In order to help promote Twitch’s interactive scripted sci-fi series Artificial: Remote Intelligence, we have been speaking exclusively with every member of the cast. We’ve shared our chats with actors such as Tohoru Masamune (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Dante Basco (Hook), Alejandra Reynoso (Castlevania), and more.

Now, we at Comic Book Movie are excited  to bring you our chat with The Last of Us Part II star Stephen A. Chang (Shameless). Chang is known for providing not only the voice, but also the motion capture performance for the character of Jesse in Naughty Dog’s most recent video game.

When we talked with Stephen we asked about what it’s like to do motion capture work for a well-known video game franchise, and we learned some pretty interesting things! In addition, Chang also shared his hopes to one day join the cast of a Marvel Cinematic Universe film. He feels a connection with the Hulk, and would love to play the Asian version: Amadeus Cho!

Chang had a small role in last year’s Captain Marvel, a movie set firmly in the MCU. Plus, Amadeus Cho was technically credited as being played by Martin Starr in 2008’s Incredible Hulk, but Kevin Feige later ret-conned this when suggesting that the character went on to be Peter Parker’s teacher and field trip guardian during Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home. It’s also worth mentioning that Chang’s character from Captain Marvel was so insignificant he didn’t have a name, so it would go unnoticed if he was to be re-cast.

If you’re interested in hearing what Chang had to say about his work on The Last of Us Part II and his hopes for a future MCU role, click the podcast link below and skip ahead to 09:45!

Literary Joe: You provided the motion capture and voice for Jesse in Last of Us Part II.  Can you tell me a little bit about that experience and what it’s like to work with mo-cap?

Stephen A. Chang: Yeah, man. I mean, it’s just unreal — the technology that they have. You know, there’s one of those spandex suits with the balls all over you, and I don’t know if all games do it, but they even had a helmet that’s capturing your facial movements and everything.

And it’s unreal that you’re in this room that’s kind of empty, a set that just has boxes here and there. And they say “this is gonna be the farm, and this is gonna be a different set over here,” and it’s like “what are you talking about?”

But then, you look on this screen above you and the whole world is around you, so it was remarkable. It was one of the craziest and most fun acting experiences I’ve ever had. It was fun.

Literary Joe: Do you feel like the character of Jesse is similar to you at all?

Stephen A. Chang: Yeah, I would definitely say so. I think that the Naughty Dog team allowed me to bring a lot of myself to the character, so I definitely feel connected to him.

All of the different screaming and things I do, that’s me screaming, so it doesn’t get more real than that.

Literary Joe: I saw that there was quite a bit of backlash on the web about your character’s fate in the game. What’s your take on Jesse’s outcome?

Stephen A. Chang: Well hey, man, I’m an actor. I’d love to be back for Last of Us III, but what are you gonna do? (Laughs)

Literary Joe: Dunkey made an 8-minute video talking about how mad he was that you died.

Stephen A. Chang: (Laughs) Hey, man, I love it. Maybe I’ll come back as an infected or something. I don’t know if they’ll let me play my corpse. But you definitely get attached to it, I feel like.

It makes me happy that people resonated enough with the character that they felt bad for him to die. I’m glad people aren’t like, “well, that guy’s dead, you know?” (Laughs)

Literary Joe: Is there anything about any of your projects you’d like me to include for our audience?

Stephen A. Chang: I wish I could say there’s some big Marvel movie coming out, but unfortunately there’s nothing else, man.

Literary Joe: If you could play a character in a Marvel film, do you have a specific hero or villain you’d like to play?

Stephen A. Chang: You know, what’s funny, I mean it’s already taken but I feel like the character that I relate most to is the Hulk. Because I get angry a lot, and I would love to smash things but it’s not appropriate, so…

Literary Joe: Well, they haven’t cast Amadeus Cho yet, and he’s the Asian Hulk, so you could probably pull that off!

Stephen A Chang: Oh, really? Okay! I’ll get my agent on it right away, man. (Laughs)

*This interview has been edited for clarity.*

What do you guys think of Chang’s cpmments? Could you see him playing Amadeus Cho in the MCU, or do you have another pick for the Totally Awesome Hulk? Let us know your thoughts in the usual spot; meanwhile, be sure to check out the trailer’s for Chang’s most recent projects, Artificial and The Last of Us Part II.

After a vicious and violent event disrupts the relative peace that Ellie has found in Jackson, she sets out to bring justice to those responsible. As she hunts them down one by one, she is confronted with the devastating physical and emotional repercussions of her actions.

The groundbreaking Twitch series Artificial returns with Artificial: Remote Intelligence. This season takes a huge step forward with a bold new sci-fi vision and ground-breaking interactive methods, including an audience-controlled musical score and revolutionary new interactive Worldbuilding episodes. Viewers will be able to dictate aspects of the production including casting of new characters, story, and set design.

The Last of Us Part II is now available for the Playstation 4. Artificial airs live on Twitch every Thursday at 5:00 pm EST.

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The legendary Vinnie Jones delivers a career-best performance in his new movie from Vertical Entertainment, The Big Ugly (which will be released on VOD/Digital on July 31st), and when we recently caught up with him to discuss that project, we also asked about 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand. 

Jones played the villainous Juggernaut in the Marvel Comics adaptation, and while he was easily one of the most entertaining parts of an otherwise disappointing movie, his role was a limited one. Asked to reflect on the experience, Jones talked in detail about being let down by director Brett Ratner. Promises were made, and the version of Juggernaut he signed up for wasn’t the one he got to play.

“No,” the iconic ex-footballer responded when asked whether he enjoyed his time working on the X-Men movie. “I loved the role, but hopefully you can put it f***ing right here, mate. I basically got mugged off. Matthew Vaughn signed me up, and it was a great role and a great script, and Juggernaut was a great character. I signed up for three of them, and that will show you how serious I was about it. Brett Ratner basically dissolved the character. I was in my f***ing trailer half the time. It’s one of the most disappointing jobs I’ve been on as far as, you  know, ‘What am I doing here?'”

“It wasn’t the same Juggernaut as I signed on for. They took his storyline away, they’d taken his character away, his dialogue. I had two big meetings with Brett about it, and he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s coming. They’re writing stuff for you as we speak’ and it never f***ing happened,” Jones continued. “Disappointment wise, that was probably one of the biggest. What’s upsetting is some of the fans blame me! It was f***ing nothing to do with me! That role, I didn’t sign up for. The Juggernaut you saw was not the Juggernaut I signed on for with Matthew Vaughn, I’ll tell you that now. It upset me.”

“I know what it means to the fans, and I felt like I was a bit of a scapegoat as no one ever told my side of it. Nobody ever stood up and said, ‘Hold on a minute, we completely whitewashed Vinnie’s character. Basically, I was an extra, mate. That’s how I felt. I was gutted, to be honest.”

We then asked about the difference between working with Matthew Vaughn (who later directed X-Men: First Class) and Brett Ratner, and he responded: “It was a different script, and then Brett, for some reason, brought all these other characters on board that had one line each in the f***ing movie and it was a joke, really. It was so disappointing, you know?”

A different version of Juggernaut was used in Deadpool 2 (created with VFX and voiced by Ryan Reynolds), but with Marvel Studios rebooting the X-Men franchise, Jones had this to say about potentially taking another crack at the villain. “Yeah, I’d love a chance at putting it right. I really would. That is a stone that I need to turn over if I ever got that chance.” 

It feels like The Big Ugly and I Am Vengeance: Retaliation star has been looking forward to finally telling his side of the story, and none of this is hard to believe given what we know about X-Men: The Last Stand. It would definitely be good to see him get another shot at the Juggernaut (especially after his stellar work in Arrow), but there are other characters he would be a great fit for as well.

Check back here later this week for the full interview, and watch The Big Ugly trailer below:
 

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In “Rumor Mill,” we share the hard to buy rumours that don’t come from reliable sources like the trades, but are still more believable (just) than what you might find on Reddit. 

There have been rumblings for a while now that Marvel Studios has big plans for Captain Marvel 2, but if a new report from The Direct is to be believed, the stakes will be even higher than expected. 

Apparently, Ms. Marvel will take on a supporting role in the sequel, while it will also “include many important MCU characters,” with the site going on to describe it as a “mini-Avengers film.” That lines up with what we’ve heard before, and they go on to seemingly confirm that the plan is for the movie to adapt the Secret Invasion storyline.

That likely means we can expect to see Carol Danvers return to Earth in order to tackle a Skrull invasion, and Marvel Studios will no doubt start to drop some hints about Earth’s Mightiest Heroes being replaced with Skrull infiltrators. It ultimately depends how closely they stick to the comics. 

Regardless, this should definitely be taken with a pinch of salt for now, but it’s hard not to be excited about the prospect of a Captain Marvel 2 possibly heading in this direction. 

What do you guys think?

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The Umbrella Academy returns for its second season this Friday (you can check out our review HERE), and Netflix has now released a first look at Baby Pogo.

Pogo was killed by Vanya (Ellen Page) towards the end of Season 1 when she lost control upon learning that he knew about her powers being suppressed, but the time-travel plot device allows the fan-favorite character to return. In the ’60s timeline, Pogo is a baby chimpanzee being trained to be part of a mission into space.

How does he wind up learning to speak and joining Sir Reginald Hargreeves as his loyal companion? We’ll let you discover that for yourselves.

 Have a look at the image below along with the recent trailer, and let us know what you think.

Five warned his family (so, so many times) that using his powers to escape from Vanya’s 2019 apocalypse was risky. Well, he was right – the time jump scatters the siblings in time in and around Dallas, Texas. Over a three year period. Starting in 1960. Some, having been stuck in the past for years, have built lives and moved on, certain they’re the only ones who survived. Five is the last to land, smack dab in the middle of a nuclear doomsday, which – spoiler alert! – turns out is a result of the group’s disruption of the timeline (déjà vu, anyone?). Now the Umbrella Academy must find a way to reunite, figure out what caused doomsday, put a stop to it, and return to the present timeline to stop that other apocalypse. All while being hunted by a trio of ruthless Swedish assassins. But seriously, no pressure or anything.

The Umbrella Academy returns to Netflix on July 31.

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Comic-Con@Home has been taking place this weekend and, for the most part, it’s been a pretty underwhelming affair. That’s evident from the fact that fan-organised events “Justice Con” and “SaveDaredevilCon” have been gaining more attention online, but it’s one panel, in particular, that could prove to be most shocking (and not for good reasons). 

For those of you who were left feeling underwhelmed by the way The Hand were, well, handled in Daredevil, actor Peter Shinkoda – who played their leader Nobu – has alleged that former Marvel Television boss Jeph Loeb was responsible as he chose to veto Asian storylines and characters.

“Jeph Loeb told the writer’s room not to write for Nobu and Gao, and this was reiterated many times by many of the writers and showrunners, that nobody cares about Chinese people and Asian people,” the actor explains. “There was three previous Marvel movies, a trilogy called Blade, where Wesley Snipes kills 200 Asians each movie, nobody gives a ****, so don’t write about Nobu and Gao. And they were forced to put their storyline down and drop it.”

“I am privy to that storyline, they explained it to me, and they were very apologetic that they couldn’t go through with it, but their hands were tied,” Shinkoda continues. “It was a very interesting storyline about having to go [to New York] under the guise of getting some kind of transplant for medical reasons, and it was a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy was fudged, so that Nobu could get into the country and then carry out his Black Sky plans. But all that backstory was dropped, and the writers that told me they were reluctant to do it because they were so stoked about the storyline, but they were prevented. So I had to concoct this other storyline and then rock that material that I was given. Regretfully, I didn’t get to ever explore that.”

Quite frankly, that’s disgusting if true, and it could go some way in explaining why Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige has no interest in working with Loeb now he’s in charge of the stories that play out on television. Loeb’s legacy has been one of rating disappointments, cancelled TV shows, and critical flops like Iron Fist and Inhumans. 

What are your thoughts on these comments from the Daredevil alum?
 

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Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi recently confirmed that he’s “doing another pas” on the final draft of the script, and star Natalie Portman has now provided an update on when cameras are expected to start rolling on the highly anticipated Marvel threequel.

While interviewing tennis superstar Serena Williams (via The Direct) about the National Women’s Soccer League team they co-own competing in L.A., the Academy Award-winner mentioned that the COVID-19-related delays have given her “more time to, you know, get jacked,” before adding that she’s “got the carbo loading down but not the leg exercises.”

As we know, Portman is getting fighting fit because her character, Jane Foster, be lifting Mjölnir as the new God of Thunder in Waititi’s follow-up to Thor: Ragnarok. The movie is currently set for release in 2022, and it sounds like production is still on track for early 2021.

Portman went on to express how excited she is to return to The MCU, and confirmed that she’ll be “shooting in Australia at the beginning of next year.” Another Marvel Studios movie, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, recently resumed filming down under after becoming one of the first major projects to halt production because of the pandemic.

Aside from Foster taking up the mantle of Thor, plot details for Love and Thunder remain a closely guarded secret, but we do know that Christian Bale is on board (most likely as a villain), and Valkyrie’s (Tessa Thompson) search for a Queen will also factor into the plot.

Are you guys excited for Thor: Love and Thunder? Let us know in the comments.

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