Wolverine Goes to the Carnival

From:

Ahoy,squirts! Quint here. WOLVERINE is shooting in Australia at the moment and now they're doing some location stuff... you know what that means! Spy pics and reports will start flowing in!
Let's start with the report and that'll be followed by some pics! Enjoy!

Hey Harry
Long time reader, first time contributor. I have a small tidbit about the Wolverine prequel coming up that you may be interested in.
An article ran in the Sydney Morning Herald earlier this week that said they would be doing an overnight shoot for Wolverine in Federal Park this Friday night and that fans should beware because security would be tight. Taking this as somewhat of a challenge my mate and I decided to tool up and see if we could sneak onto the set. We arrived at the location just after nightfall dressed in suitably dark attire and proceeded to try and sneak in past security.
The set was pretty cool. They had sealed off a fairly large section of the park and done it up as a carnival with lots of bright lights, some rides and a Ferris Wheel and various attractions. There were a lot of extras milling around in typical carnival attire such as mimes, clowns etc.
We made it past security and into the restricted area and were wandering around through the trailers and such but couldn't really get close enough to the set to see much, although we did go past Ralph Winter and John Palermo's trailers. We doubled back around and discovered there was an area where we could get quite a good view of the set and that was actually open to the public with security letting us stand quite close. Unfortunately all of the lights really messed up my camera and none of the photos turned out very well.
We saw someone who looked like Will.i.am from the Black Eyes Peas wearing a purple jacket and sporting an afro walking around the carnival set and conferring with the director, but what I found most interesting was the set dressing of the sideshow attraction. There was one that had a picture of a man with a beard in a top hat called Dr Freak advertising his freak show with a woman called 'Elastina' who I assume is going to be a mutant. There was also a three headed baby. It'll be interesting to see how this ties in to the film.
If you run this you can call me 'The Man Who Japed'.

And then we have a series of pics taken by another spy, known in the talkbacks as "hallmitchell." No actors are in them, but you can get a feeling of this carnival atmosphere. Enjoy!

Charity recognizes Marsden for support

From:

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Film star James Marsden is to be one of the honorees at the upcoming Tourette Syndrome Association's awards dinner in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Marsden, who is best known for his roles in the "X-Men" trilogy, "Hairspray" and "Enchanted," has long been a supporter of the charity.

Also expected to attend Wednesday's Champion of Children ceremony and dinner at the Beverly Wilshire hotel are Richard Lewis, Dash Mihok, Jami Gertz , Josh Hopkins and Keith Collins.

New Wolverine Shots

The one day I take a break, these hit the web.
Bigger versions will be uploaded to the Wolverine page.

Sitting With The Enemy

From: JUSTJARED.


Liev Schreiber and Dominic Monaghan grab lunch with a pal at Swell Bar in Sydney, Australia on Saturday afternoon.

Liev, 40, plays Sabretooth, aka Victor Creed, and Dominic, 31, plays Beak, aka Barnell Bohusk in the X-Men spin-off film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Costars Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), Daniel Henney (Agent Zero), and Taylor Kitsch (Gambit) are also in town to film scenes for the new superhero flick.

10+ pictures inside of Sabretooth & Beak lunching together… HERE

This is Not a Wolverine Teaser Poster

From:

We're seeing this pop-up on Blogs over the internet already, so, before it gets out of hand, we wanted to make sure you know this is not an officially released teaser poster for X-Men Origins: Wolverine from 20th Century Fox. Instead, it's cool fan art created by Superhero Hype! message board poster 'Neto Magnus'. Nice work Neto!

Wolverine Production Arrives in Sydney

From:

ABC News in Australia is reporting that Hugh Jackman will start filming X-Men Origins: Wolverine in Sydney, Australia on Monday after wrapping the shoot in New Zealand:

Most of the film, a prequel to the X-Men trilogy, is being shot at Sydney's Fox Studios and other sites around the city after some initial filming in New Zealand earlier this month.

New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma says the movie will create 250 full-time equivalent jobs and inject at least $60 million into Sydney's economy.

"Wolverine's producers have chosen Sydney as the base for this production ahead of Canada, thanks to our key infrastructure at Fox Studios and our talented crew base," he said in a statement.

Jackman is also a producer of the film, which is set 17 years before the other X-Men movies and looks at the origins of the Wolverine character.

"Wolverine" hits theaters on May 1, 2009.

Weekly Ketchup: Wolverine gets more mutants.

From:
by Greg Dean Schmitz

WOLVERINE AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS
X-Men Origins: Wolverine lit up the movie news sites nearly every day this week, as a large ensemble cast was trickled out in dribbles and spurts. What we're left with a week later is a cast that looks more and more like the movie should be called Weapon X or even X-Men 4, as it includes nearly every character ever connected in the X-Comics in any way to Weapon Plus or the Weapon X program, and a few that weren't. Where to start? Well, first off, there is Danny Huston, who will be playing the younger version of Stryker (Brian Cox) from the second movie (keep in mind that in the comics, Stryker wasn't even involved with Weapon X). And then, there are the many, many Weapon X characters: Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber, replacing Tyler Mane with someone who is more "actor" than "wrestler/stuntman"), Silver Sable (Lynn Collins), John "Kestrel" Wraith (Will I. Am of the Black Eyed Peas) and Agent Zero (AKA Maverick) (Daniel Henney). Not part of Weapon X (traditionally) but also included in the cast are Gambit (Taylor Kitsch from TV's Friday Night Lights) and "Barnell" (Dominic Monaghan, who played Charlie on Lost, and also played a recurring midget in a few movies back in the early 2000s. I KEED.).

The confusing thing about Monaghan's character of "Barnell" is that the trades are saying that he has electricity powers, but the only Barnell in the Marvel universe is a mutant named Beak, who is a sad sack with the physical features of a bird (beak, chicken feet, feathers all over, the whole thing), without the expected ability to actually, you know, FLY. Beak is miserable and very sympathetic in a "zero to hero" way that Monaghan would be perfect for (let me admit right up front that Beak is one of my favorite new X-characters introduced in the last 10 years). So, why they're saying he's got a completely different M.O. is mildly bizarre. If they're going to fake us out, you have to wonder why they would bother using the "Barnell" name. And, oh, yeah, there are also rumors that an extra has been seen sporting a huge fat suit as The Blob.
With all these potential enemies (or team mates of a sort) being announced, Wolverine's biggest threat was also announced this week, in the form of the daughter of that "Achey Breaky Heart" guy, and the unstoppable juggernaut that is The Hannah Montana Movie. If her B.O. beats Wolverine's B.O. on the 5/1/09 weekend, it will be a sort of generational milestone, I suspect. I would give Hannah Montana her own story, but ummm... I don't really have much to say. I've seen commercials for the TV show, and it appears to be about a teenage girl who is secretly a Britney Spears type pop star. And it's very popular with girls who were born after I received my Masters Degree. Oh hey, look, I actually did write a paragraph about Hannah Montana. So... NEXT!

WOULD YOU RATHER BE REMEMBERED AS EBENEZER SCROOGE, OR FRASIER CRANE?
Comedy director David Zucker (whose filmography started with Airplane! and most recently includes Scary Movie 3 & Scary Movie 4) has set his particular style of movie satire on tackling the Christmas genre, apparently, with plans of doing a modernized, Americanized adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, called An American Carol. Kelsey Grammer starred in a TV version a few years back as Ebenezer Scrooge, and so he's been picked by Zucker to star in this version as well. I'm sort of reminded of how many times Patrick Stewart has played Scrooge (in a 1999 TV movie, and in several stage versions), and to this movie's detriment (before it's even made), of how great Stewart was as Scrooge. I'm pretty sure Patrick Stewart probably would not have signed on for Zucker's movie, so... yay for Frasier.

EXCLUSIVE: Kevin Durand to play The Blob in Wolverine

From:

by Neil Miller

And just like that, we’ve got another little scoop for you from inside the production of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Last week we told you that Wolverine would encounter The Blob at some point during the upcoming prequel, and now we know who will be jumping into the big rubber fat suit. His name is Kevin Durand.

Not familiar with the name? Just look at the picture to the right. Durand is “that guy” from movies like Wild Hogs, Mystery, Alaska and most recently 3:10 to Yuma. Our source inside the production tells us that Durand was “live-scanned” for The Blob a while ago, but has just officially signed on to the project in recent days. Word is that he will be heading up to his native Canada to shoot scenes for the film sometime next week. This is also important because the rest of the production is happening half way across the world in New Zealand and Australia. Does this mean that The Blob will not share too many scenes with Wolverine himself? Or does it mean that he will be shooting everything in front of a green screen and be digitally inserted into the film? Or better yet, is the production moving to Canada at some point? Time will tell, I’m sure.

In other Wolverine news, Lord of the Rings and Lost star Dominic Monaghan has also joined the production as Barnell, a former military ally of Logan with the power to harness energy and electricity.

Stay tuned for more Wolverine news in the coming weeks… We will keep our recon team working overtime for you.

It's Official: 6 More Added to the Cast of X-Men Origins: Wolverine Movie

From:

Big stars locked in for Sabretooth, Gambit, Deadpool and more.

Wolverine may be the X-Men's resident loner, but that doesn't mean he won't be bringing a whole lot of company with him when his solo movie debuts on May 1, 2009!

Twentieth Century Fox has officially announced six of Hugh Jackman's co-stars, including Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool and Gambit, as played by "Friday Night Lights" star Taylor Kitsch!

What, you want even more? Well how about Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am as John Wraith, Danny Huston as Col. William Stryker and Lynn Collins as Kayla Silver Fox? Add in Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth and you've got a movie that even the big screen will have trouble holding in!

If you need a quick refresher, below are some glimpses at what all the characters look like in various comic book incarnations, but expect things to be a bit different come next year.

So sit down and buckle up, Marvelite, because the ride's just beginning—and you ain't seen nothing yet!

Foo Fighters Sue Marvel over "Wolverine and the X-Men" Animated Feature

From:

The trailer appeared on the web utilizing Foo Fighters music without permission...

Rolling Stone said The series producers First Serve International, Toonz Animation India and First Serve Toonz were also named on the lawsuit, with the Foos seeking unspecified damages.

Once the trailer started appearing on news websites, the cartoon maker pulled it off their own.

Will.I.Am Sings On ‘Wolverine,’ Becomes Teleporting Mutant

From:

He’s a member of The Black Eyed Peas, an internationally known recording superstar heard and beloved by millions. All fine and good - but you ain’t never heard will.i.am sing like this.

“Root-a-toot-toot! I’m doing ‘Wolverine’!” the singer crooned exclusively to MTV News in his first interview about the high-profile “X-Men” prequel. “That’s cool! I don’t mean to toot my own flute, but toot-a-toot-toot!”

[VIDEO]

It’s all smiles these days for will.i.am with the recent news that he nabbed the part of John Wraith, a teleporting mutant also known as Kestrel, in the eagerly anticipated superhero flick. Not bad for a guy with zero acting experience, especially considering he didn’t exactly get off on the right foot with the casting director, he laughed. Bold, sure, but that’s just how much of a fan he is of “X-Men.”

“You don’t understand, check this out, this is how much of a fan I am. I went to the casting right, and they asked me if I knew about X-Men. I was like, ‘Pssh, I know X-Men.’ They were like, ‘Yeah, you know, you’re gonna play a teleporter.’ And I was like, ‘You mean like Night Crawler?’ ‘Night Crawler wasn’t a teleporter.’ ‘Yes he was a teleporter! The dude was a teleporter!” he recalled, giggling. “He would be on the walls, and he was in the Presidential office disappearing and people couldn’t really hit him. He was like, disappearing, poof poof. I was like, ‘Yo, I’m telling you, homey.’ I’m a fan of X-Men.”

But as much as he’s excited about entering a comic book world, he’s even more excited to be doing it as a black man, he said.

“I love black films, I love ‘em, but I want to see other black films other than, like, barbeques, barber shops, and Fridays. The fact that I’m in this film, that’s super dope because you could’ve had me in a film, like, on a corner,” he insisted. “I’m in a rap group. Cast him and have him play this thug, which is all great. But I’m saying as black people we need to do some other stuff. So I’m super, super, super, super blessed and proud to be a part of ‘Wolverine.’”

As a member of Wolverine’s “top secret” CIA black ops “Team X,” will.I.am knows he has to hold his own alongside buff guys like Hugh Jackman. To that end, he left for Australia last night to “get in shape at boot camp” he said.

In the meantime? Just call him “Thrill.I.Am!” the actor sang.

Well, root-a-toot-toot!

What do you think of will.i.am’s casting in “Wolverine”? Are you more or less excited for the project now that we know a large portion will center on Team X? Sound off below.

New Wolverine Filming Location?

From:

Moviehole Down Under is reporting:

Clint, Just a bit of info re WOLVERINE. I work on Cockatoo Island on Sydney Harbour. For your information, they are filming there over the next few months. Currently building sets etc. Lots of night shooting coming up apparentely. At this stage due to finish there in May. If you use this, please don't use my name. Cheers.

More info on Cockatoo Island can be found at the link above.

Henney is Agent Zero in Wolverine

From:

Variety says that Daniel Henney has also joined the cast of 20th Century Fox's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, now filming in New Zealand, Australia and New Orleans.

Henney will portray Agent Zero, a member of the Weapon X program and an expert tracker with lethal marksman skills.

He'll be joining Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), Liev Schreiber (Sabretooth), Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool), Taylor Kitsch (Gambit), Will.i.am (Kestrel), Danny Huston (William Stryker), Dominic Monaghan (Barnell) and Lynn Collins (Silver Fox) in the Gavin Hood-directed pic, opening May 1, 2009.

Stunt Double Talks About Wolverine Filming

From:

Scene.co.nz talked to X-Men Origins: Wolverine stunt double Kate Newman who revealed some interesting bits about what she did on-set (Spoilers ahead!):

Her "scariest" task was to drive an old two-wheel-drive ute along narrow gravel roads at about 80kmh.

"Every time you see that character in a car, that's actually me."

She also had the "unexpected" job of kissing Jackman's double. "Definitely no tongue involved," she adds.

Scenes were shot in Glenorchy, Shotover Canyon and Dunedin, finishing last week.

For more on Newman's experience, hit the link above!

Wolverine Gets New Company on May 1, 2009

From:

ComingSoon.net reports that X-Men Origins: Wolverine will no longer face the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced G-Force on May 1, 2009, but instead will have to cope with tween pic The Hannah Montana Movie.
Also, Disney has announced it will release Bruce Willis sci-fi action-thriller Surrogates, based on the graphic novel, on November 20, 2009.