April 10 Henry Cavill on the new Entertainment Weekly Cover

Henry Cavill is featured on the cover of the April 19/26th of Entertainment Weekly. (If anyone can scan and send it in, I’d love it. I don’t get international magazines here). Here’s also the article from EW.com:

The makers of Man of Steel had to start thinking like a cadre of supervillains: how do you get under Superman’s invincible skin and really make him hurt?
This week’s cover story reveals how the new film (out June 14) attempts to humanize the superhuman by finding new flaws and vulnerabilities. The most common one, however, was off the table: “I’ll be honest with you, there’s no Kryptonite in the movie,” says director Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) Those glowing green space rocks – Superman’s only crippling weakness – have turned up so often as a plot point in movies, the only fresh option was not to use it. Anyway, if you want to make an audience relate to a character, a galactic allergy isn’t the way to do it.

Henry Cavill (Immortals), the latest star to wear the red cape, instead plays a Superman who isn’t fully comfortable with that god-like title. This film reveals that even on Krypton, young Kal-El was a special child, whose birth was cause for alarm on his home planet. (More on that in the magazine) And once on Earth, his adoptive parents, Ma and Pa Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane), urge him not to use his immense strength – even in dire emergencies — warning that not every human would be as accepting of him as they are. So Clark Kent grows up feeling isolated, longing for a connection to others, and constantly hiding who he is. As a result, Man of Steel presents the frustrated Superman, the angry Superman, the lost Superman. “Although he is not susceptible to the frailties of mankind, he is definitely susceptible to the emotional frailties,” Cavill says.

That’s just the set-up. Once the Kryptonian villain General Zod (Boardwalk Empire’s Michael Shannon) arrives to threaten the Earth, eventually the passionate Superman steps forward, too. It helps that he has a reason to care about the home he’s defending, and we can all thank Amy Adams’ Lois Lane for that. “I think she’s very transient. She’s ready to pick up and go at a moment’s notice,” Adams says of the hard-bitten journalist. “I think that definitely could be part of what she sees in Superman — not really laying down roots, not developing trust.”

Based on footage EW has seen, the film (which was directed by Zack Snyder and shepherded by Christopher Nolan) has plenty of building-smashing, train-slinging, heat-vision-blasting battles to cut through the emotional heaviness. “You want to give the audience great spectacle. You want them to go to the movie, be eating their popcorn and be like, ‘Wow!’” says Man of Steel producer Charles Roven, who also worked on The Dark Knight trilogy. “But it’s just not good enough to give them the ‘Wow.’ You want them to be emotionally engaged. Because if you just have the ‘wow,’ ultimately you get bludgeoned by that and you stop caring.”

Those who’ve long felt the super-confident, super-controlled Superman has gotten super dull may be glad to see him finally challenged in ways that go beyond bullets bouncing off of his chest.

April 13 Man of Steel will open door for more DC Comics superhero movies

When Man of Steel hits theaters on June 14, it won’t just mark the arrival of a new Superman — it will also lay the groundwork for the future slate of films based on DC Comics.

Jeff Robinov, president of Warner Bros. Pictures Group, spoke to EW for this week’s cover story on the Zack Snyder-directed, Christopher Nolan-produced movie, and allowed a peek over the wall of secrecy surrounding their DC Comics plans: “It’s setting the tone for what the movies are going to be like going forward. In that, it’s definitely a first step.”
Will Man of Steel include references to other DC heroes headed to the big screen, as Marvel did with its pre-Avengers series of flicks?

“I think you’ll see that, going forward, anything can live in this world,” he said. “[Nolan’s] Batman was deliberately and smartly positioned as a stand-alone. The world they lived in was very isolated without any knowledge of any other superheroes. What Zack and Chris have done with this film is allow you to really introduce other characters into the same world.”

We may not have to wait very long for more news. “We’ll announce something in the next several weeks that will hopefully position the DC characters and the movies we’re going to be making,” Robinov said.

So count on Man of Steel to at least hint at other potential heroes. But it may not overtly introduce other characters. In Batman Begins, we didn’t see the Joker, but we saw one of his calling cards. Expect something like that in the Superman movie.
David S. Goyer, who co-wrote The Dark Knight films and the screenplay for Man of Steel says this crew doesn’t like “sequel bait.” “One of the things we dealt with on the Batman films is, Chris dislikes it when you plan something, when you say, ‘I’m going to follow this up in the next film,” Goyer tells EW. “He’s always said put everything you have into this film and then worry about the next film later. That gives the film its own integrity as opposed to being part of an overall plan. So of course the comic book fans, it’s hard not to think about [crossovers] but I, having done three Batman films and worked in that way, it’s definitely the approach we took with Man of Steel.”

When asked if The Dark Knight trilogy of films stands entirely alone, Robinov said: “They do. Or they did,” with a change of tense that should rouse the attention of fanboys everywhere. “Where we go in the future is a whole other conversation.”
However, Robinov was unequivocal when asked if the rumor is true that Nolan will produce a Justice League movie, and bring Christian Bale back with him: “No, no it’s not.” (Nolan’s reps, who have previously declined to comment on that rumor, also confirmed Robinov’s statement and told EW that he definitely wasn’t involved with Justice League. Nolan is currently busy prepping his sci-fi film Interstellar.)

Robinov’s remarks do give fans some compelling clues to parse. So here’s where we veer from facts into speculation:
When Robinov said “They do. Or they did,” I at first took that to mean he was leaving the possibility open to retroactively link-up those three most recent Batman films with upcoming DC-based films. But as I listen to the conversation again, I suspect what he actually meant was that upcoming Batman films wouldn’t necessarily exist in their own closed-off world the way the previous ones did.

But — again — that’s analysis and a little guesswork. Anything is possible. But some things are less likely.
I doubt Nolan’s Dark Knight series will be joined up with the new Superman or Justice League films because Nolan created a story that had a fully realized arc and a definite ending. Reintroducing Bale’s Bruce Wayne in a superhero team-up movie would necessitate answering questions the filmmaker deliberately left open-ended at the conclusion of The Dark Knight Rises.
Might we get, you know … another person in the bat suit? (Sorry to be vague, but we’re avoiding spoilers for the sake of ultra-latecomers). That’s certainly possible — and much more likely if the studio does decide to backtrack and create crossover between the films. But with the ill-conceived Superman Returns in 2006, the Warner Bros. got a taste of what happens when you try to continue the tone of an earlier, beloved series with a different star and filmmaker. Better just to start fresh.
My prediction is that the studio will simply reboot Batman, creating another lucrative series that happens to be connected to Man of Steel and the other movies, while The Dark Knight trilogy will continue to stand alone in its own self-contained universe, forever preserving Nolan’s interpretation while clearing the way for a new one to come along.
We’ll find out sooner or later, but the thing that seems definite is this: Man of Steel will kick down the door for other DC heroes.

So who would you like to see come through that door next?
Personally, I’d like to see them get Wonder Woman right. She’s long overdue.

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July 02 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice featured Entertainment Weekly Comic-Con Special

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is the featured of the Comic-Con issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine. They have new photos. Here is the cover and two photos, will add scans when I get them:



The article from EW.com:

If you thought Pacquiao/Mayweather was the most-hyped head-to-head you’ve ever seen, just wait until these two contenders step into the ring. Batman and Superman are arguably the two biggest names in comics, a pair of capes known the world over, and Warner Bros. has thrown the mega-stars of DC Comics into a production that’s one-half superhero movie and one-half Pay-Per-View event.

EW was lucky enough to be on the set of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and for this week’s special double-issue Comic Con Preview, we’re bringing you inside the production. The two heroes have crossed paths plenty of times in the Gordian tangle of comic-book canon, but never on-screen. But as Hollywood continues both its preoccupation with superheroes and universe-building—complete with more five-year plans than a Communist regime—it seemed inevitable that eventually these two brands would find their way into a single title.

Zack Snyder recalls the first time he pitched the idea, in a meeting with franchise co-captains Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, it was only meant as an Easter egg. “I said, ‘What about at the end of the movie we do a scene where there’s a crate full of kryptonite delivered to Wayne Manor,’” says Snyder. “Everyone was like…‘Okaay.’ Once you say it out loud it’s a problem because you can’t unsay it.”

Batman v Superman introduces a new Batman only four years after the release of the final film in Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. Ben Affleck plays an older, wearier Caped Crusader, one drawn at least in part from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. “He’s on the verge of being swallowed up by the anger and the rage that we see haunt this character in the other manifestations of it,” says Affleck. “But this guy is further down the line and has become more embittered and cynical.” Worried that Superman’s unequaled power makes him more of a potential fascistic overlord than the hero we need, he makes it his duty to take him out of the sky for good.

Not content to consolidate only two eggs in this basket, they’ve also thrown in appearances by Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) and Aquaman (Jason Momoa) for good measure. After all, this isn’t just a single movie, it’s a waystation to the upcoming Justice League double-fister, not to mention a whole slew of other attractions on the DC Extended Universe™ road map. And building a franchise into a potential behemoth is no easy work.“It’s a marathon. No, it’s a marathon within a marathon,” says Snyder. “Do you know that race from Death Valley to the top of Mount Whitney? It’s, like, 100 miles and it’s from the lowest point in the continental United States to the highest. It’s crazy. Anyway, it’s like that.”

Dive into this week’s issue for even more Comic-Con fare, including an in-the-flesh look at Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an oral history of M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable, a visit to the set of NBC’s upcoming Heroes: Reborn, and exclusive first-look images from anticipated movies and TV series including The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, Fantastic Four, Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, Fear the Walking Dead, Ash Vs. Evil Dead, and much, much more!