X-Ray Vision

That title might be a bit of an overstatement, but all things considered, it doesn’t sound like Edward Norton is really that into the idea of reprising his role of Bruce Banner in the Avengers movie. Check out a recent interview he had at BamKapow to see his reaction first hand.

Edward Norton says he likes Marvel and the Hulk, but if he is working on another project when the Avengers movie comes around he won’t be making much effort to accommodate it. I wish that they would have had Norton sign on for future movies when he was first cast as Bruce Banner, but I guess it was not to be. The most disappointing part is that Norton did a great job as Norton, and made me forget all about the debacle that was the first Hulk movie.

It almost goes without saying that the Hulk will make an appearance in the Avengers movie, just because Hulk is so integral to the founding of the group. It also seems like we might be treated to our third Bruce Banner in as many movies. On the plus side Marvel now has lots of Disney Dollars to use to find a good actor to play Banner, but dammit, I still want Norton back.

I kid you not, Thor will be appearing in his very own video game. Sega is currently working on a Thor game to go along with the Thor movie. This game has a lot of potential, but I also see some potential difficulties.

Thor is not as straightforward as Hulk and Iron Man in terms of gameplay. Hulk, of course, simply smashes everything in his way, and Iron Man flies around shooting repulsor rays. Thor, on the other hand, can summon lightning or smash the crap out of something with a hammer or his bare hands. That is what is known as depth. The Thor game will also have to address Asgard and Earth, which realms will be playable? Will we get to fight other Asgardians, or team up with them? Will we be able to vanquish frost giants along with bank robbers? There are so many directions this game could go, I just hope Sega picks a good one. Hopefully Sega takes its time between now and the 2011 release of the Thor movie to develop a quality game.

Oh Spider-Man 3…I hated so many things about you. Hoping to redeem some favor from fuming fanboys, Sony has announced that there will indeed be a Venom movie. We can only hope that they are smart enough not to have Topher Grace reprise the role.

The guys who wrote Zombieland, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, are working on writing the Venom movie. Zombieland looks awesome, so I am cautiously optimistic at this point. Plus Venom is just an awesome character, I would definitely rank him as my favorite Spider-Man villain. My biggest hope at this point is that the movie somehow addresses Venom’s love for brains, and subsequently eating chocolate in place of brains.

It seems that the Tim Pocock twitter statements were false. As of now there is no schedule to start filming for X-Men First Class. We still have Deadpool moving forward, which is of course the movie we are all really excited about, and there have also been talks of an X-Men 4 and a The New Mutants movie.

I for one just want to hear some more news about Deadpool, but it appears that will be coming out after Green Lantern. That is mainly because of all the casting call information that has been coming out for the Green Lantern movie. Ryan Reynolds is a busy guy. I cannot complain about all these movie rumor, it is basically a comic book nerd’s wet dream.

It seems there that might be some trouble brewing with certain Marvel titles such as X-Men, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, basically all the good ones. The thing is, Jack Kirby is the co-creator of many Marvel titles, and now his estate is attempting to get the copyrights back on many of these properties.

This seems similar to the Jerry Siegel estate going after the Superman copyright. The big difference is Disney seems willing to play ball with the Kirby estate. I expect this to be resolved fairly quickly with a considerable payout to the Kirby estate. I just hope this doesn’t cause a delay with Marvel’s many movies in the works, especially Iron Man, Thor, and The Avengers. That would make me angry, and you wouldn’t like me angry. Yeah, Kirby co-created the Hulk.

You might remember Tim Pocock as the young Cyclops in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He is the Cyclops who cried less then James Marsden. Anyways, according to a twitter post of his, X-Men First Class will start filming in 2010.

A new take on the X-Men should be interesting. I was not a huge fan of any of the previous X-Men movies and I would like to see them go in a different direction. Focusing on the early days with a smaller number of mutants around should make it easier to actually have some character development and a good story. I just hope that Cyclops isn’t portrayed as a huge wuss again.

How many readers of X-Ray Vision would like a date with Scarlett Johansson? I think just about everyone. Even if you aren’t enamored with her striking good looks, a date with her would at least get you closer to Ryan Reynolds. Plus it is basically a date with the Black Widow. It is a win-win-win situation.

Well now is your chance to take Scarlett Johansson out to a nice seafood dinner and never call her again. She is having a charity auction on ebay with Oxfam America. If you win the auction you will be her date to the Iron Man 2 premiere. I can’t think of a better first date than that. For more information on the auction check out http://stores.shop.ebay.com/Auction-Cause/Oxfam.html 

Many people have been talking about the possibilities that emerge from the whole Disney buying Marvel situation. It does seem inevitable that we see a few crossovers in the future. Luckily for us CollegeHumor has the insider information and recently put up some covers for future Disney/Marvel projects.

I swear to God if I ever see Wolverine within 50 feet of Hannah Montana I will sell my comic collection. Unless the scene ends with him disemboweling her. That would be acceptable. I could actually see an Incredibles/Fantastic Four team-up. Those super families would make for a very entertaining movie in my opinion. What other Disney/Marvel crossovers do you guys see happening?

While Aaron Eckhart might want a role in the sequel to the Dark Knight, he admits it would be unlikely due to the apparent death of Harvey Dent aka Two Face. Eckhart seems to have flip-flopped a bit on this position, earlier stating that his character was dead, then hinting at a return, and now reaffirming the non-living qualities of his character. Maybe he is just setting us all up for a Solomon Grundy appearance.

I would love to see Two Face return, he has always been one of my favorite villains because there is a real side to him that wants to do what’s right. With Two Face it all comes down to the luck of the draw, or a flip of the coin as the case might be. Still, I think it would be very difficult to bring Two Face or Eckhart back from the kind of death he had in the Dark Knight, and I hope they leave well enough alone.

Now that I’ve mentioned it, I think Solomon Grundy would be a fun character to have in Christopher Nolan’s world. Grundy definitely wouldn’t be the main villain, but I would appreciate a Scarecrow-esque cameo with Batman putting him in his place.

Warner Brothers has recently announced the creation of DC Entertainment. This is a new branch of Warner Bros. dedicated entirely to DC movies, which means Warner has finally realized that comic book movies are actually quite popular when they aren’t crap.

DC Entertainment has already stated that the upcoming “The Losers” movie will be handled by them, so I guess that is where we will first see how seriously DC Entertainment takes its work. I for one am hoping that DC Entertainment just knocks it out of the ballpark, because I have very high expectations for some of their characters, such as Green Lantern, Batman, Superman, etc. I just don’t want to see a Green Arrow movie. I hate that guy. What are you faithful readers hoping to see out of this new branch of Warner Bros?