The San Diego Comic-Con 2012 Movie News

- by The Rajun Cajun, 16 July 2012

Alright boys and girls! July can mean only one thing for us here at the lovely pop-culture blog site that is Trash Mutant: San Diego Comic-Con. Unfortunately, I personally wasn’t able to actually go there (money I just don’t have, folks), so I've been following all the various news releases like crazy to give you, the people of Trash Mutant, a taste on what SDCC had to offer. I’m a movie man, myself, so all that will be discussed here will be regarding the Marvel and DC film news that I know you’ll all enjoy. Let’s do it!

It's confirmed that there will be another Fantastic Four movie (reboot) and it will be directed by Josh Trank, the man who directed Chronicle. That's awesome, because Chronicle was awesome, so in turn, this movie should be awesome. Clearly, this is primarily being done because Fox does not want to lose its claim of rights to Marvel/Disney. As much as a bummer as that may sound, I wouldn’t worry too much about such things. Trank is a great director, and I’m sure that he’ll do just fine… So long as the cast is willing to give it their all, and if Fox will let the man do what he wants.

Speaking of rights, if Fox doesn't have anything to say about a Daredevil movie by this Fall, the rights will revert back to Marvel/Disney, which means that if that goes to pass, we could get a movie where Punisher and Daredevil crossover (as Marvel/Disney would own both of them). Or, even better, we could potentially get a Marvel Knights movie with DD, Punisher, Cage, Iron Fist, etc. Best thing ever? I think so. Here’s to hoping that Fox doesn’t touch the Man Without Fear!

The "Man of Steel" poster.

Apparently, Man of Steel will be the only superhero movie that DC/WB will be putting out in the next three years. In that three year gap, they'll probably brood about how epic The Avengers was, and they'll finally get to work and start making great movies that aren't about Batman. The Flash, Green Lantern 2, and Wonder Woman movies are all supposedly in development. The Man of Steel teaser has been confirmed to be attached to The Dark Knight Rises, so even if you’re not a Batman fan (who isn’t, though?) you’ll at least be able to go to watch that. It was shown at the panel in SDCC, and people literally cried over how fantastic it was. I was able to find a very blurry cell phone video of it, and believe me when I tell you: those people were right to cry. This film will be what Superman fans such as myself had dreamed of since forever.

When asked about Justice League and if Man of Steel will be connected to it, director Zak Snyder said something along the lines of “Superman's the crowned jewel of the DC superheroes. They want to test out his world before they go further onto that road”. For some reason, Snyder also kept avoiding to say that Zod is the villain. I wonder what that is about.

Oh, and speaking of the Justice League, we might not see it right away, but when it happens, it'll be great. DC is trying to get more video games starring the characters to get them more familiar to the public, so that's the deal with Injustice: Gods Among Us, Lego Batman 2, and the new "Arkham" prequel (2014), which will apparently feature members of the Justice League. That's also why WB is pushing the brand new Arrow show so hard. My personal question to DC is: Why the hell can't we get a new JL cartoon that's just as awesome as Young Justice? Now would be the best time for that!

Now onto the Marvel/Disney stuff! This is where all the best things are, so brace yourselves!

First off, here's the new Iron Man armor for Iron Man 3:

As you can see, they’re going with the current “Bleeding Edge” armor that Tony Stark is currently wearing in the comic books. At the same Iron Man 3 panel, Don Cheadle, who plays War Machine/James Rhodes, confirmed that the Mandarin (arguably Iron Man’s greatest foe) is in fact a villain in the film (played by Sir Ben Kingsley, no less), but he will not be the only one. So that confirms so far that the film will feature AIM, Extremis, and Mandarin, as well as the Iron Patriot armor... Interesting stuff, but hopefully they won’t go overboard! Let’s not forget what happened with Spider-Man 3!

The Captain America sequel will be called Captain America: The Winter Soldier. That confirms the return of Bucky Barnes, something that we fans all should have expected. It's awesome to have confirmation, though. There is very high speculation that Falcon, Cap’s usual heroic partner will be in the film as well. The release date is confirmed to be April 4, 2014.

The Thor sequel will be called Thor: The Dark World, and it's release date is November 8, 2013. Loki will not be the main bad guy, which leads many to suspect it's a bigger threat than even he. Surtur maybe? Very interesting stuff, indeed.

Footage of Marvel’s upcoming film Ant-Man was shown, and this is a description of what it was all about (from collider.com):

They then revealed test footage that Wright shot for "Ant-Man", after Wright toyed for a bit with the audience saying they wouldn’t really want to see a clip of stuff with wires and blue screens in it. It’s completely unfinished since they shot it two weeks ago, but they showed the footage anyway, because Marvel absolutely owns Comic-Con.

The footage opened with Ant-Man sitting on a ledge in an air conditioning vent that lead to a hallway guarded by two agents. The costume was pretty metallic looking, and he snuck through the vent hole and started running down the hallway. He morphed to normal size, shocking the guards, then morphed back down to ant size and kept running. Still in “ant size” he leapt up and punched one of the guys in the face, knocking the spit out of him, then he ran and attacked the other guard.

The footage was obviously rough, but I thought the big/small effects worked great. Wright found a way to make Ant-Man’s power work in a cool and useful way on screen, while still allowing room for the playful tone that he does so well. The lights then came back up.

“I’ve been doing one second of that for the last six years,” quipped Wright.
Wright confirmed that the costume mixing the Silver Age and contemporary Ant-Man, adding “Ant-Man will kick your ass one inch at a time.”

Wright said there’s no casting to announce, but “revealed” that Ant-Man has been here all day, pulling out an Ant-Man title card and putting it on the table next to him.

Unfortunately, we don't have an exact release date, but it is confirmed that it's finally happening, and fans couldn’t be more pleased. Ant-Man is a huge part of the Avengers mythos, and it’s excellent to see him not only in a movie, but a movie for himself, period.

Last, but certainly not least, Marvel's mystery 2014 film was revealed to in fact be Guardians of the Galaxy. In a nutshell, they can be described as the “space Avengers,” which is very fitting to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, considering the post-credit Avengers scene. The release date is confirmed to be August 1, 2014. Members in the film will include: Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Drax, and Gamora. Concept art was also shown:

And that's that! If you asked me, I'd say that it's safe to believe that Marvel won this portion of SDCC! As cool as all that Marvel stuff was, the Man of Steel teaser was very well-received, so while DC/WB didn't have much, they at least aren't going home losers. What did you think of what was revealed? Are you excited  about Ant-Man?  Bummed  about DC/WB’s three year break?  Want a Rocket Raccoon  plushie? I know I do! Speak your mind, people of Trash Mutant! What do you think?

Tagged: movies & tv.

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