DCFanDome 2021 - Highlights

It's been a year and after setting records back in August 2020, DCFanDome came back fir a second round, shorter time and streamed on multiple platforms to deliver some of the biggest news items  and it certainly delivered alright. Here are the highlights.

The Batman (4/3/2022) might have been the last event of the evening but it was once again, the biggest hit of the bunch. The second trailer gave us more context for the movie's central plot between the Caped Crusader (Robert Pattinson) and the Riddler (Paul Dano) while also giving us more stuff with Penguin (Colin Farrell) and Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz). There's no denying that Matt Reeves has a future classic in his hands with this hotly anticipated movie.

Meanwhile Patty Jenkins confirmed once again that she will be directing the third Wonder Woman movie and Lynda Carter will reprise her role as Asteria in it.

The Flash (4/11/2022) also made something of a splash too as director Andy Muschietti unveiled some footage from the movie. The footage revealed a better look of the title character's new suit, the possible demise of the Justice League, glimpses of Sasha Calle's Supergirl and Michael Keaton's Batman along with two versions of Barry for the price of one. It looks very promising so far.

Elsewhere, Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom (16/12/2022) unveiled some concept art as well as the look of the new suit for Black Manta. Director James Wan also talked about the story being more of a globetrotting adventure, promising a much bigger scale for the aquatic hero.

As for Black Adam (29/7/2022), it got this event off to a good start. Dwayne Johnson certainly made his presence known and gave viewers a glimpse of the opening scene. Put it this way, you don't want to mess with this particular antihero. We also got a look at the symbols for Cyclone, Atom Smasher, Doctor Fate and Hawkman.

Meanwhile Shazam!: Fury Of The Gods (2/6/2023) also gave us glorious first looks of the Shazam family in action, Rachel Zegler's unnamed character as well as Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu as villains Hespera and Kalypso. The movie also promised a bigger scale compared to the first one and it's definitely embracing the Greek mythology in a huge way.

As for Batgirl and Blue Beetle, sadly no release dates for these movies were announced and aside from some concept art for both, nothing too shocking was revealed here. The former movie will feature a Batman (yet to be confirmed which one though) while the latter will also factor Kord Industries and will likely Ted Kord as a mentor to Jaime Reyes.

On the animated movie and TV/streaming front, Catwoman: Hunted (18/2/2022) and DC's Super Pets (20/5/2022) were highlighted while Battle Of The Super Sons was revealed for a 2022 release. HBO Max also did a sizzle reel for the third season of Harley Quinn (another 2022 release) and released the first two episodes of the fourth season of Young Justice. Meanwhile it was confirmed that Batman: Caped Crusader and My Adventures With Superman would air in 2023.

Gamers also got to see new trailers for both Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, both slated for 2022.

HBO Max are going all in with DC content. They showed a first trailer for Peacemaker (13/1/2022), renewed both Titans and Doom Patrol for fourth seasons and even managed to snatch Pennyworth away from Epix and gave the show a third season, due to be released in 2022 as well as promo pics of limited series, DMZ. Netflix on the other hand did some behind the scenes feature on Sweet Tooth and released a poster of Gwendoline Christie's Lucifer for The Sandman. 

As for the CW, both Smallville and Supergirl received panels, we got sneak previews of upcoming stuff concerning The Flash, Legends Of Tomorrow, Batwoman, Stargirl and Naomi as well as a set tour with cast members from Superman And Lois.

Last but not least, Superman now has the phrase - truth, justice and a better tomorrow. Personally, I like it. 

All in all, a pretty strong second year for DCFanDome. The shorter time and multiple platforms to watch the event was a good way to improve on the first year. I'll definitely be watching again next year. What was your highlight from this year? Mine was The Batman of course. 

DCEU News: Flash/Black Adam Begin Filming, DCFanDome Returns

A slightly slower month compared to the last two but at the same time, there's some interesting developments in the DC Universe.

The Flash (November 4th 2022) after years of development hell has finally began filming in the UK and while no further casting has been revealed yet, director Andy Muschietti has revealed the logo for the upcoming movie with Ezra Miller in the title role.

Zack Snyder's Justice League will be available to buy physically from May 24th and it was recently revealed that Wayne T. Carr had been cast as John Stewart but his scene was removed.

Lucy Liu has been cast as the villain Kalypso for Shazam!: Fury Of The Gods (June 2nd 2023). She will be the sister of Helen Mirren's Hespera and Rachel Zegler's unnamed character. Filming will start in May. 

Pilou Asbaek has been cast in an undisclosed role for Aquaman 2 (December 16th 2022) as the sequel will start filming in the UK during the summer.

Both Mo Amer and Uli Latukefu has been cast in undisclosed roles for Black Adam (July 29th 2022). The film has now began production.

DCFanDome will return on October 16th, so expect a lot of reveals for both upcoming movies and streaming shows.

Michael B. Jordan has mentioned working on a draft for the Static Shock movie. 

Legends Of Tomorrow, which returns for a sixth season on the CW from May 2nd will see Dominic Purcell exit the series as Mick Rory. The 15 episode season will also see the Waverider crew tackle aliens, singing competitions, animated antics, their own take on Baby Yoda and a solo adventure for John Constantine. Former cast member Maisie Richardson-Sellers will direct the penultimate episode of the season while Caity Lotz will direct the fifth episode and David Ramsay episode seven. Jes McCallan will also direct an episode this season.

Stargirl's second season will air on the CW from August 10th while the second half of Supergirl's sixth and final season will air from August 24th.

Titans has cast Vincent Kartheiser as Scarecrow and Sharon Ferguson  as Luand'r, the mother of Starfire and Blackfire. McKinley Freeman will play Justin Cole and Cole Young has been cast as a teenage version of Jason Todd.

Doom Patrol's third season has cast Ty Tennant and Sebastian Croft as the Dead Boy Detectives while the Sisterhood Of Dada will also factor into the new season.

Last but not least, a happy 36th birthday to our Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot and here's hoping we get some information on her third solo outing as the heroic Amazon later in the year.

Some interesting stuff to mull over there. 

DCFanDome - Day 2 Highlights

Three weeks, DCFanDome basically dominated the internet and crashed a few times, site wise.  The latter happened yet again and while the hype on the second day wasn't quite the same as the first, we still got some interesting tidbits, concerning the TV shows and even the movies.

Superman & Lois: With filming due to start, we got a lovely panel with stars Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch and artist Jim Lee. Seeing them drawing the Superman symbol was lovely but in terms of spoilers, there wasn't too much revealed. Right now, there's a rumour of 15 episodes for the first season, we'll be getting a new suit for Superman, we know that the main villain will be The Stranger as played by Wole Parks and a potential love triangle with the Kent sons and Lana Lang's (Emmanuelle Chriqui) daughter. Other characters in the show will be General Sam Lane (Dylan Walsh), Martha Kent, Perry White, Morgan Edge and Ron Troupe. Also expect a crossover with Batwoman as well in the series.

Legends Of Tomorrow: Season 6 is due to film soon and we've finally got a casting information. Chicago PD alumni, Lisseth Chavez will join as a new regular, called Esperenza 'Spooner' Cruz to help the team hunt down extraterrestrials displaced in history. The show's take on aliens will be different to Supergirl while the second episode will focus on the Tarazi siblings, Sara won't be gone for long. Meanwhile Constantine and Astra will be living together with the latter also being a regular along with Behrad.

Supergirl: Not much was revealed here, though we did get to see both David Harewood (J'onn) and Nicole Maines (Nia) talking about representation. It does seem that filming will start sometime this month, even though it'll air later in 2021 compared to the other DC shows on the CW. I would also expect a reduced episode count.

Batwoman: I was hoping we'd get to see Javicia Leslie's look for Ryan Wilder's Batwoman but alas we did not. Now, the show has actually begun filming and joining Leslie for the show's second season will be Shivani Ghai, who will be playing the role of Safiyah Sohail who has a past connection to Alice (Rachel Skarsten). Another villain added to this season will be The Whisper, though the role has not been cast yet. I'm betting we'll get a glimpse of Ryan's Batwoman suit towards the end of the year. Other than that, I'm intrigued to see how this second season will play out.

The Flash: Now technically this show has finished as episodes intended for the sixth season are now part of the start for the upcoming seventh season. A trailer released showed the gang coming together to try and defeat Eva McCulloch's Mirror Master as Iris attempts to escape from her own prison. Showrunner Eric Wallace also confirmed that Barry will get his gold boots this upcoming season while Godspeed will also play a much bigger role than before. Trailer for the seventh season can be seen here .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e43b-f_Vg9I

Stargirl: I'm still halfway through the first season but this panel with the main cast and creator Geoff Johns was an interesting watch. It seems that the second season will feature more of Solomon Grundy along with the Shade as a main villain.

Black Lightning: Robert Townsend spoke to the main cast on the upcoming fourth season, due to begin filming as well this month in Atlanta and it was a nice enough panel but nothing revealing as such. Various cast members talked about things they'd like for their characters like Gambi getting a girlfriend or Tobias doing good through politics but in terms of spoilers, there was nothing to be revealed here.

Titans: Filming is due to start with the third season and as you can see from the pic above, Donna Troy (Conor Leslie) will be back from the dead. Of course, it won't be just Donna's return to look forward to as we've got both Blackfire (Damaris Lewis) and Red Hood (Curran Walters) as main villains, a heavy focus into Gotham, the arrival of Barbara Gordon, Roy Harper and a character named Danny (largely suspected to be Tim Drake from the character description) as well as the Scarecrow and Lex Luthor, casting for both to be confirmed. The upcoming season will also move to HBO Max.

Doom Patrol: Not too much revealed here, except that the show has officially been renewed for a third season and will air exclusively on HBO Max in 2021. The finale originally intended for the second season will now be the third season premiere, but we already knew that.

Pennyworth: With Epix set to air the second season of this other Batman prequel series later in the year, we did get the interesting news that Martha Kane (Emma Paetz) will be pregnant while Alfred (Jack Bannon) is desperate to get out of London. New additions to the season include James Purefoy, Edward Hogg and Jessye Romeo.

Lucifer: The sixth and final season of this show will comprise of 10 episodes, due to begin filming later this month. A clip was released of the cast singing Another One Bites The Dust while Netflix will release the second half of the fifth season later in the year. Clip to the upcoming musical episode can be seen here .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeUyF8xkOCc

Elsewhere HBO Max have yet to confirm if they will pick up a third season of Harley Quinn though I suspect they will while the fourth season of Young Justice will be titled, Phantoms. On a disappointing note there was no new information on any of the upcoming HBO Max DC shows, so looks like we'll be waiting a bit longer on that front. Meanwhile the official title for a certain upcoming four part HBO Max miniseries will be Justice League: Director's Cut.

As for the movie side of things, well the first day mainly focused on that but there was some new bits to emerge over the last few days nonetheless.

• Wonder Woman 1984 is moving yet again, this time it seems to give Tenet some more breathing space at the cinemas. It's new (and hopefully final) release day is December 25th 2020.
• The Batman had start filming, then had to stop when Robert Pattinson himself got COVID. Filming is rumoured to resume later this week as Pattinson is on the mend. Meanwhile we got a nice new poster and the trailer has amassed over 22 million views on YouTube since it's release.
• The Flash movie will "restart everything and forget nothing" according to producer Barbara Muschietti. More casting has yet to be revealed but expect many DC characters in it. 
• Black Adam and Shazam! Fury Of The Gods are due to begin filming in early 2021.

Well, that covers just about everything for DCFanDome. It's been an interesting two days and technical issues to one side, overall, I would say this has been a success. What have been your highlights over the two days and do you think this will be a yearly thing for DC?

DCFanDome - Day 1 Highlights

Originally this was going to be a one day event but due to the demand and the fact that the DCFanDome site kept crashing, the wise decision was made to push the majority of the TV segment to a second day - September 12th.

In this blog alone, my coverage will focus on the movie side of things, but note that there also trailers for the games Gotham Knights (due in 2021) and Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League (due in 2022) that were also interesting as well as a trailer for the seventh season of The Flash CW show and spoilers for Titans upcoming third season. These will be looked at in the next blog.

Here, the focus is on upcoming movies and without further ado, here we go ....

Wonder Woman 1984 kicked off things in style with writer/producer Patty Jenkins and her cast of Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig and Pedro Pascal all joining in to hype up the movie, due for theatre only release from October 2nd. The cast were also joined by Lynda Carter herself and it was an added bonus to an already lovely opening panel. The second trailer was also released with a proper look at Kristen Wiig in action as Cheetah and we can all breathe a sigh of relief that it's not a Cats style misfire. After waiting so long for this movie, it's nice to know we're closer to witnessing Diana's second big screen solo adventure. 

WW84 Final Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OASpkr_ljhw

The Flash then also made a splash, albeit a shorter one as of yet, filming for this movie will not commence until early next year in order to meet it's June 3rd 2022 date. We had director Andy Muschietti, writer Christina Hodson and lead actor Ezra Miller talk about some plot point and it continues to be clear that this will be a variation on the classic Flashpoint comic. Also revealed a few days before the event was that both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck will be returning to the movie as their respective versions of Batman while some concept photos show that Barry will also get a brand new suit made for him. You can also expect more casting to be confirmed over the next several months as the film gears up for production.

A little closer of course would be The Suicide Squad, still slated for August 6th 2021 and James Gunn made one hell of a splash here with the reveals. The new characters in this movie will be Peacemaker (John Cena), Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), Thinker (Peter Capaldi), Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), Weasel (Sean Gunn), Blackguard (Pete Davidson), Savant (Michael Rooker), King Shark (Steve Agee), Sol Soria (Alice Braga), TDK (Nathan Fillion), Javellin (Flula Borg), Tyla DuBois (Storm Reid), Flo Crawley (Tinashe Kajese), Mongal (Mayling Ng), Presidente General Silvio Luna (Juan Diego Botto), Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), Major General Mateo Suarez (Joaquin Cosio) while Taika Waititi and Julio Riuz's roles have yet to be disclosed. Appearing from the previous film are Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) and Rick Flag (Joel Kinnanman). The roll card was a great way to hype up this movie and the behind the scenes look gave us a good taster of the chaos coming our way with this motley crew.

TSS Trailer 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8tWKJwyG6Y

Three months since HBO Max made a lot of fans happy and following his own fan panel a month before, this was the place where Zack Snyder could reunite with his JL members (minus Jason Momoa) and unveil the trailer for Zack Snyder's Justice League. I'll admit aside from a rather bland song choice, the trailer sold this pretty well and it's clear as day that we're going to be seeing something completely different to the theatrical release. This will now be a four episode series to be released on HBO Max in 2021 with deals for international airings to be sorted in the next few months. There will also be an option to watch this as a movie as well. Expect to see several characters that you didn't back in 2017 in this miniseries as well as expanded scenes for others too. 

ZSJL Trailer 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6512XKKNkU

As for Dwayne Johnson - you gotta admire the guy. He's a one man promotion machine and while I've had my reservations for Black Adam (due December 22nd 2021), this panel did give us some things to mull over. First of all, we had Noah Centineo's casting as Atom Smasher confirmed as well as the JSA members  Hawkman, Doctor Fate and Cyclone being confirmed for the movie with casting soon to come. We also got some concept art of the characters and concept trailers explaining Black Adam's backstory. 

Black Adam Trailer 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N73oTiIIJe0

And then we got the panel with the least amount of information and absence of it's leading star. We did however have director James Wan and Orm himself, Patrick Wilson but seeing as the sequel to Aquaman is the furthest away (December 16th 2022), I'm not surprised that not too much was revealed. We did learn the sequel will be a little more serious and relevant along with the promise of new worlds being explored but we're a while off before we get anything really juicy to go over.

Then there was Shazam! The cast were joined by comedian Sinbad and while we're also another while off from the sequel (November 4th 2022), we did learn that it will be called Shazam!: Fury Of The Gods and with filming due to begin in early 2021, casting information will probably start leaking towards the end of the year. Again, a rather short but decent enough panel. Of course the best was clearly being saved until last.

The Batman of course being the best and in news that will shock absolutely no one whatsoever, the most trending topic of the night with the  trailer trending on every platform. Let's talk about the trailer: it was incredible. Robert Pattinson is going to be a definitive take on the Dark Knight and Paul Dano's Zodiac Killer esque take on the Riddler is genuinely chilling to watch. Colin Farrell looks unrecognisable as the Penguin, Jeffrey Wright looks great as Jim Gordon and while I'm not keen on Catwoman's makeshift look, Zoe Kravitz seems to have the character's mannerisms down perfectly. It's also been revealed that Rupert Penry Jones will play a corrupt mayor in the movie and one of the Riddler's first victims while Barry Keoghan will also play Officer Stanley Merkel. The movie itself certainly has captured the moodiness and Gothic quality of the comics, with a bit of Gotham and Batman: The Animated Series added into the mix. Meanwhile the upcoming HBO Max series focusing on the GCPD will be set during Batman's first year while the movie itself will be based in his second year. So far, only 30 per cent of the movie has been filmed with production resuming next week but it's really looking amazing so far. October 1st 2021 cannot come fast enough.

The Batman Trailer 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g59rUQbVlIw

Those were the highlights of the first day of DCFanDome. Servers crashing and trailer leakage to one side, I think it was a bloody success. Day 2 - September 12th will have a lot to live up to, but I'll cover the highlights. 

DC News: DCFanDome Event for August, Michael Keaton is Back and more

Yeah, I am really trying to hold off on the DC stuff with this blog (no, really, I am) and I was going to wait until a couple of weeks but too much stuff has come out that needs to be talked about, so let's get on with it, shall we?

The biggest headline first would be the fact that Michael Keaton is coming back to the DC universe. Yup, while he might have been playing Vulture in the MCU (as well as upcoming Morbius movie for Sony), he's also in talks to reprise his role of Bruce Wayne for the upcoming movie, The Flash, which will take on the Multiverse and a certain classic comic book as Ezra Miller's Barry Allen tries to prevent his mother's death and winds up creating another universe where Keaton's much older Bruce Wayne appears. To say I didn't see this development coming would be an understatement of the highest order.

After years of development hell, The Flash is finally coming to the big screen and while there were rumours before that Jeffrey Dean Morgan was going to play the Thomas Wayne version of Batman, it's now good as confirmed that Keaton will be an older Bruce Wayne, serving as a mentor to superheroes and may be popping up in other movies as well. This movie, written by Birds Of Prey Christina Hodson and directed by IT's Andy Muschietti is also rumored to be featuring Ray Fisher's Cyborg and a potentially recast Iris West. It also seems for now that Ezra Miller will remain in the lead role (despite an incident earlier in the year) but seeing as we're delving into the Multiverse, maybe there's a chance for a Grant Gustin cameo too? After all, we did see Ezra pop up earlier this year in Crisis On Infinite Earths for the Arrowverse, so why the hell not?

However with the arrival of Keaton's older Bruce for The Flash and fans getting the chance to see Ben Affleck in Zack Snyder's Justice League, the question remains - where does that leave Robert Pattinson? Right now, it seems that Pattinson and Matt Reeves The Batman will be in it's own universe and not affected by anything but seeing as we're in the Multiverse now, I wouldn't rule out Robert's Batman popping up at some point. Either way, it's all good and in better news, The Batman will now resume filming from July 6th, so some new information will be forthcoming in the next few weeks.

In further exciting news - if you haven't already, then mark August 22nd from 10am onwards in your diaries. On that day, we will get DCFanDome - a 24 hour event that will have many live panels for virtually every upcoming DCEU movie and current TV/streaming series as well as news on upcoming comics and games. There's even a site set up so fans can get creative with their fandoms and explore plenty of virtual content on the day itself. Needless to say, this event will generate a few blogs as I'll do my best to cover all the big hitting moments.

On a sad note, it was also announced yesterday that Joel Schumacher passed away at the age of 80. The director who had quite an amazing career with movies like The Lost Boys, The Client, Phone Booth and also his involvement with the Caped Crusader with the likes of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin left an amazing impression on Hollywood with many people who worked with him in the past speaking out about his passing.

Michael Keaton News: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/video/michael-keaton-talks-reprise-batman-role-hamilton-trailer-more-thr-news-1299746
Joel Schumacher: https://entertainment.ie/cinema/movie-news/joel-schumacher-tributes-456036/
DCFanDome Site: https://dcfandome.talenthouse.com/

The Flash will begin filming in the first quarter of 2021 with a June 3rd 2022 release date. The Batman will now be released on October 1st 2021 and DCFanDome will stream from August 22nd online from 10am.