When “Man of Steel” was released this past summer, it didn’t feature a key member of director Zack Snyder‘s creative brain trust: cinematographer Larry Fong, a contemporary of J.J. Abrams‘ (they grew up together) who furnished Snyder with the almost plastic visuals for “300,” “Watchmen” and “Sucker Punch.” Fong was replaced by “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” cinematographer Amir Mokri, but that appears to have been a blip: Fong is back for the still-untitled “Man of Steel” sequel that will pit Batman against Superman in a no-holds-barred superhero rumble. And if you like superheroes coming together, wait for the story about how Wolverine was almost in “Spider-Man.”
Yes, it seems Snyder is in the process of assembling his creative team for the superhero sequel, which begins shooting next year in Detroit. The shoot should last from February until August (good lord), with Snyder directing from another script by David S. Goyer. Of course, Henry Cavill will be back as Superman and the highly controversial Ben Affleck will don the cape and cowl as Batman. Fong most recently shot this summer’s magic-world thriller “Now You See Me” (or at least some of it, he’s credited alongside Mitchell Amundsen).
Additionally, Hugh Jackman, while promoting his new thriller “Prisoners” (which we quite liked), recounted to The Huffington Post about how there was very nearly a Wolverine cameo in Sam Raimi‘s first “Spider-Man” movie. The actor, who played the adamantium-clawed hero in this summer’s underrated “The Wolverine” and will appear in next summer’s “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” said, “In the first ‘Spider-Man’ — Kevin Feige reminded me of this — we really tried to get me to come on and do something, whether it was a gag or just to walk through the shot or something. The problem was, we couldn’t find the suit. The suit was stuck in some thing. And so when they were in New York when I was there, we couldn’t get it together.” A missing costume fouled up a potential crossover? Say it ain’t so, Hugh!
Still, the actor remains optimistic. “So, you know, I actually asked some high level people about it. Because the optimist in me goes, ‘Why not? Why can’t we do it? You know, a split cast or whatever?’ And someone reminded that the amount of money Fox paid compared to the amount of money Disney paid is very different [laughs]. So how you split that pie up? God knows. But in the comic books, what’s great about it is they’re just mashing together all the time — and it’s awesome. And people are like, ‘Yeah, well, let’s get this one with that!’ And, you know, I still think, one day, there may be an ability to do it.”
Keep in mind, too, that when the first “Spider-Man” movie was made, Disney hadn’t bought Marvel yet so the legal wrangling was probably somewhat easier. Still, if Hugh thinks it can be done, it can probably done. What has that man thought about that he hasn’t pulled off?
