Yesterday, it was announced that Dwayne Johnson’s DC Comics film Black Adam finally got a new release date and will be coming out on July 29,2022. Johnson made the announcement via Instagram with the new date being revealed at Times Square in New York City.
This means Black Adam will be going up against Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones 5 starring Harrison Ford and directed by James Mangold (Logan, The Wolverine, Ford v. Ferrari), that’s unless Disney moves the fifth installment to later in 2022 or to a new summer spot in 2023.
Dwayne Johnson leads the superhero flick in the role of Black Adam. Other cast members assembled by New Line Cinema consists of Aldis Hodge as Carter Hall aka Hawkman, Noah Centineo as Al Rothstein aka Atom Smasher, Quintessa Swindell as Maxine Hunkell aka Cyclone, Sarah Shahi as Adrianna Tomaz aka Isis, Pierce Brosnan as Kent Nelson aka Dr. Fate, and Marwan Kenzari expected to play the film’s villain.
Production on Black Adam is set to begin next month in Atlanta, Georgia.
Yesterday, director James Gunn teased that a trailer for his DC Comics film The Suicide Squad would get it’s first trailer released and today is the day!
It confirms that mind-controlling cosmic villain Starro is indeed in the film (something that was revealed over the summer) and that Sly Stallone is voicing King Shark.
You can check out that first trailer below.
From the horribly beautiful mind of @JamesGunn, #TheSuicideSquad hits theaters and @HBOMax August 6. Watch the Official Red Band trailer now, ❤️ to subscribe, and be among the first to receive content up until release! pic.twitter.com/O4fw1pbvXO
Welcome to hell—a.k.a. Belle Reve, the prison with the highest mortality rate in the US of A. Where the worst Super-Villains are kept and where they will do anything to get out—even join the super-secret, super-shady Task Force X. Today’s do-or-die assignment? Assemble a collection of cons, including Bloodsport, Peacemaker, Captain Boomerang, Ratcatcher 2, Savant, King Shark, Blackguard, Javelin and everyone’s favorite psycho, Harley Quinn. Then arm them heavily and drop them (literally) on the remote, enemy-infused island of Corto Maltese. Trekking through a jungle teeming with militant adversaries and guerrilla forces at every turn, the Squad is on a search-and-destroy mission with only Colonel Rick Flag on the ground to make them behave…and Amanda Waller’s government techies in their ears, tracking their every movement. And as always, one wrong move and they’re dead (whether at the hands of their opponents, a teammate, or Waller herself). If anyone’s laying down bets, the smart money is against them—all of them.
The film stars Margot Robbie (“Birds of Prey,” “Bombshell”), Idris Elba (“Avengers: Infinity War”), John Cena (upcoming HBO Max series “Peacemaker,” “Bumblebee”), Joel Kinnaman (“Suicide Squad”), Jai Courtney (the “Divergent” franchise), Peter Capaldi (“World War Z,” BBC’s “Doctor Who” ), David Dastmalchian (upcoming “Dune,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp”), Daniela Melchior (“Parque Mayer”), Michael Rooker (the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films), Alice Braga (“Elysium”), Pete Davidson (“The King of Staten Island,” TV’s “Saturday Night Live”), Joaquín Cosio (“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” TV’s “Narcos: Mexico”), Juan Diego Botto (“The Europeans”), Storm Reid (“The Invisible Man,” “A Wrinkle in Time”, “Euphoria”), Nathan Fillion (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” TV’s “The Rookie”), Steve Agee (“Brightburn,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2”), Sean Gunn (the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, the “Avengers” films), Mayling Ng (“Wonder Woman”), Flula Borg (“Ralph Breaks the Internet”), Jennifer Holland (“Brightburn,” upcoming HBO Max series “Peacemaker”) and Tinashe Kajese (TV’s “Valor,” “The Inspectors”), with Sylvester Stallone (the “Rocky,” “Rambo” and “Expendables” franchises), and Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Suicide Squad”).
Gunn (the “Guardian of the Galaxy” films) directs from his own screenplay, based on characters from DC. The film is produced by Charles Roven and Peter Safran, with Zack Snyder, Deborah Snyder, Walter Hamada, Chantal Nong Vo, Nikolas Korda and Richard Suckle executive producing.
Gunn’s creative team includes director of photography Henry Braham (“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2”), production designer Beth Mickle (“Captain Marvel”), editors Fred Raskin (“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” “Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood”) and Christian Wagner (the “Fast & Furious” films) and Oscar-nominated costume designer Judianna Makovsky (“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2,” “Avengers: Endgame,” “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”). The music is by John Murphy (“Kick-Ass”).
As mentioned above The Suicide Squad is set for release on August 6, 2021 on both HBO Max and in theaters.
The unmade Batman film starring, co-written, and directed by Ben Affleck sounded sort of interesting. There had been previous talk that Arkham Asylum would have been a featured location with Joe Manganiello’s Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke being set up as the film’s big bad.
Manganiello dished a few more details to Comic Book’s podcast Phase Zero (spotted by The Playlist), where he name dropped Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl needing to get involved as Batman couldn’t handle Deathstroke on his own. Adding that Wilson would be more of a horror character citing Steven Spielberg’s shark movie Jaws.
MANGANIELLO: “There was like a big huge showdown, I think between Batgirl…Batgirl jumps in to try and help Bruce because Deathstroke is so fast. He can anticipate Bruce’s movements. That leads to this big climactic battle through the streets of Gotham in the end. It’s like a real-life psychological thriller with Deathstroke. He was like a horror movie, like a shark, kind of like Jaws.”
We’ll likely never see this ever fully realized but it’s certainly interesting tidbits of information none-the-less. Affleck is said to be appearing one more time as Batman in The Flash movie and might be his last time in the role.
Matt Reeves is busy with his own Batman trilogy starring Robert Pattinson and it was revealed by DC Films that it takes place within the cinematic universe’s version of Earth 2. This allowing the studio to populate new/rebooted versions of DC Comics heroes in that world starting with The Batman.
There had been talk that Warner Bros. wasn’t able to secure Billy Crudup to reprise the role of Henry Allen, Barry’s father, in the upcoming solo film shooting in the United Kingdom.
Yesterday, it was revealed by Variety that the studio has landed on character actor Ron Livingston to replace Billy Crudup as Henry. Ron is likely best known for the Mike Judge comedy film Office Space and his supporting role in HBO’s beloved WWII series Band of Brothers.
Henry has been wrongfully convicted of killing his wife and Barry’s mother leading to Flash using his powers to go back in time to prevent her murder leading to the Flashpoint story. Barry changing the timeline and saving his mother leads to a disastrous future, think the Butterfly Effect. However, it sounds like the feature film version of Flashpoint is going to be different than the other versions of it.
Despite reports of Michael Keaton returning to play Bruce Wayne aka Batman in the film, in a new interview with Deadline the actor suggested that COVID-19 in the UK and scheduling issues may end up preventing him from reprising the superhero role. It was exciting to see concept art from DC FanDome last summer that revealed bother Keaton and Ben Affleck incarnations of Batman were planned to appear in the film.
Sasha Calle had been previously announced as playing the film version of Supergirl, which could lead to her starring in her own solo film as the studio has been developing a Supergirl movie for a couple of years.
The other day it was announced that New Line Cinema had hired Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren to play the villain Hespera in David F. Sanberg’s Shazam! sequel Shazam! Fury of The Gods.
Another big name has been selected for another key role in a DC Comics film.
Former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan has been tapped to play DC Comics hero and Justice Society member Dr. Fate in Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam solo film according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Brosnan will play Kent Nelson, aka the good Dr. Fate, a son of an archaeologist who was taught sorcery skills and given the magical Helmet of Fate. The character, created by Gardner Fox and Howard Sherman, is one of DC’s oldest characters, having first appeared in 1940’s More Fun Comics #5.
The Irish actor joins a cast that includes Aldis Hodge as Carter Hall aka Hawkman, Noah Centineo as Al Rothstein aka Atom Smasher, Quintessa Swindell as Maxine Hunkell aka Cyclone, Sarah Shahi as Adrianna Tomaz aka Isis, and Marwan Kenzari expected to play the film’s villain.
There is some hope from fans that there will be teases of a future crossover between Johnson’s Black Adam and Zachary Levi’s Shazam! as the two DC characters have come to blows in the comics.
Filming will begin next month in Atlanta with Jungle Cruise director Jaume Collet-Serra behind the camera and Warner Bros. has yet to give it a new release date.
Shazam! is one of the more kid-friendly comic book franchises and I had a lot fun with the original, partly thanks to director David F. Sandberg having a great sense of humor and not taking himself too seriously. It didn’t hurt that it shot mostly in Toronto.
Sandberg is returning for the sequel, titled Shazam! Fury of The Gods, and there is news about who is playing the film’s villain. As they’ve secured Oscar-winner Helen Mirren to play the role of Hespera according to The Hollywood Reporter. Hespera is the daughter of Atlas and the sister of Rachel Zegler’s character.
Mirren has tipped her toes into the world of these types of films in the past with Bruce Willis’ RED movies and she played Mother Shaw in the last couple of Fast & Furious films including the upcoming release F9.
Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam is set to begin shooting next month in Atlanta and fans are curious when they’ll see a crossover between Shazam! and Black Adam because the two characters are directly connected in the comics However, both Johnson and Zachary Levi have downplayed the possibility of that happening before Black Adam 2 or Shazam! 3.
It makes sense as Black Adam is going to be too busy introducing the Justice Society.
Fury of The Gods is set for release by Warner Bros. on June 2, 2023.
We’ve all been excited after there was a report about Batman actor Michael Keaton reprising the DC Comics role in The Flash movie directed by Andy Muschietti. It was even more interesting when a piece of concept art from the film confirmed they planned on having both Keaton and Ben Affleck’s Batman in the event project that would introduce DC’s own Multiverse.
The only catch is that according to Michael Keaton, he hasn’t agreed to be in the film. Keaton did a lengthy interview with Deadline and the subject of The Flash was brought up. He was quick to point out that he hasn’t even read the script they sent along with the potential that his current project, upcoming projects, and the COVID-19 situation in the United Kingdom could prevent him to even doing it.
KEATON: “…to tell you the truth, somewhere on my iPad is an iteration of the whole Flash thing that I haven’t had time yet…I called them and said, I have to be honest with you. I can’t look at anything right now. I’m so deep into this thing I’m doing. Also, I’m prepping a thing I’m producing and getting ready to do down the road in the fall that I’ll be in, and I feel responsible to that. So, yeah, there is that. I’m not being cute or coy. If I talked about it, I’ll be just bullshitting you. I don’t really know. I have to look at the last draft. To be honest with you, you know what worries me more than anything about all this stuff?”
“It’s Covid. I’m more concerned. I keep my eye more on the Covid situation in the UK than anything. That will determine everything, and so that’s why I’m living outside the city here on 17 acres, staying away from everybody, because the Covid thing has got me really concerned. So, that’s my first thing about all projects. I look at it and go, is this thing going to kill me, literally? And you know, if it doesn’t, then we talk.”
Despite the possibility they might be losing Keaton, there will be the introduction of the DCEU’s Supergirl as played by actress Sasha Calle. We’ll keep our fingers crossed we’ll end up getting multiple Batman in The Flash, but it’s not looking like that is going to happen but I wouldn’t be shocked if there are more surprises yet to be announced.
Yesterday, WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff spoke with Variety in a lengthy interview and suggested that Zack Snyder’s era has ended with his version of Justice League completing his trilogy. Hopefully, fans can respectfully accept that WarnerMedia is focusing on new projects and won’t be returning to the Snyderverse anytime soon.
I say this because there is vocal group of toxic fans that have embedded themselves into The Snyder Cut movement and even getting on the radar of Snyder himself. This made waves last week in the blogging community with a charity Zoom event where Zack Snyder had to distance himself from the Alt-Right leaning Geeks+Gamers YouTube channel. The Zoom happened to include three people linked to G+G along with a couple other YouTubers in the Zoom that are equally questionable.
Nice to see Zack Snyder say there is no room for hate, but you know FilmGob was feeling a tad awkward. 😬 https://t.co/ytlnuheh5T
After Snyder’s statement, the G+G channel seemed to be outraged that he would distance himself on their live-stream reaction and this led to one of their cohorts, Ethan Van Sciver, essentially wig-out over it and you can see his comment during the stream below as ComicArtistPro Secrets.
Ethan is actually mentioned by name in the “thank you” section of the credits for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, so he’s not unknown to the filmmaker or The Snyder Cut group. He went even further on his own stream with a horrifying rant about calling upon people to kill Chinese people (this coming soon after the shooting in Atlanta that targeted Asian women) with a machine gun on his own YouTube channel with other people linked to G+G in the chat and one other person agreeing with the violent call-to-arms.
Holy fucking shit. ComicsGate guy Ethan Van Sciver—angry about Zack Snyder distancing himself from Geeks&Ganers—and his crew making rancid jokes about killing Chinese people. Can you imagine saying something like that after the events of this week? (This was recorded last night) pic.twitter.com/yacRR870Ql
It certainly begs the question why didn’t anyone vet these people as most of them have public personas/channels that could have been looked over by other people if Zack was too busy. Snyder had previously dismissed the “toxic fan” question recently citing the money they had raised for suicide prevention. These are the same people he eventually denounced last week as G+G and Ethan thought raising donations gave them cover to keep being horribly toxic because Snyder had embraced them for the charity stuff.
Well, Sarnoff in the interview with Variety took the opportunity to denounce toxicity in the fandom.
SARNOFF: “We’re not tolerating any of that. That behavior is reprehensible no matter what franchise you’re talking about or what business you’re talking about. It’s completely unacceptable. I’m very disappointed in the fans that have chosen to go to that negative place with regard to DC, with regard to some of our executives. It’s just disappointing because we want this to be a safe place to be. We want DC to be a fandom that feels safe and inclusive. We want people to be able to speak up for the things they love, but we don’t want it to be a culture of cancelling things that any small faction isn’t happy with. We are not about that. We are about positivity and celebration.”
There are already butt-hurt people from yesterday’s news about moving on from the Snyderverse trying to coax fans into boycotting the HBO Max release of Godzilla vs. Kong later this month to send a message to WarnerMedia, which is only going to hurt the people involved with that film including Legendary, who has nothing to do with the current wave of DC Comics projects. It feels like this is only going to get worse now that there won’t be months of speculation about when WarnerMedia announces the next DC project from Snyder.
Boycotts have been a huge thing in both DC and Star Wars fandom from a small minority of people thinking depriving views on streaming services or box office money will lead studios to reconsider certain choices they’ve made as massive corporations.
While most of my own interactions with DC fans has been mostly positive including from those that are keen for the Snyderverse to make a return and have been championing The Snyder Cut. The ones that do stand-out are the people who gang-up and upload targeted harassment from mostly anonymous Twitter accounts. When that toxicity it’s brought-up there are plenty of people quick to dismiss any of that and jump directly into whataboutism instead of sticking to the topic-at-hand.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League finally debuted last week on HBO Max and embolden fans to push their next phase of their Snyder campaign with #RestoreTheSnyderverse, however, that doesn’t seem to be really in the cards despite over a year of hucksters pushing bogus scoops that Zack was coming back to make more films and oversee the franchise again.
Variety spoke with WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff, who poured cold water all over that fan speculation as she states that Zack has now completed his trilogy with his original version of Justice League and seem to be more focused on the other things they’re currently working on with their other DC Comics films. Ann also reiterates they never actually planned on releasing Zack Snyder’s Justice League until about a year ago and doesn’t sound like it’s release has inspired them to reconsider having him return to make more films.
SARNOFF: “We wanted to give Zack the opportunity to complete his vision in a four-hour movie, which is impossible to do in theaters. We’re happy that we have HBO Max to let the rope out as it were and allow the fans to see all four-hours of Zack’s vision.”
“I appreciate that they love Zack’s work and we are very thankful for his many contributions to DC. We’re just so happy that he could bring his cut of the Justice League to life because that wasn’t in the plan until about a year ago. With that comes the completion of his trilogy. We’re very happy we’ve done this, but we’re very excited about the plans we have for all the multi-dimensional DC characters that are being developed right now.”
Some fans have been hopeful that Zack would at the very least be able to finish the films he planned to make after Justice League. That seems far-fetched given the vast amount of money spent on Justice League alone and there is a big difference between an extra $70 million to complete an unfinished cut and WarnerMedia spending another $200-300 million a pop for more films that only small portion of people are asking for. The latter seems to be a stretch even more so with the comments from Sarnoff.
As Zack’s relationship with Netflix grows after releasing Army of The Dead, I wouldn’t be shocked if he ended up pursuing bigger projects with them in the future and maybe even superhero stuff since as they have plenty of comic book adaptations.
DC Comics and Zack Snyder fans seemed to rejoice last week with Zack Snyder’s Justice League finally being released on HBO Max, the 4-hour juggernaut’s release seemed to give the impression to fans that there was a shot that David Ayer’s original cut of Suicide Squad referred to by fans as The Ayer Cut could see the light of day.
WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff seemed to dispel rumors The Ayer Cut was being worked on or even on the table in the future during an in-depth interview with Variety that was published yesterday. Ann was pretty blunt about The Ayer Cut when asked if they would be releasing that version of the film, stating the following.
SARNOFF: “We won’t be developing David Ayer’s cut.”
David Ayer had suggested the original version had a lot more of Jared Leto’s Joker and there had been some drastic editing involved with the final theatrical version. But it doesn’t look like that version aka The Ayer Cut is going to be released on HBO Max or anywhere else anytime soon.
The franchise is chugging along without David Ayer as James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad is set to hit theaters and HBO Max on August 6th.
THE RONIN 