Whedon discusses Dark Knight effect, Transformers and Bourne 5 slot into 2016 and first look at Jurassic World’s dinosaur

I, and countless other fans, find themselves in fits of uncontrollable excitement whenever a news story features geek god Joss Whedon, the writer of TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Agents of SHIELD, Dollhouse, Dr Horrible, Firefly and Toy Story and the director of Much Ado About Nothing, Serenity and The Avengers (the third highest grossing film of all time). Today’s news is of coarse surrounding The Avengers’ sequel titled Age of Ultron and Whedon has spoken out about the modern pressure of making a follow up an Empire Strikes Back, a Godfather Part 2 or (in particular) a Dark Knight. “Now, I watched ‘The Dark Knight’ and I thought of that as riffing on the genre. That was a superhero movie as ‘The Godfather.’ And I was like, ‘But I just still want to see a superhero movie!’ We had just gotten the technology to make it awesome, and I wasn’t ready to be post-modern about it yet.

“You’re trying to make a populist film with fascist iconography that is just bigger, and better, and longer, and trying to break that down and find a weakness and humanity.” Age of Ultron will star Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, James Spader, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Don Cheadle, Thomas Kretschmann, Hayley Attwell, Paul Bettany, Cobie Smulders, Josh Brolin, Samuel L Jackson and Robert Downey Jr.

As we all know, 2015 is the new 2012 which was the new 1999 in terms of 12 months of mega-releases one after the other. Next year it’s Avengers 2, Bond 24, Hunger Games 4, Cinderella, Ant-Man, Inside Out, The Man From UNCLE, Jurassic World, Terminator: Genesis, Fast and Furious 7, Jupiter Ascending, Mission: Impossible 5 and Star Wars 7 jamming the schedule from April through to Christmas. Despite this, 2016 is becoming a quick rival (Star Trek 3, X-Men: Apocalypse, The Amazing Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Doctor Strange, Captain America 3, Warcraft, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, Finding Nemo, Through the Looking Glass, Avatar 2) and it’s just added three more films to its roster. Michael Bay’s (Bad Boys, Armageddon, The Island) Age of Extinction follow up Transformers 5 with Mark Whalberg, Gregory Plotkin’s Paranormal Activity 5 with Katie Featherson and Justin Lin’s (Fast and Furious) untitled Bourne film with Jeremy Renner.

Certain members of sci-fi reboot Jurassic World’s human cast have been revealed already but indie director Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed) has got trigger-happy on Twitter and unveiled a small insight into Jurassic World’s main villains. We’re unsure but I’d bet that this is a teaser for the upcoming big reveal, similar to the Batmobile earlier this year. Jurassic World will star Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Nick Robinson, Ty Simpkins, Jake Johnson, Omar Sy, Judy Greer, BD Wong, Katie McGrath and Vincent D’Onofrio.

Jurassic World – June 12th 2015

The Bourne Betrayal – 2016

Transformers 5 – 2016

The Avengers: Age of Ultron – May 1st 2015

James Cameron talks Avatar’s script and Transformers 4 paves way for new trilogy

Following up from the highest grossing film of all time is no simple achievement, especially with the seven year gap its leaving. 2009’s Avatar became the first film to gross over $2 billion worldwide and its director James Cameron (Titanic, Aliens, True Lies, The Abyss, The Terminator, Terminator 2) has spoken up about the development of Avatar 2, 3 and 4.

“The second, third and fourth films all go into production simultaneously. They’re essentially all in pre-production now because we are designing creatures, settings and characters that span all three films. And we should be finished with all three scripts within the next, I would say, six weeks.” Remember that Shane Salerno (Armageddon), Josh Friedman (War of the Worlds) and Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver have all been appointed to work on the various sequels.

“There’s always pressure, whether it’s a new film or whether it’s a sequel, to entertain and amaze an audience,” he said. “I’ve felt that pressure my entire career, so there’s nothing new there. The biggest pressure I feel right now is cutting out things I love to get the film down to a length that is affordable. There hasn’t been a problem finding new and wonderful things to include in the movie.” The future Avatar films are expected to star Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang and Sigourney Weaver.

Three years have passed since the critical hammering but billion dollar takings of Dark of the Moon, Michael  Bay (Bad Boys, Pain and Gain, Pearl Harbour) will release his third Transformers film, this one titled Age of Extinction. The revamped human cast of Mark Wahlberg, Jack Reynor, Nicola Peltz, Kelsey Grammer and Stanley Tucci will feature alongside the classic Autobots we know and love in a sequel which looks like it’s in a pleasingly different tone to its predecessors.

This is most likely because Age of Extinction has plans to be the first in a new trilogy of ‘Formers movies, although Bay expressed doubt in directing these future instalments. We can’t argue with that decision – since 2007’s Transformers he hasn’t made a single good movie and a fresh view can solve that, leaving Bay free to make the long-desired Bad Boys 3. It’s been hinted that the central character of the new set of films could be Lockdown so we should look out for some secretive cameos in the next film.

Transformers: Age of Extinction – July 10th

Transformers 5 – 2016?

Transformers 6 – 2018?

Avatar 2 – December 2016

Avatar 3 – December 2017

Avatar 4 – December 2018