Avi Arad was interviewed by MTV and spilled his guts on more projects than I really believe will make it to the big screen. There’s really no point to rehashing it here, there’s a nice summary over at RopeofSilicon.com.

He mentioned X-Men 3, Magneto, Wolverine, Ghost Rider (vs a giant tidal wave ), Spiderman 3, Captain America (think: Back to the Future), Silver Surfer, Thor, Punisher 2 and Iron Man.

Sounds like on Iron Man a complete script rewrite is being done by Nick Cassavetes, who has met with Arad several times to discuss the film.

Much more info at the link above.

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Sorry about the lack of posts lately… I was sick for a while and to be honest this is the first thing I’ve felt like writing.

SuperHeroHype.com has scooped the first (of many, I’m sure) poster for the upcoming film X-Men 3: Death of a Franchise. (So I kid).

It courageously lists the release date as May 26th, 2006 even though the (horrid) script probably still isn’t locked down and they’re not supposed to start filming for what, another 2 months?

It’s insane, I tell ya. Don’t big special effects superhero movies take at least two years to complete? I shudder at the thought of X-Men 3 as a completed film, I really do.

On the poster a website is listed: www.xmen3themovie.com, which at the time of this writing leads to nothing but an empty page. You’d think they could at least put the poster in as a placeholder…

Click on the image above for a larger version of the poster.

Source: SuperHeroHype.com

In an interview with MTV, Brett Ratner tried to assuage the fear that X-Men fans have over his taking over the upcoming film.

To his credit, he is at least aware of the negative buzz and as far as I’m concerned that’s a good thing. During his interview he actually said (concerning the brutally murdered Batman franchise):

“I’m not Joel Schumacher, and I’m not … um … who did the third Superman? I’m Brett, and all I know is what I know, what I can do and what I have to work with.”

So he knows what’s on the line and what can happen when things go terribly wrong.

Then there’s a bit more hopeful news:

What started out as panic among fans when Bryan Singer left as director of X-Men 3 and then turned into hopeful expectation with the arrival of Matthew Vaughn, can now revert to pretty much hopelessness over X3 being anywhere near the level of the first two films.

Since Joss Whedon would only be interested in directing a film that he has written (and he’s supposedly working on Wonder Woman now, anyway), he isn’t on the short list of potential directors.

According to Aintitcoolnews the studio is deciding between Brett Ratner and John Moore, and is leaning towards Ratner.

Wow.

Just like that, it seems Matthew Vaughn is off X-Men 3 and Joss Whedon might be up to bat as director.

According to Aintitcool.com they have confirmation straight from Avi Arad that Vaughn is off X-Men 3. There was no reason given except to say that it was not due to creative differences and that Matthew was “heartbroken”.

And on Joss Whedon’s Blog there’s a post talking about the possibility that Whedon might be the new guy.

Nothing confirmed on the Joss Whedon side, of course.

In an out of the blue yet inspired decision, Kelsey Grammer (of Frasier fame) has been cast in the role of Beast in X-Men 3. To me this is as out there as when Tim Burton cast Michael Keaton in the role of Batman.

Of course despite the outcry at the time, that actually turned out rather well.

For those of you unfamiliar with the character, Beast is a mutant member of the X-Men (duh) who is genius-level intelligent with a HUGE vocabulary and happens to look like, well, a beast. In the comic he’s covered in hair, super agile and is sort of ape-like in appearance. Really he’s more of a short, squat character but Bryan Singer got away from that with the Wolverine character and casting of Hugh Jackman and it didn’t seem to hurt the role much IMO.

Here’s a quote from Avi Arad according to Variety:

“This is a big role in the new movie, and when we met with him, you can see that Kelsey has that you’d-better-have-a-dictionary-handy intelligence…”

Personally I think that if he can bring his “Frasier” personality to the role (minus the neurotic part, of course) he’ll be awesome.

I’m feeling too lazy to write up three separate articles, so here’s a quickie.

Yahoo! Movies has the teaser trailer up for the new Zorro movie coming out this fall. Catherine Zeta-Jones(-Douglas?) is back as is Antonio Banderas. I enjoyed the first one for what it was and the trailer for this one looks fun as well.

Chud.com has an update on the remake of John Carpenter’s The Fog. Sounds like maybe it will be more intense than the original? BTW, Carpenter is onboard as a producer.

IESB.net caught Avi Arad in a parking lot and got him to spill on a few things, including the fact that a Silver Surfer movie is next and that the first X-Men spinoff will indeed be the Wolverine movie.

Finally, it’s being reported all over the place that the script for the fourth Indiana Jones movie is finally done. George “CGI” Lucas is going to give it a read and give it the gladatorial thumbs up or down.

There was a Marvel, Inc. financial conference call today and a number of tidbits were mentioned by Avi Arad that relate to upcoming superhero-based films.

Since I’m a big fan of Iron Man, I was disappointed to hear that the movie has been pushed back to a 2007 release at the earliest and is in fact now considered TBD (to be determined). Avi confirmed that Nick Cassavetes’ leaving the project was not Nick’s decision, but was due to New Line executives having an issue with him being chosen as the director. At least they’re still moving ahead with the animated version of Iron Man which I believe is a straight to DVD title.

Avi stated that the new distribution agreement they’ve struck with Paramount will give Marvel more control over it’s films moving forward, and that will keep issues like this from arising. I, for one am happy to hear that Marvel will have more control over it’s own properties on the big screen. When they license a property to a studio, they lose creative control over the product.

It sounds like Captain America and Nick Fury are first in line to be produced, as they were referred to as “tentpole movies”. Interestingly, “The Avengers” was also mentioned in the same statement, although I don’t know of any plans to turn that into a feature film (there is an animated Avengers cartoon in the pipeline, however).

Other items:

According to an interview with Comic Buyer’s Guide (by way of Newsarama) David Benioff is working on a screenplay for the “Wolverine” spin-off movie, and he’s writing it as an R-rated flick.

According to Newsarama, Benioff is a huge fan of Wolverine (from the comics) but also says that he can’t imagine anyone other than Hugh Jackman playing the part.

His plan is to write it as an R-rated version that will be more gritty and rough than the X-Men movies, and then it will be up to the director and presumably Avi Arad as to whether the movie remains at that level or is dropped down to a PG-13.

I’ve read arguments going both ways: That a Wolverine movie should be rated R (he does have huge claws that he uses in battle), as opposed to PG-13 (or even PG, since he’s a comic book character). Personally I think that a stand-alone Wolverine film should be R. If you’re going to have a guy that slashes at his enemies with foot-long steel claws, there ought to be blood.

I’ve always thought that as a concept, the character of Wolverine always had to be watered way down in the comics. I mean here you have a guy with a dark, raging temper, awesome fighting skills and razor sharp claws that he’s not shy about using… yet (as far as I know) rarely do any if his opponents die.

Don’t forget that Marvel has put out R-rated superhero flicks before: The Blade trilogy.

Of course PG-13 equals way more box office money and it doesn’t alienate the core fanbase of the X-Men movies: teenage boys.

Anybody heard of a movie called Layer Cake before last week? Me neither. All of a sudden it seems like it must have been a great movie with which to have been involved.

Within the last week not one but two folks from this film have been thrust into the movie news limelight:

Director Matthew Vaughn is set to direct the highly anticipated X-Men 3 and (supposedly) Daniel Craig is one of two guys left vying for the role of James Bond in the soon to start filming Casino Royale.

Another “big movie” Layer Cake connection is Tamer Hassan who has a minor role in Batman Begins, although granted, that’s a stretch since it’s a bit part.

We should probably stay on the lookout for anything J.J. Connolly might be involved in, since he wrote the screenplay…