don't be dull, be fannish

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Wow! And James Spader as Ultron will be amazing. I need to see it un-dubbed! \o/

♦ Ben McKenzie was cast as Lt. Jim Gordon in the new Fox show Gotham: link. Good, I have liked him since The OC, he's a sweet guy and a great actor.

♦ Paul Bettany was cast as The Vision in The Avengers: Age of Ultron: link. Sweet.

♦ Lewis will have another season after all - thank you, denorios - six 60 min. episodes: link. Interesting! I thought the actors wanted to quit. I'm glad that it will be back. I like them a LOT!

♦ The sequel to Now You See Me will start filming this September: link. I hope Mark Ruffalo is back. I loved him in the first movie!!!

♦ Jesse Eisenberg was cast as Lex Luthor in the new Superman movie? Link. Well, that's... different. Old and creeky Batman and young and upstart Lex Luthor? I... am not so sure about it.

♠ The Glades was canceled after 4 seasons: link. I wasn't following it religiously anymore but I was set to get it on DVD once it was over. Not anymore. The season - now series - finale ends on such a terrible cliffhanger - ( spoilers! ) - that I just can't be bothered. And honestly, pardon my French, but FUCK YOU, A&E! Way to appreciate your viewers. One can say a lot about networks like the CW but they've never canned a long-running show without giving it the time to wrap things up.

♠ Kurt Russell was offered a role in Fast & Furious 7: link. Rumors have it that it's the same part that Denzel Washington turned down. Interesting!

♠ Bradley Cooper will be voicing Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy: link. Apparently, he was the director's, James Gun's, dream casting for the part. Nice!

♠ James Spader was cast as Ultron in The Avengers: Age of Ultron: link. Nice! I have no idea who or what Ultron is so I'm totally unbiased. And looking forward to it even more now!

♠ An interesting report from the Sherlock set, saying that they staged a few "false shots" to throw people off their scent: link. Interesting. But also sad that so called fans make it so hard for the makers of their beloved show to actually film it. Shame on you, gawkers :(

You know, directors and writers out there should realize that it's not just action and explosions that get people to love a movie enough to go and see it multiple times and/or buy it on DVD, it's the characters! Just like Fast&Furious is first and foremost about Dom and Brian or XMFC is about Charles and Erik, The Avengers are all about Tony and Pepper, Clint and Natasha, Thor and Loki, Bruce, Steve, Fury, Maria and Phil. It's these people who you want to learn more about and hang out with again and again. And I think that's why the movie was so successful.

I mean, don't get me wrong, the action was amazing. Thor's fight with Hulk on the helicarrier will never not be hilarious. Tony's idea of a "party" - leading the leviathan to the others. All of them standing together, side by side, for the first time, facing the Chitauri. Natasha and Clint's "You and I remember Budapest very differently." Hulk saving the Iron Man... All that stuff was amazing and the CGI was simply superb. I loved it!

And yet, what really made an impact on me? Steve's loneliness. Bruce's confession that he had tried to commit suicide once. Natasha's determination to save Clint. Thor's profound sadness after Loki stabbed him. The little bit of domesticity between Tony and Pepper... That's the stuff that comes to my mind first and foremost when I think of The Avengers. And I really want to know where Steve went after the movie ended. If Tony showed Bruce the labs in Stark Tower. How Thor and his family dealt with Loki's betrayal. If Loki ever turned a leaf and accepted the love Thor kept offering so freely. If Clint and Natasha ever went to Budapest again...

Lovely, lovely stuff. I really can't wait to see Phase 2 which promises to be super awesome. And seeing the trailer for Iron Man 3 made me even more excited. Marvel? You rock!

This weekend, The Avengers crossed the $1.5 billion threshold and The Dark Knight Rises reached $1 bil. and became the highest grossing Batman movie ever, surpassing TDK - both make me so happy, but especially TDKR's success because it's a kick in the kisser for every naysayer and hater out there who insisted that it would never reach $1 bil. just because Americans didn't like it as much as TDK - guess what, jerks? The US isn't the butt of the world, no matter what you think!

So yeah, happy about that! Still, I'll be here, in the corner, petting my poor Premium Rush that's getting flattened like a pancake at the box office right now. Poor thing :( And I won't get to see it till the end of October here. Pah!

Regarding Captain America: The Winter Soldier ScreenRant.com posted: link:

We heard from The Playlist before Comic-Con that both Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) would be a crucial part of Captain America 2, where more of their backstory and relationship would be explored.

*bounces* HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! I mean, I know that in the comic books, it's Tasha/Bucky but I would very much prefer if they didn't do that in the movies, if they gave Tasha a past ship with Winter Soldier but left it at that. It feels like movie!Tasha is very different from comic-book!Tasha anyway and she and Clint... *_* I'm not usually much of a het shipper but THESE TWO give me FEELINGS! And I want CA:TWS to be about Steve and Bucky's friendship, not about Bucky and Tasha's romance...

Tony & Bruce, The Avengers

One of the most interesting things that came out of The Avengers was the friendship between Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. Tony is a lovable yet self-centered jerk and Bruce is a bashful guy with major ISSUES but they clicked! Their connection was instantaneous. Finally, Tony found someone on his intellectual level with whom he could talk in really long and complicated words and who understood and added his own. And Bruce finally found someone who didn't tiptoe around "the other guy".

One of my favorite scenes was the one where Tony poked Bruce in the ribs to see if he would Hulk out - and Bruce LOL'd at him. That told us so much about them, about what their friendship was going to be like in the future. Actually, all the scenes in the helicarrier's labs were awesome! Because, yeah, Tony is Iron Man and Bruce is Hulk yet first and foremost, they are geniuses and those scenes underscored this part of their personalities, they showed that these two don't just kick asses, they have a BRAIN in their heads and that's so sexy! And then there was the scene where Hulk caught the falling Iron Man and slid down the building and that was... that was... \o/ Yeah, I might have squeed a little!

And then they actually left together at the end of the movie and it was wonderful and it gave me warm fuzzies because it didn't feel like they were all going their separate ways, some of them stayed together and one day soon they would all see each other again and fight side by side again and it would be like no time had passed and it would be glorious. Yes, the movie ended but it didn't mean their friendship ended and that was beautiful. Fabulous even.

And no, I'm not shipping these two. For that, Tony is way too much in love with Pepper, IMHO (which is why I really don't get the flood of Tony/Steve fics out there because Tony WORSHIPS Pepper *hands*) but I hope that Bruce makes a cameo in the next Iron Man movie and that we'll see more of their friendship in The Avengers 2 and I actually hope for a Hulk movie, as in FOR REAL, and I never even liked Hulk before but Mark Ruffalo is a God and he owned the part and... and... and... YEAH! \o/

So, I'm not sure if you noticed - or if you are even interested, that is - but WB/DC's now officially working on a Justice League movie. And, you know, it's totally not because Marvel reaped a huge amount of money with The Avengers, no, of course not - a complete BS, as this site notes: link. They had a JL movie planned for 2008 - starring Adrien Brody, among others - but they chickened out, they didn't have the balls to risk it. Marvel did and it paid off for them. And I'm really miffed that they now try to pretend that Marvel didn't smooth out the way for them, that Marvel didn't do the hard job, took risks, proved that it could actually work.

Though, seriously, I doubt that a JL movie without a proper prep work could work - Green Lantern flopped, Wonder Woman TV show flopped, Wonder Woman and Flash movies have been in development for years now and zilch - WB/DC has no legs to stand on and they plan to make an ensemble movie? All their movies are set in their own universes, they are not connected. So, they will finish Nolan's Batman trilogy and then use a different Batman in the JL movie? Won't that confuse people? Or will they use Christian Bale? But Bale's Batman is realistic, there are no super powers there. And they will suddenly drop someone like Green Lantern in his life?

The Avengers paid off because Marvel had a long-term plan, this is simply a knee-jerk reaction, WB/DC is afraid to be left in the dust by Marvel. As much as I would like to see a JL movie, this is definitely not the way to go, IMHO.

The Avengers hit $1 bil. worldwide this Sunday! And it broke another record in the US - it made another $100 mil. during its 2nd weekend, as the 1st movie ever! How awesome is that? \o/