Archive for the ‘News and Editorials’ Category

Maximoff Twins in Film: Masterpost

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , , , , on August 8, 2013| Leave a Comment »

The Maximoff Twins: Scarlet Witch and QuicksilverI’ve seen a lot of confusion about Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch being in the upcoming Fox and Disney/Marvel movies. Here is what you need to know:

1. If one studio uses the Maximoff twins, can they be used by the other?

Yes. When Fox received the license to use the X-Men in film, Wanda and Pietro were put in a gray zone and both studios have license to use the characters, with limitations.

2. What are the limitations each studio has for using the twins?

  • Fox can use them as ‘mutants’ related to ‘Magneto’ with some kind of relationship with the ‘X-Men’ but they can not be refered to as ‘Avengers’. (They can be Brotherhood, free agents, X-Men, or other, as long as Fox has the license for that group.)
  • Disney can use them as ‘Avengers’, but they can not be specifically referred to as ‘mutants’ nor their father mentioned by name. (The studio has the choice of either leaving that ambiguous, i.e. orphaned at birth (which is canon), or they can write in a new back story.)

Neither studio gets to use them as a whole.

3. Will they be played by the same person?

Nothing says that they can’t be, but since they will be two different versions of the same character, one a mutant, the other an Avenger, then it only makes sense to have two different actors. Think of it as if Keaton and Bale had their Batman’s come out at the same time. Both are Batman but done in two very different tones with a different take on the Gotham universe.

4. Then who will be playing them?

Evan Peters has been cast as Quicksilver in Days of Future Past and Wanda will not appear in the film.

Names have been thrown around for Avengers 2 but no official announcements have been made at this time.

5. Wanda isn’t in Days of Future Past, so Quicksilver is an only child?

Not necessarily. Singer only says that Wanda will ‘not appear’, meaning her character will do just that, not appear in the film. This does not mean she can’t be referred to as existing some place else at the time, i.e. “Have you spoken to your sister?” “Last I heard she was in Australia.”

Or, they could simply leave it as a non-issue. If no one asks him if he has siblings, and he never volunteers the information,  then for all we know both Wanda and Lorna exist someplace (and possible show up in a later film).

6. If they aren’t mutants in Avengers… then what?

We don’t know at this time but there are several options. Augmented Humans. Experimentation. Alien Tech. Magic. Etc.

Personally I’m voting for ‘magic as a higher form of science’ because I believe not only would that be closer to their original status as mutants but also fit in well with the established concept via the Asgardians. Also, Doctor Strange.

7. What about their heritage?

The twins were grew up as the modern equivalent of Romani after being adopted when their mother died at childbirth (probably).

Nothing has been said in Days of Future Past regarding Quicksilver’s adoptive parents or where he grew up. Evan Peters does look like the son of Erik who is a German Jew. Wanda took more after their mother who was the Romani, but as Wanda’s not appearing in the film, I doubt much will be made of this and Quicksilver will be German or from a Soviet Block country.

Whedon has said that he’s looking at ‘edgy British’ for the twins. Now, ‘British’ does not mean the twins could not be of Romani heritage but they apparently will not be first generation Romani. Whether or not they hold any ties to the Romani heritage is highly suspect at this time as the studio may decide to avoid the subject in order to keep from causing any kind of political incorrectness.

Basically, it is more likely that the twins will be ‘white washed’ in Avengers than in Days of Future Past.

8. No Magento in Avengers, what does that mean for the twins?

Not a hell of a lot. The twins were in the Brotherhood then joined the Avengers long before they realized their true parentage.

 I think that is everything, if there is something I have missed, let me know and I will do my best to answer it.

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Reblog: Bryan Singer’s Conceit For Bringing Back Professor X And Other X-Men Bits

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , , , , on August 6, 2013| 1 Comment »

So it’s ‘confirmed’ that there will be no Wanda in DOFP, but it’s not clear if this means she’s simply somewhere else (maybe Australia) or if Pietro is an only child in this universe. I will accept if she’s just not around (or they leave it open, i.e., they don’t say either way) but if they make him an only child then I will be very disappointed.

From BleedingCool

Crowds at Montreal’s Fantasia Fest last night were treated to some footage from X-Men: Days of Future Past and a Q&A from director Bryan Singer. I’m guessing it would have been the same reel of clips that I saw at Comic-Con, but I’d certainly have liked another chance to see it. Just one more reason I wish I was at Fantasia Fest.

JoBlo‘s man in the field gathered up a list of notes from the Q&A, and while there was a lot of previously-heard stories and other bits of business, some of it was fresh or worth another go-around. Here are the points that stand out to me. There are spoilers for old X-Men movies implicit throughout the rest of this story.

  • Tom Cruise is deferential to his directors.
  • Singer doesn’t see Jack the Giant Slayer as creatively compromised but does think it was mis-marketed.
  • Russell Crowe wanted to play Wolverine bald and that’s why he didn’t get the role
  • Singer thinks that X3: The Last Stand made a mistake with Cyclops.
  • While editing the first X-Men, he got into such a row with the editor he smashed a bottle on the wall and was locked out of the editing room for three days.

And then there were a couple of bigger, chewier points.

First up, Singer said that The Scarlet Witch won’t be appearing in Days of Future Past. Which means Quicksilver will be operating separate from his sister. And I wonder if the movie version – or rather, this movie version – of Quicksilver will even have a sister.

There’s already a bit of a puzzle in his family tree, with the character apparently old enough that he would have been born before the events of First Class but that film’s Magneto, who in the comics is his dad, was seemingly unaware of him. I’m curious to see what they’re doing with this decision.

And then there’s Singer’s comments on how the “old” Professor X has returned. JoBlo’s note says, verbatim:

Could justify bringing Xavier back because he transferred his consciousness and could possibly construct a body around that consciousness.

Most were assuming that time travel was involved in the resurrection of Charles. At least I was, before I saw The Wolverine.

But what’s this with the word “possibly”? Does that come from JoBlo or Singer? It’s not clear. Because if Singer doesn’t know, for sure, how the character was brought back to life, then he must be leaving it ambiguous in the film.

He could be misleading us. He could be misquoted. Either way, this notion of constructing a body… that’s a new one to me. Has he ever shown abilities of that kind in the comics, because I’m certainly not aware of them if he has.

X-Men: Days of Future Past continues production now. It’s looking good to me. Expect to see it in US cinemas on May 23rd next year.

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DOFP: Marsden pulling a Cotillard?

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , , , on August 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Marsden told Vulture that he will not be in Days of Future Past, ergo Cyclops will not be resurrected.

And X-Men: Days of Future Past next year, or no? I mean, Cyclops was disintegrated, but if there’s time travel … No, no X-Men, unfortunately. But who knows? If this next film really works, Bryan [Singer] has said he wants to fix a few things, so hopefully that’s one of them. It was great, to have a movie like that, the first two or three X-Men, and the studios in Hollywood work really hard to find a formula that’s successful, and you want to keep that intact, so …

Did you have a chance to see The Wolverine yet? Because Jean Grey, even though she’s dead, gets to have a lot of moments in it. No, I haven’t seen it yet, just the trailer … but I hope that lays the ground for more. We’ll see. I always liked Cyclops, but they have a lot of characters that they have to parcel out, spend time with each one, make sure everyone feels like they’ve been given their due, introduce them appropriately, but you could do a spinoff of every one of those characters and give them so much depth to the story line.

Does he mean that he’s spoken to Bryan or just that this is what he’s heard? Clarification would be nice but there is no telling what is really going on this film, except that they’re giving it all away already. I mean, with their announcements before and during ComiCon, what is there left to really surprise us with?

  • They could have held off on the Sentinels till at least next year, giving us some wonderful ‘Cloverfield’ style shots of it to wet our appetite. Instead we get full frontal already.
  • They might have held off on Quicksilver but with the Whedon announcement they probably realized they needed to show that they had already had that planned lest look like they ripped off Avengers. Bishop was already revealed, along with Blink and Warpath, so… who’s left? Misty Knight?
  • They’ve also already told us Wolvie is the time traveler and give us the core of the whole time travel plot. They could have held back on that too, again, till at least the first full official trailer and such.

All that’s left is to give us the actual plot. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it does seem like all the big stuff that could have been used to entice us through glimpses and reveals closer to when the movie comes out (or at least not ten months away) have just been dropped on the table for us to fiddle and get bored with.

What am I saying? I’m saying that something like Cyclops being alive would be a really awesome thing. Not only do the fans want it, but it would be something that would be a surprise (though only in the way that Marion Cotillard playing Talia was a ‘surprise’ to anyone in the Batman fandom, but still).

Marion Cotillard down right said she wasn’t Talia.
Benedict Cumberbatch said he wasn’t Kahn.

Everything comes in threes…

Could Marsden saying he’s not coming back as Cyclops be our third? It wouldn’t take much to hide it as the future stuff seems to be all done indoors and we only need a single shot of him to prove the point, he could knock that stuff out in an afternoon.

Anyway, here’s hoping… but with these films, I have learned to expect disappointment.

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DOFP: Sentinels

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , on July 30, 2013| 1 Comment »

Getting some closer looks at Trask Industries and the Sentinels. With the movie a little less than a year away I imagine we’ll get a lot of viral stuff, but it’s surprising we’re getting such a clear look at the Sentinels already. Makes me wonder what they are holding back…

Some images courtesy of CinemaBlend:

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Reblog: Joss Whedon Scowls At The Scarlet Witch Cowl

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , on July 25, 2013| Leave a Comment »

From BleedingCool

sw4Well, Wolverine lost his cowl in the X-Men movies. Now it looks as if Scarlet Witch will lose hers too for Avengers: The Age Of Ultron.

When asked if Scarlet Witch will keep her head dress,Joss Whedon told Nerdist;

No.

Well that’s nice and clear then. He went on.

No. She might wear a headband or something that might echo it. The guys at Marvel, the conceptual artists, are phenomenal, and they are so good at taking the essence of what works and interpreting it for the actual human body, and when they paint something you can not only tell how it’s gonna work on a person, you can even tell what fabric it’ll be. They are very specific, very talented. So I’m excited to see the designs. Obviously we want to echo the look that people know, but there’s the classic look and the Ultimates look, but you have to do it in a way that will work. But it can’t be too old school… she can’t wear a leotard.

I’m okay with this. I like what they did with her hair in EVO to echo the cowl, though I would prefer they kept it long and curly to befit her background. A simple fix might be giving her red streaks in her bangs (not the whole bangs) but yeah, the conceptual artists have been pretty good so far, I have faith in them.

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DOFP: Promotional Images

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , , , , , on July 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

According to BleedingCool, “the official X-Men: Days Of Future Past tumblr prematurely published and swiftly deleted a series of character headshots showing a whole host of mutants”

Here they are below:

DOFP: Future Wolverine DOFP: Past Wolverine DOFP: Xavier DOFP: Magneto DOFP: Colossus DOFP: Bishop DOFP: Beast

What do we learn?

Wolverine: Well, as has been pointed out on Tumblr and other places, future Wolverine is sporting the iconic gray stripes in his hair and possible iconic yellow jumpsuit. It does look like stretchy yellow spandex… I doubt though that he’s wearing a full yellow jumpsuit, I would wager it’s just a top which hints greatly at his iconic uniform, like the brown leather jacket with yellow stripes. Unfortunately the image is cropped too much to know for sure what he’s wearing, or what’s going on in the background, lots of glow.

Xavier/Magneto/Colossus: They seem to be wearing the same uniform, just a bit different to mark the personalities of the different characters. It definitely looks like armor, similar to what Storm was wearing in her tweeted sneak peak. But Kitty and Bobby don’t seem to be wearing the armor/uniform in their sneaky peak (for that matter neither does Wolvie here either). I’m not sure what this means, why they aren’t  all matched up, if they were all mis-matched, okay, but only a few are? Could they have been in a different resistance squad or maybe they were separated then found by the group in order to use Kitty’s powers? The difference in outfits could mean something, could mean nothing…

Bishop: Looks like Bishop, dreadlocks, scar, red sash thingy… no complaints here. But I’m not sure about the ridges on his shoulder, or if his armor is supposed to match the other’s uniform. Could this has something to do with Bobby and Kitty’s non-matching outfits? Different squads? Or maybe the X-Men have broken up?

Beast: They’ve cleaned it up a bit, but he’s still in the yellow striped jumpsuit from the first movie. Will we see the others in their jumpsuits too?

Rogue: We’re getting a lot of peaks at the future cast, and if I miss my guess, we’ve seen everyone (except Rogue) from the original cast (that we know is going to be in the film). We’ve even had looks at the new ‘big names’ like Bishop here… so… why haven’t we had a sneak of Rogue? It’s possible Anna hasn’t done her filming yet, there is still two months-ish left to go… but with everyone else from the future timeline getting their scenes out of the way… how’s this going to work? Simple movie magic? Is her role just not that big and it’ll be filmed later? Or is there a greater plot afoot…

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DOFP: Wolverine, Rogue, and I totally called it.

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , , on July 15, 2013| 5 Comments »

Warning: Spoilers for Days of Future Past

wolverine-rogue-xmenThe Vulture got some exclusive information regarding Days of Future Past. You can read it all here but this is part that interests me the most:

In Singer’s take, Ellen Page returns as Kitty from the Brett Ratner–directed X-Men: The Last Stand, but this time she uses her powers to send Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine back into the past, where he encounters the younger mutants played by James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, and Michael Fassbender. However, something bad happens to Kitty during the time-travel trance, and while Wolverine is still under her spell, the other X-Men must race to find a mutant who can siphon Kitty’s powers and bring their friend back to the future. Could that be the plot development that brings Anna Paquin’s power-copying Rogue into the fold once again?

First off: Totally called it that Wolverine was going to be the time traveler. I was thrown a bit with Bishop being included, and I suppose there could be a surprise twist there and Bishop be another time traveler… but we’ll see. Should be interesting to see how Logan reacts to the younger version of the characters, how much will he reveal of the future?

Secondly: Rogue! Rogue? The siphon power thing does sound like a job for a powered Rogue, but the question is, if she isn’t already hanging around with them when they attempt it the first time… then where the hell is she? Did her powers come back or not (Singer hinted that maybe she didn’t)? Did she leave the X-Men over the Bobby/Kitty thing? Have they devolved her character even further to someone who is out nursing a broken heart? Or is she simply out with a different team kicking loads of butt like she should have been in the first place?  So many questions! So may possibilities! So many chances for this go to horribly wrong…

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X-Force movie is actually happening.

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , on July 12, 2013| 1 Comment »

X-Force #1I hadn’t been very quick to believe, but seems I was mistaken. The X-Force movie will be happening according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Jeff Wadlow, who is readying for the Aug. 16 release of Kick-Ass 2, has been tapped to write an adaptation of X-Force, an X-Men spinoff being developed by 20th Century Fox. … Longtime X-Men franchise producer Lauren Shuler Donner is producing X-Force.

So the question now is: Which X-Force team will they be using?

If they go classic, they already started on it by bringing Warpath into the movies. He’s in the ‘future’ part so it wouldn’t be hard to say that the X-Force team is a continuation of previously established film canon.

But the big issue is with Cable. Cable may not have been in every version of the X-Force team, but not having him in an X-Force movie is like having an X-Men movie with no Xavier. Though seeing that Jean (well, Maddy, but as no clones were mentioned in the films I’d assume they’d make Jean the mother) and Scott both died in the films without procreating, how are they going to explain where he comes from?

This could mean they are definitely rebooting the universe with DOFP and bringing back previously killed characters. Though Cable would have to be a teenager in the X-Force movie, not enough time has passed to make him a full on adult, well, it might work depending on how old Scott/Jean were supposed to be in 2000’s X-Men and when this X-Force movie comes out, but it would be pretty tight. Though they could go the time traveling route too…

As much as I’m really interested in this… the logistics puzzle me and not sure I want a Cable-less X-Force movie. So until we know more, or see DOFP and what it does to the timeline, I’m going to refrain from further speculation.

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Astonishing X-Men cancelled

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , on July 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Astonishing X-Men #68 cover artAnd yet another of my favorite titles gets axed. Here is the October solicitation for Astonishing X-Men #68 courtesy of Newsarama:

ASTONISHING X-MEN #68
MARJORIE LIU (W)
GABRIEL HERNANDEZ WALTA (A)
Cover by PHIL NOTO
FINAL ISSUE!
• Through thick and thin, from marriage to apocalypse, the X-Men have always stood together as a family.
• Is there anything in this world – or any other – that could break them up?
• It all ends here as Marjorie Liu bids a fond farewell to the Astonishing team!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

The thing is, Astonishing hasn’t been doing that bad in sales. Sure, it’s been skirting above the 20k milestone (23k in June) but it’s still up there unlike other titles which are floundering, like Morbius with only 14k. So why cancel Astonishing if it’s steady? I’m sure there is probably a reason, and that might do with how it’s 3.99 vs 2.99, perhaps they could give it a price cut? Or maybe they simply felt it ran its course?

It often feels like Astonishing doesn’t ‘fit’ with the whole Marvel NOW! thing, staying out of the AvX stuff and whatnot, but that’s been good for Astonishing. It’s allowed it to be its own title.

The worst part about this is while most of the main characters in Astonishing have homes in other titles, since Gambit’s solo was cancelled, this leaves the Cajun without a home unless one of the other titles picks him up. I haven’t heard any news of such a move, though it might be something that will crop up in the November solicits. Crossing my fingers he does get picked up, just not by Remender in Uncanny Avengers… though since apparently someone will die in #13 according to the October solicitations… there will be an opening.

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Reblog: Fox Registers ‘X-Force Movie’ Domain, Awesomeness To Ensue?

Posted in News and Editorials, tagged , , , on July 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

XMTFFS Note: I don’t trust anything Mark Millar says… so taking this with a big ol’ grain of salt.

from MTV Splash Page

X-Force

by Brett White

Get ready for the force to be reckoned with! X-MenFilms.com reports that Fox Studios has registered a very x-citing domain name: xforcemovie.com. Yeah. X-Force.

The site quotes an interview conducted by Comic Book Resources with Fox’s comic creative consultant Mark Millar, wherein Millar discusses the possibility of an X-Force movie.

“You have to remember that Fox grabbed the X-Men back in the ’90s because it was the biggest franchise in the world,” said Millar. “So X-Force or Cable or Deadpool — all these amazing characters are things we haven’t really gotten to yet. ‘X-Force’ #1 was the second biggest book of all time behind Jim Lee’s ‘X-Men’ #1, so there’s an immediate brand recognition to that stuff and a build in fanbase.”

For those not in the know, X-Force is title bestowed on a number of X-Men spin-off teams dedicated to preserving Xavier’s dream of mutant and human coexistence and/or protecting the mutant race by any means necessary. The idea originated from the minds of artist Rob Liefeld and writer Fabian Nicieza, as they were working on the “New Mutants” comic in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The duo reinvented the team as X-Force in 1991, with the young mutants under the guidance of the time-traveling half-machine military leader Cable.

In the past decade, X-Force has been used to describe two teams with varying degrees of ties to the original one; the first was a black ops squad created by Cyclops and led by Wolverine to take out threats, and the second was a tighter-knit team created behind Cyclops’ back to go on the same types of missions.

Full disclosure: I am a stupid big X-Force fan. The first 100 issues of the first volume are my absolute favorite run of issues of anything published in the ’90s. Cannonball, Boomer, Siryn and Warpath remain some of my favorite characters of all time, and I urge everyone to read the masterpiece that is “X-Force” vol. 1 #19. My personal favorite stretch of issues has to be issues #19-25 of volume 1, by Fabian Nicieza and artist Greg Capullo. They’re incredibly well done action stories with plenty of hilarious and touching character moments. It’s great.

Any talk of an X-Force movie has to include a mention of the constantly languishing Deadpool film. The character originally debuted in the final issues of “New Mutants” before becoming an “X-Force” foe in the series early issues. Deadpool then became a permanent member of the squad in the third ongoing series, “Uncanny X-Force.”

The large “X-Men: Days of Future Past” cast actually contains two prominent X-Force members. Adan Canto will portray Sunspot, and Booboo Stewart will bring Warpath to life. While it’s still too early to tell if  “Days of Future Past” will lead to an “X-Force” film, it’s definitely a possibility.

 

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