Tom Hiddleston and Idris Elba are set for more Marvel

This week was one dominated by the stellar announcement of Marvel’s Phase Three lineup and we were thrilled by the confirmation of Thor 3. Following the success of The Winter Soldier, Kevin Feige and co were quick to confirm Captain America 3, now titled Civil War, but seemed hesitant with the thunder god, despite The Dark World’s grand takings, but Thor: Ragnarok is now scheduled for a Summer 2017 release.

The presence of Chris Hemsworth (Rush) as Thor and Tom Hiddleston (War Horse) as Loki was immediately announced. The cast is now looking to be expanded as Idris Elba will reprise his role as Asgardians watchmen Heimdall. Elba’s career was built on supporting roles on The Wire, American Gangster and RockNRolla before leads in the likes of Prometheus and Pacific Rim. I’d expect further additions to include Natalie Portman (Leon, Black Swan), Stellan Skarsgard (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Good Will Hunting) and Anthony Hopkins (The Elephant Man, The Silence of the Lambs) as Odin.

The likes of Ultron (James Spader), Ulysses Klaw (maybe Andy Serkis) and Thanos (Josh Brolin) will soon be dominating Marvel’s villain screentime but their beloved Loki is not forgotten. In addition to Ragnarok, the god of mischief’s on screen life has been extended to The Avengers: Infinity War, a two part event beginning in 2018 and likely directed by Serenity’s Joss Whedon.

Thor: Ragnarok – July 28th 2017

The Avengers: Infinity War Part I – May 4th 2018

The Avengers: Infinity War Part II – May 3rd 2019

News for X-Men’s Apocalypse and Gambit plus Marvel hires writers for Thor 3

The rights for film adaptations of comic book giants Marvel’s characters lie across several different companies. Sony are the studio behind The Amazing Spider-Man and the upcoming spin-offs Venom and The Sinister Six; Fox are money behind The X-Men and Wolverine franchise and the upcoming reboot of The Fantastic Four as well as, potentially, The InHumans and X-Force; Disney are the corporation behind the billion dollar success of The Avengers, featuring Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Ant-Man, Loki, Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Agents of SHIELD, Doctor Strange and Black Panther, and have the rights for Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Jessica Jones. Oddballs such as Elektra, Blade and Howard the Duck are still up for grabs however.

With that quick guide to the franchises over, we can skip to the main news which, as you’ve probably guessed, is rather Marvel focused today and we start with Fox’s side of things. Late last year, Bryan Singer, creator of House/director of The Usual Suspects and X-Men: Days of Future Past, was proud to confirm X-Men: Apocalypse for 2016. At the time, we’re weren’t sure at all of the setting, characters (beside Apocalypse) or even if Singer would be directing it but, since then, we’ve been baby fed the details.

Four time Emmy nominee Singer will direct, write and produce Apocalypse which has now been confirmed to be a sequel to X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, meaning it’ll more likely star Michael Fassbender (Magneto), James McAvoy (Professor X) Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique), Nicholas Hoult (Beast), Caleb Landry Jones (Banshee), Angel (Zoe Kravitz) and Lucas Till (Havok) as the younger batch of mutants of the 1970s, as appose to the 2000s bunch of studious X-Men including Halle Berry (Storm), Daniel Cudmore (Colossus), Ben Foster (Angel), Shawn Ashmore (Iceman), Anna Paquin (Rogue), Ellen Page (Shadowcat), Patrick Stewart (Professor X), Ian McKellen (Magneto), Rebecca Romjin (Mystique), James Marsden (Cyclops), Famke Jannssen (Jean Grey), Kelsey Grammer (Beast) and Hugh Jackman (Wolverine). However, we can’t be sure if all of the ’70s mutants can return as we’ve no idea who’s gonna make it to the end of DoFP.

Singer has more recently spoken out to debunk some of the rumours thrown his way. The main speculation raised by the fans was that Apocalypse arrives on Earth and possesses Magneto in a post credit sting for DoFP. “That’s not the case”, he stressed, “and neither will that particular thing be in the film. People were concerned we were making Apocalypse an alien. It’s odd. I don’t know where that came from.

“One thing that interests me is the notion of ancient mutants: what would people thousands of years ago, without the benefit of science, think mutants were? And more importantly, what would mutants thousands of years ago think they were? Gods? Titans? Angels? Demons? And if such mutants did exist thousands of years ago, what became of them? Did one survive?” Whatever happens, I hope they give a long awaited origin story for Alan Cumming’s Nightcrawler from X-2, who, in the comics, is the child of Mystique and Azazel (Jason Flemyng).

While we’re still in the X-Men universe, we’d like to bring to mind the character of Gambit, a fan favourite in the comics. He briefly appeared in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, decently played by Taylor Kitsch, and was one of two interesting elements, the other being the early version of Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) whose spin off movie has been stuck in development for a fair while. X-Men’s producer Lauren Shuler Donner has now shed light on a new Gambit film.

“I’m dying to do a Gambit movie with Channing Tatum,” Shuler Donner reveals. “That doesn’t have to be a great big movie. It’s a thief in New Orleans, it’s a whole different story. He’s on board, and I have to get the studio on board.” Tatum (21 Jump Street, The Vow, GI Joe, White House Down, The Eagle, Side Effects, Magic Mike) seemed equally thrilled.  “I would like to play Gambit. Gambit’s my favourite. I’m from New Orleans, around that area, and I like to do a Cajun accent. I could do it for real. No knock on Taylor Kitsch, though, ’cause I actually like his Gambit, but I’ve always lived around Cajun people. He was the punk rock of all the superheroes. He’s a thief. He kind of rode the line.” Yep, we found the statement fairly nonsensical too but that can’t detract from his chance to play a comic book icon.

We now flip over to Fox/Marvel’s younger, wealthier and more popular younger brother; I talk only of Disney/Marvel. The Mouse House have it big with the superheroes; recent smash hits Avengers Assemble and Iron Man 3 took over a billion dollars each and are respectively placed 3rd and 5th on the list of highest grossing films of all time while Thor: The Dark World’s $600 million haul was a huge improvement of the decent $400 million grossings of old, aka Thor and Cap 1.

Having set three reliable, fun and money making main characters, Disney’ll be keen to flesh them out for their own trilogies. Iron Man finished his last year but the three part quests of Thor and Captain America are still ongoing. The upcoming Cap 2: The Winter Soldier seems to be gaining huge popularity with the studio as a third Cap entered development. Evidently thrilled with The Dark World’s success last year, they’ve now put Thor 3 into action by hiring two writers.

Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost have been called to action for the threequel which could be the second or third instalment in Phase 3 of Marvel’s 5 Phase saga. The pair have wrote a tonne of Marvel TV series and mini-movies and stepped into the limelight when they respectively produced and wrote Thor and The Dark World. We can expect Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins, Tom Hiddleston and Jaimie Alexander to return for the sequel. We may have to rule out Alan Taylor as a director as he’s busy at work on 2015’s Terminator: Genesis. Could Marvel call upon Kenneth Branagh once more?

Just in case today’s Marvel triple bill wasn’t enough for you, here’s the very first character banners for Anthony and Joe Russo’s The Winter Soldier, starring Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L Jackson.

X-Men: Apocalypse – 2016

Gambit – 2017

Captain America: The Winter Soldier – March 28th

Captain America 3 – 2017

Thor 3 – 2016

Thor: The Dark World review

Director: Alan Taylor

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Hopkins, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Jaimie Alexender, Renne Russo, Christopher Eccleston, Idris Elba, Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, Stellan Skarsgard, Kat Dennings, Tadonobu Asano, Adewale Akkinuoye-Agbaje, Jonathan Howard

Kevin Feige’s Marvel franchise began in 2008 with the brilliant Iron Man. Until last year, they weren’t quite able to match it’s standards but Joss Whedon managed to make a Marvel masterpiece with Avengers Assemble setting the bar remarkably high for this year’s two installments. Iron Man 3 certainly turned up the action and the twists and, while a great film, it wasn’t quite an Iron Man film (no ACDC or Black Sabbath used once) and more of a Guy Ritchie/Downey Jr comedic sci-fi thriller. Thor: The Dark World on paper doesn’t look in too great a position if you look at is as a director coming in as a newcomer to a successful franchise that’ll make money even if it’s rubbish and who hasn’t made a feature film for a decade (in which he took to TV) and is best known for The Emperor’s New Clothes and Palookaville. This is Loki, and not low-key, but Taylor has delivered a great fantasy epic. Plus, Taylor’s decade on TV brought us Game of Thrones and Mad Men.

Thor (Hemsworth), Prince of Asgard, has finished restoring peace to the Nine Realms and rebuilt the bi-frost after a brief chaos in the aftermath of his adopted brother Loki’s (Tom Hiddleston) attack of Mid-Gard/Earth. However, chaos makes a speedy recovery when the millennia dead Dark Elves return with the leader Malekith (Eccleston) intent on using the long lost energy of the Aether to turn the universe back to the dark. Thor must betray his father and king Odin (Hopkins) and recruit Loki to defeat Malekith. Meanwhile, on Earth, a quartet of scientists (Portman, Skarsgard, Dennings, Howard) realise that Malekith’s plan ties in with The Convergence, the aligning of the Nine Realms.

Marvel’s war with DC has brought as far away as possible from it. With trial, Avengers Assemble, and error, The Wolverine and The Amazing Spiderman, it’s been proved proved that there’s no point in making Marvel grounded, gritty and realistic like The Dark Knight so it’s gone in the opposite direction: reveling in it’s fantasy and outrageous grasp of physics to make extremely fun films.

Despite the sinister title, The Dark World is quite hilarious but not at the expense of the epic action, with Loki’s taunts the clear highlight – “Let’s talk about justice and freedom – I love America!”. It’s still gripping and dark but hugely enjoyable. Kat Dennings’ great comedic performance adds to that and I loved the cameo from Chris O’Dowd.

Natalie Portman and her character Jane Foster are great two. Their managing to save the world in a way crucial to the plot without her having to take any clothes off (and yes, that was a dig at Gwyneth Paltrow and Iron Man 3) as well as promoting the power of science. Not promoting the power of science however is Skarsgard’s Eric who’s completely lost it (kind of Close Encounters style) after being possessed last year – makes you think what happened to Hawkeye?

Levi, Stevenson, Asano, Elba and Alexander give annoyingly small performances but, rightly, Thor and Loki’s relationship and distrust is the centre of focus. Their bitter reunion and friction with their parents Odin and Friggo (Russo) gives you some real drama to invest into and not just smothering us with special effects. That said, this is the most visually stunning Marvel film yet. Asgard is at the height of it’s splendour and beauty but I’m not convinced that we’d find the reclusive prince in the local tavern.

It’s possibly the best film yet in the Kevin Feige Marvel series. Dennings, Hopkins, Portman and Hemsworth are all great but Tom Hiddleston is once again brilliant as the mischievous Master of Ceremony. No matter how much of a Doctor Who fan I am, I have to say that Eccleston’s Malekith was a little disappointing, I wish that he would just speak English or that Kurse (Akkinuoye-Agbaje) was brought to the forefront and the ridiculously fun final showdown was a little too reminiscent of Jumper. The film is good enough to shine through that though. It’s a supreme fun action fantasy and, while Marvel may never has it’s Dark Knight, it’s much more of a sequel to Thor than Iron Man 3 was to Iron Man.

8/10

“When do we start?”