Marvel (Left, Right), DC (Center)
As this past week has shown, it’s good to be Tom Hardy. Not only is his reboot of the Mad Max franchise coming out next year, but he’s currently linked to no fewer than three comic book franchises from three different studios. Apparently, Hollywood is ready to remove the Bane muzzle of The Dark Knight Rises and let him dig in to some superhero (and/or supervillain) fare.
It’s not all about Mr. Hardy, however. Warner Bros. keeps making promising moves regarding their DC properties and a Marvel exec is promising lots of people are going to work on making the second Avengers movie look amazing. Could one of those people be Tom Hardy? Forge ahead and find out, dear reader. Here are the highlights of the week’s superhero movie news.
SUPER IDEA: Suicide Squad Is the Supervillain Movie You Didn’t Know You Were Waiting For
Director David Ayer, whose World War II movie Fury was just released last week, is already talking about his plans for DC’s Suicide Squad, set for release in summer 2016. Calling it “a Dirty Dozen with supervillains,” he described its tone by asking “Does a movie really need good guys?” Apparently it doesn’t! It does, however, need good actors, which is why rumors that Will Smith, Tom Hardy, and Margot Robbie were in discussions for the project is welcome news.
Why this is super: While reviews for Fury have been mixed, there’s something appealing about the idea of a Hardy, Smith, and company headlining something with the tone of a 1960s war movie with superpowers. It’s still two years away, but is it really too early to be optimistic about this one? No? Good.
SUPER IDEA: Hardy Also Might Play Apocalypse. (Is This Some Kind of Secret Crossover?)
Of course, Hardy might not end up appearing in Suicide Squad because he’ll have hitched his superhero movie franchise wagon elsewhere—namely, Fox’s X-Men franchise, where he’s rumored to be in the running to play the eponymous villain in 2016′s X-Men: Apocalypse. Oh, and he may also be up for another comic book role as well, but we’ll get to that in a minute…
Why this is super: OK, yes; Hardy’s performance as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises was something that gave birth to countless jokes about how incomprehensible he was, instead of how scary he was. (FYI: Not scary and pretty incomprehensible, for those who haven’t seen the movie.) But when freed of the Darth Vader mouthpiece, he can be a great actor, and one who could easily hold his own against Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy given the chance. Whether or not he’d be convincing as an immortal born in ancient Egypt is another matter.
MEH IDEA: Marvel Pretty Much Considering Any White Guy for Doctor Strange
It’s official: Any actor who is white, ever sported facial hair, and isn’t currently under contract for a Marvel movie is apparently in the running to play Stephen Strange in the 2016 Doctor Strange movie. In addition to—surprise!—Tom Hardy, new names in the running apparently include Colin Farrell, Ethan Hawke, Ewan McGregor, and, for all we know, John Mulaney (because he’s not going to be busy doing that sitcom for too much longer).
Why this is villainy: At this stage, two things are becoming apparent in regards to Doctor Strange. Firstly, lots of actors are apparently refusing to sign on, for whatever reason. Secondly, the longer this goes on, the more Doctor Strange starts to feel boring already, two years before it’s due to hit theaters. Get it together, Marvel.
SUPER IDEA: Avengers: Age of Ultron Will Look Spectacular
Outside of Tom Hardy-related news this week, Marvel Studios executive Victoria Alonso gave the keynote address at the Visual Effects Society Production Summit last weekend and revealed that the second Avengers movie will be Marvel’s heaviest visual effects movie to date, with somewhere between seven and 12 VFX companies contributing to the finished product. For some sense of what that means, Guardians of the Galaxy—in which two of the five leads were visual effects themselves—had 2,750 VFX shots, but Avengers: Age of Ultron is expected to go above 3,000.
Why this is super: If nothing else, this news makes Age of Ultron sound impressively big. Of course, if it turns out that those VFX shots are just animating Iron Man and James Spader’s Ultron wandering around and being snarky at each other, it’ll turn out to be a pretty major disappointment. But what are the odds of that happening in a Joss Whedon movie?
SUPER IDEA: Avengers: Age of Ultron Trailer Leaking Online
OK, so it wasn’t so super for Marvel—the studio had literally just announced the worldwide broadcast debut for the trailer for next week when it happened—but the first trailer for Avengers: Age of Ultron appeared online Wednesday afternoon, and the response from the Internet suggested that, yes, they’d like to see the movie very much and now instead of April next year, please. (No, we’re not going to link you to the trailer. Go and use Google if you can’t wait until Tuesday night.)
Why this is super: For those who’ve wanted to see whether or not the team could hold together after the minor personality conflicts of the first Avengers, it’s fair to say you’ll get a pretty strong hint of the answer. As an added benefit, there’s creepy Pinocchio music and James Spader being James Spader, even though he’s a genocidal robot.
SUPER IDEA: Hunger Games Star Jena Malone as a Female Robin in Batman v Superman
Jena Malone, who plays Johanna Mason in the Hunger Games franchise, has been confirmed as appearing in Zack Snyder’s 2016 superhero slugfest, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. It’s still entirely unconfirmed—and sourced only by one anonymous extra—but the word on the street is she will be playing Robin to Ben Affleck’s Batman. Come to think of it, she does have newly-dyed red hair, just like The Dark Knight Returns’ Robin, Carrie Kelly.
Why this is super: Well, for a start, Carrie Kelly is an awesome character. Adding in a second female super hero (alongside Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman) wouldn’t be a bad thing, either, especially if the rumors are true that Aquaman, Cyborg, and the Flash are going to show up. But, really, any chance to see Carrie Kelly get a little more love is the main reason why we should celebrate this news.
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