Avengers Premiere In India Gets Bollywood Treatment

When The Avengers opens in the United States, as well as most other countries, the movie’s main end credit song will be Live To Rise by Soundgarden who reunited for the first time in fifteen years in collaboration for this song. Soundgarden also has plans to release an album, their first in almost twenty years, later this year. See, comics fans? The 90s is back and as inescapable as Rob Liefeld’s short long term plans for Deathstroke.

However, if you happen to be in Mumbai on April 26, you can attend an early screening of The Avengers, complete with a live performance of the song that will play over the Indian movie version’s credits, Hello Andheron (Hello Darkness), performed by the band Agnee.

Wonder what The Avengers would be like through the lens of a Hindi music video? Check out Agnee and Hello Andheron, after the jump!

Save The Date: Morgan Spurlock’s Comic-Con Documentary Featurette

Some days move faster than others, and it has been a speedy one here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office… and not necessarily in a good way. Any day that starts with waking up upright on the couch stinking of IPA with a copy of Wolverine spot-pasted to your forehead and ends with an emergency call to the dentist for a busted tooth is one best put to your back as quickly and quietly as humanly possible.

So let us move past today and look forward to better days… namely, San Diego Comic-Con. Which is still 107 days away (108 for you poor rubes without Preview Night passes, but either way: who’s counting, right?), but you can get an early taste from Morgan Spurlock’s upcoming documentary Comic-Con Episode 4: A Fan’s Hope. Which will be available in a limited theater release and via video on demand on April 6th. Which, given the day we’ve had, still seems too Goddamned far away, so to whet your (and our) appetite, here’s a short behind-the-scenes featurette on the flick, right after the jump.

First Look At “The Wolverine” Teaser Poster?

A. J. Mester has tweeted this image of a theoretical poster from the next installment in the Wolverine franchise of X-Movies. According to Screen Rant, who write,

The Wolverine has had a bit of a bumpy development road with some slight delays due to the weather situation in Japan, compounded by director Darren Aronofsky dropping out of the project for personal reasons.

With James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma) now set to helm the feature based on Christopher McQuarrie and Mark Bomback’s adaptation of the classic Chris Claremont and Frank Miller’s 1982 story arc in the Wolverine comics, production is on the right track with a solid release date locked down for next summer.

It is from Mangold’s offices where our first look at The Wolverine may have leaked through an Instagram photo which we’ve straightened out for a clearer image. Check out what may be the first teaser poster for The Wolverine, featuring the Japan flag in the background being sliced by Wolverine’s claws.

Is it for real? Who knows. Does it get you excited for the next movie? Maybe. If you’re me, you really like the Claremont/Miller trade and hate the way they fucked up Deadpool in the last movie, so, you’re proceeding with caution.

And, if you’re me, you’re hung over and have to go to that filthy day job that pays the bills. So, that’s enough of that.

The Wolverine drops in US theaters on July 26, 2013.

We Can Leak That For You, Wholesale – Total Recall 2012 Teaser

Bleeding Cool reports that footage from the Total Recall remake, probably intended to be shown at Wondercon sometime this weekend, has found its way into the wilds of the internet. The remake will star Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Bryan Cranston, Jessica Biel, Bill Nighy, Ethan Hawke and John Cho.

I have no grand illusion that the original film from 1990, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone, was high art, but it does hold a sentimental place in my heart as “that movie we snuck into that one time because we were drunk and in college and in Maine”. I was even less interested when interviews with Colin Farrell surfaced in which he said that the new movie wasn’t going to be “as dark as the original.” Movie? Short story? Use your words, Colin! However, watching Farrell in this teaser does get me the teensiest bit more interested than I was before I found the clip. So, marketing people involved with “leaking” this teaser: Bravo! I might not just wait for it to go to cable now.

Watch the teaser after the jump. Unless it gets yanked by the marketing suits. Again.

Iron Man 3 Speculation – Extremis?

The Avengers movie hasn’t even hit theaters yet and, already, speculation has become rampant as to the plot of Iron Man 3 – which is still in pre-production. Over at Latino Review, columnist Da7e, has posted a video in which he claims that “an anonymous source from the New York test screening of The Avengers” told him that the villains in Iron Man 3 would be “extremely dangerous” – Da7e’s emphasis, not mine. There were air bunny quote gestures and everything. From there, Da7e postulates that Tony Stark’s next story line would be taken from Warren Ellis’s Invincible Iron Man: Extremis story run, in which Stark injects himself with experimental nanotechnology to fight a similarly powered bad guy. A motion comic version of Extremis can be found at Hulu.

Beyond the anonymous source, Da7e himself points out that part of his post comes from his own “geeky fanboy conjecture” – Stark may demonstrate a willingness to create what The Film Stage refers to as a “‘technology-based solution to replicating the super solider serum that turns Steve Rogers into Captain America,’ known in layman’s terms as nanobots.” The good Captain knew Stark’s dad from back in World War II and has been dismissive of little Tony as merely being a guy in a super powered suit in the trailer. Does Tony Stark have unrequited daddy issues? Why not just ask me if Tony has a Jackson Pollock and impending cirrhosis of the liver?

Are there other hidden clues that point to an Extremely Extremis threequel? Maybe! After the jump.

Avengers Apparently Assemble Earlier In UK Than US

The most recent trailer for The Avengers is out of the United Kingdom, where the movie will be opening on April 26, 2012. Check it out:

I don’t know about you, but I’ve learned that, other than the drinking, I share a lot of other traits in common with Tony Stark. For example, I’m a multi-billionaire that can shoot repulsor blasts from my palms. As far as you know.

The Avengers hits theaters in the US on May 4, 2012. Meanwhile, according to IMDB most of the rest of the developed world will get to see it sometime between April 25-27, 2012.

It’s official, the United States is no longer number one.

Rebellion Bias: Spurlock’s Comic-Con Documentary Trailer

Morgan Spurlock is one of those documentary directors that, like Michael Moore, makes my dad act like the sharp edge of his jock just poked through his jockeys and mutter about “liberal bias,” and “stilted opinions,” and “I like supersized fries, Goddammit.” My dad prefers the editorial vision of, say, a Sean Hannity… the difference between Spurlock and Hannity being that if Hannity showed up at SDCC he’d be roofied for spite, with videos of a line of furries angrily yiffing his leg soon to follow on YouTube. When Spurlock goes, he gets a documentary about it.

The flick is called Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope, and it follows a few attendees around the con (if memory serves, based on the Alien facehugger freebie masks that people are waving around, it looks like at least some of it was filmed at the 2010 convention), and provides a general sense of what it’s like to be there… minus the terminal exhaustion, unexplained physical breakdowns, and unless the film costs $1,500 to attend with another $1,200 for snacks, the cost.

Regardless, you can get a taste by checking out the movie’s trailer after the jump.

The Punishment For Graffiti: New Clip of The Amazing Spider Man Released

The first complete, non-trailer scene clip of The Amazing Spider-Man flick has been released to the Internet on a viral site called Mark of The Spider-Man, a site which shows pictures of a bunch of people doing Spider-Man graffiti in cities around America, and then shows a disclaimer saying that each tagging was done with permission and that they don’t “condone or support the propagation of unauthorized graffiti.” In really small letters. Way at the bottom of the page. All the while, I’m sure, praying fervently that teenaged punks actually do start throwing Spider-Man symbols on brick walls around America. Which they will never do. Because all evidence to the contrary, teenagers are not morons. If Columbia Pictures really wants to reach the young, dumb and full of come “XXX-treme” demographic, they should put the Spider-Man symbol on bags of meth. Perhaps with a disclaimer stating that Columbia Pictures doesn’t condone or support the use of methamphetamines. And yes, I am currently whacked on a double dose of Sudafed; what’s your point?

Anyhoo, if the marketing swine at Columbia are hoping that releasing a clip of Spider-Man will lead to some kind of viral campaign of petty vandalism, they might be right… if perhaps they had released a clip including, you know, Spider-Man. Or The Lizard. Or any action whatsoever. However, they did not, so stow your spray cans, settle in, and enjoy approximately 45 seconds of the epic battle of: Peter Parker vs. The Dick Doorman!

A Rose By Any Other Name

Trebuchet here with some Avengers movie speculation.

There hasn’t been this much buzz over something so small and pink since the Clinton Administration. I speak of course of what appears to be a Skrull board game piece that MTV (they’re still around?), discovered at a toy fair.

The board game in question is The Avengers: Mighty Battle and it’s hard to argue that the piece in questions isn’t a Skrull.  This could mean that Joss Whedon’s adamant proclamation that there aren’t any Skrulls in the upcoming Avengers movie is just a diversion… but…

Apparently, Fox may own the rights to “Skrulls” through its Fantastic Four License. So what gives? The way I see it, one of two things is happening.  Either Joss managed to get the rights to the name from his dear, dear friends at Fox, or more likely, they aren’t Skrulls.  We’re probably looking at “Chitauri”, which are basically Skrulls of another flavor.  It’s kinda like saying, that’s not a “Grizzly” bear, it’s a “Kodiak”!  The Chitauri showed up as the big bad in the 2006 animated movie Ultimate Avengers: The Movie, so they have that going for them. Either way, I can’t wait until May!

The Avengers drops into theatres on May 4^th.

(via MTV Geek)

Vindication, or: Freezing Out Jar Jar

Back in 1999, a high school buddy of mine and I caught that case of Skywalking Pneumonia that seemed to be going around that May, and we went to see Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace for an opening matinee. A couple of hours later, we walked out and said, “Um… it had lightsabers. Lightsabers are cool. Right? I mean, I thought they were… cool… and there were – Exactly what the fuck just happened to us? Why do we suddenly miss Ewoks? And if I hear the word ‘Meesa,’ I swear before God I will plow this car into a fucking abutment!”

Since then, there’s been a lot of hyperbolic talk about George Lucas raping childhoods, while Lucas defended himself by saying The Phantom Menace was meant to be a kids’ movie, but the bottom line is that a lot of people see the movie as a filthy aberration. And I am one of them… to the point that I never paid to see another Star Wars movie in the theater again (I was, um, provided a copy of the 2002 leak of Attack of The Clones, and I saw Revenge of the Sith at a free advance screening sponsored by the radio station I worked for).

Well, it is now thirteen years later. And despite Lucas’s tone-deaf verbal defenses of the movie in the face of fan revolt, there is finally, all in one day, two pieces of concrete evidence that we fans were right.