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It’s the start of another week, here’s your collection of headlines that are making some waves today:

– There was never any doubt that Jennifer Lawrence‘s future with the X-Men franchise was on borrowed time; she’s one of the world’s biggest movie stars in a part that thus far has been pretty thankless. The same could probably be said for Michael Fassbender and some of her other cast-mates, many of whom also see their contracts with Fox end after X-Men: Apocalypse. But it’s Lawrence who has made it clear that this third outing will be her last when speaking with MTV News.

Given that the attention of the franchise is shifting away from the core four of X-Men: First Class (Mystique, Charles Xavier, Magneto, and Beast) and onto the recently cast Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm and Nightcrawler, Apocalypse looks to be a fairly graceful close out for the previous era.

– Gal Gadot, upon being cast as Wonder Woman in the upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, received a ton of unfair (and in some cases, disgusting) criticism from some segments of the online community related to her body type and physical attributes. In a recent interview translated by RobotUnderdog, Gadot addressed some of this discussion:

They said that I was too skinny and my boobs were too small. [Laughs] I’m really lucky nothing in my life was instantaneous. When I was younger I would take criticism really hard. But now it mostly amused me. The true Amazons had one boob so it won’t bother them in their archery. So it’s not going to be like real Amazons. We always try to make everyone happy but we can’t.

She also went on to describe her excitement in playing the first big screen portrayal of Diana:

Playing Wonder Women is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I can’t describe to you how much I wanted to play this character without even knowing I wanted to play her. I met a lot of people from the industry in LA for meetings. They always asked me ‘what’s your dream role?’, and I never could define it. I always answered that I wanted to play a women that is strong and will be a source for women empowerment. I don’t want to play a damsel in distress that needs to be saved. I don’t like it when women in the movies are shown as the victims. I always thought that if I could send out a massage I want to show the strong side of a woman and how she can handle tough situations. Yes, I get to play the strongest most empowering woman ever – Wonder Woman. I’m so grateful and I thank god every day. I want to devour it and enjoy every bite. She has unbelievable endurance. She is exceptionally strong. she can jump really high and practically fly. She know tons of martial arts styles. She is a strong and serious Woman.

– Toss this last one into the rumor pile for now, but Badass Digest is reporting that Marvel secretly auditioned 16 year old Weeds‘ actor Mateus Ward for the role of Peter Parker. If true, it means Marvel is indeed going very young for the role and are clearly trying to recast Peter Parker rather than aiming for Miles Morales as some might have hoped. With shooting for Captain America: Civil War only about a week away, if Spider-Man is going to make some kind of appearance be it a cameo or something more substantial, they’ll need to get this role squared away fairly quickly.

Here’s your Friday round-up of all things Entertainment-related, have a great weekend everybody!

– Yesterday, recently announced Deadpool star Morena Baccarin tweeted out a photo while on set. The photo in question was of her chair, which lists her character name as “Vanessa”. Presumably this means the actress will be playing Vanessa Carlysle aka the mutant shape-shifter Copycat, who meets and falls in love with Deadpool before becoming a mercenary herself.

Here’s the photo in question:

Let’s do this. pic.twitter.com/pNqcCGReSz

— Morena Baccarin (@missmorenab) March 19, 2015

– After adding Ruth Negga as Tulip this week, AMC’s Preacher cast is starting to grow rapidly, as last night it was announced that young actor Ian Colleti has joined the series as “Arseface”. Deadline describes the character thusly:

Even with his horribly disfigured face and severe speech impediment, Eugene’s still the nicest kid you’ll ever meet and really looks up to Jesse. Stomach-churningly difficult to look at, Eugene’s the town’s reviled Frankenstein’s monster, but that won’t change his earnest, sweet and pure outlook on life. However, he is troubled by something terrible he’s done in the past — something he fears might have turned God himself against him.

– Surprise, surprise, another Mark Millar comic has been picked up for a movie deal. This time, it’s his brand new collaboration with Sean Murphy: Chrononauts. The series is centered around the concept of the first two scientists to travel back through time (and we’ll have a review of the first issue up shortly). Chris Morgan, who has written 5 of the Fast and Furious franchise films, will produce under his Chris Morgan Productions banner in a deal negotiated by Paradigm and the law offices of Harris M. Miller II.

Along with Superior and Starlight being in development for feature length adaptations, it looks as though Millar’s presence in multiplexes will be getting bigger than ever.

– Captain America: Civil War begins shooting in two weeks here in Atlanta, and I’ll certainly be fighting the temptation to drive down and stand outside the set every day. Word spread about the upcoming shooting via a casting notice that went out for extras in the area, which included the following synopsis:

Following the events of Age of Ultron, the collective governments of the world pass an act designed to regulate all superhuman activity. This polarizes opinion amongst the Avengers, causing two factions to side with Iron Man or Captain America, which causes an epic battle between former allies.

Sounds about right.

– Upcoming Sandman feature producer, and kinda-sorta former Robin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has signed on to produce and star in a Fraggle Rock feature film for New Regency, though what role he’ll be playing has not been revealed. Variety got the scoop along with Levitt’s thoughts on the project:

“The first screen personas I ever loved were Henson creations, first on ‘Sesame Street,’ and then on ‘Fraggle Rock,’” Gordon-Levitt said. “Jim Henson’s characters make you laugh and sing, but they’re also layered, surprising, and wise. From Oscar the Grouch, to Yoda, to the Fraggles. I’ve never stopped loving his work, even as a young frisky man, and on into adulthood. Collaborating with Lisa Henson makes me confident we can do something that Jim would have loved. I’m grateful and excited to be working with New Regency on this project.”

If you had the day off yesterday, we hope you had a lovely Presidents Day! Here are a few of the big headlines of interest making the rounds this morning…

– There’s a Deadpool Casting Call that appeared on Casting247, under the fake-title of “WHAM!”, and has led to speculation as to which roles these place-holder names represent. As I’ve said before, my X-Men knowledge is awful, but people better in the know think that “Ridge” is at least Garrison Kane, the villain of the film.

– The Dark Knight trilogy director Christopher Nolan sat down with Looper and Star Wars Episode VIII director Rian Johnson for a 30 minute interview regarding last year’s Interstellar at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. It’s a pretty great, lengthy chat for anyone interested in the art of filmmaking. (recording made available via SoundCloud user TheBigKahoona)

– Robert Downey Jr. was interviewed by Empire regarding Captain America: Civil War, and states that the lead-up to the new Captain America sequel is in Avengers: Age of Ultron:

The clues are in Ultron about where we might find [Stark] next, but what would it take for Tony to completely turn around everything he’s stood for, quote-unquote, because he was the right-wing guy who could still do his own thing. The idea of Tony being able to march into Washington and say, ‘I’ll sign up’, wouldn’t have made sense if the political climate in the real world hadn’t shifted the way it has. It’s a little bit of things following a real world continuum in, ‘What would you do?’ You have to figure, ‘Were you to ask the question, what would the American government do if this were real? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see Tony doing something you wouldn’t imagine?’

– Bryan Singer has posted another tease for the upcoming X-Men: Apocalypse, this time a piece of production art that shows…something. If you’re on Instagram, it’s worth following Singer’s posts, as he shares a ton of info via his account.

Some production art. #XmenApocalypse #GrantMajor I was a little busy but will continue to snap more.

A photo posted by Bryan Singer (@bryanjaysinger) on Feb 16, 2015 at 11:52am PST

Fans have clamored for years for Spider-Man to return to the Marvel fold, especially after The Amazing Spider-Man series began to crash and burn for Sony by its second entry. And now, your wishes have come true.

A new Spider-Man is debuting, and it’ll be in a Marvel Studios picture per The Hollywood Reporter.

I’ll let that settle in for a second.

The terms of the deal are that a new, rebooted Spider-Man (that won’t be Andrew Garfield) will debut in an unnamed Marvel Studios picture, believed to be Captain America: Civil War. In turn, Marvel head-honcho Kevin Feige will team up with Sony’s Amy Pascal to produce a new Spider-Man film for Sony and provide a new direction for everyone’s favorite web-slinger. This new film will debut on July 28, 2017.

Here’s Feige on the new deal:

Marvel’s involvement will hopefully deliver the creative continuity and authenticity that fans demand from the MCU. I am equally excited for the opportunity to have Spider-Man appear in the MCU, something which both we at Marvel, and fans alike, have been looking forward to for years.

Tellingly, long-time Spider-Man producer Avi Arad‘s name is nowhere to be seen.

Also, due to the new Spider-Man film date taking the slot that Thor: Ragnarok was slotted in for, Marvel’s Phase 3 line-up shifts a bit with the new schedule as follows:

Thor: Ragnarok – Nov 3, 2017

Black Panther – July 6, 2018

Captain Marvel – Nov 2, 2018

Inhumans – July 12, 2019

It’s time to get those fantasy casting lists for Spidey together, Marvel Studios just got its biggest name back.

With warm wishes for our friends getting snowed upon in the Northeast, here’s a few items that have crossed the newswires this Monday morning:

– The Flash is, on balance, probably my most looked-forward to superhero series each week (give or take Agent Carter), but nothing about that show excites me more than the upcoming appearance of Gorilla Grodd. He’s an evil, psychic, talking gorilla for pete’s sake! We don’t know much about who is voicing him or how CW’s generally meager budget will be able to manage the villain, but yesterday Andrew Kreisberg tweeted out the following:

@armenvfx just showed us a little Grodd VFX in honor of @geoffjohns birthday and it blew our puny human minds! #groddlives#TheFlash

— Andrew Kreisberg (@AJKreisberg) January 25, 2015

Grodd is expected to appear this season. The high pierced squealing sound you hear upon his debut is probably me. Don’t mind it too much, okay?

– Gotham continues to build up Batman’s rogues gallery and their latest acquisition is veteran actor Colm Feore, who will be playing The Dollmaker. You’ll probably best recognize Feore as Laufey from Thor (a movie that continues to grow in my estimation over the years). Gotham‘s version of The Dollmaker has ties to Catwoman as he’s behind the kidnapping of Gotham’s street children. A nicely surprising casting coup for the series.

– MovieCastingCall.org has posted info regarding the upcoming shoot for Captain America: Civil War, which is filming not far from my home here in Atlanta. According to the write-up, Daniel Bruhl, who recently joined the cast of the upcoming Marvel film will be playing Baron Zemo. Additionally, here is their description of the plot:

In Captain America: Civil War, billionaire Tony Stark is pitted against Captain America aka Steve Rogers in an ethical face-off over the U.S. government’s Superhuman Registration Act, which requires all superpowered individuals register their powers and report to S.H.I.E.L.D.

I’d take this with a grain of salt right now, Baron Zemo is certainly the go-to guess regarding Bruhl’s role, but the site in question has been known to post potentially dubious info on occasion.

On that same subject matter, Robert Downey Jr. recently spoke with Empire regarding the third Captain America film and his upcoming appearance (via Collider):

They said to me, ‘If we have you, we can do this, or Cap 3 has to be something else.’ It’s nice to feel needed. And at this point it’s about helping each other, too. I look at it as a competition and I go, ‘Wow, maybe if these two franchises teamed up and I can take even a lesser position, with people I like and directors I respect, maybe we can keep things bumping along.’

And he also described some of the character evolution in Tony that will lead to this antagonism between he and Steve Rogers:

It’s natural to change your views…The main thing to me is, what sort of incident could occur, and what sort of framework could we find Tony in? The clues about where we might find him next are in Ultron. But what would it take for Tony to completely turn around everything he’s stood for? Joss brings this up all the time. It’s kind of weird that these guys would have all these throw downs all over planet Earth and yet when the movie’s over, nobody minds. What would the American government do if this were real? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see Tony doing something you wouldn’t imagine?