We finally know the first of the Marvel films that Disney has been setting aside dates for: Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 will arrive July 28, 2017. That leaves five unidentified superhero flicks between November 2017 and May 2019. The announcement came during Marvel‘s Comic-Con panel tonight. Guardians star Chris Pratt and director James Gunn appeared via video from London, where they are promoting the first movie’s release overseas.
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The panel also included the Avengers cast, who were introduced one by one and asked what it’s like to be in the third-highest-grossing film of all time. Throwing roses out to the Hall H crowd, Robert Downey Jr introduced all those in Avengers: Age of Ultron sans Scarlett Johansson: Jeremy Renner, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Cobie Smulders, Samuel L. Jackson, Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Quicksilver), Paul Bettany (The Vision), James Spader (voice of Ultron) and Elizabeth Olsen (as Scarlet Witch).
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Whedon couldn’t be here because of an injury. Feige said, “Scarlett couldn’t be here because she’s pregnant.” Then she introduced a clip via video from Age of Ultron in which the team, in a penthouse, play a round of trying to pick up Thor’s hammer. Tony Stark puts his Iron Man hand on, Captain America makes a go. Then Ultron crashes the party. Iron Man gets in a big super suit as apocalypse dawns again. A lot of crash-bang-boom, like the finale of the first film. Playing throughout the trailer is a child singing, “I Got No Strings” from Disney’s Pinocchio. Last shot in the clip shows all the Avengers lying dead in a massive heap against a black sky, with Tony Stark the only one standing alive. The audience gave the clip a standing ovation. Amplifying the room’s mood was Josh Brolin walking in as Thanos.
Earlier Jackson said, “I’ve been coming here since Star Wars: Episode I, and it validates the fact that I belong and all this energy … makes feel like making movies for the rest of the year.”
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Spader relfected, “I came to Comic-Con last year for the first time through a TV show I do called The Blacklist. I thought that life could never get crazy enough for me and this place has to be the weirdest craziest place. It’s fantastically crazy here. I play an eight-foot robot in (Age Of Ultron). And it was, uh, I always played humans up until now. Shooting this film is as startlingly and surprising as coming here for the first time. Doing this film, is entirely new.”
Speaking about her role as Scarlet Witch, Olsen said, “It’s fun bringing magic to the game, there’s mutated people” — a statement which drew “Shh” from the crowd; they apparently didn’t want Olsen to spoil anything. In terms of prepping for the role, she said sarcastically, “Yeah, I practice daily looking at a pencil and moving it.”
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