The Restored "the Wolverine" movie mate speculation thread. Now w/ added "Days of Future Present"

[TM2 Dinobot]

TTF, I did enjoy DareDevil. I loved the soundtrack.

Which, interestingly enough, if my biggest complaint about it. It runs the gauntlet of everything from rap to pop to classical to a punk jive grunge beat. It was all over the place. Was the movie terrible? Eh. It wasn't great, and they could have done with more of a feeling of a cohesive universe. It could have used a Danny Elfman character at the sound board though. Would have easily made that movie 20% cooler. Might not have saved it, but it would have gone a long ways to helping.

[TM2 Dinobot]

X-2 was, until Avengers, the pinicle of super hero team movies. It's still ranks in the top five Marvel films ever.

Also, sorry, but no. It goes Avengers, Spiderman 2, Ironman 1, Thor, Punisher, Fantastic Four, and then X2. So even discounting Avengers it doesn't make it in. :/

[monkeycrumb]

X-2 was, until Avengers, the pinicle of super hero team movies. It's still ranks in the top five Marvel films ever.

Also, sorry, but no. It goes Avengers, Spiderman 2, Ironman 1, Thor, Punisher, Fantastic Four, and then X2. So even discounting Avengers it doesn't make it in. :/

I think you missed the part where Miry stated super hero *team*. Spidey, Thor, IM, Punisher don't count as a "team" movie.

[DSTZach]

He actually did say "Top 5 Marvel films", and I tend to agree with him.

1. Avengers

2. Iron Man

3. X2

[Trekker 42]

1. Avengers

2. X-Men First Class

3. Thor

4. Iron Man

5. X-2

Just sayin. Yes I know Thor is an odd choice for number 3, but I feel it holds up better for multiple viewings than Iron Man.

I just don't understand how one can put Fantastic Four over X-2. Ioan Gruffard was not good, Jessica Alba was just okay, and no amount of awesome from Evans and Michael C. could EVER EVER make up for the ass raping of Dr. Doom's character. Sorry, but if there was even anything in X-2 that made me mad, and I can't say there was, none of it reached the lowest point of the seething rage I had over Doctor Doom.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Trekker 42

[Freaqualizer]

I am sad that NO ONE has mentioned David Hasselhoff: Agent of SHIELD. Dolph Lundgren as the Punisher or Blade.

But seriously did no one enjoy the Punisher with Thomas Jane or The Punisher: War Zone?

And, no one said anything good about Howard the Duck. He's Marvel, too!

My top 5 Marvel movies:

1. The Avengers

2. Thor

3. The Hulk (Ed Norton)

4. Iron Man

5. The Punisher: War Zone

Edited February 22, 2013 by Freaqualizer

[MisterPL]

I'm starting to think i'm the one person alive who still loves Daredevil.

I thought the theatrical release was okay but the director's cut is largely considered to be superior. Can't help wondering if the film would have done better had it not been released on Valentine's Day. (Same with Wolfman. What was marketing thinking? These are romantic date movies?)

I'm just glad that Marvel Studios has the property back and am eager to see what they do with it. I'd love to see a live-action TV series, especially one that occasionally crosses paths with Joss Whedon's SHIELD.

[Valo487]

I'd like to see a Daredevil film where The Punisher is part of the supporting cast, I think those two compliment each other well.

[MisterPL]

I think it's funny that Raimi was so opposed to Venom, as I felt like he was one of the only characters in Spider-Man 3 whose motives were clear and made sense. Sandman had his backstory enhanced to make him more interesting and it failed miserably. And I still cry Epic BS that Spider-Man lets him go at the end. After that nonsense I was glad to see the end of Raimi.

Raimi's more comfortable with old-school characters. I'm not a fan of Venom either but I think he deserved to be the only villain as well as have a director who actually wanted him in the flick.

Sandman is one of those characters that can't really hold his own as a main antagonist. While he was easily my favorite part of the film, I'd sooner see villains like him featured in a pre-credits tussle that opens the film with a bang, much like Bond films.

[TM2 Dinobot]

Oh shoot, forgot First lass. Let me rework this

1. Avengers

2. Spiderman 2

3. Ironman

4. First Class

5. Thor

6. Punisher

2-3 are tied and 4-5 are tied. The choice between Spidey 2 and Ironman is a tough one. That's why I threw Punisher in there for good measure.

Because, you know, Thomas Jane.

[monkeycrumb]

Dino, that Dirty Laundry short is cool and all, but I really dislike the way they attempt to make you think it's the Punisher, when he behaves SO unlike the Punisher. When does the Punisher take so long to agonize over the decision to intervene and actually punish?

It would be like the Avengers eating Schwarma *during* the alien invasion instead of after it's over

After seeing Dredd, I want to nominate Karl Urban to be the next movie Punisher!

[Gillbob316]

I feel like there's a certain vibe with comic book movies where... I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, but people say, "These are the ones people call bad, so I say they are bad." and "These are the ones people call good, so I say they are good." is the general... vibe.

Indeed I enjoy some of the "Bad" Marvel Movies... and I dislike some of the "Good" Marvel Movies. But now, as an X-Men fan, I'm going to go on an X-Men rant... because its where most of my passion lies...

My major problem with X2, and indeed all 5 X-Men movies... is they're too far removed from the source material for my liking. They're not adapting the X-Men, so much as re-making the X-Men. Some of them are decent films... but as a gigantic X-Men fan they fall flat for me, as barely recognizable as X-Men in name and basic premise only.

I am NOT a huge Iron Man fan, but I LOVE the Iron Man movies (1 AND 2) because they feel, to me, like the Iron Man on the cover of my comic book is jumping off the page and onto the screen. And indeed the whole Avengers franchise feels enjoyable in that same fashion.

With X-Men, the characters and basic powers are maintained. The basic message of "mutants we hate and fear fighting to protect us" is maintained. Their looks, origins and individual character motivations/backstories, for the most part, are not, especially as the sequals roll onward. None of the five X-Men movies are really faithful re-tellings of any classic X-Men stories... so much as they are a hodgepodge grab-bag of X-Men characters, thrown into a sack, shaken up and displaced in new original stories, which borrow thematic elements from the comic, but tell their own tale.

I mean sure, X2 borrowed from an old new mutants story, very loosely, and X3 borrowed from the Cure/Dark Phoenix stories, very loosely, and Origins Weapon X, and reportedly the new film Days of Future Past. But the collective universe these movies have made is so chopped up beyond recognition at this point that while elements were BORROWED from classic stories... none of those stories were actually re-told faithfully or adapted well, imo.

And I feel like it only gets worse with every movie. As their supply of unused mutants dwindles, they transplant X-Men characters into the newer films that have less and less business being there, and are less and less recognizable as an adaptation of their comic book counterparts.

Wolverine, Cyclops and Xavier, for instance, in the first two films at least... are fairly faithful to their characters. (If clad in black leather).
Deadpool, Gambit, Havok, Psylocke and dozens of other secondary mutants I could use as examples in the latter three films... are way way way further off. Hell take 1 of Emma Frost was so off that they retconned her within the franchise, and we're just supposed to now ignore that fact that two of her exist in this series of films. Not to mention three versions of Beast, none of which quite 100% jive with the other two, two of which were introduced in the X-Men movies people call "The good ones"

Instead of giving us outlandish villains we clamor for like Apocalypse or Sinister or Sentinels, they give us ho-hum characters rooted in reality like William Striker in TWO movies no less, or evil Kevin Bacon (not Sebastian Shaw, because returning to the topic of unrecognizable characters, that wasn't Shaw, that was evil Kevin Bacon. And that wasn't the Hellfire Club, it was Kevin Bacon, Emma Frost, and two or three "Who the hell is that?" mutants that had no business being there. ) Or when they do give us a more outlandish villain we clamor for, like say Juggernaut, he's (as per earlier complaint) a poor representation of the character.

Now I KNOW X1, X2 and First Class were better films than X3 and XO:W... and I wouldn't deny that... but frankly they're presented as a collective universe, and as a franchise... to my eye, they fail. Full of plot holes, contradictions, and dozens upon dozens of characters thrown in just for the sake of being there. And while First Class may have been a better film than its two predecessors... it was just as messy as they were in those regards, and wasn't good at all as an adaptation. What I always say to my friends of First Class is, "It's a good movie. It is NOT a good X-MEN movie." Hell, the three most important "X-Men" characters of that film are Xavier, Magneto and Mystique, and while all three have technically BEEN X-Men... two of them are far, far, FAR and away not KNOWN for being X-Men so much as X-Men villains, and they damn sure are not the characters which founded the team. Indeed an entire history of backstory between Xavier and Mystique is invented in this film that's completely non-existent in the comic books... and it really burns my ass as an X-Men fan, and I'm amazed that more people aren't upset about it.

And of course if one tries to say this on the internet, especially in NON-Comic Book circles (IMDB for instance) one often gets the old, "Oh stupid fanboys complain that it's not like the comic books" excuse tossed in their face, and disregarded, but I very much hate that attitude, and very much disagree with their next counterpoint, "If the story were exactly the same, who would care? Why do we want to see a story we already know frontwards and back? Movies need to change things to work!"

That... imo... is complete and utter bullcrap.

"Really?" is my response... "so faithful adaptations like the three Lord of the Rings movies, or Harry Potter and its EIGHT films based on SEVEN books... and all the praise and high regard those franchises raked in, not to mention mountains of cash... certainly those mean nothing!? 11 of the highest grossing and most popular films of recent decades, all of which were mostly faithful adaptations of literature, which did NOT in fact, butcher their source material... and found HUGE success... those PROVE that adaptations NEED to change the story to WORK!? RIGHT!?" I say with heavy sarcasm...

And make no mistake, had those movies strayed too far from their source material, or butchered it beyond recognition, their fans WOULD be up in arms and WOULD complain just as much as any comic book fan. But the complaints of comic book fans fall on deaf ears as "Oh just whiny geek fanboys being whiny geek fanboys."

Indeed, adaptations like Iron Man, Spider-Man, Thor and Avengers, show us that you don't HAVE to stray too far from the source material, or ground your characters too deeply in reality, to turn a comic book into an enjoyable movie. The heroes don't need to be re-invented as a barely recognizable hollywood version of themselves. Your hero can wear bright gold and red armor, yellow spandex, a big red cape... fight magic gods on a rainbow bridge or aliens from outer-space... and you can still make a perfectly fine picture that people can RECOGNIZE as the source material.

I would... LOVE... for the rights to X-Men to revert to Marvel, and for this franchise of films to die off and start over. Frankly (like many) Jackman's Wolverine has endeared himself to me, so if they carried him over to the Marvel Movieverse... I wouldn't mind. But just him.

The franchise has made a few watchable, and indeed good films. But I could still totally drop it like a bad habit.

The best of the X-Men movies is still just the best of a bad situation. IMO.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Gillbob316

[TENIME_art]

I feel like there's a certain vibe with comic book movies where... I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, but people say, "These are the ones people call bad, so I say they are bad." and "These are the ones people call good, so I say they are good." is the general... vibe.

Indeed I enjoy some of the "Bad" Marvel Movies... and I dislike some of the "Good" Marvel Movies. But now, as an X-Men fan, I'm going to go on an X-Men rant... because its where most of my passion lies...

My major problem with X2, and indeed all 5 X-Men movies... is they're too far removed from the source material for my liking. They're not adapting the X-Men, so much as re-making the X-Men. Some of them are decent films... but as a gigantic X-Men fan they fall flat for me, as barely recognizable as X-Men in name and basic premise only.

I am NOT a huge Iron Man fan, but I LOVE the Iron Man movies (1 AND 2) because they feel, to me, like the Iron Man on the cover of my comic book is jumping off the page and onto the screen. And indeed the whole Avengers franchise feels enjoyable in that same fashion.

With X-Men, the characters and basic powers are maintained. The basic message of "mutants we hate and fear fighting to protect us" is maintained. Their looks, origins and individual character motivations/backstories, for the most part, are not, especially as the sequals roll onward. None of the five X-Men movies are really faithful re-tellings of any classic X-Men stories... so much as they are a hodgepodge grab-bag of X-Men characters, thrown into a sack, shaken up and displaced in new original stories, which borrow thematic elements from the comic, but tell their own tale.

I mean sure, X2 borrowed from an old new mutants story, very loosely, and X3 borrowed from the Cure/Dark Phoenix stories, very loosely, and Origins Weapon X, and reportedly the new film Days of Future Past. But the collective universe these movies have made is so chopped up beyond recognition at this point that while elements were BORROWED from classic stories... none of those stories were actually re-told faithfully or adapted well, imo.

And I feel like it only gets worse with every movie. As their supply of unused mutants dwindles, they transplant X-Men characters into the newer films that have less and less business being there, and are less and less recognizable as an adaptation of their comic book counterparts.

Wolverine, Cyclops and Xavier, for instance, in the first two films at least... are fairly faithful to their characters. (If clad in black leather).

Deadpool, Gambit, Havok, Psylocke and dozens of other secondary mutants I could use as examples in the latter three films... are way way way further off. Hell take 1 of Emma Frost was so off that they retconned her within the franchise, and we're just supposed to now ignore that fact that two of her exist in this series of films. Not to mention three versions of Beast, none of which quite 100% jive with the other two, two of which were introduced in the X-Men movies people call "The good ones"

Instead of giving us outlandish villains we clamor for like Apocalypse or Sinister or Sentinels, they give us ho-hum characters rooted in reality like William Striker in TWO movies no less, or evil Kevin Bacon (not Sebastian Shaw, because returning to the topic of unrecognizable characters, that wasn't Shaw, that was evil Kevin Bacon. And that wasn't the Hellfire Club, it was Kevin Bacon, Emma Frost, and two or three "Who the hell is that?" mutants that had no business being there. ) Or when they do give us a more outlandish villain we clamor for, like say Juggernaut, he's (as per earlier complaint) a poor representation of the character.

Now I KNOW X1, X2 and First Class were better films than X3 and XO:W... and I wouldn't deny that... but frankly they're presented as a collective universe, and as a franchise... to my eye, they fail. Full of plot holes, contradictions, and dozens upon dozens of characters thrown in just for the sake of being there. And while First Class may have been a better film than its two predecessors... it was just as messy as they were in those regards, and wasn't good at all as an adaptation. What I always say to my friends of First Class is, "It's a good movie. It is NOT a good X-MEN movie." Hell, the three most important "X-Men" characters of that film are Xavier, Magneto and Mystique, and while all three have technically BEEN X-Men... two of them are far, far, FAR and away not KNOWN for being X-Men so much as X-Men villains, and they damn sure are not the characters which founded the team. Indeed an entire history of backstory between Xavier and Mystique is invented in this film that's completely non-existent in the comic books... and it really burns my ass as an X-Men fan, and I'm amazed that more people aren't upset about it.

And of course if one tries to say this on the internet, especially in NON-Comic Book circles (IMDB for instance) one often gets the old, "Oh stupid fanboys complain that it's not like the comic books" excuse tossed in their face, and disregarded, but I very much hate that attitude, and very much disagree with their next counterpoint, "If the story were exactly the same, who would care? Why do we want to see a story we already know frontwards and back? Movies need to change things to work!"

That... imo... is complete and utter bullcrap.

"Really?" is my response... "so faithful adaptations like the three Lord of the Rings movies, or Harry Potter and its EIGHT films based on SEVEN books... and all the praise and high regard those franchises raked in, not to mention mountains of cash... certainly those mean nothing!? 11 of the highest grossing and most popular films of recent decades, all of which were mostly faithful adaptations of literature, which did NOT in fact, butcher their source material... and found HUGE success... those PROVE that adaptations NEED to change the story to WORK!? RIGHT!?" I say with heavy sarcasm...

And make no mistake, had those movies strayed too far from their source material, or butchered it beyond recognition, their fans WOULD be up in arms and WOULD complain just as much as any comic book fan. But the complaints of comic book fans fall on deaf ears as "Oh just whiny geek fanboys being whiny geek fanboys."

Indeed, adaptations like Iron Man, Spider-Man, Thor and Avengers, show us that you don't HAVE to stray too far from the source material, or ground your characters too deeply in reality, to turn a comic book into an enjoyable movie. The heroes don't need to be re-invented as a barely recognizable hollywood version of themselves. Your hero can wear bright gold and red armor, yellow spandex, a big red cape... fight magic gods on a rainbow bridge or aliens from outer-space... and you can still make a perfectly fine picture that people can RECOGNIZE as the source material.

I would... LOVE... for the rights to X-Men to revert to Marvel, and for this franchise of films to die off and start over. Frankly (like many) Jackman's Wolverine has endeared himself to me, so if they carried him over to the Marvel Movieverse... I wouldn't mind. But just him.

The franchise has made a few watchable, and indeed good films. But I could still totally drop it like a bad habit.

The best of the X-Men movies is still just the best of a bad situation. IMO.

I......

THIS. THIS 10000000000%. YES.

Except I want a shorter, hairier, uglier (Logan's not supposed to be that pretty IMO - the perfect actor could still be handsome in a rugged sort of way since no one wants to watch ugly actors, but Jackman's a little too delicately attractive) Wolverine. I enjoy Jackman, but he's no Robert Downey Jr. or Chris Hemsworth or Tom Hiddleston or Jeremy Renner or Cobie Smulders or Patrick Stewart. They are PERFECT, IMO.

[CableNathan]

Gilbob and Tenime... I concur 10000% . First class was my favorite X movie followed by X2. I probably liked first class a little more than others because my all time favorite stories in X-Men are the ones about the relationship between Charles and Erik. I'm especially fond of the backstories of them in Israel in the comics leading up to Age of Apocalypse. Fassbender's portrayal of Magneto is amazing as well as the chemistry he had with Mcavoy. I wish the movie had just focused on them more. So that being said, while I think they did a good job of getting a better feel for a X-men movie, it still falls short compared to other super-hero movies like Avengers, Iron Man, etc... The story lines, and timelines, and characters are so screwed up in the X movies! But the the part in X2 where they infiltrate the mansion and Wolverine FINALLY acts more like wolverine is just so cool.

[Lokash]

Wolverine Movie mates are being solicited in Aprils Previews. No pics yet but hopefully this means we will see them soon.

[Punisher]

I want to know why there still isn't a trailer for this movie. It's nearly a few months away.

[Valo487]

I want to know why there still isn't a trailer for this movie. It's nearly a few months away.

Good question. Kickass 2 comes out in August and we have a trailer for that. I have friends at work that are X-Men fans that had no idea there was going to be a Wolverine movie this year until I told them.

[MisterPL]

I want to know why there still isn't a trailer for this movie. It's nearly a few months away.

One is supposed to be attached to G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

Don't get too concerned. The first trailer for First Class didn't hit until four months before the film hit. It's not like Wolverine has a zero Q score. Jackman has plenty of marquee value and the studio doesn't really need to tease audiences so early. Sometimes trailers release far too soon and people forget.

Personally, I'm tired of knowing far too much about a movie a year or more in advance. It tends to drive fans nuts and not in a good way. (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans, I'm looking at you.)

[Nessex]

Wolverine Movie mates are being solicited in Aprils Previews. No pics yet but hopefully this means we will see them soon.

Wait - what?

I was pretty sure that someone at DST said that 'it wasn't looking good' for Wolverine movie 'mates & that we should just expect the Select figure....

I'll be happy to be proven wrong though.

[DSTZach]

Yup, it's official. We're doing them. Shared assortment between specialty and TRU.

Can't show you the final designs yet (a few are still in flux), but hopefully before the movie hits. No sure when they'll be in stores, possibly a little after.

[Valo487]

Zach, you spoil us. A shared assortment eh? I know have seen practically nothing about the movie yet, so it's highly possible we just aren't aware, but it doesn't seem like there's that many characters in the movie to fit into that many slots. I'm intrigued to see what we end up with.

[undeadpool]

I think shared assortment between speciality and TRU means that it is the same mates at both?

either way Im happy to be getting any (especially if it means a Silver Samuari )

[DSTZach]

By shared I mean two shared packs, four exclusive packs.

And there are a lot of characters in the film, but we're going to tackle a lot of Wolverine's different looks, as well.

[Turtle]

Wow. 11 to 12 slots to fill. Even if half are Wolverine, there is plenty of potential for some interesting characters. I haven't really been following the news for the movie... wondering if there will be an army builder. Other than Wolverine, that is. Thanks for posting the news/update.

[Nessex]

There's a few characters in here that we've never seen in 616 form yet.

Just looking at IMDB it looks like the cast includes:

Logan

Mariko

Lord Shingen

Silver Samurai

Viper

Yukio

Plus someone simply listed as 'Yashida' and a character named 'Noburo Mori' who i'm not familiar with. If all of them get made, plus a generic Ninja/Soldier army builder and a couple of variant looks for wolverine... it climbs up to 11 or 12 pretty quickly.

I wouldn't be surprised if we see a few variant looks for this film: Civilian Harada & Silver Amurai. Kimono Logan, Tank Top Logan, Topless Logan, On-his-knees-in-the-rain-screaming-'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!'-into-the-sky Logan.