Peter Dinklage and more cast as Angry Birds voice cast is revealed, Whedon regular teases SHIELD role

Its UK debut is yet to have been aired but the second series of Marvel’s action thriller show Agents of SHIELD has already kicked off in America. The original cast (Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Chloe Bennett, Iain De Caestecker, Brett Dalton and Elizabeth Henstridge) expanded drastically in the second half of the show, introducing regular spots for Bill Paxton, BJ Britt, Saffron Burrows, Ruth Negga, J August Richards and Patton Oswalt with cameos from Amy Acker, Cobie Smulders, Adrian Pasdar, Ron Glass and Samuel L Jackson. Reed Diamond, Lucy Lawless, Nick Blood, Adrianne Palicki and Kyle Machlachan have already boarded season 2 as newcomers but they don’t seemed to have stopped there.

Fran Kranz has posted a fairly cryptic tweet featuring the words “Robbie Baldwin, SHIELD, soon!” Baldwin would be referring to the Marvel hero Speedball. Kranz is a Joss Whedon regular following a lead role on Dollhouse, the Whedon-written horror Cabin in the Woods and played Claudio in Whedon’s Shakespeare adaptation Much Ado About Nothing. He’s the fourth Much Ado star to join the show after Clark Gregg, Amy Acker and Reed Diamond, who played Leonato, Beatrice and Don Pedro respectively. Should this theme continue, we may see Nathan Fillion make his MCU debut on the small screen. Alexis Denisof may be after more of the action after his abrupt exit in Guardians of the Galaxy.

In a plethora of Appstore installations, ornithology anthology Angry Birds is likely the most iconic. Across numerous sequels, the game has tied into the Fast and Furious, Rio and Star Wars franchises but is now ready for a film of its own. The film’s incredible, and largely comedic, voice cast has now been unveiled: Jason Sudeikis (We’re the Millers, Horrible Bosses), Maya Rudolph (Bridesmaids, Away We Go), Bill Hader (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Paul), Josh Gad (21, Frozen), Danny McBride (This is the End, Tropic Thunder) and Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones, X-Men: Days of Future Past).

Angry Birds – July 15th 2016

Agents of SHIELD – continues this year on ABC and Channel 4

Marvel has cast its new Thanos!

We were planning tonight to be the premier of our X-Men: Days of Future Past review but some huge news has now come our way.

Across the Marvel Cinematic Universe, villains such as Hydra, The Ten Rings and most iconically Loki have dominated the evil doing across the nine instalments yet it’s been hinted all along that the real string puller is Thanos. You may remember that, back in The Avengers, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) was granted both his sceptre (which we know will be of great importance in years to come – it’s rumoured to be the power source of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch) and his Chitauri army by The Other (Alexis Denisof). Possibly the most famous post credit scene of all time depicted The Other addressing his master, unveiled as Thanos. The Titanian Eternal is likely to be doing some suspicious dealings with Loki and The Collector (Benicio Del Toro) in order to gain the Infinity Stones. Since we’ve had no word on who could be playing Thanos but know we have the official casting.

Oscar nominee Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men, Milk, W., Goonies, True Grit) is Thanos. It’s hard to say when we’ll first see Brolin in the role on screen but I’d hedge my bet on him cropping up in this August’s Guardians of the Galaxy (directed by James Gunn) and I wouldn’t be shocked if he makes a special guest appearance in Joss Whedon’s The Avengers: Age of Ultron. It’s likely that he’ll step up to the podium as the leading villain in The Avengers 3. Brolin is an excellent modern actor so it’ll be interesting to see him in a franchise role as well as one that’ll transform him into an giant mutant alien.

Guardians of the Galaxy – July 31st

The Avengers: Age of Ultron – May 1st 2015

The Avengers 3 – 2019

New still from Jupiter Ascending and James Gunn explains Guardians of the Galaxy/Avengers 3 link

Jupiter Ascending doesn’t quite look as adventurous or game changing as the other work of The Wachowskis, the writing/directing duo behind The Matrix, Bound and Cloud Atlas, but you only have to see Channing Tatum’s wolf-hybrid character to confirm this as an odball sci-fi epic. Check out today’s new still below for a brand new look at a film starring Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Terry Gilliam, Douglas Booth, Doona Bae, Eddie Redmayne and Sean Bean.

Despite Jupiter’s best efforts, the year’s most oddball sci-fi action will most likely be Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Its director James Gunn (Super, Slither) now claims that “We are definitely connected to Avengers 3.”

We can guess that this means that Avengers 3, most likely the work of Joss Whedon, will be tying in with some of the elements introduced in Guardians of the Galaxy. This’ll most likely be The Collector (Benicio Del Toro) and his pursuit of The Infinity Stones, for example The Tesseract. Thanos, and his servant The Other (Alexis Denisof) has to then be the lead antagonist but we can’t forget Loki (Tom Hiddleston) too soon. There’s still a lot going on with The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Arnim Zola (Toby Jones) and Ultron (James Spader) as well.

Maybe this means that the Guardians themselves (Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper) could be crossing over into Avenging territory. Maybe we can expect the film’s Lee Pace, Karen Gillan, Michael Rooker, John C Reilly, Glenn Close or Djimon Hounsou to appear. Either way, we know that Marvel are finally bringing to the films the huge scale universe efforts of the comics.

Guardians of the Galaxy – August 1st

The Avengers 3 – 2018?

Jupiter Ascending – July 25th

Much Ado About Nothing review

Director: Joss Whedon

Starring: Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker, Nathan Fillion, Jillian Morgese, Fran Kranz, Clark Gregg, Sean Maher

After wrapping up The Avengers with critical and box office success (the third highest grossing film of all time), your first choice for geek god Joss Whedon wouldn’t be a 400 year old, micro budget Shakespearean classic. But, as always, he’s delivered a masterpiece.

In a modern setting of an Elizabethan comedy, Claudio (Fran Kranz) is engaged to Hero (Jillian Morgese), the girl of his dreams, and they agree with Hero’s father Leonato (Clark Gregg) and the best man Don Pedro (Reed Diamond) to fulfill the seemingly near impossible challenge of pairing Beatrice (Amy Acker) and Benedick (Alexis Denisof), who’s verbal warfare is the highlight of the show. But the jealous drastic actions of Pedro’s brother John (Sean Maher) could tear Claudio from his wife to be…

Just a quick note on the production. The film was shot in Whedon’s house over just twelve days. We’ve heard that he frequently has friends (pretty much the cast of this film) round for readings of Shakespeare. So they decided to throw in a few extras and pretty much just video one of their performances.

The greatest success of Much Ado is that it grips you talons when necessary and can then have you laughing out loud a minute later. The gags are occasionally broad but still fit the scene. With no knowledge of the play at all, it did take me while to work out who’s related to who but as soon as I did I enjoyed it much more.

Not one performances was flawed. Fran Kranz delivers an heart wrentching sequence at the first wedding. Acker and Denisof prove a couple of stinging banter while the ever brilliant Nathan Fillion provides comic relief as the clumsy yet vital police chief Dogberry. Jillian Morgese has come an incredible way to this film. Her only other role was as an un-credited, line-less extra in The Avengers and she’s somehow winded up fantastically portraying a well known character. All she had to do the the 2012 superhero hit was pretend to be a New York waitress, gaze upon the impending doom and then die. But after many casual conversations with Whedon on set she’s got an excellently promising career. Clark Gregg did not seem old enough to be Hero’s father but that isn’t a surprise when you hear that Anthony Head (famed for playing Giles in Buffy) was first choice and when the space opened up, due to Giles Head being unavailable, Gregg offered to stand in. Gregg isn’t quite the scenestealer he was as Agent Phil Coulson in The Avengers but a witty heartfelt performance does the trick this time.

Many of the stars (I’m sure you noticed) are former Whedon contributors, affectionately known as Whedonites! Nathan Fillion and Sean Maher were series regulars the disappointingly short lived sci-fi show Firefly. Reed Diamond was best known for Dollhouse. Alexis Denisof, Tom Lenk, Fillion, Amy Acker and Riki Lindhome will be familiar to fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it’s spin-off Angel.

I think that Joss Whedon has spent a lot of time comparing notebooks with Kenneth Branagh. Branagh is best known for directing many Shakespeare adaptations and Marvel’s Thor, which led up to Whedon’s Avengers. During the planning of the Marvel series, Joss must have been inspired by discussions with Branagh which led him to adapt his love of Shakespeare into this triumph.

Yes, Much Ado is a triumph and my film of the year as we reach the half-way point. Plus we’re told Whedon will continue his Marvel progress with the ABC tv series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and The Avengers 2 and possibly adapting Charles Dickens with Dombey and Son!

10/10