Rumor Mill: New Die Hard and Fantastic Four Movie Titles and Spider-Man Reboot Villain
Posted 06.10.10 by BrentJS
A host of new movie rumors have popped up recently and, while we let the majority of them slide, a few are just too juicy to ignore. The first set of rumors concerns the possible new movie titles for the sequel to Live Free or Die Hard and the planned reboot of the Fantastic Four franchise. The source is Harry Knowles of AICN, a notorious movie blogger with a good track record of getting the dirt on Hollywood's biggest movies, so these carry some weight. The other rumor comes from BleedingCool, the site that recently spread the rumor that Michael Fassbender had been offered a role in Sony's Spider-Man reboot as the main villain, and claims to reveal just which villain Fassbender might be playing.
It's no secret that another Die Hard movie is in development. Live Free or Die Hard was a monster hit that went over well with fans and critics alike and the star of the franchise, Bruce Willis, has said repeatedly that he plans to return to the role that made him an action hero. The latest news about the project had Skip Woods (The A-Team) drafting a script, with Alex Young (Predators) producing. Now, AICN has reported that the title of the fifth movie in the franchise will be Die Hard 24/7. The article goes on to say that Willis was very inspired by his experience working with Sylvester Stallone on The Expendables and plans to bring some of that macho-man action to the new Die Hard.
Unlike Die Hard, Fox's Fantastic Four franchise is on far shakier ground. The second movie, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, barely covered its production budget at the domestic box office, did not go over well with comic book movie fans, and was practically lambasted by critics. Talk of a sequel immediately turned to talk of rebooting the franchise and, based on the new Fantastic Four movie title offered up by AICN — Fantastic Four Reborn — that appears to be exactly what Fox plans to do.
Finally, a follow-up of sorts to the recent BleedingCool article about Fassbender being offered villainous roles in both Spider-Man 4 (working title) and X-Men: First Class. According to the latest rumor, the evil character that Fassbender could play in Marc Webb's reboot of the Spider-Man franchise could be The Lizard. This seems plausible since the character was sort of being set up to appear in a future movie in Spider-Man 3 with the cameo appearance of actor Dylan Baker as Dr. Curt Connors, the man who becomes The Lizard in the Marvel comic books.
Fan reaction to The Lizard rumor has been overwhelmingly positive so far, mostly due to the fact that the fan community was not behind geriatric villain The Vulture (to be played by John Malkovich) starring as the primary threat in Sam Raimi's planned-but-scrapped sequel to Spider-Man 3. Having the wall-crawler square off against a 500-pound raging lizard man in the sewers beneath New York City has the potential for far more thrills than web-head duking it out with a crusty old man in a buzzard costume over Central Park any day of the week.