Irish actor Jamie Dornan is getting a lot of awards buzz and critical praise for his lead role in the Kenneth Branagh family drama Belfast. His other credits include The Siege of Jadotville, A Private War, Barb & Star Go To Vista Del Mar, and the spy thriller Anthropoid.
The actor spoke in-depth with The New York Times about his career, focusing on the past and future. Concerning the latter, Dornan revealed that he has met with Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige about a mystery project/role.
Dornan is open about the movies he covets, and he has met with the Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige about donning a cape and tights. “I’m more ambitious than I’ve ever let on before,” Dornan said.
What that project or role could be is a bit of mystery but we know that Marvel Studios are likely aiming to find people to lead their X-Men and Fantastic Four reboots along with rumored projects like Nova, which could be seeking someone to play Richard Rider.
It isn’t like Jamie Dornan is new to the superhero world as he was one of the many actors that auditioned to play Superman in Man of Steel before Henry Cavill (who has mentioned a desire to play Captain Britain in the MCU) was ultimately selected.
What role do you think Dornan would be perfect for?
The Suicide Squad is winning over a lot of people and there had been early ideas to have Task Force X being assembled to take down Superman. However, the main threat of the film was the Borg-like alien Starro The Conqueror, who was able to control the minds of anyone that was unlucky enough to get one of the self-replicated mini-Starro attached to their face.
James Gunn has revealed to the Script Apart podcast (via Comic Book) that one of the big reasons they didn’t go with Superman was the studio’s uncertainty about Henry Cavill sticking around or what exactly their DCEU plans for the son of Krypton moving forward.
“There was a time when I thought The Suicide Squad should fight Superman. At the time, there were a lot of questions like, ‘Who is Superman in the DCEU? Is this movie outside the DCEU?’ I just didn’t want to deal with it all that much.”
This could also explain why the Superman cameo in Shazam! was a stand-in, despite that film clearly takes place within the Snyderverse/DCEU.
It’s revealed that Idris Elba’s Bloodsport put Superman in the ICU after shooting him with Kryptonite bullet, so at the least they were able to add that small connective tidbit.
Gunn explained why he wanted to use Starro.
“I think he’s a perfect comic book character because he’s absolutely ludicrous but also very scary in his own way. What he does is scary. He used to scare the crap out of me when I was a child, putting those face-huggers on Superman and Batman. So I thought he was one of the major, major DC villains that was probably never going to be put into another movie. And if they did, it’d have been a ‘black cloud’ version of Starro. Not a giant walking starfish, a kaiju that’s bright pink and cerulean blue, this ridiculously big, bright bad guy.”
The studio has indicated that they’re keen on working with James Gunn again on more DC movies, but that seemingly won’t Gotham City Sirens as the director downplayed recent speculation on Twitter.
Zack Snyder’s next feature film Army of The Dead is getting some early buzz ahead of it’s theaterical and Netflix debut this month. The filmmaker is making the press rounds to promote the action-horror film and spoke with Bro Bible’s Post-Credit Podcast revealing some ideas about villains that could have been used for a direct Man of Steel sequel, something we never really got as the studio seemed hellbent on rushing the DCEU to get to Justice League instead of flushing out the heroes in multiple solo films first.
Snyder reveals they were indeed musing about using Brainiac, a villain long rumored to make his debut on the big screen but never came together. He also mentioned the possibility of bringing back Antje Traue’s Faora from the original film, who he previous suggested survived the ordeal and is currently in the Phantom Zone.
SNYDER: “We talked about a Brainiac movie. But I do think that the Kryptonians that are in the Phantom Zone are probably still around. And there was always a possibility for their return. Faora and whoever’s left. That was a thing that was always out there that we talked about as a possible sequel. I just think it’s best to give Superman these extaterrestrial challenges because I think you’ve got to be careful with — other than Lex Luthor, because, of course, you have to continue with Lex, because Lex is his real nemesis — but I think you really have to look outside of the Earth for challenges for him because of how powerful he is.”
It seems like WarnerMedia has closed the door for future Snyder installments alongside the Snyderverse, but, hopefully, if they do ultimately bring back Henry Cavill’s Superman they’d at least consider using the two villains.
At the moment, Warner Bros. is busy trying to find a director for their new Superman film that will see a black actor portray the next incarnation of the Kryptonian hero alongside Sasha Calle hired to play Supergirl in The Flash movie.
After social media posts revealed that Russell Crowe, Chris Hemsworth, and director Taika Waititi hung out at a South Sydney Rabbitohs game in Sydney over the weekend. It looks like he’s secured himself a part in their upcoming MCU installment as Deadline is reporting that Crowe has landed an undisclosed role in Thor: Love & Thunder. However, it’s still unclear how much screen time Russell will actually get and even what the character is.
Production on the Thor sequel kicked-off back in January and has been mostly taking place at Fox Studios Australia located in Sydney, New South Wales Australia. The same facility used to film Riley Scott’s Alien: Covenant and Marvel’s Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings.
The Oscar-winner is no stranger to action flicks as he played Jor-El in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel and earned an Oscar for his role in Ridley Scott’s epic Gladiator. He also nabbed Oscar nominations for A Beautiful Mind and Michael Mann’s The Insider.
Crowe isn’t the only DC Comics alum in the cast as former Batman, Christian Bale, is playing the film’s main villain called Gorr The God Butcher. A pale skinned alien creature that likely will require motion-capture similar to Thanos and The Children of Thanos.
Taika is also said to have a role in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. His role is most likely voicing the cosmic villain Starro after it was revealed in the latest trailer that Sly Stallone would be voicing King Shark in the DC sequel. This would make Waititi DC Comics alum as well just like Crowe and Bale.
The Aussie actor joins a rather large cast that also includes Hemsworth as Thor, Natalie Portman as Jane Foster aka Lady Thor, Tessa Thompson as King Valkyrie of New Asgard, Chris Pratt as Star-Lord, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Dave Bautista as Drax The Destroyer, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Sean Gunn as Kraglin, Jaimie Alexander as Sif, Taika Waititi as Korg, Matt Damon, Luke Hemsworth, and Melissa McCarthy.
Disney has given Thor: Love & Thunder a release date of May 6, 2022.
It was recently suggested by WarnerMedia Studios CEO Ann Sarnoff in an interview with Variety that they don’t have plans to continue or restore the Snyderverse. Which means that Zack Snyder is finally free to make all the wacky film ideas he’s been cooking up over the last decade. He’s talked about making action film about George Washington and taking a crack at the Arthurian legend.
What’s interesting is that he’s now established a working relationship with streaming giant Netflix with his upcoming action-horror flick Army of The Dead, that is coming out on May 21, 2021.
This could mean that Snyder and Netflix will continue working on stuff in the future potentially leading to an over-all development deal at some point.
There is a newly acquired IP at the streamer that feels tailor-made for the filmmaker. As Netflix got their hands on the film and television rights to Robert E. Howard’s sword and sorcery hero Conan The Barbarian last year. The character has multiple stories written by Howard and other writers that continued Conan’s adventures over the decades including folks like Wheel of Time’s Robert Jordan.
In my opinion, there is really only one solid live-action adaptation and that is the fantastic John Milius movie from 1982 that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Earl Jones. The film got made thanks in part to the books popularity in the 1970’s and the string of comic books that were published by Marvel Comics.
CONAN THE BARBARIAN (1982) – Orphaned boy Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is enslaved after his village is destroyed by the forces of vicious necromancer Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones), and is compelled to push “The Wheel of Pain” for many years. Once he reaches adulthood, Conan sets off across the prehistoric landscape of the Hyborian Age in search of the man who killed his family and stole his father’s sword. With beautiful warrior Valeria (Sandahl Bergman) and archer Subotai (Gerry Lopez), he faces a supernatural evil.
I have to assume given Zack’s obsession with John Boorman’s Excalibur that something like Conan The Barbarian might also be a fantasy film that resonates with him and could be an established IP that Netflix could offer Snyder.
We’ve seen with 300 that Zack could bring something visually interesting to a mature fantasy adventure epic like Conan The Barbarian. At it’s core, the 300 comic from Frank Miller and the Zack Snyder film owes a lot to things like Conan.
The world of Conan can be a blank canvas for someone like Snyder to develop something into his own and Netflix isn’t likely going to micromanage because box office isn’t even a factor with their originals as streaming is a complete different. You can tell with his DC stuff that he’s itching to tackle something like this.
The less said about Jason Momoa’s 2011 Conan reboot the better. Since then, the actor has developed a more charismatic on-screen persona with stuff like Game of Thrones and taking on the Aquaman role. I wouldn’t be opposed to giving Jason another shot at playing Conan given that he’s grown as an actor and has an existing relationship with Snyder.
Anyways, I’m hopefully that Netflix’s interest with expanding Snyder’s Army of The Dead into their own franchise means that they’ll at least consider him for other stuff like Conan The Barbarian as it feels like it could be a good fit for him.
Not too long ago there was a rumor circulating from Deadline that Henry Cavill was in early discussions with Warner Bros. about reprising the Superman role in a non-solo film, but that seemingly spiraled into a massive amount of fan speculation that ballooned into him coming back for a Man of Steel sequel and folks guessing where he’d show up next.
While speaking with Variety, Henry Cavill revealed he’s frustrated by those Superman rumors and speculation online, even more so that he can’t publicly comment on them.
However, isn’t opposed to the regular fans speculating as they normally do.
CAVILL: “They get wilder and wilder by the day. The amount of speculation, the stuff I read on the Internet, is extraordinary and sometimes frustrating. It’s when you see people stating stuff as fact. Like, ‘No, that’s not the case. That hasn’t happened, and that conversation isn’t happening’. But the important thing is that people are excited about it, and I think it’s important to be excited about a character like Superman. Superman is a fantastic character. If people are chatting about it, and even if they’re making stuff up, it’s okay, because that means they want to see the character again. And in an ideal world, I would absolutely love to play the character again.”
He also mused about using an alias to comment on those rumors.
CAVILL: “I’m not going to lie; I’ve been very tempted, but there’s something about that, that feels deeply immoral. When it’s about Superman, and if I’m representing Superman, it just feels like the wrong thing to do. I’m just going to let this all play out. Me saying something isn’t going to make a difference. What does it really matter? One day, people will know the truth, and if they don’t know it now, it’s okay.”
Henry is a little busy at the moment as he’s expected to resume production on his Netflix series The Witcher soon in the United Kingdom.
Superman had a brief cameo in Shazam! which I called back in the summer of 2018 after previously confirming the new movie was indeed set in the DCEU. Because talks broke down between the studio and Cavill he wasn’t able to portray the hero in that scene. There is a good chance since Shazam! established Cavill’s Superman exists in that film having him show up in the sequel would be a good bet to make.
On the heels of Deadline reporting that Henry Cavill might end up reprising the Superman role in an undisclosed DC Comics film, the actor has voiced his desire to keep playing the role.
Here is the quote via Variety’s Actors On Actors while Henry was speaking with Sir Patrick Stewart.
CAVILL: “I’ve always been a fan of Superman. With a character like that, you carry the mantle with you off set. And it becomes part of your public representation. When you meet children, children don’t necessarily see me as Henry Cavill, but they might see Superman, and there’s a responsibility which comes with that. Because it’s such a wonderful character, it’s actually a responsibility I’m happy to have, and I hope that I get to play more of Superman in years to come.”
It remains to be seen if we’ll end up seeing Superman in The Flash or the Shazam! sequel. Fans certainly will have their own theories where he could show up.
I’m interested to see what happens with Michael Keaton reportedly in talks to reprise Bruce Wayne in multiple projects becoming the Nick Fury of the DC Comics films.
THE RONIN 