A Marvel movie must be coming out soon* because Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige is talking a lot about the studio and its various projects.

*Obviously, I know that Iron Man 3 comes out tomorrow. In fact I believe we’ve already posted our review.

So what else is new? Well, Feige talked to Entertainment Weekly about casting next summer’s major Marvel opus, Guardians of the Galaxy. The film stars Chris Pratt as the Guardians’ human leader Star Lord, but what made the Parks & Rec star the winning choice for such a key role? “He’s a hilariously frumpy, doofy guy in Parks and Rec, and he’s an incredibly kickass ripped guy in Zero Dark Thirty and that’s pretty awesome,” says Feige. “He’s going to need that in Guardians. That’s a big range right there.”

And finding that range was no easy task, adds Feige. “We did a lot of auditions, a lot of screen tests, just as we did for Thor, just as we did for Cap. [Pratt] was hilarious, he was moving, he was … you bought him in the early versions of the outfit.”

Also not easy, or at least not as easy as it seems, is having chemistry with your co-stars, and that was one of selling points in Guardians‘ next bit of casting when Marvel hired former-WWE champion Dave Bautista to play Drax the Destroyer. “One of the reasons Bautista got the part was because his banter, and ad libs, and screen tests with Pratt were awesome,” says Feige.

In closing, before moving on to other movie news, here’s a new piece of Guardians concept art for you:

In Ant Man news  – you heard me – Feige talked about the project’s perpetual state of development hell/suspended animation saying that it was originally intended to be the studio’s follow-up to Iron Man, but now with an expected release date sometime after The Avengers 2, the script will now have to by updated to reflect the expanded state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“Frankly, now we have to re-write it to put it a little bit more into the [Marvel Cinematic Universe] because it was written before it existed,” Feige explains. “We’ve talked about various names [to play the lead] over the past eight years but as you can imagine they keep changing as time goes by. But towards the end of this year, we’ll buckle down and start casting and start refining the script, which is great and which is very Edgar [Wright]. He has done a great job being incredibly true to the comics but is putting his own spin on it, so we’ll be drawing on multiple mythologies for this one.”

Meanwhile, the movie rights for a number of other Marvel characters such as Punisher, Ghost Rider, Blade and, of course, Daredevil, have reverted back to Marvel recently, but Feige says don’t expect new Punisher, Ghost Rider, Blade and Daredevil films right away.

“Whenever a character comes back to us, it’s usually because the other studios don’t want to make the movies anymore – and that usually means the [previous] movies may not have been particularly well received,” he says. “They all have potential, but we’re not going to say, ‘We got it back – make it!’”

Finally, in a recent interview with /Film and Iron Man 3 director Shane Black, Feige talked about the nature of trying to keep the details of his projects secret in the era of internet journalism. Here’s the exchange with /Film’s Peter Sciretta:

Peter Sciretta: You’re a very internet-savvy guy and it seems like you’re reading everything… There’s a lot of sites up there reporting leaks or rumors or sometimes even misinformation. I wanted to get your thoughts on “How does Marvel deal with this” in an age when sharing information on the internet is becoming unstoppable.

Kevin Feige: What are you talking about? Latino Review?

Nobody specifically. Really just interested in how Marvel Studios is evolving to handle the internet as a whole…

How would you “punish” them if you were us?

Its an interesting question. I think the only thing you could probably do is exclude them — don’t give them access. Don’t invite them to set visits, to junkets. But I don’t know, info is always going to get out there and someones always going to be posting it.

Here’s what I will say, since X-men one frankly, where a photo was stolen off a wardrobe thing and it was the very first look of Hugh Jackman in costume as him under flourescents… it looked awful. (Laughs) It was just like “Oh, this is the world we are living in. This is the reality.” So we’ve always just accepted it. Spy pictures will leak and we used to try to run ahead and put out a cool picture first. Now if we have a cool picture we will put it out, but if we don’t, that’s okay.

Misinformation… You know, it gets a little annoying when somebody is like “This is what’s happening! This is what Kevin Feige is doing!” It’s annoying when they are right and it’s equally annoying when they are wrong, because everybody passes it. “Planet Hulk is the next thing” and everybody talks about it and you’re just like “Okay, but you’ll be disappointed if you’re expecting it.”

Shane Black: (smirking) It’s like Iron Man flying off to see The Guardians at the end of this one…

You read that everywhere.

Kevin Feige: Exactly, but then again, nobody knew about Redford until we announced it. Nobody knew about what you know now having seen Iron Man 3, so as long as there are secrets that big that are still being kept, I know it’s nobody in the inner circle. Does that make sense?

Thanks to Comic Book Movie, Comic Book Movie and /Film

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This week on The Bastardcast, which is a thing you apparently listen to, Jeremy and Jason discuss why Dan Aykroyd‘s hope tastes like tumor salad. Also, the great question of life is asked: why is Futurama no longer a TV show but Vanilla Ice churning freaking butter is?

Wait! There are more things! Can JJ Abrams woo George Lucas away from the butter sculpting circuit (and if not, will Lucas align with Vanilla Ice to form the unstoppable butter-duo “Ice Ice Jawa”?)

Also, do robot’s draw dicks on mars and order pizza via Xbox because they are freaking douche bags? Is Joss Whedon pulling an us while really mailing it in with SHIELD? Will there ever be a good Daredevil movie? Do you even remember the long abandoned Bastardcast VERSUS segment? And who is the biggest one-eyed freaking badass on Earth: Nick Fury or Snake Plissken?

We don’t know the answer to any of this stuff, but we do know that Anthony Michael Hall and Ethan Embry’s work on a banner and a jacket to welcome Ed Helms to the Rusty Grisswold club is a COMPLETE FREAKING WASTE!

All of that and our slightly tardy 2010 Winter Movie Preview, on The Bastardcast!

The Bastardcast: Can we say fuck on here?

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Apparently, Fox was unable to get its ducks in a row in the time allotted to begin production on their announced, Joe Carnahan-directed Daredevil reboot. Thus, the film rights to The Man Without Fear have returned home to Marvel, according to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige.

Fox was given until October 10th of last year to begin production. It was assumed that if they failed, the rights to the franchise would revert to Marvel, but this had not been confirmed by Marvel Studios until Feige was asked directly by Newsarama on Monday at the Iron Man 3 press junket if the studio indeed now possessed the rights.

Feige replied:

“To Daredevil? Yes.”

While Marvel Studios has yet to announce any plans to integrate a Daredevil film into any of their vaunted “Phases”, it seems likely that since it’s now confirmed that the blind vigilante is once again a member of the cinematic Marvel family, fans will be expecting him. The smart money says sooner or later he’ll show up.

Whether this means we can expect an actually watchable Elektra movie someday, only time will tell.

Source: /Film

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Hello, my pretties, and welcome to another round of the compact version of Nerd Bastards news.  It’s the Super Hero Round-up, where we present to you a whole bunch of minor crap, all at once!  This time around, some Iron Man 3 news, along with a rumor about potential Black Panther casting and a Daredevil not-to-happen tidbit.  Check it all out after the jump.

(more…)

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The forfeiture of the rights to Daredevil from Fox might hopefully prevent more disasters like Elektra in the franchise’s future. Of course, no one ever sets out to make a bad movie, it just kind of happens that way as budgets are slashed, directors are change and producers’ input is given more weight than maybe it should be.

Which brings us to Stu Zicherman. After doing a first draft of Elektra and seeing it eventually tank before his eyes, Zicherman retreated to TV and worked on series like What About Brian, Six Degrees and Lights Out. Earlier this month though he returned to working on the big screen with the comedy A.C.O.D., which debuted at Sundance. And while talking to Badass Digest at the film festival, he was asked about where everything on Elektra went wrong.

“Elektra is one of the reasons I got into television,” Zicherman says candidly. ”I spent a year writing the movie, and it was supposed to be this gigantic movie, and then they decide they’re not going to make an $80 million movie, they’re going to make a $30 million movie, they bring in a director we didn’t know, you get fired, someone else comes in and rewrites the entire movie, but you still get credit because you wrote the first draft. Then you go to the premiere in Las Vegas, and 30 seconds into the movie you’re like, ‘Oh, [expletive].’”

Disappointed? You bet. Any lingering resentment though?

“I literally, to this day, am still so embarrassed by that movie. I probably shouldn’t say this, but I know Jennifer Garner is too. She hired us to write the movie, which was pitched as something much more smart and sophisticated … it’s a blemish. ”

Ouch. But then again if you wrote Elektra, how would you feel?

Watch the full interview below.

Source: Blastr

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Beyond the commerce and the spectacle, Comic-Cons serve as a trade show where hundreds flock to have their work reviewed and their dreams bolstered.

At last month’s New York Comic-Con I met a few aspiring comic book artists at the DC Entertainment Talent Search where a lucky few get their portfolios reviewed and others are able to pick up a few tips on how to succeed.

Rachael Anderson was one of the artists in attendance. She was eager to have her work seen and her countless efforts justified. A call-center worker from Texas, Rachael says that her and her husband Josh “pretty much scrimped and saved every last dollar to get here for a day and a half.”

Nervous, but confident in her work, Rachael showed me a bit of her portfolio as we sat in the bare panel room one floor beneath the buzz and bustle of the main show floor. It’s the kind of room where you’d expect to hear salesmen talking about the exciting evolution of vinyl siding during one of the Javitz Center’s many other trade shows, but Rachael is here because she loves Batman and she’s wanted to draw comic books since she was 12.

Her work is good, clean, and professional and as my eyes rest on two pictures in particular – a black and white drawing of a spider straddling a car and a faithful sketch of Daredevil – I can’t help but wonder how many times Rachael has put pencil to paper to reach this point of proficiency. A point where there is little daylight between her work and some of the published work that can be seen in the bins and on the tables upstairs on the show floor.

That’s the unfair part of this: it isn’t purely about talent. Right now there are plenty of artists who make a living in the industry without the level of talent that Rachael possesses. For her and some of the people in this room on this side of the table, they’re forced to wait for luck and opportunity to allow their work to get seen, but its a long hard road that can exhaust people and force them to abandon their pursuits.

After the show, I find out that I was the only one to see Rachael’s portfolio in that panel room. Her sacrifice to get to New York and her talent weren’t enough to coax that little bit of luck from it’s hiding place but she did get some encouragement from a few artists on the show floor who looked at her work.

“Mike Choi gave me advice on anatomy and storytelling and then showed me where I could improve my page composition. So mostly I was told to work on my inking, hands, and story telling and then told to “get lucky” when it comes to finding freelance work.”

She tells me that she dropped off portfolio submissions at the DC, Marvel, Image, and Valiant booths and emailed/mailed IDW, Dark Horse, and Image (again) after the show but that she hasn’t heard anything back yet.

“Even though it’s depressing to realize [that] I still have a ways to go, I still think the show was worth it. It was a step in the right direction and as long as I keep moving in the right direction and as long as I keep moving in the direction of my goals and don’t give up, it will never be a waste.” she says before telling me that her and her husband decided that they would put aside their pre-NYCC deal that said she would go back to work at the call-center if she couldn’t get a lead on a paying gig at the show.

“My husband insisted that I just continue to focus on our graphic novel project (Horror Town). It sucks feeling like I’m not contributing anything or helping in any sort of way to pay off our living expenses or bills, but I am very grateful for all of the support and patience my spouse has had thus far. We both know that the best way to get a job in comics is to just make comics.”

Rachael Anderson will be back at New York Comic-Con next year.

To read Rachael’s web-comic on knitting, go here. To check out her website, go here. 

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It was with some anticipation, and admittedly a bit of disappointment, when it was announced earlier this summer that the rights to Daredevil and all associated characters were reverting to Marvel Studios, and away from 20th Century Fox.

Fox’s lease on the rights officially expired on Wednesday October 10, which means that Marvel Studios and Disney can start rolling on their own Daredevil production anytime now. As you’ll recall, Fox attempted to extend the lease on the rights by offering Disney the rights on certain cosmic characters like Galactus, who are usually associated with Fantastic Four, but no agreement was reached.

At the same time, director Joe Carnahan, who was in the midst of putting together a gritty, 70s adaptation of the comic, released a sizzle reel giving an impression of what his Daredevil film might have looked like. No word yet if Marvel’s going to give Carnahan a chance to pitch his take to them, but I’d have a hard time believing that Disney isn’t chomping at the bit to insert Daredevil into the previously established Marvel Cinematic U.

Fox, in the meantime, seems to be doubling-down on the two Marvel properties it has left: X-Men and Fantastic Four, which, I guess, were the most promising given the reaction to the Ben Affleck-starring Daredevil in 2003 and the universally reviled spin-off Elektra in 2005. They recently hired critically-acclaimed comic writer Mark Millar to be a creative consultant on all Fox-made Marvel films.

Look for the rumor mill to start grinding about a new Daredevil movie very soon.

Source: Blastr

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Ben Affleck has been at the top of his game in recent years. He’s made the move from a successful Hollywood actor to director and with his latest feature, Argo, earning high praise it looks like Ben is on the fast track to a superstar revival. That revival hasn’t been without it’s missteps though.

Based on the events of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, Agro is the latest in a string of hits for the actor turned director, but a few years ago we couldn’t say the same. The Sum of All Fears, Paycheck, Gigli, the proof was in the titles and Affleck was slipping. Still to this day fans curse Ben’s starring role in the 2003 car wreck, Daredevil.

Fans spit all over the Marvel flop, a film Affleck has since moved on from, but nine years later in an interview discussing Affleck’s transformation into a successful director he looks back on film and admist he didn’t like Daredevil, just like us!

I made a bunch of movies that didn’t work. I was ending up in the tabloids. I don’t know what the lesson is, except that you just have to find your compass. I liked Sum of All Fears. Daredevil I didn’t at all. Some movies should have worked and didn’t. At a certain point, it’s just up to the movie gods. Anyway, this image becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I just said, ‘I don’t want to do it anymore. This is horrible. I don’t want to be in this spotlight, this glare, in this way. It’s tawdry, it’s ugly, it’s oppressive, and it’s inane. So I’m going to try to get away.’

And most of the way I did that was by not acting. I said, ‘I’m going to steer myself toward directing. I’m going to do something that takes me toward a place where the work that I do is reflective of what I think is interesting dramatically.’

Oddly it was Affleck’s role as star of the original Superman TV series, George Reeves, in the ’50s drama Hollywoodland that spurned his switch to a more behind-the-scenes role. Much like Reeves, Affleck was on the path to becoming an actor frustrated with his life’s direction and his performance showed the world a much more mature Ben Affleck than we were used to. It, in a way, was Ben’s wake up call.

You know, putting on the uncomfortable, cheesy suit–I understood that. And I understood what it was like to feel limited by perceptions and having ambitions to do things that were more interesting. And also, I got married, and I got older. And had kids. You know, the current of the river of life moves you downstream anyway. But I definitely reject the narrative that says, you know, Bad Guy Turned It Around. My life isn’t Behind the Music. I wasn’t a criminal!

Pretty sage advice for a guy who at one point could do know wrong, but has since shown even Hollywood elite have moments of weakness. If your still hating on Daredevil after all these years it might be time to move on, even Ben’s moved past the events of that year. At least we can all agree he was the bomb in Phantoms.

Thanks to Blastr for letting us know Ben’s true feelings.

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Sad news from the world of nerdery as this long weekend comes to a close as it’s being reported tonight that actor Michael Clarke Duncan has died at the age of 54.

At 6’5″ and  300-pounds, Duncan was an unlikely movie star. He worked security for the likes of Will Smith and Jamie Foxx, and consequently had small roles on their shows (The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and The Jamie Foxx Show respectively). After several turns playing an inmate or bouncer, Duncan got his big break in 1998 as one of the gang in the killer asteroid film Armageddon. The next year Duncan’s star rose further when he was cast as John Coffey in Frank Darabont’s adaptation of  Stephen King’s The Green Mile, for which Duncan won an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Over the next 14 years, Duncan stayed incredibly busy, appearing in many films that appealed to the nerdy at heart. Films including: Planet of the Apes, The Scorpion King, Sin City and The Island. He was also cast as The Kingpin in Daredevil, which, despite the outcome of that movie, was a brazen and unexpected choice given the character’s origin as a white man. Duncan was also an accomplished voice actor for movies, TV and video games, including the Kung Fu Panda movies and last year’s Green Lantern. Most recently, Duncan was one of the main characters on the FOX series The Finder, a spin-off of Bones.

Actor Duncan’s death this morning in a Los Angeles hospital, followed weeks of after a July 13 heart attack that put him in intensive care. Although Duncan had since left intensive care, he was never again well enough to be discharged from the hospital. Duncan is survived by his fiance, The Apprentice star Omarosa Manigault.

The thoughts and prayers of nerds everywhere, and the Nerd Bastards’ as well, go out to Duncan’s friends and families tonight.

Source: /Film

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Marvel godfather Stan “The Man” Lee is still making the rounds at 89, and this weekend he’s at the National Fan Expo in Toronto at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. While there (the event kicked off yesterday and goes all weekend), Comic Book Resources caught up with the comic book legend for a little Q&A.

Here are some of the gold nuggets…

The secret to The Avengers success:

“Well, you know why it made so much money right? My cameo is placed at the very end and its quick, so what happens if you miss it? These people go back out and buy another ticket so they get to see me!

Will he still be cameoing in future Marvel films?

“Wait until you see my cameo in the next Iron Man movie! It’s so funny!”

He actually has some criticisms of some Marvel movies:

“I would have liked the Hulk to be smaller in the first two movies, and I didn’t like the way Doctor Doom was portrayed in ‘Fantastic Four. Now with Daredevil, they just wrote the whole thing wrong. They made him too tragic. That’s not the way I wrote him. I think they’re working on a new Daredevil movies and it will be better, so hold your judgment until then.”

Any insights on what Marvel characters might be making their big screen debut in the near future:

“Deadpool is such a popular character, I’d be surprised if he wasn’t in his own movie in the near future, or introduced in another movie first. They’re thinking about a Doctor Strange movie, a Black Panther movie, an Ant-Man movie — there’s just so many ideas in the works right now at Marvel!”

How does it feel this year with Spider-Man turning 50?

“When I created him, it was tough. We already had a Hulk, we already had the X-Men, we had the Fantastic Four, so I thought I’d go the insect route. But Insect-Man didn’t sound right, and neither did Mosquito-Man. But then it came to me…Spider-Man! Happy 50th Spidey!”

Source: Comic Book Movie

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