Author: Simon Andrews

So unless you’ve spent the last 48 hours hiding under a rock, you’ll be aware that the press embargo on Suicide Squad has now been lifted, and the first reviews have sent the Internet into total meltdown. Within the first hour of the embargo elapsing, reviews were landing online giving the film anything between 1-5 stars, with some reviewers calling the film a ‘Game Changer’, but others branding it a ‘Complete Tonal Mess’. In response, DC fans have largely shrugged this off, and Box Office estimates still have the film tracking to beat Marvel’s ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ in terms…

It’s fair to say that 2016 has been a pretty SWEET time for comic-book fans. We’re only halfway through this fine year, and we’ve already been bludgeoned to a state of near-death with a record number of sci-fi and fantasy movies, and there’s still ‘Suicide Squad’ and ‘Dr Strange’ waiting in the wings to assault our senses. It’s hard to see how humanity could improve on what has already been a stellar couple of months. But you know what? As Jeff Goldblum famously once said in ‘Jurassic Park’, “nature always finds a way…” So. ‘Civil War’ was pretty goddamn amazing,…

It’s rare that you see Marvel Studios put a step wrong. I mean, these guys are the game-changers. The movie-makers that lead by example. The benchmark. The ones to beat. Having emerged from their pre-MCU mistakes, and learned from what happens when their characters are tinkered with by other companies, everything that comes out of the House of Marvel is now smoothed, polished, and triple-checked for quality control. After all, these are the people who can successfully persuade us to buy into Chris Pratt sharing screen time with a robotically-enhanced raccoon and a talking tree. So far, other than some…

I’m sat there, minding my own business when the boss-man drops me a line and asks me to look into making a list of the top comic book villains that audiences are yet to see in a live-action format. Seems an easy enough prospect, right? Everybody’s got that favorite bad guy that they either read about, or watched on early morning kids TV. Someone they’ve been secretly itching to see crop up amongst the current wave of comic book projects. Well trust me, it isn’t necessarily that easy. Whilst we’re a mere three phases into Marvel’s plans for world domination,…

It’s been a funny old year for DC Studios. But then in a sense, it was always going to be. The studio was finally going head to head with their arch-rivals over at Marvel after years of mapping out their answer to the MCU, and having repeatedly avoided any direct summer-blockbuster confrontation. The selection of ‘Suicide Squad’ as a follow-up to ‘BvS’ raised some eyebrows, and then the critical reaction to Zack Snyder’s creative vision of the DCCU itself caused a whole shitstorm of controversy. Love it, or loathe it, there’s no denying that BvS has proven one of the…

The sketchy boundaries that separate Marvel’s TV and Movie productions are a constant frustration for fans. Whilst the two properties are clearly linked by the major events that take place within the MCU, only a small number of characters have been given the opportunity to cross the gap between the two environments, with studio politics reluctant to actually allow the two sets of characters inhabit the same space following the onscreen demise of Phil Coulson in ‘Avengers Assemble’. It seems that Easter eggs in the form of TV reports and newspaper articles is perfectly acceptable, but having Tony Stark chatting…

The first few initial events will have by now opened this year’s San Diego Comic Con, but it won’t be until the coming weekend that the big companies and studios debut the teasers and trailers they’ll be hoping will make the headlines and send the Internet into meltdown over the next few months. In terms of the big guns, we know that Marvel will be pushing promotional material for next year’s ‘Dr Strange’, and have the GOTG2 cast scheduled to attend, so it’s reasonable to expect a ‘Guardians’ teaser trailer to be unveiled. DC will also be in attendance, with…

With the Summer Box-Office having been dominated by Marvel Studios since 2008, this year saw DC finally get their house in order and launch the DCCU. There’s no denying they’ve got some major ground to catch up to their historic rival, and the number of projects they’ve currently got in development would seem to reflect that. One of the main results of this is that there’s now a constant flood of online speculation as to which actors will inhabit the supporting roles that will fill out the solo movies that each of the individual Justice League members have got…

Filming has now officially commenced on ‘Thor:Ragnarok’, and Chris Hemsworth has released a set photo online showcasing a new updated version of Thor’s legendary hammer, Mjolnir. Well. Kind of… Hemsworth’s notorious for being an on-set joker, and the fact that Kiwi director Taika Waititi comes from a comedic background has probably only spurred him on. Whilst the picture is clearly a spoof, showing somebody holding an everyday household hammer, it’s the tagline added by Hemsworth that intrigues: #Thor3, expect big and little changes @taikawaititi A photo posted by Chris Hemsworth (@chrishemsworth) on Jul 6, 2016 at 1:46pm PDT Does this…

Amidst the unending tidal wave of this year’s Marvel and DC casting announcements, it’s entirely possible you might have missed a couple of slightly ‘off the wall’ ones that have come from the other studios, and herald the return of some properly ‘old-school’ superheroes. The first of these was that ‘Mr Franchise Viagra’ himself, Dwayne Johnson, has signed on to play Doc Savage AKA ‘The Man Of Bronze’. That’s a relatively straightforward decision. Johnson’s done more than his fair share of bare-chested heroics in his time, and his casting as an indestructible adventurer is all quite logical. The second, well,…