Gotham City Sirens, Han Solo and more geekly News Round-Up!

A lot of new rumors regarding the DC Films universe, news on wether or not Venom will be in the MCU, and Han Solo loses his directors, plus more!

Venom Not In The MCU?!

Ok, buckle up.
When Sony Pictures announced a slate of Spider-Man villains spin off movies months ago, sources revealed that these films would NOT tie into the MCU, even if Sony's new Spider-Man, Tom Holland, will. Then a few weeks ago MCU head honcho Kevin Feige talked about this, saying that the Sony Spidey spin-offs will NOT tie into the MCU, at least for now. Over a week ago he sat next to Sony Pictures' Spider-Man producer Amy Pascal, to promote their joint release Spider-Man: Homecoming, where Pascal then said that the Spidey spin offs, like Venom, WILL tie into the MCU. Feige looked a little bit confused about this, but didn't say a word.
After that another Kevin feige interview surfaced, where Feige doubled down on his earlier claims that the Spidey spin off will NOT tie into the MCU.
The newest bit of news regarding this very frustrating and confusing rollercoaster of a news story comes from fandango editor Erik Davis on Twitter, who now talked again with Sony Pictures' own Amy Pascal and Feige.

FYI: Just spoke w/ Amy Pascal & Kevin Feige who clarified that Venom, Black Cat, etc are in the Marvel comics universe but not the MCU

Pascal said she was itching to clarify that after the story this week. Those other movies will not take place in the MCU

So there you have it. The spin-offs will NOT tie into the MCU at all, but will probably/maybe/hopefully feature Tom Holland's Peter Parker.
I really have the feeling we might have witnessed very hostile negotiations between Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures before our very eyes, which is kinda exciting, even if the outcome is not at all what most of us had hoped for. Especially if you had hoped to maybe see Venom take on any Avengers characters any time soon.

DC Films To Increase Movies A Year/ Sirens Shooting Soon?

With only Aquaman shooting at the moment and Justice League undergoing reshoots right now in London, but still keeping its original releasedate of November 2017, it looks like DC Comics might only have one movie for 2018 ready.
A lot of movies are in various stages of preproduction, like Man of Steel 2, Wonder Woman 2, Batgirl, Batman, Gotham City Sirens and Suicide Squad 2, but none of them have moved recently, which might mean that DC and WB are taking a wait and see approach after the huge success of WW to maybe readjust their movie schedule according to fan reactions for JL later this year.
However, the Wraps Umberto Gonzales reported on the changing DC Films landscape and had very interesting things to say, especially about the possibility of another DC movie for 2018.

"A lot of people have been asking me 'What’s the next movie in 2018?' I know for a fact that DC is trying to get three to four movies made a year going forward. If I were you, I’d make sure I’d be inside Hall H this summer."

While this doesn't reveal anything definitive yet, it does point towards at least a second movie to start filming this summer for a 2018 release.

Gotham City Sirens Shooting Soon?

David Ayer has been actively working and tweeting about Gotham City Sirens for almost half a year now, so that movie could be close to active production, especially if we look at the rumors of DC increasing their film output soon.
Jared Leto was asked last week if his Joker will be in that second Harley Quinn led live action movie and neither confirmed or denied anything, but hinted at knowing what might come. Plus: an officially licensed Gotham City Sirens movie calendar has showed up on amazon.com, which still features a placeholder image of Harley from Suicide Squad, but does actually reference the upcoming Sirens film:

Suicide Squad favorite Harley Quinn joins DC Comics' super villains Catwoman and Poison Ivy in a movie of their own, Gotham City Sirens. Find out more in the movie and in the 2018 Gotham City Sirens Calendar that includes the last four months of 2017. It features spacious grids with room to write in all of your super-villainous exploits printed on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

While this also doesn't mean anything definitive, it would be very weird for DC to license out an official Siren calendar for 2018 if the movie wasn't anywhere close to be released that year. Stay tuned for news on this girl power, supervillain extravanganza!

Han Solo Changes Directors

Lucasfilm announced last week that Han Solo solo movie (I love to call it that) directors Chris Lord and Phil Miller (Lego Movie, 21 & 22 Jump Street) departed the film due to creative differences. While a director departure is not anything special per se, it is when the movie was already shooting for MONTHS! This points to BIG problems between the directors and Lucasfilm and rumors have said that Lucasfilm president Kennedy personally had a lot of problems with the directing duo's improvisational style and relationship with the cast and crew.
Ron Howard (Beautiful Mind, Da Vinci Code, among others) has filled the vacant directors chair now and will steer the Young Han Solo solo movie (ahhhh, yes...) over the finishing line.
According to rumors Lord & Miller have also recently been seen at the DC Films offices, which lead to rumors about them possibly doing a DC movie instead (they wrote the first script for the Flash movie, so they are fans and already worked with the studio).
The removal of the very fresh and exciting directors does feel like a bad move to me, to be honest, since they were the only reason I had any interest in this, as I loved their other movies. A Howard directed, middle of the road Han Solo movie, without Harrison Ford, doesn't seem like something I'm very interested in.
The yet untitled film will release in Winter 2018.

Edgar Wright Finally Talks Ant-Man

Edgar Wright, director/writer of the Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Worlds End), Scott Pilgrim vs the World and the upcoming movie Baby Driver, finally broke his silence about his old job as Ant-Man director, which he left before the movie really took off, after years of working on it with Marvel Studios. Variety talked to the British director about his upcoming film and asked about the subject again.

“I think the most diplomatic answer is I wanted to make a Marvel movie but I don’t think they really wanted to make an Edgar Wright movie. It was a really heartbreaking decision to have to walk away after having worked on it for so long, because me and Joe Cornish in some form—it’s funny some people say, ‘Oh they’ve been working on it for eight years’ and that was somewhat true, but in that time I had made three movies so it wasn’t like I was working on it full time. But after The World’s End I did work on it for like a year, I was gonna make the movie. But then I was the writer-director on it and then they wanted to do a draft without me, and having written all my other movies, that’s a tough thing to move forward thinking if I do one of these movies I would like to be the writer-director. Suddenly becoming a director for hire on it, you’re sort of less emotionally invested and you start to wonder why you’re there, really.”

Even if I am still bummed about him not doing the film, I still really enjoy Ant-Man in its current form and feel a LOT of Wrights influence is still being felt in the movie after all. Plus this frees up Edgar to do more of his own thing, which is probably what he is best suited for anyway. There is only one Edgar Wright.