Bryan Singer

Peter Dinklage is making the leap from “Game of Thrones” to the new “X-Men” movie, “Days of Future Past.” News of the casting came via a tweet by Bryan Singer, who will return to direct the newest installment of the sci-fi franchise that pits mutants against humanity: Officially like to welcome #PeterDinklage from #GameOfThrones to #XMEN #DaysofFuturePast Very very excited!— Bryan Singer (@BryanSinger) February 14, 2013 Dinklage joins a star-studded cast that includes a mix of actors from Singer’s first two “X-Men” movies and the Matthew Vaughn-directed prequel, “X-Men: First Class.” Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence and Patrick Stewart are already on board for the time-traveling adventure based on one of the most well-known storylines of the “Uncanny X-Men” comic books. ‘Game of Thrones’: Peter Dinklage sees series challenges ahead It’s unclear what role Dinklage will play. While many have speculated that […]

“The Dark Knight Rises” might have been the most watched movie trailer on YouTube this year, but with 2013 just around the corner, we here at Hero Complex thought it would be fun to collect the trailers for some of next year’s big releases — many of which debuted in what seemed like an onslaught of promotion in the last few weeks. “Star Trek Into Darkness” J.J. Abrams’ much anticipated follow-up to his 2009 reboot of the landmark television series beams into theaters May 17, and fans got a taste of what to expect with the nine minutes of the movie that played before Imax screenings of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” But the question remains, who is the villain that Benedict Cumberbatch is playing? Some fans seem convinced that Cumberbatch would appear as Khan Noonien Singh, the character made […]

Stan Lee, the living Marvel himself, will close out the 2012 Hero Complex Film Festival – and he’ll get some on-screen backup from Wolverine, Magneto and the other uncanny mutants in the landmark 2000 film “X-Men.”‘ “An Evening with Stan Lee” will bring the 89-year-old dynamo of pop culture and co-creator of Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, the X-Men and hundreds of other characters onstage for an in-depth conversation. You could say that Lee is the most famous name in comic books who isn’t a comic-book character — but at this point he he’s appeared in so many Marvel stories — both on the page and on the screen in his movie cameos — that it’s difficult to know where Lee the creator stops and Lee the character begins. Stanley Lieber was born in New York City on Dec. 28, 1922, but when he got […]

Bryan Singer’s “Battlestar Galactica” movie has its screenwriter — John Orloff, who also wrote the Roland Emmerich Shakespeare thriller opening next week, “Anonymous.” “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna frak it up,” said Orloff in an interview, of his take on the storied sci-fi franchise, which “X-Men” director Singer is set to direct for Universal Pictures. “I have a pretty radical take,” Orloff said, declining to offer more details about his treatment of the long-gestating, secrecy-shrouded project. “Battlestar Galactica,” about a human civilization warring with a cybernetic race on a group of distant planets known as the 12 Colonies, began as a short-lived 1970s TV show and has evolved to include comic books, novels, video games and the cult hit Ronald D. Moore series that ran on Syfy from 2004 to 2009. A long time “Battlestar” fan, Orloff has an eclectic […]

The mighty mutants of the Marvel Universe are back on the screen with “X-Men: First Class,” which hit theaters this weekend. The retro adventure begins in World War II and tracks through to the Cuban Missile Crisis to tell the secret history of mutants and set the stage for adventures shown in previously released films. There are a lot of new faces – good and evil mutants such as Azazel (played by Jason Flemyng), Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones), Riptide (Álex González) and Darwin (Edi Gathegi)  — but we’ve put together a photo gallery that explains some of the connections (and disconnects) between this throw-back adventure and the four previous Fox films. Just click “CAPTIONS ON” to read it but be warned there are some mild spoilers in there. – Jevon Phillips and Noelene Clark RECENT AND RELATED January Jones stressed by sexy suits  Why is Kevin Bacon […]

“X-Men: First Class” hits theaters this weekend, but the producer of the film, Bryan Singer, is already hard at work on his next project, “Jack the Giant Killer,” the Warner Bros. film due in theaters next summer.  Over at 24 Frames, our must-read sister blog, Steven Zeitchik just interviewed the filmmaker, who said this new project was a welcome “antidote” to his sometimes smothering labor on ”Valkyrie” (2008).  ”With that movie, I was so obsessed with the accuracy and the history and the detail, and this film is a fantastical time in England. It’s not pegged to a particular time in history, and it deals with fun and broad characters,” the “X-Men” auteur said. “Jack” — which counts among its writers Singer’s “Usual Suspects” and “Valkyrie” collaborator Christopher McQuarrie — plays off an English fairy tale of unknown origin. In many of the […]

Here’s an early look at my “X-Men: First Class” preview in the Summer Sneaks issue in the upcoming Los Angeles Times Sunday Calendar issue. How’s this for unexpected territory in a superhero film: “X-Men: First Class” not only uses the Kennedy years, the Civil Rights movement and the Cuban Missile Crisis as a backdrop for its retro tale, the movie’s story of two massively powerful mutants who struggle against bitter prejudice was directly informed by the complicated lives of Malcolm X and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “It came up early on in the rehearsal period and that was the path we took,” says Michael Fassbender, who stars as the emotionally scarred Erik Lehnsherr, who will become the militant mutant known as Magneto. “These two brilliant minds coming together and their views aren’t that different on some key things. As you […]

Look, up in the sky … yes, that’s right, Hollywood is again returning to Metropolis to chronicle the adventures of the most famous super-hero of them all, Superman. We’ve put together a photo gallery with the filmmakers, cast, executives and interested bystanders in this project that promises to be one of the most-anticipated films of 2012. Click on the gallery’s  ”VIEW CAPTIONS” option to read the inside scoop on each of the players. The big question for everyone: Will the character created during the Roosevelt administration still fly with contemporary audiences? – Geoff Boucher RECENT AND RELATED Eastwood: I was offered Superman role in ’70s Snyder: My favorite Superman artist is… Grant Morrison on the socialist Superman Morrison to Hollywood: Make Superman a “brawler” Look, up in the sky it’s … Henry Cavill Synder: Superman is a tough one to crack U.K. actors now play Superman, Batman, […]

The trailer for “X-Men: First Class” landed today and immediately tilted the landscape of this summer’s slate of superhero films – if this smart, sleek and sinister trailer is representative of Matthew Vaughn’s retro-mutant film as a whole, then it’s suddenly unwise to view “First Class” as a second-class citizen compared with the two big Marvel Studios releases, “Captain America: The First Avenger” and “Thor.” The makers of the Fox film, however, say they never viewed the summer season as a competition against the Marvel films or Warner Bros.’ “Green Lantern.” “You can never think about that,” producer Bryan Singer said.  “That’s just something you can torture yourself with or stress out about, but you can’t do that and sit there and think, ‘What are they doing? We need to do that.’ That’s the worst thing you can do. You have to make your own […]

The movie posters promise that “X-Men: First Class” will be released June 3, but on Tuesday cameras were still rolling on the Fox film’s set and director Matthew Vaughn, making his biggest major studio feature film to date, sounded like a man running out of time. “I’m at that stage where I feel like a boxer against the ropes,” the director said as his crew prepared for the next shot on a location set in Long Beach. “I’m just throwing punches and taking them as they come and making sure I don’t hit the canvas.” In the pages of Marvel Comics, the X-Men have been the ultimate outsiders for decades — even other superheroes view the strange mutant crew with mistrust, prejudice and disdain. So it’s fitting that “First Class,” the fifth Hollywood adventure for the heroes, will arrive in theaters this summer with so […]