Jennifer Lawrence is back in blue in new X-Men: Days of Future Past set photos... but who's standing next to her? Check out the latest set videos for Godzilla and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, plus new trailers for World War Z and Carrie. David S. Goyer explains why fatherhood is so crucial to Man of Steel. Spoilers ahoy!
Top image from Game of Thrones.
Man of Steel
Director Zack Snyder discusses the role of Michael Shannon's General Zod:
I think that the cool thing about Zod is that he offers a real physical and emotional threat to Superman that is much stronger than any earth-bound threat. He’s able to not only match him physically, but he also represents his people. He’s a hard opponent, that way.
Was it important for Zod to have a real reason for doing what he was doing?
Absolutely, yeah! Michael [Shannon] and I talked, right at the beginning, about how we wanted Zod’s point of view to be pretty clear. If this was happening to your planet and you were trying to save the people that you loved, what lengths would you go to?
Screenwriter David S. Goyer discusses the pressures of taking on Superman, as well as why the film is all about fathers:
It’s a huge challenge. I remember, five or six years ago, someone asked me at the Batman junket about whether or not I’d ever want to do Superman and, at the time, I said no. It’s an enormous responsibility. People have a very proprietary relationship with Superman. It’s important to respect the iconography and the canon, but at the same time, you have to tell a story. Once you land on who you think the character is and what his conflicts are, you have to let that lead you. You have to throw all that other stuff away and not be worried about this epic responsibility, or it will just crush and paralyze you.
What do you think Superman’s ultimate struggle is?
For me, it was very simple. It’s a story about two fathers. While I was writing the script, I became a stepdad and a dad, and my own dad died. I never thought that my own experiences would find a way into something like this. But, if you boil it down to that, it’s a man with two fathers and he has to decide which lineage he wants to choose – his Kryptonian father or his earth father. In the end, both make him the man that he becomes.
There's some more at the link. [Collider]
Henry Cavill explains how he approached the early part of Clark Kent's adulthood, in which he wanders the Earth trying to figure things out:
As far as the conflict that he went through or the journey, it wasn’t about classic Superman material. When you see Clark traveling through the world, trying to work out what and who and why he is, I didn’t go to source material for that. I applied my own life to it. As actors, it’s quite a lonely existence, unless you have someone traveling with you, the entire time. You spend a lot of time by yourself, and you meet new people. You make a temporary family. You love them, and then you never see them again, apart from the odd press conference. And you just apply that to the character. That’s exactly what he experiences – new groups of people constantly, and then disappearing and having to introduce himself to these other people, and prove to them that he’s a nice guy and that he tries to do all the right stuff. And then, all of a sudden, he disappears again. So, it was just that lonely aspect that I applied to it, as opposed to any classic Superman material.
And here are some thoughts from Michael Shannon about Zod:
The important thing to remember is that, on Krypton, Zod does not have any superpowers. He’s just a general. He’s been training for a long time, and whipping butt for a long time, there in Krypton. And then, he comes to Earth, and he goes through similar thing that Kal-El goes through, when he comes through, which is basically just the acclimatizing to the environment. But, Zod has probably been doing those moves since he was a little boy.
There are also some thoughts from costars Russell Crowe and Amy Adams at the link. [Collider]
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Here's a new video from the Cleveland set. This one features a bus crash, and you can check out more photos from this sequence at the link. [Comic Book Movie]
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Here's a set photo of Jennifer Lawrence in the full Mystique costume. She is standing next to an unidentified actress who appears to be dressed as Misty Knight. Check out more at the link. [Fan Girl]
The World's End
Here are character posters for Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost's followup to Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. [/Film]
Godzilla
Here's a trio of set videos, showcasing the intensity of the destruction in this film. You can also check out some photos at the link. [Comic Book Movie]
World War Z
Here's a pair of TV spots. [Coming Soon]
Carrie
Here's the latest trailer for Kimberly Peirce's new adaptation of the Stephen King story, starring Chloe Moretz and Julianne Moore. [Coming Soon]
Despicable Me 2
Here's a clip.
Game of Thrones
Co-showrunner David Benioff discusses in general terms how he and partner D.B. Weiss will approach the fourth book, A Feast of Crows, which features a largely new cast of characters and is generally considered the weakest entry:
"I don't think we want to answer specifically what we're keeping and dropping, but we do take your point. The series has already reached a point where there are so many characters, particularly in season three we're introducing so many new ones, we run the risk of bursting at the seams as we try to cram every single subplot and all the various characters and it becomes impossible on a budgetary level and it becomes impossible on an episode-basis to jump around every few minutes to 30 different characters and locations. We don't want to do that, and recognize that as a real risk and we will take steps not to fall into that trap."
And author George R.R. Martin says he's still optimistic the TV series won't reach the end of the story before he does:
"I think the odds against that happening are very long. I still have a lead of several gigantic books. If they include everything in the books, I don't think they're going to catch up with me. If they do, we'll have some interesting discussions."
[EW]
True Blood
Here's the latest trailer for the upcoming sixth season. [Shock Till You Drop]
Under the Dome
Executive producer Neal Baer reveals Justified and The Following actress Natalie Zea will show up later in the season:
"Once you're stuck under the dome, casting is fairly limited because people can't get in, but that doesn't mean there might not be somebody hiding out. We've cast the beautiful Natalie Zea as a woman who makes an alarming appearance in a few episodes beginning in Episode 9. She plays Maxine, and if you think [the show's big baddie] Jim Rennie (Dean Norris) is trouble, you haven't seen trouble yet. And she'll be connected to a number of our characters. She can play both tough and sexy, which are a unique set of requirements."
[TV Guide]
Falling Skies
Here's a promo for the next episode, "Badlands."
And here's an interview with the cast, conducted by Wil Wheaton. [EW]
Showrunner Remi Aubuchon discusses what's ahead in season three, starting with the new cast members:
It’s an amazing experience to work with Noah [Wyle], who’s amazing. He’s always up for a challenge, whether it’s physical or whether it’s emotional, and we put him through quite a journey this season. We certainly did that last season, too, but this season, it’s even more daunting, and he’s been really up to it. And bringing in some fresh faces, like Doug Jones who plays Cochise – and we actually don’t see his face, but we see him – and Robert Sean Leonard and Gloria Reuben, it’s really quite wonderful to see how they fit into the dynamics that we already established. And Stephen Collins, who I’ve known for awhile, is a terrific guy. He embodies the President, but he also brought something that, at the end of that encounter, makes you realize there’s this incredible mutual respect that both of those guys have for each other. Tom says, “I didn’t vote for you,” and yet they both realize the gravity of the situation, which is fun to play with. I thought Stephen did a wonderful job of finding his own character and who he was with that. Certainly, there’s the challenge for Tom to suddenly realize, “Oops, I’m not the President, am I?”
Were any of the storylines that you explore in Season 3, things that you had thought about early on, after you’d joined the show?
Well, we worked out the mythology and the basic general trajectory of the series, at the beginning of the second season, for sure. The challenge always is, “How much do you open up the world? How much do you expose of the mythology?” You don’t want to expose too little and have fans get nervous, and you don’t want to expose too much and have no story left. But, I will say that there are a couple big things in the third season that we actually even tried to have happen in the second season, but just couldn’t. One of them is the introduction of a new alien race, which almost didn’t even happen at the end of the second season. Now, we’ve got a chance to really explore that, which is fun.
There's more at the link. [Collider]
Continuum
Here's a promo for the next episode, "Second Listen."
Teen Wolf
Here's a promo for the next episode, "Shape Shifted."
Additional reporting by Amanda Yesilbas and Charlie Jane Anders.