ROUNDUP: Brett Ratner On DOFP; Neal Adams' JOKER Pick; ARROW Statues Raffled; And More
In this roundup of some recent news, Neal Adams reveals his pick for The Joker, Stephen Amell raffles Arrow statues, Mark Ruffalo talks more about the famous bromance in Age of Ultron, Brett Ratner discusses Days Of Future Past's ending, and much more after the jump.
By Abary -
Jul 08, 2014 06:07 AM EST
This section contains some major Spoilers for the ending to Days Of Future Past. Now, everyone that has seen the film will know that the ending resulted in the first three X-Men movies being cut out of continuity. X-Men: The Last Stand director Brett Ratner opened up on seeing his only X-flick erased from the timeline. He said to Yahoo that he was never consulted by Bryan Singer or Simon Kinberg about the timeline change, being friends with the former and working with the latter on his own movie. "No. We’re just friends, he doesn’t have to report to me,” Ratner said, “He did the first and second [‘X-Men’] films… and if someone directed ‘Rush Hour 3’, I’d happily come back and do ‘Rush Hour 4’" He continued, "I know that the writer [Simon Kinberg] who wrote ‘Days of Future Past’ also wrote my movie [‘X-Men 3’] too so…"
Paul Apted, the sound editor for 2013's The Wolverine among quite a few others and the son of British filmmaker Michael Apted (who is perhaps most known for directing the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, featuring Pierce Brosnan's version of 007), passed away this Friday after fighting colon cancer (via BleedingCool). The 47-year-old has been known to do the sound editing on a few more recent movies, such as The Fault In Our Stars, A Good Day To Die Hard, Prisoners, and the aforementioned The Wolverine, while also having worked on The Chronicles Of Narnia: Voyage Of The Dawn Treader with his father in 2010. Paul Apted is survived by his parents, his three siblings, his wife Gemma, and the couple's two children. May he rest in peace.
Comic artist Neal Adams appeared on the Fat Man On Batman podcast (via ComicBook) recently, and suggested his choice to play Batman's most famous adversary: The Joker. "Here’s a choice for Joker," he said, "say we’re looking for another Joker…Matt Smith." He continued to elaborate on why he'd be a good Joker. "He can overcome. He’s not going to seem like a challenge to the previous one. He’s got that look…fan favorite. And he’s got the shape. Everything’s there." He also shared his thoughts on Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, saying that he loved the first two, but didn't enjoy the third too much. "The first two, great. The last one, too dark, too much. It’s almost like overboard. If we had just let those first two stand on their own. I’m not saying the last one was not good, but they did the same thing they did in the Superman movie. He went away for five years, excuse me."
Stephen Amell is continuing with his good deeds by auctioned off a signed DC Collectibles Arrow statue to raise some money for Prayers For Sophie. After a lot of people skipping the auction because of the high price, he is deciding to raffle two more statues so that he can make even more money. A $5 donation will buy you one ticket that will give you a chance to win either statue, and all the money will go to Sophie Ryan, a 21 month old baby girl diagnosed with an Optic Pathway Glioma brain tumor that Amell and thousands have others have tried hard to help for quite some time now. Over $30,000 has been raised for Sophie since Amell began the raffle. Check out the video below for more details, and donate money at this link between now and July 14th.
Mark Ruffalo continued to talk a little bit more to TotalFilm (via ComicBook) about returning as the show-stealing Bruce Banner/Hulk in Joss Whedon's Avengers: Age Of Ultron, praising the sequel's darker tone, the titular villain, and the ever popular bromance between him and Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark. "It’s, oddly enough, a much bigger movie than Avengers 1 was. It’s a little bit darker. It’s…we get a lot deeper into the character now, since we established them in the first one, so we get to cover a lot more ground. Ultron’s incredible. There’s more stuff with Banner and Tony Stark, more “Science Bros” stuff. And it’s pretty sweeping, it’s pretty epic." The sequel to 2012's Marvel's The Avengers hits theaters on May 1, 2015.
Recently, James Gunn revealed on Facebook that Guardians Of The Galaxy will not be premiering at San Diego Comic Con, which many fans believed Marvel would do considering the movie was going to be released a week later anyway. After dealing with questions regarding the 17 minute preview at IMAX theaters, he clarified, "And finally, no, I am sorry we are not planning on showing the film at San Diego Comicon. Really," Gunn wrote. "You can see the whole movie August 1 (or whenever it opens in your country). There are no other planned screenings before that time, other than the various premieres." Marvel has premiered a whole episode of Agents Of SHIELD, as well as their one-shot films at Comic-Con in the past, but it appears that a whole film is a little bit too much to do.
BOX OFFICE UPDATE: Acclaimed filmmaker Michael Bay has recently surpassed Back to the Future and Forest Gump's Robert Zemeckis to become the second highest-grossing film director of of all time, due mostly in part to his four films in the hit Transformers franchise. With over $2 Billion at the Box Office, he achieved this record this past weekend when Transformers: Age of Extinction brought in yet another load of cash. Michael Bay will continue making more money over the years, but he may never overcome Steven Spielberg at number one, who pretty much doubles what Bay has taken in. The latest Transformers film is set to become the highest-grossing film of 2014, and may possibly surpass most if not all of the other three films in the series at the Box Office. As for actors, The Avengers star Samuel L Jackson looks set to become the highest-grossing actor within the next few months, as he remains less than $300,000 away from passing the current number one, Tom Hanks, but with much more hits coming later this year and early next year, he seems likely to take down Hanks, who currently sees himself focusing on a few smaller budget films.