This Month’s Comic Book Movie Casting News Round Up

This month has seen a number of casting announcements in the world of comic book movies. The reason I don’t specify Marvel or DC is because there has been casting news on both sides of the coin. The superhero genre is going through a renaissance of late. The genre has been bubbling under for some time, with some strong films released earlier in the noughties, the genre hitting its stride in recent years with some incredible shared universe movies from Marvel and the fantastic Christopher Nolan trilogy on the DC side of things.

With the genre ready to explode in the coming years, taking over the film industry with many ambitious and quality products featuring some incredible talent, both Warner Bros DC and Marvel Studios have revealed ambitious plans for their movie universes for years to come.

When this information came out it was, for the most part at least, very slim on details. All we learnt about some movies was their title and release date. However, as time goes on announcements are fleshing out the known information on the upcoming superhero movies of DC and Marvel. This month has been casting news galore. We have had casting announcements for the title role in Marvel’s Doctor Strange and the full cast of DC’s super villain team-up Suicide Squad. Some of the news was confirmation of rumours that had been floating around for some time.

Though it was only known that Benedict Cumberbatch was in talks to play Steven Strange, the sorcerer supreme, it was known to be incredibly likely that he would land the role and was close to closing the deal with Marvel Studios. We were simply awaiting confirmation that it was definitely happening. Marvel Studios made the deal official with an announcement last week that the actor would portray Doctor Strange in 2016.

It has been known for some time also that Scott Derrickson will be directing, if you aren’t aware of Derrickson’s work he was the director on such horror movies as Deliver Us From Evil and Sinister, writing and producing on even more. It is good that they are going with a director that is well versed in the horror genre, he will no doubt be able to capture the grotesqueness of the dark side of the Marvel Universe such as the deepest depths of Mephisto’s realm.

Cumberbatch is the correct choice for this role in my opinion, as he has the range for the role for sure and looks very similar to the character in the comics. Although I have never been someone to complain that an actor doesn’t look enough like the comic version, in this case it matters. For a character like Doctor Strange, you don’t want someone who looks like your stereotypical superhero, that isn’t the kind of hero Steven Strange is.

The Suicide Squad casting news is also confirmation of castings that were previously rumoured online. The Suicide Squad movie directed by David Ayer will feature Will Smith as Deadshot, Jared Leto as The Joker, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and Tom Hardy as Rick Flagg. To complete the ensemble are Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang and Cara Delevingne as Enchantress. As of yet the jury is out on who will play Amanda Waller but Oprah Winfrey is apparently who DC are trying to get for the role. This is a stellar line up for one comic book team, there are some really huge names in this cast that will obviously pop on-screen.

You may be thinking that the idea of Captain Boomerang as a villain in an otherwise incredibly serious film is pretty ridiculous. However, many times he has been done to good effect in the comics, in various different ways. More recently Captain Boomerang has been brought to life on the small screen in a really interesting way. This was of course in the second night of the two night Flash/Arrow crossover, you only need to watch that episode to know that Captain Boomerang can be really cool on-screen.

With the direction of David Ayer, the man who directed Fury, the first ever standalone Suicide Squad movie should be incredible.

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