by Kim Filchak, Senior Reporter

Hello there internets! I don’t know if anyone noticed or not, but Rampant Speculation utterly failed to make an appearance for the promised gif heavy the midweek update last week. I have a perfectly reasonable explanation for that, turns out cloning is in fact illegal in the United States. (Seriously, who knew?) So my attempts to Orphan Black myself some backup were violating some sort of convention or something and even if all I managed to do was create self-aware baked goods, still illegal. So there was paper work to fill out and my pound cake had to prove its sentience by trial on board the Enterprise and it was just a whole thing. But all of that is sorted now, the delicious new form of life is off to be warehoused by the U.S. government along with all of god’s other mistakes and I am free to go back to my sacred mission. So with now further ado, here is this week’s Rampant Speculation!

Ant-Man- I have some disappointing news for those who were waiting for a totally ripped Paul Rudd to make an appearance in the upcoming Marvel Studios film Ant-Man, as is the tradition with the man candy of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Survey says, it is not going to happen… And by survey I mean Paul Rudd (Anchorman), the man in charge of the pecs. This disheartening revelation came out during Rudd’s appearance on The Colbert Report.

“I’ve had to kind of try and get in better shape. I don’t get too jacked. It doesn’t make sense for someone trying to be an ant.”

 

This bit of sad news comes from Flickering Myth, and I am sure they are as disappointed as I am.

 

Avengers: Age of Ultron- For those of you with San Diego Comic Con tickets Hall H just became ground zero for insanity. Mark Ruffalo (Avengers, The Normal Heart) actor, environmentalist, and possessor of some awesome dance moves, has confirmed to Collider that the Avengers will indeed be in the house.

“Yeah, we’re gonna go out there. We’re all flying, we’re flying from London. We’re working. We’re shooting. We’re gonna stop and get on a plane and go to Comic Con together. It’s gonna be amazing.”

And by amazing I think he means brain melting levels of chaos and insanity. Please someone make sure there is an open bar for these people, they are going to need it.

 

 

Ruffalo also had some interesting insight into the characters of Banner and the Hulk, which he imparted after dashing some fan hopes by replying “He might not” to a question regarding a possible Hulk solo film.

“He’s a tough nut to crack of all of them, I think. He’s the one person who doesn’t want to do the very thing that all of us are dying to see him do and he’s the one person who doesn’t want to be there, [laughs] and so it can get very maudlin, it could get very boring to watch the guy who’s moping around who doesn’t want to do the very thing that we’re all dying to see him do. And so I think that’s the tough part of cracking that nut. I think that’s what’s made it problematical in the past.
But I do feel like we’ve gained some ground on this new version of him, which has – he’s sort of turning to face himself, and I think the relationship between Banner and The Hulk as a conscious conflict, it could be really interesting. The one thing that I think The Hulk is terrified of is Banner, and that’s never really been mined. And now with this new motion capture technology , we can do something really exciting with Hulk that we’ve never been able to do performance-wise that I am hoping when we’re talking about doing a new version of this, that we’re really talking about having a relationship between these two entities that is conscious of each other and in conflict with each other in a really cool, interesting way.”

“We’re a little bit behind on the motion capture technology as far as facial recognition in real time. Now we have, when I put on my motion capture suit, I look in front of me and there’s me as The Hulk. There’s The Hulk. Every move I make, The Hulk’s making it and so you have this immediate feedback like almost looking in a mirror, but instead of seeing myself, I see The Hulk … But they haven’t come up to speed on the facial recognition that way.

They can capture the facial – the new technology is we can shoot the body recognition and the facial recognition at the same time, so now you can integrate performance, physical performance with the actual face and voice, but by the time we’re ready to probably – if we do another Hulk – that technology will be in real time and once that happens, there’d be no limit to what you can do creatively as far as your physical being is concerned. I can play a freakin’ parasite in the ass of a worm [laughs].

It’s so exciting. There’s no limit to where we can go. I hope to be a pioneer in this space with Andy Serkis. I worked a lot with him on this. I’m very excited by what he’s doing. We are retraining the studio to see this as integral a part as the first unit. This is not second or third unit or motion capture unit. This is first unit. This is performance. It’s completely driven by the actor and it has to be honored as much as anything else, so that’s kind of where we’re heading with this technology and it’s very exciting.”

There are more of the words about The Avengers that came from his mouth here at Collider, which I recommend checking out.

Also in Avengers: Age of Ultron news- 20 new pictures from the set of Avengers: Age of Ultron have made their way onto the web via Super Hero Hype and wow, that is a lot pictures to scroll through. Most of it is of Thor doing Thor things. Here are my favorites culled from the complete collection, which you can find here at Super Hero Hype.

 

The hopping up to fake a heroic landing has to be one of my most favorite things ever.

 

 

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice- SPOILERS BE HERE. Clark Kent in is the house! Variety has a picture from the twitter of star Henry Cavill (Man of Steel, The Tudors) on set in his Clark Kent duds.

 

 

Also in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice news-The Super Statue that we reported on previously appears to meet a horrible fate in BatmanV Superman. Oh giant concrete kryptonian torso, we hardly knew ye. Lindsey Steele posted some twitter pictures that show the sad remains of the proof of Superman’s Metroman moment. All that remain are broken chunks and giant feet with flowers laid to rest in memorial of something bad. At least I am assuming it’s something bad that happens, as this does not look like the results of a ice cream social/kitten adoption party.

 

There are a few more picture over here at The Comic Book Movie.

Additional Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice News- Batman News is reporting that the extras were ordered via cast email to march over to the Daily Planet on Wednesday and do things of a possibly reporter type nature while there.

Still More Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice news- Deadline is reporting that, even though there has been no confirmation from Warner Bros, Scoot McNairy (Argo, 12 Years a Slave) cast in the currently filming film as an as yet unnamed character.

And finally in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice news- Movie Pilot has an interesting speculative article up about what they think may happen in Batman V Superman.

 

Doctor Who- The BBC has released another teaser trailer for the endlessly regenerating show with a bit more by way of dialog and actual faces than that last one. This new series seems darker and the Doctor has a slightly more sinister vibe coming off of him, it seems to be a way less bubbly a debut then either 11 or 10 got.

 

 

Fury- Brad Pitt’s (Inglourious Basterds, World War Z, King of the Hill) new World War II drama is not normally Rampant Speculation’s bag, but it is a movie about tanks and tanks are freaking awesome so here, have a trailer.

 

 

Guardians of the Galaxy- There is a  new extended TV trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy that looks amazing and does nothing but cement my current head canon that Rocket Raccoon is totally the Jayne of this crew and I freaking LOVE it.

 

 

Also here is some more awesome by way of a featurette with the actors talking about the people, trees and talking woodland creatures they portray in the film and yes Rocket clearly has some anger issues.

 

 

Both vids via io9’s Morning Spoilers.

More Guardians of the Galaxy news- Director James Gunn (Slither, Super), whom I recently saw in person and looks exactly like he is supposed to, is very prolific on the Facebook, a fact I just recently discovered by following him. On Facebook I mean, not like following him following him. Even though I was recently in his presence but that was totally accidental and involved no prior planning on my part. I promise!

Anyways, he posts set picture fairly often and here are the last few.

 

 

He also talks about the role his brother Sean Gunn (Gilmore Girls, October Road) played in the creation of the many motion capture characters in his upcoming film.

“Working with my brother Sean Gunn on Guardians of the Galaxy. This photo is from Sci-Fi magazine which features a great article on how we work together and what Sean contributed to the character of Rocket and to the movie as a whole. It also reveals that, in addition to being the onset Rocket, and using a lot of his body and facial work in the character, he was also the onset Thanos, as well as playing the role of Kraglin, Yondu Udonta’s First Mate in the Ravagers, and Peter Quill’s lifelong frenemy. Few things in my career give me more creative pleasure than working with my brother.”

 

He added more to his initial post when he commented on a comment, as one does on Facebook posts.

“We also had a little person, who we used for reference and lighting in scenes – the very very awesome Arti Shah. But Sean is VERY limber and able to crawl around on all fours at the proper height (Rocket is actually smaller than almost all little people). But what was really important was Sean’s acting. He essentially co-created the character of Rocket, and his acting is used throughout the film. It was also of great benefit to the other actors, who had a full scene partner who was as an accomplished actor as all of them. If you read the Sci-Fi article you’ll find out from Zoe Saldana how important Sean was to the whole process and her personally. And I know Chris Pratt and Dave Bautista also agree. Bautista and Sean had – and continue to have – a special bond that I think is very reflective of the onscreen bond between Rocket and Drax.”

If you are are the Facebook I recommend following Gunn, the dude is very amusing, and I want to throw out a special thanks to io9’s Morning Spoilers for inadvertently reminding me that this was a thing I wanted to do.

 

Even More Guardians of the Galaxy News- Actor and cruel man Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Castle, breaker of hearts) dashed my hopes most cruelly by taking to Twitter to deny that the character he is playing in Guardians of the Galaxy  is Cosmo, Russian astronaut and adorable doggy.

 

“With so much inaccurate “news” about my involvement in GOTG, I’m actually losing faith in the internet. I’m not Cosmo.”

 

Hector and the Pursuit of Happiness: Adorable gift to the universe that is Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Star Trek, The Worlds End) has a new movie coming out and the trailer looks pretty good. It sort of strikes me as being a bit like if  The Secret Life of Walter Mitty had an actual underling point or message instead of pretty visuals and feel good moments it might turn out something like this. And funny, if it had actually been funny, it could have been like Hector and the Pursuit of Happiness. The film is based on the book “The Pursuit of Happiness”, which always intrigued me as I passed it on the way to straighten the erotica section of the bookstore I worked at, but I never picked it up. Mostly because I was too busy once again straightening the erotica section, which always seemed to be in a constant state of hot mess. Because shame makes people messy, I guess? Anyways, here is the trailer for Hector and the Pursuit of Happiness.

 

 

Hercules- Here, have some trailer.

 

 

The Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part 1– They have released a teaser trailer to end all teaser trailers. The bar has just been reset pretty high by the folks at The Hunger Games. Instead of a shadowed figure or a revolving shoe, for the Hunger Games: Mocking Jay Part 1 teaser we get a full on, slickly produced, Panem propaganda speech by President Snow himself. It sets the stage for the next part of the series perfectly. I seriously got goose bumps watching it and I am not really that into “The Hunger Games” books or movies. Well done dudes, well done.

 

 

Jupiter Ascending- There is new trailer out for the movie named for an upward bounding planet and it has all the things. Jupiter Ascending , originally slated to come out this summer, was pushed back to give the SFX people more time to work their magic and now is due to hit theaters in February 2015.

 

 

Jurassic World- Another tweeted picture from director Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed)  for Jurassic World! Because he is a total tease and I love him for that! I am thinking things did not end well for whoever left that palm print. Picture via Bleeding Cool.

 

 

Mad Max: Road Fury- Entertainment Weekly has 7 awesome photos from the upcoming film you can see here that do a lot to reassure me that this film will be worthy of the name Mad Max and here is the Mad Max cover of the magazine brought to us via Spinoff Online.

 

 

Predator- Collider is reporting that not only director is Shane Black (Iron-Man 3, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Last Boy Scout) filming the latest offering the Predator franchise but also that the film will be a sequel, not a reboot as previously thought.

“As far as Fred and I are concerned anyway,” Black said, adding “Why start over, when you’ve all this rich mythology yet to mine?” Black said he doesn’t like reboots generally, but can “really get behind inventive sequels”, noting that he likes “the idea of expanding and exploring the existing Predator mythology, rather than hitting the restart button.” He went on to say that Dekker, who’s writing the screenplay, is “perfect” for the project, adding the two had a blast writing the screenplay for The Monster Squad together.

I happen to love the Predator movies, so the fact that they are not throwing out the baby with the bathwater sounds great to me. In the end though, this franchise is really about one important thing, watching actors and actresses hunted for sport. That is pretty hard to mess up, though Cthulhu love them, they have managed to do so in the past.

 

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For- I totally forget that this was a thing that is happening! My bad! The next Sin City movie comes out on August 22 and looks as visually stunning and graphically violent as the first one.

 

 

Star Trek 3: Please Forget Into Darkness Ever Happened- The Geoff Boucher podcast Humans From Earth recently had as a guest Bob Orci (Enders Game, Now You See Me, Xena: Warrior Princess), the man now tasked with reinventing the reinvented wheel by way of directing Star Trek 3: The Search for More Money… No wait, that was Spaceballs. (Psst…Do we know what the subtitle for this one is going to be? No? Okay I will just keep making stuff up then.) The dudes at Badass Digest were listening and did a bitter, but still kind of nice, write up that makes me mildly hopeful for Star Trek 3: The Search For Even More Subtext.

“In [Into Darkness] they set out finally where the original series started. The first two films – especially the 2009 [Star Trek] – was an origin story. It was about them coming together. So they weren’t the characters they were in the original series. They were growing into them and that continues on in the second movie. So in this movie they are closer than they are to the original series characters that you have ever seen. They have set off on their five-year mission. So their adventure is going to be in deep space.”

There were other things said that Badass Digest had opinions on that can be read here and you can listen to source code podcast  here, but mostly he gave me some hope that things are getting back on track for my beloved franchise.

I mean they have my money because Chris Pine (Star Trek, Unstoppable, The Princess Diaries 2), but it would be nice to not feel like my cherished childhood love was in the hands of people who had no idea what to do with it. Into Darkness was not a bad movie, but it was a bad Star Trek movie. Trying to give it a modern gritty feel is antithetical to what Star Trek is all about. I mean, seriously, the Federation is supposed to be the good guys here folks. Sure they are sometimes confused, often bureaucratic, and that one time they were taken over by parasitic slugs that nearly destroy everything before they were defeated by Picard’s sheer awesomeness and then never mentioned again, but still their baseline setting is that of the good guys. The future of humanity portrayed by Star Trek is one of a, for the most part, post dumbassery society. That was Gene Rodenberry’s vision and why it means so much to people. Let’s try to keep it that way, shall we? Leave the grim, dark, we all suck mentality to BSG, they do it so well.

 

Terminator: Genesis- Bleeding Cool is reporting that the next Terminator film has dropped some weight in the form a colon followed by the word Genesis. The next film in the series about time traveling kill-bots and the humans who love them/run away from them will simply be called Terminator. Just a single word name, with no descriptors or qualifiers or even adverbs attached, sort of like Ke$ha or Madonna.

Terminator is currently filming and aiming for a July 1st 2015 release date.

And with that we have reached the end of this weeks Rampant Speculation! Mostly because my hands are tired and I don’t want to type anymore. I am off to face-plant on couch and binge watch a marathon of Vampire Diaries (Don’t you judge me.)  Until next time!

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