Supermovies: Your 5 Year Guide to Superhero Movies | Part 4
The future is bright for Comic Book movies and with four major film studios vying for blockbuster payouts there are a plethora of quality titles to entice you into the cinemas in the coming years.
In this week’s article we move into 2017 where we could have the death of Wolverine, the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel and see the first female led superhero movie is ten years.
Wolverine 3 (Fox) Dir. James Mangold
This will be the ninth outing (his eight being X-Men Apocalypse) for Hugh Jackman as Logan, AKA The Wolverine; it will probably also be his last. Speaking to SFX magazine late last year, Jackman was quizzed about his future in the role of the clawed Weapon X, to which Jackman responded:
“I don’t know yet. We’re talking it through. I still am very ambitious for the character. And tonally I feel like we corrected the ship with the last one. But I feel we can still go further, in a way. If I did another one I’m 99.9% sure it would be the last, so that will inform what it is for me.”
Now we know that the third outing is green-lit for a March 3rd 2017 release we can only assume that this will be the last we see of the now iconic Wolverine we have grown with since 2000’s X-Men; it will be 17 years of Jackman as the ill-tempered cigar-chomper before he calls it a day.
As Jackman will be calling it a day, one question remains; will Wolverine be recast or killed off? There is a good possibility that along with Storm, Jean Grey and Cyclops, Wolverine too will be recast as a younger version at some stage of the X-Men franchise. There is also the fact that Marvel has finally killed off the character once and for all in their comics. As anyone who has watched the movies will know, Wolverine is basically immortal due to his extensive regenerative powers; Marvel however, after 40 years as one of their top selling characters, decided it was time to hang up his adamantium claws. The Death of Wolverine series may very well be the storyline of the final outing for Jackman and will surely be an emotional end to a true Supermovie icon.
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (Marvel) Dir. James Gunn
Easily one of the most enjoyable films of last year, James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy brought a perfect mix off comedy and action to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Critically praised and a massive box office smash, there are two hugely anticipated questions to be answered; who will be added to the Guardians’ line-up and what will feature on the Awesome Mix Vol. 2?
I’ll leave the musical delights up to the experts but I can give my two cents on who may or may not feature in the sequel. There are a few questions to be answered in Guardians 2; the most intriguing of which may be who is Peter Quill’s father? We know that Yondu (Michael Rooker) and his team of space scavengers know more than they let on to Starlord and Quill’s hunt for answers may be a significant arc of the storyline. James Gunn has said that he may not stay within the confines of the comics and so we are not definite on who will portray Starlord’s father in the movies. In the comics, J’Son of Spartax, Emperor of a Spartoi Empire, is the humanoid alien who fathered our favorite leader but it could alternatively be a unknown, we’ll have to wait and see.
As a few nerds might have noticed, Adam Warlock’s cocoon was seen in The Collector’s (Benicio Del Toro) museum of obscurities in the first Guardians outing. During the end credits scene when Howard the Duck appears, the open cocoon can be seen in the background; Adam Warlock escaped and is now in the Marvel Universe. Warlock is a pivotal character in the Infinity Gauntlet series when the Guardians and Avengers take on the mad titan, Thanos. It would be wise to include Warlock now in the sequel as we lead into the Avengers: Infinity War two-parter due to hit the cinema in 2018.
A cool inclusion to the MCU and a huge step forward in the views of equality could be the inclusion of lovers Moondragon and Quasar. Moondragon is another adopted daughter of Thanos and has interesting ties with Drax (Dave Bautista). Quasar is the granddaughter of Mar-Vell, who gave powers to Carol Danvers, becoming Captain Marvel (Marvel’s first solo female film will be released in Nov 2018); they could easily tie that all together. Would Marvel have the balls to include a same-sex relationship into their cinematic universe? I just don’t know.
We can be sure our regular team of Starlord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot will be in full force again. I cannot wait for this and I shall now start the 779-day countdown (as I slyly cry into my hands due to fanboy realisation).
Fantastic Four 2 (Fox) Dir. Josh Trank (rumoured)
Okay, so we haven’t even seen the reboot of Fantastic Four, that hits the cinema on August 7th this year, so I can’t really comment on the sequel. I looked over the reboot in Part 1 so check that out.
I didn’t mention in Part 1 that Toby Kebbell (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, RocknRolla) will be portraying Doctor Doom, and his story is quite different from what we know from comics and previous productions. Victor Von Doom is now Victor Domashev and the mad scientist is now a mad programmer. It’s the Fantastic Four brought into the 21st century.
Wonder Woman (Warner Bros.) Dir. Michelle MacLaren
As discussed in Part 2, the DC goliaths Superman and Batman will team up for a cinematic blockbuster that Warner hopes can match the success of The Avengers. Battling for screen time in the character heavy Man of Steel sequel is Gal Gadot; Gadot will be portraying the Amazonian warrior princess Wonder Woman.
Following Dawn of Justice Wonder Women will get a rare female led superhero feature. In the past 30 years the only other female led superhero feature I can think of are the atrocious Catwoman and Elektra. This is a huge task for the obviously lacking equality in the superhero movie world. Marvel also has a female lead movie in the guise of Captain Marvel, due to be released 18 months after Wonder Woman. These two films could be very important in tipping, even if only in a small way, away from the current gender bias in Supermovies.
Michelle MacLaren will take over the directing duties here. MacLaren will be over a feature film for the first time however she has been at the helm of many top TV shows, directing many episodes of The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad. Jason Fuchs joins MacLaren in creating the screenplay; Fuchs is behind the screenplay for the Neverland reimaging Pan hitting the cinemas later this year.
So as we get closer to Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice we will get to hear more regarding the importance of Wonder Woman in the story and we might get a better understanding of where the solo outing will take us. Probable scenario is your run-of-the-mill origin story and running into how she came to live among us mere mortals. With the Justice League movie, to follow, sixth months after, Wonder Woman could also be used to set up any major characters needed for the DC version of the Avengers; although The Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg will all feature in Dawn of Justice, Green Lantern could appear before the DC team up.
Coming Up in Part 5
I look at Spiderman’s first Marvel solo outing, Thor’s third feature, The Justice League movie and get very excited over a Lego Batman movie – there are few combinations of words that could get nerds more excited, well maybe minecraft-porn.
Check out Part 5 here!
Featured Image Credit: TheFandom.net
