by A.J. Focht
Superheroes swarmed the geek news again this last week with several major announcements from all sides. Warner Bros kicked the week off revealing Laurence Fishburne would be playing the role of Perry White in Man of Steel. Shortly thereafter, they released the first look at Henry Cavill as Superman. Despite the recent script problems, Superman is set to fly back into theaters on June 14, 2013.
Warner Bros didn’t stop there. The first official photo of Anne Hathaway in The Dark Knight Rises was released soon after the Superman photo. The outfit pays some homage to the more ‘tactical’ look of the comic books, but gives absolutely no feline resemblance. This has only fueled the theory that Hathaway will actually be playing the role as Selina Kyle, and may not become Catwoman at all.
As for the Marvel side of things, the Thor sequel is setting up for production. It looks like they’re shopping for a new director, instead of sticking with Kenneth Branagh. Word is that Brian Kirk (Game of Thrones) is in talks for the follow up.
Despite the rumors of delays with The Amazing Spider-Man, Sony has set an ambitious date for the sequel. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is scheduled for May 2, 2014. With the reboot being taken skeptically by fans as is, this is a bold move on Sony’s part. Sony executives told Dateline:
“I think it speaks volumes about our confidence in what we are seeing on the new film and our desire to move quickly on the next installment.”
For anyone still interested in the remnants of the Wolverine series, former 3LW singer turned actress Naturi Naughton has joined the cast of The Wolverine, alongside Hugh Jackman, Kelly Hu, and Ken Wantanabe, as Cecilia Reyes.
While the film studios have been flooding the net with superhero updates, the best announcement last week came from the land of Oz. Bruce Campbell (Burn Notice) has confirmed he is going to take on a pivotal role in Sam Raimi’s new Oz The Great and Powerful. According to his Twitter, he doesn’t even know what role he is playing but it will be ‘pivotal.’ I’m wondering if an army of flying monkeys could be considered ‘pivotal.’
Over in the video game industry, GameFly is moving into the PC market. They’ll be offering “ulimited PC play” to subscribers, allowing them to download and play from a catalog that will start out with 1500 titles. The beta for the GameFly digital client begins September 8, with full release for both PC and Mac in the holidays.
Finally, the nerd world is about to suffer another major loss; Syfy has announced it will not to continue Eureka for a sixth season. The series still has a holiday episode left in December, and 12 episodes coming in the new year.
