Trigger warning: This week's roundup includes what might be a gratuitous swipe at Oscar-adjacent actor Michael Keaton. Read on at your own risk, but know that if you do choose to step away, you'll be missing out on updates to 20th Century Fox's superhero plans and a final tally of just how many super-characters to expect in the third Avengers movie. (Spoilers: A lot.) It's your decision, of course, but make it quickly, because as ever, here are the highlights of the last week's superhero movie news.
It's seemingly all change for Fox's superhero slate, with the studio pulling Gambit from its Oct. 7 release date, while scheduling two untitled Marvel-related movies on Oct. 6, 2017 and Jan. 12, 2018, instead. The Gambit shift is unexpected only insofar as it's not been officially rescheduled. Given that it has not even started shooting yet, it was unlikely to be ready for a release date seven months from now anyway, but it is strange that it now has no date. One of the two mystery movies is almost certainly the already-greenlit Deadpool 2, and the other... Well, it could be a rescheduled Gambit, or perhaps the in-development New Mutants, another X-Men movie, or perhaps something new entirely. Given that we're at least 19 months out from the first of the dates, there's time yet for Fox to come up with something.
Why this is super: On the one hand, it's good to know that Gambit isn't going to end up being rushed to make its original deadline. On the other, those who've been waiting to see Channing Tatum as the Cajun X-Man have to be pretty worried about whether or not the movie is going to happen at all.
While we're talking about Fox's future past, Deadpool writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick dropped an interesting tease over on The Playlist last week, suggesting that they don't see the movie as an X-Men spin-off as much as a separate franchise. "You'll see synergy between those two properties, but they're two very distinct brands," Wernick said, going on to suggest that the on-again/off-again X-Force movie could now be considered a Deadpool franchise property. "We will have a hand in it," Wernick said. "If it’s Deadpool related, I think you’ll see some of our fingerprints on that."
Why this is super: Given that Deadpool has now outperformed every X-Men movie to date, Fox would have to be crazy not to consider using it as the new flagship of the X-Men franchise, if not letting it be the anchor for a separate second series of movies. Could this be a studio being... gulp... sensible?
Wondering what to expect from Ben Affleck's Batman in this month's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice? A new profile on director Zack Snyder teased some unexpected details, calling the character "a stylish guy in his 40s who lives in a Mies van der Rohe house, has a Mapplethorpe in his bedroom, and drives a green 1957 Aston Martin." (The car apparently belongs to Snyder.) Oh, and also, he's tall. "I never liked a small Batman," Snyder is quoted as saying. "Ben's all of 6-foot-4, and in the boots, he's like 6-foot-6." So, good news for those who wanted a taller Dark Knight, I guess? That said, this seems like a good place to share this:
Look at how tall he is!
Why this is super: It's hard to say why we find the idea of Bruce Wayne being an aesthete so amusing—perhaps because we're used to him being someone who only really cares about crime and darkness and pain—but the "tall Batman" thing seems like a weird slap at Tim Burton's Batman-of-choice Michael Keaton, who is only 5-foot-10. Some of us like short Caped Crusaders, OK, Zack?!?
Good news for those who enjoyed Captain America: The Winter Soldier: co-director Joe Russo told a comic book convention crowd that this May's Captain America: Civil War will be "twice as aggressive in tone and execution" as the last Cap movie, with the relationship between Bucky and Captain America given even more of a focus. The Russo Brothers even went so far as to tease their next project, 2018's Avengers: Infinity War, saying that it's a challenge to come up with a movie "built around the characters' emotional arcs" when there are 68 different characters needing to be served. (Quick, Marvel fans: try and work out who those 68 will be!)
Why this is uncertain: While The Winter Soldier is fantastic, we're nervous about the idea of doubling down on that movie's paranoid pessimism with Civil War, given that its "hero versus hero" gimmick is already doubling down on the "They're like all of us, they fight with their co-workers! A lot!" MCU schtick. And let's not even talk about having 68 characters in Infinity War...
Let it be said that while almost no one has signed this petition to bring J.K. Simmons back as J. Jonah Jameson in future Spider-Man movies, it's still a great idea, because Simmons was amazing (only a slight pun intended) as that character. Even better, Simmons isn't against the idea:
Why this is super: Dear Marvel and Sony, we'd like to see this happen as well. But we're not going to sign an Internet petition about it, because, well, come on.
