense. The good thing with Disney is not only do they have Feige but they have actual writers from Marvel Comics helping out with the story and I think they will figure something out. Marvel wanted to help Fox and Sony but they were both like, thanks, but we don’t need your help.
What I liked about The Incredible Hulk and The Punisher movie “reboots” is they told you their origins in the opening credits, which took 2 minutes. They are going to have to do that with the new Spider-Man movie because no one really wants to see a third Spider-Man origin story. It would have worked better if Andrew Garfield was back, and he was an excellent Peter and Spider-Man, but I heard he really pissed off the executives and rebooting Spider-Man with Disney was the perfect excuse to just get rid of him. It does sound like that the new Spider-Man will be a teenager in high school and that he has been fighting crime for a while. I did a mock up way back in November as to how I think they will introduce Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I am pretty confident that he will be in an after credit scene in Ultron and that you might see him swinging through the city or it will go down like this: http://wdwnt.com/blog/2014/11/11314-marvel-news-mash-up-more-avengers-age-of-ultron-spider-man-rumors-and-more/ And people in the audience will just lose it.
I really want to see a good Spider-Man movie. The best one was Spider-Man 2 and what was great is they focused on Doc Ock and they did such a great job with him. I want to see the Green Goblin actually look and act like the Green Goblin in a Spider-Man movie. The Green Goblin is Spider-Man’s Joker and I cant believe they did two movies with him in it and have never gotten him right. Spider-Man has the best villains next to Batman and they have all been wasted. I did not like the route they were going with the Sinister Six and am glad that they are somewhat abandoning it. I heard it is still on the table but it wont be everyone being born in Oscorp. Sony is looking at Suicide Squad to see how that goes and if that is successful they will give Sinister Six a shot.
I remember that too about Oscorp. Not sure if you ever heard of this but The Punisher is in Spider-Man 2 when Mary Jane is running through the streets in her wedding gown at the end. I heard it was Thomas Jane but recently heard it was his stunt double. Not sure which. I also heard that Hugh Jackman was going to make a cameo in one of the Spider-Man movies but that fell through. Hugh Jackman really wants to be in The Avengers. Would love to see him in Infinity War. You never know, Disney and Fox may bury the hatchet before then. I wasn’t to crazy about the first Punisher movie with Thomas Jane but I really liked the reboot with Ray Stevens. I thought he looked like The Punisher in the comics and liked that they made that an R rated movie. Only problem is it didn’t do well. I did hear that The Punisher will be in the Marvel Netflix series, but haven’t heard much about it in months. It would be nice to have him in there. Some of the best Daredevil comics had Daredevil and The Punisher going at it. And I would love to see them both in Civil War. The Punisher actually had a pretty big role in the Civil War comic and again would love if they brought him in somehow.