Plus, crucial new details are revealed for the upcoming season finale. Two more stars for Guardians of the Galaxy are confirmed. Christopher Nolan chooses a Best Actress nominee to be the third star of Interstellar. Plus new videos for Star Trek Into Darkness and Man of Steel! Spoilers... right now!
Top image from Iron Man 3.
Star Trek Into Darkness
Here's a 3D trailer.
Man of Steel
Here's a TV spot. [IGN]
Iron Man 3
For a final thought on the film, let's go to composer Brian Tyler Ushers, who explains how the music for this film is a departure from previous Marvel movies:
This was the first Iron Man movie that comes in a post-Avengers world so the tone has changed in terms of the stakes are higher now and so they wanted a new voice for the series. And the thing that Marvel had talked about really wanting to go for was they wanted a very thematic, melodic score that was somewhat of a throwback to earlier scores. The vibe was to be more like Raiders of the Lost Ark and things like that where you have a really hum-able theme and there was a change in Tony Stark in the sense that now there's so much more at stake in this post-Avengers world. Like we're under threat from not only domestic terror and that kind of thing, but there's aliens involved because of the Avengers and we have other worldly threats. Everything has become kind of larger than life so when they were looking for someone they, Shane [Black] the director and Kevin [Feige] at Marvel and Stephen Broussard [Executive Producer] and many of the people that were really heavily involved, Dave Jordan [Music Supervisor], all these people are really heavily involved in the music for the film and the thing that they gravitated towards was how I write themes. So I was brought in under that understanding that we would try to really create the theme for Iron Man that now related to him and the Avengers – a theme that could kind of tie it all together.
Thor: The Dark World
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige discusses Thor's continuing journey and director Alan Taylor's approach to the material:
"Tony Stark wasn't perfect at the end of Iron Man 1, and I don't think Thor is perfect at the end of Thor 1 — particularly in his relationship with his brother, considering what he went through in Avengers... Alan [Taylor] is bringing a grittier, more visceral, more textured patina to the designs of the worlds, and to Asgard in particular. It's less to chase either Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings — because you're not going to catch up. But part of the fun of Thor over the other characters is he doesn't have to stay on Earth. We visit a few of the other realms in this new movie."
[EW]
Guardians of the Galaxy
Kevin Feige confirms two casting rumors — Star Trek's Zoe Saldana will indeed play Gamora and WWE wrestler-turned-actor Dave Bautista will play Drax the Destroyer. Here are Feige's general thoughts on the film:
"Guardians takes place within the continuity of the [other movies] but it's on the other side of the universe. We've always wanted to do a space movie. I'm obsessed with Star Wars, I'm obsessed with Star Trek. It's a huge story on a massive canvas. We can take it to all those crazy places as long as all the characters respond in an emotionally truthful way. That's why I believe people are going to respond to Chris Pratt and to an alien Zoë Saldana-because they did respond to that one time before [with Avatar]. And to a tree and a raccoon who, it is certainly our intention, will steal the whole movie."
He also explains why Parks and Recreation actor Chris Pratt was somewhat unexpectedly cast as Star Lord:
"He's a hilariously frumpy, doofy guy in Parks and Rec, and he's an incredibly kickass ripped guy in Zero Dark Thirty and that's pretty awesome. He's going to need that in Guardians. That's a big range right there. We did a lot of auditions, a lot of screen tests, just as we did for Thor, just as we did for Cap. [Pratt] was hilarious, he was moving, he was... you bought him in the early versions of the outfit. One of the reasons Bautista got the part was because his banter, and ad libs, and screen tests with Pratt were awesome."
[EW]
Meanwhile, Zoe Saldana discusses her casting as team member Gamora:
"I'm gonna be green! [Laughs] I'm really looking forward to it. I just met James Gunn in person this week and I think that he's the best director to be making this film. I wasn't [aware of the comic] either and my sister was the one who told me about it! I think it's always worked for me to learn as I go. The moment I get the job, that's when I start doing the research and I end up falling completely in love with the franchise. I do know that I loved the script. I got along with James Gunn from talking to him on the phone and I love the cast selection that they have. Chris Pratt is gonna be an amazing Star-Lord, I can feel it."
Ant-Man
Kevin Feige offers this update on where Edgar Wright's long-simmering Ant-Man movie currently stands:
"Frankly, now we have to re-write it to put it a little bit more into the [Marvel Cinematic Universe] because it was written before it existed. We've talked about various names [to play the lead] over the past eight years but as you can imagine they keep changing as time goes by. But towards the end of this year, we'll buckle down and start casting and start refining the script, which is great and which is very Edgar. He has done a great job being incredibly true to the comics but is putting his own spin on it, so we'll be drawing on multiple mythologies for this one."
[EW]
Interstellar
Christopher Nolan has reportedly found the third lead for his space and maybe time travel adventure, which already stars Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway. Joining that cast is reportedly Zero Dark Thirty star Jessica Chastain, although there's no additional information about the nature of her role or even really what the film's about. [Deadline]
Doctor Who
Here's a sneak peek clip for tomorrow's episode, "The Crimson Horror."
The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine reveals the returning guest stars for the season finale, "The Name of the Doctor," will include Madame Vastra, Strax, Jenny, Richard E. Grant's Dr. Simeon in a "posthumous" capacity, and River Song, who will apparently come from a time after the Library in her timeline, so all bets are off. Here's the magazine's description of the episode:
"Every journey taken by a time-traveller tears a wound in the fabric of reality, and the Doctor has time-travelled more than anyone. But the trail runs cold in Trenzalore, the one place in all of time and space that he should never go. The most dangerous place in the universe... Who is kidnapping the Doctor's friends, leading him to Trenzalore? Could the Fall of the Eleventh be nigh? Or does an impossible girl hold the key? The Doctor's past, present, and future lives are in grave danger... and his greatest secret is about to be revealed."
And here's a quote from the episode that you really have to assume comes from the Doctor:
"The path I carved through time and space, from Gallifrey to Trenzalore. My own personal time tunnel, leading back to every moment I ever lived. Every step, every tear, every kiss. Even the days I haven't lived yet. Which is why I shouldn't be here. The paradoxes... very bad..."
Moving onto the currently filming 50th Anniversary special, here's a set video that reveals a very familiar, very awesome sign: 76 Totter's Lane, the home of I.M. Foreman, Scrap Merchant, which is where the series began way back in 1963. Indeed, the police officer walking past the sign appears to be a visual shout-out to the constable who appeared in the very first shot of "An Unearthly Child." So, for those worried about the lack of past Doctors — and yeah, it's pretty much confirmed now that only Matt Smith and David Tennant will appear — this is still one hell of a beautiful nod to the show's past.
Supernatural
Here's a promo and a sneak peek for the next episode, "Clip Show."
Arrow
Here's a promo for next week's penultimate episode of the season, "Darkness on the Edge of Town."
The Vampire Diaries
Showrunner Julie Plec discusses what to expect from the fourth season finale:
"It's difficult to throw an event in Mystic Falls without it going catastrophically awry, but one of the things that was really important to us is that we do give this event itself its due," says executive producer Julie Plec, who cowrote the episode with Caroline Dries. "We approached this episode, in its own way, like a series finale because our character's graduating from high school is a shift in the show to open up a lot of new storytelling opportunities and new environments. So we really wanted to be able to get all the emotion out of this episode that we could before we move on to a different life. We made sure that in spite of everything that's going on in the midst of it, we still get those great friendship moments and nostalgia moments that I, as a fan of TV over the decades, loved so much on high school shows as you reached that milestone. There will definitely be an altercation resulting in some blood loss, but that's about all I can say."
[EW]
Defiance
Here's a sneak peek at the next episode, "A Well-Respected Man."
Futurama
Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke will appear in the second-to-last episode as a flower stand owner who falls in love with Dr. Zoidberg in part because she has no sense of smell. Here's co-creator David X. Cohen's breakdown of the character:
"She falls in love with Dr. Zoidberg - the smelliest character on Earth in the future - but she can't smell him, so it's a match made in heaven. However, being a doctor, he has the opportunity to perform a nose transplant and give her a sense of smell, which would destroy their romance, so it's a big dilemma."
[EW]
Additional reporting by Amanda Yesilbas and Charlie Jane Anders.