MARVEL SEQUELS
Following the success of ‘Avengers Assemble’ which brought together all your favourite Marvel superheroes. We now have two sequels to look forward to, the first being ‘Thor: The Dark World’ with Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Tom Hiddleston (Loki) and Natalie Portman (Jane) reprising their previous roles. The hot news is that our very own Christopher Eccleston has been cast as villain Malekith the Accursed. Due out November 2013. The other follow up is ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ with Chris Evans back in the spandex stars & stripes suit. Unfortunately this will not be in cinemas until 2014, maybe that’s why the film is reported to be showing a number of flashbacks just in case we have all forgotten Steve Rogers origins.
Hugh Jackman is back as Wolverine in...guess what? ‘The Wolverine’. Currently being filmed in Australia and Japan and involves forbidden love with a Japanese woman. Due out July 2013. And talking of X-Men, director Bryan Singer has confirmed that the ‘X-Men: First Class’ sequel will be titled ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’. The name of this follow up is also the name of a 1980’s X-Men comic that involved criss-crossing alternate timelines, future dystopias and a plot involving serious social unrest.


DREDD
As a fan of Judge Dredd featured in the 2000AD comic books I was bitterly disappointed with the 1995 Stallone version of the Mega-City law enforcement officer. The film didn’t seem to be connected to the original comic portrayal of the character and one of the rules for the 2000AD artists was that you very rarely saw Judge Dredd with his helmet off.
But of course if you sign Sylvester Stallone as your leading man there’s no way the audience are going to be deprived of seeing those Italian Stallion features.
The 2012 version is reported to be a much grittier and darker version more closely resembling the comics. Aussie actor Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings / Star Trek) plays the police officer of the future who is judge, jury and executioner and it sounds as though this film will be more violent than the previous incarnation.
And finally...


WHO YOU GONNA CALL?
Dan Aykroyd has been trying to put together ‘Ghostbusters 3’ for a long long time now. Unfortunately nobody could agree on the script and Bill Murray insisted on a few re-writes. Aykroyd even employed the ‘Men in Black 3’ scriptwriters but by this time Murray decided that he was out. Dan Aykroyd now has the script that he wants but has confirmed that Bill Murray will not feature in GB3.
Surely Murray’s Dr. Peter Venkman has to be the backbone of the Ghostbusters franchise? Without him there is no ‘Ghostbusters 3’. Maybe it would be better to leave the fans with their memories of the good times back in 1984. Also 28 years on, do we really want to see some old and fat men running around in boiler suits getting slimmed?