Marvel Movies: Phase Three

Not to be outdone by DC announcing their recent slate of upcoming movies, Marvel Studios went ahead and announced their next phase of movies today at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood.



Of note is that the 3rd Avengers movie will be split into two parts (Hello, wads-o-cash!), there will be a Captain Marvel movie (the female version, which I was unaware was even a thing), and a Black Panther movie (never heard of him, but Marvel fans seemed to be psyched).

So, there's that.

Still, kind of awesome.

Here's more info…

At a live event at Disney’s El Capitan Theater in Hollywood today, Marvel Studios officially announced the titles of several of their previously untitled movies. After Warner Bros. surprised fans a couple weeks ago by announcing several DC Comics movies at a shareholders meeting, many had speculated correctly that today’s fan event would be Marvel’s turn to tout their upcoming releases. Marvel Studios officially announced the following movie titles and release dates. 

2015: May 1: The Avengers: Age of Ultron 
         July 17: Ant-Man 

2016: May 6: Captain America 3
          November 4: Doctor Strange 

2017: May 5: Guardians of the Galaxy 2
          July 28: Thor: Ragnarok 
          November 3: Black Panther 

2018: May 4: The Avengers: Infinity War, Part One
          July 6: Captain Marvel 
          November 2: Inhumans 

2019: May 3: The Avengers: Infinity War, Part Two



Ms. Marvel doesn't have an "M" on her suit.

How am I supposed to know who she is?

Get that lady an M, stat!

The Ant-Man cometh

The final poster was released for Ant-Man recently and, along with that, news that Ant-Man will be appearing along with MANY other Marvel heroes in the upcoming Captain America: Civil War movie...

Disney announced the cast for what could be the most comic book character-loaded Marvel movie yet. Captain America: Civil War will have (as it stands now) up to 16 comic book characters in its cast. It’s almost the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe — well, besides Thor and Hulk. 



But now onto the massive cast. Here’s who’s returning, plus the new players, along with their rumored roles: 

Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America, Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon, Paul Bettany as The Vision, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Don Cheadle as Jim Rhodes/War Machine, Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man,  Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa/Black Panther, Emily VanCamp as Sharon Carter/Agent 13, Daniel Brühl who recently revealed he’ll be playing Baron Helmut Zemo (but Marvel does not confirm this in the press release), Frank Grillo as Brock Rumlow/Crossbones, William Hurt as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, Martin Freeman who is rumored to be playing Everett K. Ross

Lordy...that really is just about everyone and it's also likely that Spider-Man is going to show up in this one too.

::mind blown::

I'm in.

A Her-o

The first Captain Marvel trailer was released over the weekend....



That looks much better than I thought it might, which is a nice surprise.



I'm glad we'll get to see her story before she shows up in the next Avengers movie in May.

Captain Marvel opens on March 8th.

New Spider-Man Announced

Tom Holland has been chosen to play the new Spider-Man...

Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios are proud to announce that after a full worldwide casting search, Tom Holland will play Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the next Spider-Man film, in theaters in IMAX and 3D on July 28, 2017. 

The film will be directed by Jon Watts, director of "Cop Car," the upcoming thriller that made its debut earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival. Marvel and Sony Pictures, and producers Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal conducted an extensive search for both the actor and the director. The studios and producers were impressed by Holland’s performances in "The Impossible," “Wolf Hall,” and the upcoming "In the Heart of the Sea," and by a series of complex screen tests. Following Marvel’s tradition of working with the brightest next wave of directors, Watts also went through multiple meetings with Feige, Pascal, and the studio, before winning the job.

This will be the first Spider-Man to also be included in a variety of upcoming Marvel Universe movies, including Captain America, Thor, and the Avengers.

It will be interesting to see how they integrate him in with all the other upcoming films.

Marvel-ous

A new Captain Marvel trailer was released last night...



This is really looking good and definitely focuses a bit more on the action and showing what kind of powers she packs under that mowhawk helmet.

Me likey.

I'll definitely be there when it opens on March 8th.

Super Tuesday

Chris Evans has just signed to play Captain America in the upcoming Marvel film, The First Avenger: Captain America.

It's an odd choice, since he already played Johnny Storm (the "Flame-ON!" guy) in the previous Marvel Fantastic Four movies (which are going to be redone again with a new cast). He'll also play Captain America in the upcoming "Avengers" movie, which will also include Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), the Hulk (Edward Norton), and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) all in one movie.



Filming has already begun on a stand-alone Thor movie with Chris Hemsworth (he played Kirk's young father in the last Star Trek movie), which will also co-star Anthony Hopkins and is being directed by Kenneth Branagh.

It will be cool to see an Avengers movie with all three characters (and probably more) and the same actors starring in them for once. It's a shame that Warner Bros. still hasn't be able to get their Justice League movie off the ground. Maybe Avengers will help give them a bit of a competition push...



However, the DC Universe is still going strong, there is a new Batman movie and Superman and X-Men movie reboots in the works and, of course, we have Ryan Reynolds currently filming the Green Lantern movie...so I'm looking forward to those as well.



The new Conan movie was also cast recently, with Stargate Atlantis actor Jason Momoa taking over Arnold's infamous loin cloth (hopefully it was dry-cleaned first).

I'm sure that Jason's main competition for the role, Kellan Lutz (from the movie Twilight and recent Calvin Klein ads), was bummed when he didn't get the barbarian role. But, I'm sure he's over it now...



It was announced today that Kellan has been cast as the Greek god Poseidon in the upcoming movie War of the Gods, which will also star Mickey Roarke (who also co-stars in the upcoming Iron Man 2) as King Hyperion.

Gold's Gym must be very busy lately with all of these Superhero, Warrior, and and Greek God movies coming out.

I certainly don't see any of these actors "preparing for their roles" at my local 24 Hour Fitness.

Marvelous

Thanks to Entertainment Weekly, we are finally getting the first look at Captain Marvel in her costume and some pics from her upcoming film...







I actually know very little about this Marvel character, but I know she will play a part in the upcoming Avengers movie, which opens a couple months after her solo film opens on March 8th.

And I'll be right there to see it all come together.

Shields Up!

Looks like Agents of Shield just received a seventh season renewal, even though the sixth season won't air until the summer of 2019...

ABC has just given Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD a huge vote of confidence with an order for a seventh season of the show, months before the sixth season even premieres. 

The end of season five back in May came with lots of questions because of the proximity, both in real life and in the story, to the events of Avengers: Infinity War. Ultimately, Thanos’ snap didn’t play out on SHIELD, but with two seasons now locked in, it’s certainly possible some remnants of that could be addressed. 

Plus, by the time season six comes around next year, fans will once again be familiarized with both SHIELD and Agent Coulson, thanks to their roles in Captain Marvel (releasing in March 2019). While we have no clue what Avengers 4 will hold—time travel, reset, dead characters, who knows—almost any of that could impact the story moving forward.

I really like this show and thought that this upcoming sixth season was the final one. So, I'm glad that it's already locked in for a seventh season.

Whatever it takes

A new trailer for Avengers: Endgame was released today...



They're definitely doing a good job of not revealing much about the plot or what is going to happen, which I kind of like.

Plus, it's the first trailer with Captain Marvel included.

Me likey.

We'll get to see how it all turns out when it opens on April 26th.

Carol Danvers arrives

The first set photo of Brie Larson wearing her Captain Marvel costume was revealed today. I'm not sure if that's the final version (her pants don't seem to fit very well) or just a test.



The costume looks more like a mechanic's jumpsuit than her comic costume. Hopefully they'll tune it up a bit and make it look a little better onscreen. They do tend to update the character costumes from one movie to the next.

It's rumored that she's actually currently filming her first appearance in Avengers 4 (or a last-minute addition to the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War) before she starts filming her solo film, but that hasn't been confirmed.

Guess we'll just have to wait and see how things play out over the next couple films.

Fists of Fury

I'm enjoying the new Captain Marvel poster. I'm really looking forward to seeing this when it comes out on March 8th.

Marvel-ous

The Avengers movie made just a little money this weekend...

Marvel’s The Avengers is on pace to put the Disney film’s 3-day record-breaking opening weekend’s domestic cume about $205M and its global total near $650M.

Here are just a few records it broke:

    Biggest domestic opening weekend of all time.


    Fastest film to reach $200M (3 days).


    Highest Saturday of all time: $69.7 M.


    Passed international box office totals of Captain America
    ($192M), Iron Man ($266.7M), Thor ($268.3M), and Iron
    Man 2 ($311.5M) in 12 Days of release.


    Highest grossing opening weekend in IMAX's history.

Not too shabby.

Oh, and very few people were aware that Ellen was in the movie as well...

I think "The Rambler" really is a nice addition to the cast.

I hope she gets her own spin-off soon.

Catnips

Black Panther joins Captain America and Iron Man on the upcoming new cover of Entertainment Weekly to promote Captain America: Civil War.

I don't know anything about that character, other than the fact that I know he's scheduled to have his own movie in a few years.



So...it should be interesting to find out what powers he has (giant claws and wielding an ancient scratching post?) and how he fits into the whole Marvel Universe.

Shrinky Dinks

A new photo from Ant-Man and the Wasp was released today and it finally shows the two of them together in costume. Here is the film's synopsis...

From the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes Ant-Man and The Wasp, a new chapter featuring heroes with the astonishing ability to shrink. In the aftermath of Captain America: Civil War, Scott Lang grapples with the consequences of his choices as both a super hero and a father. As he struggles to rebalance his life with his responsibilities as Ant-Man, he’s confronted by Hope van Dyne and Dr. Hank Pym with an urgent new mission. Scott must once again put on the suit and learn to fight alongside the Wasp as the team works together to uncover secrets from the past. 

Their helmets are very retro...not sure whether I like them or not.

Guess I'll decide once the movie opens on July 6th.

Marveling

The costume concept art for Marvel's upcoming "Captain America" and "Thor" movies was recently released.



Not a lot of "Wow"-factor...but they look like you'd think they should.

Although, I don't think that Edna Mode would be very happy that Thor has chosen that big red cape.

You know how she feels about capes....

Gary Shandling

Very sad news...

Garry Shandling, the writer, actor, producer and comedian best known for his long-running and influential HBO series The Larry Sanders Show and his groundbreaking sitcom It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, died today at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. 

He was 66. 

Running for 89 episodes from 1992-98, The Larry Sanders Show was instrumental in establishing HBO as a producer of original quality television programming and had enormous influence on TV comedy, particularly the deadpan, laugh-track-free tone and the frequent appearances by celebrities playing themselves. 

Shandling was known to younger audiences for his appearances as Senator Stern in the Marvel films Iron Man 2 and Captain America: Winter Soldier. Other film roles include the Mr. Show film Run Ronnie Run, Zoolander, Dr. Dolittle and Over the Hedge. His final appearance in filmed entertainment was in a January episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee entitled “It’s Great That Garry Shandling Is Still Alive.”

He was a very funny guy who will definitely be missed by many.