07 | March | 2013 | Grizzly Bomb

Welcome back to the Hero Express, your one-stop sometimes SPOILER filled shop through the top stories in comic based Film & TV news!

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Chris Cooper as Osborn, Marc Webb Reveals Set Photos, and the New Spidey Suit!

Horse whisperer – check. Homicidal closeted gay man – check. Traitorous spy – check. Orchid poacher – check.

What on earth is left for Chris Cooper to play? Apparently it’s Norman Osborn, aka The Green Goblin.

Chris Cooper as Norman Osborne

Cooper will join Jamie Foxx as Electro and Paul Giamatti as Rhino as they tackle Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield, of course) in the upcoming sequel. Will Cooper’s Green Goblin be on par with Willem Dafoe’s from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man? That will be difficult as Dafoe plays the unhinged supervillain so well, but if anyone is up to the task, it would be Chris Cooper.

If you follow no one else on twitter (besides Grizzly Bomb of course), make sure you follow The Amazing Spider-Man 2‘s director, Marc Webb. He’s been tweeting photos from the set everyday and it’s always fun to get a look behind the scenes, and commentary from the director isn’t too shabby. Yesterday he sent out a picture of an upended car on top of a crushed cab… Rhino’s handiwork? [Ed. Note: I’ve included a shot of Shailene Woodley as MJ from the set. No reason.]

In addition to the day to day photos, some pics of the new Spider-Man suit have been released. Now you aren’t going to make everyone happy, and there were quite a few people displeased with the suit in the first film of this trilogy, but I like this one. The eyes look great, much better than the first attempt.

Now that filming is underway, I’m sure there will be plenty more in the way of news and such from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 so stay tuned!

Justice League

Christopher Nolan is Allegedly Producing with Zack Snyder Possibly Directing, and Christian Bale Might be Batman! But Probably Not.

christopher_nolan2 I can not be the only person who feels like this movie has been in the works for decades now and with every passing day comes another rumor only to be shot down the following day. At this rate, my grandchildren might get to see a Justice League movie, but only if they are lucky.

The latest of these rumors was that Christian Bale was going to be returning as the Dark Knight, but that has been apparently dismissed. However, it was confirmed that Christopher Nolan is involved in some capacity, most likely as a producer. Also a producer is Man of Steel director Zack Snyder and there are hints that he might be directing Justice League as well.

Of course the biggest statement in the ComicBookMovie report is that we will probably not be getting much Justice League news until after Man of Steel is released on June 14th of this year. What that really means is we won’t be getting any “official” information but if it’s like anything else in the internet age, we’ll know plenty. It may not be completely factual but we will know it!

Fantastic Four

Vampire Hunter Scribe Takes a Stab at the Script, And a Producer is Named!

AbrahamLincolnVampireHunter

What do Pride and Prejudice, zombies, Abraham Lincoln, vampires, and Mr. Fantastic have in common? Well, thanks to the Fantastic Four reboot, Seth Grahame-Smith. He’s taken on the task of “polishing” the script and one can only hope that means this reboot will be much better than Rise of the Silver Surfer because I think we can all agree, that is a movie that just needs to be forgotten about, for all eternity. Burned from the annals of geek history. Grahame-Smith wrote the screenplay to last year’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Killer based on his novel of the same title (he also wrote the incredibly popular Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) and the Johnny Depp vampire movie, Dark Shadows. Also of note, he is the writer of the hopefully upcoming Beetlejuice 2.

Matthew Vaughn has been announced as the producer of the FF reboot, directed by Josh Trank. Vaughn is obviously no stranger to the geek world with a resume including Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class, so I think we can rest easy knowing that the Fantastic Four family will be treated right.

Speaking of Matthew Vaughn and X-Men…

X-Men: Days of Future Past

Peter Dinklage, Richard Nixon, and Halle Berry!

Ever since Game of Thrones (and the movie Station Agent, that everyone should see) actor Peter Dinklage was announced for X-Men: Days of Future Past, there has been speculation as to who he would be playing. Now it appears as if there’s a character emerging from the rumors as a front-runner.

[quote]But thanks to a tipster who prefers to remain anonymous, but is extremely reliable, we can tentatively confirm: Dinklage is playing Bolivar Trask, inventor of the mutant hunting robot Sentinels in the movie sequel. -MTV[/quote]

Obviously fans have been waiting for the Sentinels to feature into the story for a long time, and Peter Dinklage as any character in the world is fine with me.

Peter Dinklage and Bolivar Trask

While that is fun news, it’s still technically a rumor so it could easily change. However, director Bryan Singer has said that there is one person we are sure to see in Days of Future Past and that is none other than the 37th President himself, Richard Nixon. Apparently part of the movie is based in the ’70s, and Singer has promised that Tricky Dick has a role in the story. If I have no other reason to watch this movie, it will be to see how Richard Nixon factors into the X-Men universe.

Also official? Halle Berry is returning as Storm. Is there really much more to say on that besides an underwhelmed “that’s good, I guess, for her, maybe?”

Didn’t think so.

That about does it for this edition of Hero Express! Let us know what you think of these stories in the comments and we’ll see ya next time!

March 5th, 2013 might just go down in history as the day the internet experienced a schism. The line has been drawn in the sand and the people of the internet have taken sides. In one corner, the fans of whiny “my daddy paid a lot of money and now I’m a star and deserve to win all the prizes” Taylor Swift, and in the other corner, the incredibly talented and witty and good looking fans of two women who possess similar qualities, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

What has prompted this bad blood between the factions? Well, let’s head back a few months to the night that the aforementioned Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosted the Golden Globes.

Taylor Swift loses to Adele

In case you needed a reminder, Taylor Swift lost to Adele and wasn’t too thrilled about it. See, Ms. Swift is not used to not winning and it took her a minute to process this new sensation. Not only that but she was the butt of a joke. Did you catch that? She, Taylor Swift musical princess, was the butt of a joke. So, you can sympathize that she had a rough night. There have been many times I’ve been the butt of a joke that I’ve had to take to my bed for days so the fact that sweet Taylor was able to sit there, fighting through the pain like a brave soldier, is inspiring.

The joke? Tina Fey and Amy Poehler had the audacity to comment on Taylor’s very public dating life. Here’s the thing, the image put out (that word choice will be funnier in a minute) by Swift and her people is that Taylor’s a bit of a ho. Okay, maybe not a ho ho, maybe the Disney princess version of a ho, but she does seem to get around. Weirdly, she seems to have a thing for Nickelodeon boy band types, and she’s gone through her fair share of them.

Now, before everyone gets all up in arms about how “I DON’T KNOW HER LYFE!!1!!”, you are right. I don’t, and neither does Tina Fey or Amy Poehler, but a big part of the whole celebrity thing is, the public only has what you put out to go off of and that is what Fey and Poehler made a joke about.

Taylor Swift

So joke is made, two months pass, Adele wins an Oscar, all is forgotten. Except it isn’t. Apparently, Taylor Swift has some inside knowledge on the afterlives of our favorite funny girls. Brace yourself, for this is some deep stuff right here.

[quote]“You know, Katie Couric is one of my favorite people,” Taylor Swift tells Vanity Fair contributing editor Nancy Jo Sales on the subject of mean girls in general and in response to an incident at this year’s Golden Globes, where Amy Poehler and Tina Fey mocked her highly scrutinized love life. “Because she said to me she had heard a quote that she loved, that said, ‘There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.’” –VF Daily[/quote]

I missed the press release but apparently Taylor Swift is now the voice of today’s feminists. Our new anthem is now one of many of Taylor Swift’s empowering songs about either a.) wanting to date a boy b.) being broken hearted because said boy has left or c.) wishing all types of ill will upon boy’s new girlfriend.

Yes, this is exactly who should lead a new generation of women. This is the voice they should be following.

Or… and I’m just spitballing here, they could turn instead to someone like Amy Poehler whose YouTube channel, Smart Girls at the Party, is filled with empowering things for young women as opposed to pining over a boy.

That’s right, Amy Poehler has an entire YouTube channel geared towards advice for girls that goes beyond how to properly cry over a “lost love”. Not only that, when she heard about where she will spend all eternity?

[quote]”Aw, I feel bad if she was upset. I am a feminist, and she is a young and talented girl. That being said, I do agree I am going to hell. But for other reasons. Mostly boring tax stuff. ” –THR[/quote]

That is how you respond to someone saying something badly about you. Tina Fey? The same Tina Fey who has been very active in women’s rights issues? Who wrote an entire movie about bullying? She pretty much said what everyone else is thinking.

[quote]”If anyone was going to get mad at us, I thought it would be James Cameron, I did not see that one coming. It was a joke. It was a lighthearted joke.” –ET[/quote]

A joke. Of course there are some who thinks it’s hypocritical for Fey to make Mean Girls and then joke about Taylor Swift. Does this new Taylor Swift version of feminism mean that we aren’t allowed to make comments about another women ever? In addition to the joke about Michael J. Fox’s son, they also said that maybe Swift take some time to focus on herself, advice pretty much every 23 year old needs to hear. Especially a 23 year old that still has an “I’m Rick James bitch!” attitude.

I think we can go ahead and call this internet battle over. It has been won. Surely there’s a Harry Potter vs. Twilight argument out there that hasn’t been hashed out yet.

Best part of the entire situation? Somewhere Katie Couric is sitting at a desk wondering, “how the hell did I get roped into all this?”

Taylor Swift

If you care to get a glimpse of what the “other side” is saying, check out this collection of tweets Uproxx put together after the Golden Globes. A preview of the eloquence:

Tina Fey tweet

Grizzly Bomb

Daily Archives: March 7, 2013

Hero Express: Spidey’s New Suit, Nolan Producing ‘Justice League’, & Matthew Vaughn on ‘Fantastic Four’!