Extras! 23 June 2014

Welcome to The Extras! A daily dose of all the smaller movie related news, clips and just plain cool stuff that you might have missed!

• The latest Michael Bay produced TV series, The Last Ship, exploded onto US TV screens last night, and this Friday the box office is set to go boom as Transformers: Age of Extinction hits cinemas. You could say that the Master of Bayhem is having a good week. So to celebrate here’s a video for Darryn’s Bayporn collection of the 10 Most Bombastic Michael Bay Sequences Ever.

• Forget the Mountain and the Red Viper, if you’ve seen the season four finale of Game of Thrones, which aired locally on Friday, then you’ll know that the season’s – and possibly the entire show’s – best fight was actually between the Beauty and the Beast Hound. Gwendoline Christie, who plays Brienne of Tarth, sat down with EW to talk about the season and especially that fight, which was a lot more realistic than you might think.

“[The Hound actor Rory McCann] and I were quite serious about it. We want there to be contact —rolling around in the dirt on a rock face with your hand bleeding. You’re in pain, just emotional and screaming through it, and blood is pouring out of your mouth and you’re falling over when you’re meant to and falling when you’re not meant to. I like it to be real. So certain things that are done that are very real and you’re genuinely scared because you look into the other person’s eyes and they mean it. It’s frightening—that is one of the few times I’ve not had to do any acting. I was screaming, “F–k you! Come on!” Blood everywhere, going insane. It is f–king mental. You were there on top of a mountain with this surreal landscape around you and the sun is shining and your adrenaline is pumping and you’ve got what looks like blood everywhere and you’re in pain and you’ve got swords and you’re on the floor hitting the living daylights out of each other. I actually lost it at points and would just go in screaming.”

• If you were able to time travel back two decades to this weekend passed in 1984, you would have been greeted by what was just maybe the greatest weekend of cinema releases ever.

• Poster of the day: The Godfather

• A lot has been said – usually with lots of swear words and very little punctuation – about the casting of an African American Michael B. Jordan to play the traditionally white Johnny Storm in Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot. For the record, I am perfectly okay with it, as long as they don’t affect the core of who the character is. Veteran comic writer John Byrne, doesn’t agree with me, and has put up a very lengthy post on why he thinks the practice of “racebending” in Hollywood is a bad thing.

To be fair, he makes some very good points (even if he comes across as prejudiced initially), a lot of which I agree with 100%. I just don’t think they’re as applicable in this instance. Jordan got the job because he’s a great actor who is close friends with the director, not because Fox was trying to just randomly pick a black guy so as to get their diversity figures up.

• And there’s a chance that John Byrne probably won’t be too happy with the news that Rosario Dawson has joined Marvel’s upcoming Daredevil Netflix series in a “pivotal role”. Her still unnamed character is being described as “a dedicated young woman whose quest to heal the wounds of Hell’s Kitchen brings blind attorney Matt Murdock Charlie Cox) unexpectedly crashing into her life, while her own journey forever alters the course of his battle against the injustices of this broken city”, however lots of people are already speculating Ms Dawson will actually be revealed to be Daredevil’s ill-fated ninja-assassin lover Elektra. Yes, an actress with Puerto-Rican/Cuban heritage may be playing a character of Greek heritage. Whatever is the world coming to?

• Sticking with ladies in superhero TV series, Arrow’s Katie Cassidy has posted this pic of her “Pre-season 3 workout“. The pic is relevant for two reasons: 1) It fuels speculation that her character Laurel is being set up to take over the guise as the Black Canary now that her onscreen sister Sarah has left town; and 2) Katie Cassidy is looking very healthy again and no longer resembles a human hat rack, as she was looking downright gaunt in the previous season, as many may have noticed.

• Oh Latino Review, we really do love your enthusiasm. Last week, the rumor-mongering site’s El Mayhimbe was so confident that his scoop that the reason the next Bourne movie was being delayed was because Matt Damon was coming back, maybe even to kick Jeremy Renner out of the seat he just took over a movie ago, that he was willing to make online wagers about it. But just a few days later, and producer Frank Marshall has promptly shot down the rumour completely.

“It’s simply not true,[the film will feature the Aaron Cross character played by Jeremy Renner in the 2012 installment, The Bourne Legacy]. “[Director] Justin Lin is working with Andrew Baldwin on an Aaron Cross script/story that they pitched us a few months ago. I talk to Justin all the time and the script is not ready. It’s a summer movie, and if we don’t start preproduction now, we can’t make next summer. Therefore, it’s a wise decision to move to 2016.”

• Legend of Korra fans, rejoice! The folks at Nickelodeon have apparently done some schedule-bending of their own, as they made the completely unexpected revelation over the weekend that the animated show’s next season, Book 3, will actually be premiering this coming Friday, 27 June 2014.

• This is a clip from SyFy’s upcoming Sharktopus vs Pteracuda. That title should tell you everything you need to know about it.

• Ex-Boy Who Lived Daniel Radcliffe recently did a Q&A with Buzzfeed, and the Harry Potter star was asked what other franchise he would want to star in if he had the chance. He’s answer was a bit unexpected.

“Batman. If they reboot that again I’ll do that too. It’s happening, isn’t it? With Ben Affleck. I could be Robin, I’m perfect.”

Photoshopped pics of Harry Potter as the Boy Wonder incoming in 3…2…1…

• If you thought that Marvel hiring Scott Derrickson (Sinister, Deliver Us From Evil) to helm a Doctor Strange movie was an inspired choice, then don’t worry you’re not alone – Scott Derrickson agrees with you.

“I think when you consider the work that I’ve done it makes sense that he’d be my favorite comic book character, at least in the Marvel universe. Probably the only comic character in that mainstream world that I’m suited to. I feel such an affinity for the character and the story and the ambition of those comics, especially the original Stan Lee and Steve Ditko “Strange Tales” – I think those are my favorite of all of them. The entire history of the comics is extraordinary.”

• Let the record state that I am not, in any way or form, proud of myself for posting the following clip, and I also refuse to comment on whether or not I actually laughed at any of it.

If you have anything you would like to contribute to Extras, whether it be interesting stories, funny videos, or artistic photos of yourself in morally questionable poses, feel free to drop a mail to kervyn@themovies.co.za.

Last Updated: June 23, 2014