Comic Strip: Loki Wants More Screen Time, Groot Gets A Voice, and Mark Wahlberg Eyes The Iron Man Suit

ScreenCrush’s Comic Strip is a weekly roundup of the hottest superhero movie news items. From Marvel to D.C. and points in between, if it pertains to costumed comic-book heroes, we’re covering it here, bringing you our expert analysis. This week, we have the promise of more Loki, the end of Bryan Singer’s ‘X-Men’ shoot, and Mark Wahlberg angling for a Marvel role.

‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ / ‘X-Force’

Production wrapped over the weekend on Bryan Singer’s ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past,’ and the director commemorated the occasion as he celebrated pretty much every other moment during the shoot: he Tweeted it.

And with that, it’s off to the editing suite so the director can make his pre-determined May 23 release date. To help hold you over, this sweet ‘70s still hit the ‘Net via 20th Century Fox.

As Singer continues work on the latest ‘X-Men’ movie, ‘Kick-Ass 2’ director Jeff Wadlow looks ahead to the ‘X-Force’ movie he expects to direct. He’s currently in the writing stage, and hopes to helm a speedboat-racing thriller before jumping into the mutant world, but when asked by Den of Geek which team members we might see united for the movie, Wadlow kept it vague.

All I can say is this: I bought X-Force #1 when I was a kid, I've read the recent run of Uncanny X-Force which I thought was fantastic, but other than that I just can't comment on the line-up or anything yet. Let me put it like this. It will seamlessly exist in the X-Men cinematic universe, but it's not a sequel.

Left to speculate, we’d guess Wadlow will include Cable in his ‘X-Force’ movie, and likely will make room for characters like Sunspot (who is on tap for Singer’s ‘Days of Future Past’). Let’s just hope more people turn out for ‘X-Force’ than turned out for Wadlow’s ‘Kick-Ass 2,’ which underperformed over the weekend.

‘The Fantastic Four’

Another week goes by, and we still have no idea who’ll star in Josh Trank’s ‘Fantastic Four’ reboot. The movie starts shooting in a few weeks (according to reports), so cast members should start hitting the wire … and soon.

In the meantime, 20th Century Fox’s comic consultant Mark Millar opened up to SFX about the direction of Trank’s movie, and the lessons learned from Tim Story’s two efforts.

These first two movies were not very good but I’m quite sentimental towards them. I took my youngest daughter to see the first one, she was only five when it came out, and she thought it was the best film ever made. At the end, when Johnny Storm says, ‘Flame on!’ for the first time, she thanked me for taking her to see it. So even though it was a crap movie, that memory makes me sort-of like it in a strange way.

For the new one, all they have to do is make it great. It sounds obvious, and it is. Sam Raimi gave us a great Spider-Man. Christopher Nolan gave us a great Batman. So a brilliant director is probably the most important thing for a great Fantastic Four. Tim Story was seen as an odd choice for Fantastic Four, but when you have a Josh Trank you know you are in safe hands.

Any time a new superhero franchise unfurls, fans automatically look to the possibility of a crossover with other hero groups. Since Millar lords over the X-Men world for Fox, SFX asked if Trank’s ‘Fantastic Four’ will “share a universe” with Singer’s movies. Millar’s answer was a bit of a candid surprise:

Without question. I think you have to see some of these guys showing up in each other’s movies. I think the most exciting thing in superhero movies, until ‘The Avengers’ came along, was when Nick Fury showed up in ‘Iron Man.’ Even though it was a guy with an eye patch it was really cool – and I expect we will see more of that.

All we need to know is who will star? Think Millar or Trank will tell us?

‘Guardians of the Galaxy’

“I Am Groot!”

So screamed Vin Diesel – metaphorically speaking – when the ‘Fast & Furious’ star confirmed that he’ll lend his voice to the tree-like hero in James Gunn’s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy.’ The tough-as-nails actor has been hinting at a collaboration with Marvel for some time now. In confirming the news, Diesel told Hero Complex:

“I’m an actor. I can do whatever the f— I want. As an actor, not everything has to be the most obvious choice. … If everybody thinks you’re going to go for this one thing and you flip it entirely and go for the strangest Marvel character, it’s interesting. And when something is interesting, it’s inspiring.”

‘Thor: The Dark World’

Stand up and cheer, you mewling quim! Alan Taylor confirmed during D23 weekend that the rumored reshoots on his upcoming ‘Thor: The Dark World’ are meant to add more of fan-favorite Loki (Tom Hiddleston) into the sequel.

We’re doing full scenes, scenes that were not in the movie before, We’re adding scenes, creating scenes, writing scenes for the first time. We realized how well Loki was working in the movie, and we wanted to do more with him. So it was that kind of thing, it was like, ‘Oh, we could do this, we could jam this in here because he’s such a wonderful guy to watch do his stuff.

Any time stuff is “jammed” in after filming, I tend to be a little concerned. That sounds like too many chefs in the Marvel kitchen telling Taylor what’s best for his film. And now that he has a smaller window to work on it, I’m even more concerned.

Smaller window? Oh, yes, Marvel revealed that ‘Thor’ is set to reach IMAX theaters one week earlier than originally planned. ‘The Dark World’ now will open on the large-screen format on October 20. Good news for fans! Troubling news for Taylor, who better get back to work!

‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’

Did you catch Samuel L. Jackson’s lengthy conversation with USA Today over the weekend? In it, the actor spills several juicy details about the upcoming sequel ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier,’ divulging information about Nick Fury’s current relationship with Cap, Black Widow and Robert Redford’s character … a leader at S.H.I.E.L.D.

It's great to have him dealing with Captain America in terms of being able to speak to him soldier to soldier and try to explain to him how the world has changed in another way while he was frozen in time. Some of the people who used to be our enemies are now our allies — him trying to figure out, ‘Well, how do we trust those guys?’ or ‘How do we trust the guys that you didn't trust who don't trust you?’ And explaining to him that the black and white of good guys/bad guys has now turned into this gray area.

Nick lies to him all the time, too. But he's trying to help him navigate the waters of the new sharks that he doesn't know anything about.”

The interview is a must-read for ‘Captain America’ fans who want to hear more from the man who acts as the glue of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This clip, meanwhile, is a must-watch for ‘Cap’ fans. It’s the latest tease for ‘Agent Carter,’ the Marvel One Shot that will be part of the ‘Iron Man 3’ Blu-ray and DVD, out in stores on Sept. 24.

‘Iron Man 3’

We’re heavy on Marvel news this week. Maybe it’s because Disney’s D23 Expo sent several ripples through the fan community, and news items continued to bang against our shores. You can find several clips for Shane Black’s ‘Iron Man 3,’ for instance, if you surf the web. There are short clips, an even shorter gag reel, and items like that.

This, however, is worth sharing. It’s Mark Wahlberg promoting ‘2 Guns’ overseas, and in an interview with Yahoo Movies, he bashes modern effects-driven movies, tells us he almost played Robin in ‘Batman Forever,’ and then admits he’d like to step into the Iron Man suit once Robert Downey Jr. is finished.

He’s being sarcastic. I’m not. Make this happen, Hollywood.