It’s Friday morning, and that means it’s once again time for the News Bites. Now, it must be noted that San Diego Comic Con is in full swing as you read this, so there’s likely to be a lot of news from that which will be coming out after this post goes live. I’ll be keeping track of what breaks and saving it for next week; one of the hazards of doing a Friday update instead of a Monday one, I suppose. But that doesn’t mean that this week has been light on news by any stretch; there was still quite a bit going on leading up to SDCC, so read on for this week’s News Bites.
It’s been in the works for a few years now, but Edgar Wright says the Ant-Man screenplay is finally ready. Now it’s on to, well, everything else about the film.
An X-Force movie is in the works. 20th Century Fox has registered the domain name X-ForceMovie.com. Creator Rob Liefeld has said that he’s been aware of plans for the movie since March, though no greenlight has been given. It may not be long, though; within hours of the domain name news breaking, the writer and producer of the film were revealed. The producer is Lauren Shuller Donner, who has produced several of the existing X-Men films. The screenplay is being written by Jeff Wadlow, who wrote the screenplay for Kick-Ass 2. X-Force is an offshoot of X-Men, about a more militant and aggressive team of mutant heroes, led by Cable, the son of Jean Grey and Cyclops.
Speaking of Rob Liefeld — and I never would have expected to bring him up twice in one week — Gina Carano will be starring in a film adaptation of Liefeld’s Avengelyne, about an angel cast to Earth to find a person destined to save the Earth from demons. It will be produced by Scott Karp and Brooklyn Weaver, both of whom only have producer credits on upcoming films (though Weaver was also executive producer on The Number 23). The search for a writer and director is expected to start next week.
Thanks to Entertainment Weekly, the “look” of Jamie Foxx as Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has been revealed. The cover image is below. I understand why they went with the “Ultimate Universe” look for Electro instead of the classic look. As his normal look involves a big yellow mask shaped like lightning bolts in a star formation, they may have been worried it would look too goofy. Of course, I’m not convinced this isn’t also pretty goofy…. Hopefully it’ll look better in motion, but I said that about the Lizard as well…. There’s a brief clip of Electro courtesy of Comic-Con that can be seen here, but it doesn’t show much.
For the second time, Hulu is off the market. The owners — Fox, Universal, and Disney — have taken it back off the auction block.
Disney still has faith in Johnny Depp. Not only is Pirates of the Caribbean 5 still in the works, as mentioned before, but he’s returning as the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland 2.
Warner Brothers has changed the name of their upcoming sci-fi thriller starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt to Edge of Tomorrow. Apparently they realized that All You Need is Kill sounded pretty dumb. Of course, Edge of Tomorrow is a bit generic, but it’s still an improvement.
Sylvester Stallone has confirmed that Mel Gibson will be in The Expendables 3 as the villain.
Neill Blomkamp has written an 18-page treatment for District 10, a prospective sequel to his hit film District 9. Blomkamp also mentioned that he turned down an offer to direct one of the Star Wars sequels.
Max Landis is no longer attached to write Chronicle 2; additionally, Josh Trank, director of the first film, is not expected to return. So… a sequel without the writer, director, or most of the stars… doesn’t entirely bode well.
Also on the “not happening” front is Guillermo del Toro’s Hulk tv series. Jeph Loeb, head of Marvel’s TV department, has officially stated the project is on hold.
Rumors and Speculation:
Hugh Jackman wants Wolverine to join The Avengers in the movies (as he did in the comics). Andrew Garfield has also expressed the same desire regarding Spider-Man. Obviously, since the character rights are across three different companies — X-Men and Fantastic Four at Fox, Spider-Man at Sony, and everything else at Marvel/Disney — this would require a great deal of finagling to have it happen (unlike Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, there is no “we can both use them” agreement for these characters). So it probably isn’t going to happen… but it’s nice to know that the actors playing the parts are so enthusiastic about them.
More Marvel random rumors… from Latino Review, an unrevealed source at Marvel Studios claims that the studio is interested in casting Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Doctor Strange. It’s a long way from anything official — even the rumor claims they haven’t made the approach to him yet — but this is one rumor I wouldn’t mind panning out.
Morgan on Media 
That paste eating graphic cracks me up every time. Nice work as always on these news posts, Morgan!
Thanks, Eric. I’ve got to come up with a few more dumb things for him to be doing to mix it up a bit, though. 😀
Mel Gibson as the villain, eh? That should be interesting. Thanks for all the info!
I think Gibson could make for a good villain in that franchise. Thanks for reading!
I’m a little annoyed about the Johnny Depp sequel news as he embodies the same character types again and again (lazily). I also am not at all sold on an AntMan movie and see the need for a solo movie for the character as non-existent. But, Marvel seems intent on giving so many “B-list” heroes their own solo films. It worked for Iron Man. They’re hoping the same for Doctor Strange. But…Ant-Man? hmm.
Great roundup here, Morgan. I am still not pleased about Comic-Con’s ticket selling process this year. So many of us got kicked out of the server rooms while waiting to purchase tickets. and we should all be meeting up in San Diego today. Boo! haha
Ant-Man has always seemed like the most “Are you nuts?” idea Marvel has had for a superhero solo film. And yet it was one of the first ones they ever announced… I was convinced it would stay in development hell forever, personally.
Yeah, I heard about Comic-Con’s ticket problems. It’s real simple… if you’re going to have umpty-thousand people hitting your servers at once, make sure you have servers that can handle umpty-thousand people at once. And make sure that there’s some sense of fairness. First-come, first-served makes sense in general, but not when we’re talking a matter of seconds.
Perhaps they should start offering through TicketMaster? 😛
Wolverine in The Avengers would be EPIC! One can always hope, I suppose. 😉
It’s a real long shot. But stranger things have been known to happen…