Sinister Six appoints Drew Goddard, Wreck-It Ralph 2 levels up plus new TMNT posters

Wreck-It Ralph was easily Dinsey’s most charming (non-musical and non-Pixar) animated film in years, and defeated the likes of Monsters University and Despicable Me 2 to win the Tuorhoth Award for Best Animated Film as well as gaining nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Comedy. On top of that, the film, which tells the story of an arcade villain determined to make something better of himself in the gaming world, got an Academy Award nomination, which is lost to Brave, and took nearly $500 million worldwide. You won’t be surprised to hear that we’re immensely excited about today’s news. X-Men: First Class and Captain Phillips composer Henry Jackman let slip that he’d been approached for a sequel.

“I can’t tell you more, not because I’m being coy, but I believe that it is officially on the cards,” he told collider, “I don’t know any more other than a story is indeed being written. I’d be very surprised not to. I’m not blowing my own trumpet. Forget about the music. Just the movie itself I thought was a fantastically imaginative and creative piece of work.” We hope that the follow up will be directed by Rich Moore and will star John C Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Alan Tudyk, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch and Joe Lo Trugilo.

With The Amazing Spider-Man 2 coming very soon, Sony are advancing the continuation of their slice of the Marvel universe. As well as another two Spider-Man sequels, there’ll be a pair of spin offs. Venom will be brought to us by People Like Us director and Star Trek and Fringe writer Alex Kurtzman as well as Roberto Orci and Ed Solomon and that’s followed by The Sinister Six, which we knew was going to be written by Cloverfield, World War Z and The Cabin in the Woods’ (below) Drew Goddard. However, Goddard is now talking with Sony about directing the film.

We’re still not quite sure which iteration of The Sinister Six will be depicted as there have been numerous incarnations and members. There’s a possibility that established Spidey evil-doers such as Lizard (Rhys Ifans), Rhino (Paul Giamatti) and Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan) will be included but we’d put our money on the classic line up of Electro (Jamie Foxx), Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, Sandman, Doctor Octopus and Vulture. Electro has already found a solid casting and Doc Oc and Vulture have been teased in various trailers but Goddard will have a serious task trying to cast five new villains.

There’s little else to report today besides the revealing of four neat Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles teaser posters. The reboot is brought to us by South African director Jonathan Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans, Battle Los Angeles) and producer Michael Bay (Transformers, Pain and Gain) and stars Megan Fox, William Fichtner, Johnny Knoxville, Tony Shalhoub, Will Arnett, Alan Ritchson, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, Danny Woodburn and Whoopi Goldberg.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – October 17th

Wreck-It Ralph 2 – 2017

Venom – 2017

The Sinister Six – 2017

Christopher Nolan hints for Interstellar and new pics from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and first TMNT trailer

We start with an apology for yesterday’s absence. We’d scheduled it to be the day of my review of Marvel’s thriller Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Our review will arrive on Sunday but today we’re making up for that with some incredibly exciting film news for three of this year’s biggest movies.

In my mind, Christopher Nolan is the single greatest British writer/director of this century. He began his career with the first class thrillers Insomnia and The Following but found his big break with the psychological mystery Memento. That soon lead to him landing the director’s chair on Batman Begins. From there, he confirmed legendary status with The Dark Knight, The Prestige, The Dark Knight Rises and Inception and his technologically stunning and brilliantly written film’s has received a total of 21 Oscar nominations.

So, you won’t be surprised to hear that it is with great excitement and trepidation that we report anything to do with his new film. Still, the ever secretive Nolan has told us very little about it: it’s titled Interstellar, has a greatly impressive cast list and must have something to do with space. He’s finally given a hint at what it’s like to be working with the man who’s currently the biggest actor on the planet: the Oscar winning Matthew MacConaughey. “I needed someone who is very much an everyman, someone the audience could experience the story with,” he says of the Wolf of Wall Street, True Detective and Dallas Buyers Club star. “He’s just a phenomenal, charismatic presence in the movie. His performance is shaping up to be extraordinary.”

Nolan also added a little to do with the styling of the film. “We have spatial interiors. We built closed sets and shot it like a documentary, like they were really there.” Interstellar also stars Anne Hathaway, Casey Affleck, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Topher Grace, Wes Bentley, Mackenzie Foy, David Oyelowo, John Lithgow, Ellen Burstyn, David Gyasi and Matt Damon.

Today’s next snippet comes from Empire’s set-pics from the simian sequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Cloverfield’s Matt Reeves directs the film which has released some awesome shots of the terrifying apes before their post-production motion capture transformation. The film stars Gary Oldman, Judy Greer, Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, Toby Kebbell, Kodi Smit McPhee and Andy Serkis.

Today’s final report concerns the release of the very first trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Michael Bay (director of Transformers) produces this reboot of the cult animation while Jonathan Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans, Battle Los Angeles) directs. The cast list includes of the action adventure includes Alan Ritchson, Noel Fisher, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, Megan Fox, William Fichtner, Will Arnett, Danny Woodburn and Whoopi Goldberg.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – October 17th

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – July 17th

Interstellar – November 7th

Marvel’s Doctor Strange green-lighted, Tom Hardy confirmed as Elton John and William Fichtner talks TMNT

William Fichtner made an impressively gory villain out of Butch Cavendish in this years underrated Western flop The Lone Ranger. He’s likely to do the same with his portrayal of the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles enemy The Shredder.

2014’s reboot is separate from the Patrick Stewart/Chris Evans 2007 CG animated flop. South African director Jonathan Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans, Battle Los Angeles) will bring us this part CG part live action fantasy comedy which sees four superpowered (with agility, weapon use and advanced speech beyond your average reptile) turtles, Raphael (Alan Ritchinson – The Hunger Games: Catching Fire), Donatello (Jeremy Howard – Galaxy Quest), Michelangelo (Noel Fisher – Twilight) and Leonardo (Pete Ploszek – Parks and Recreation), are trained by a rat, Splinter (Danny Woodburn – Mirror Mirror), and must defeat the villainous Shredder in his diabolical plans. Megan Fox (Transformers), Will Arnett (Arrested Development) and Whoopi Goldberg (The Colour Purple, Sister Act, Ghost) are also set to star while the production has a big name on the list of producers: Michael Bay! Fichtner tells us more about his character and the film:

“It always had sort of a bouncy cartoon feel to me, which is great, that’s why it was appealing. That’s not this movie. It’s not like any Mutant Ninja Turtles thing you’ve ever seen before. It’s freaky, they’re cool, and they’re mutants and they look awesome. It’s tough and it’s going to be really, really great.

I play a guy named Eric Sachs and we find out that Eric Sachs is somebody else too. I can’t give away too much in the story but I can tell you that who Shredder is in the telling of this Turtles is unlike any telling of the story before. His connection and relationship to the turtles is a bit surprising and for an actor playing it, the backstory, which comes out in this film, is really intriguing. We made some changes while filming that I thought are just awesome.”

Rocketman, named after the 1972 hit single, is the upcoming biopic telling of the life of the 1970s’ British pop sensation Elton John and it’s been in development for a few years. Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises’ Bane and star of Bronson, Inception, Warrior and the upcoming Mad Max reboot) has been the man everyone wanted to play Reginald Dwight, Elton’s real name, for a long time but only now has Hardy been confirmed.

“We are excited to have such a gifted actor on board,” Rocket Pictures’ Steve Hamilton Shaw tells us, “and equally excited to be in the hands of Peter Schlessel and the entire Focus Features team.” Lee Hall (scribe of Billy Elliot and War Horse fame) is set to write the biopic while first time director Michael Gracey is also signed on.

The biggest news of today is the green lighting of Doctor Strange. Marvel boss Kevin Feige (who says “Doc Strange, as I’ve been saying for years, is a movie I believe we should make; we’re just figuring out how to make it a great movie.”) has been talking for a long time about bringing Steven Strange to the big screen (in the same universe as Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the rest of The Avengers) but this green light means that it’s definitely coming out.

We predict that it’s going to be in one of Marvel’s untitled 2016 or 2017 slots. Phase 3 begins with Ant-Man in 2015. I think Doctor Strange and Thor 3 will follow in 2016 and then Captain America 3 and possibly Black Panther (Maybe Hawkeye or Black Widow) in 2017. Maybe a SHIELD centred film in 2018 and an Iron Man/Hulk team up before Avengers reassemble for the third, maybe final time, in 2019. It’s very likely that one of the potential projects I mentioned could be replaced by Guardians of the Galaxy 2 but this is all, par Ant-Man and Doctor Strange, just speculation.

We did promise you another piece of Marvel news from yesterday but the Captain America: The Winter Soldier trailer isn’t online yet. We could be posting about that later today however and, if we have the time, could do a review of the new Paul Greengrass/Tom Hanks hostage thriller Captain Phillips. We won’t be publishing anything tomorrow but we’re back this Saturday with our review of Ender’s Game so you won’t be waiting long!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – May 16th 2014

Rocketman – 2015

Doctor Strange – 2016/17