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MCU heroes often differ greatly from their Marvel Comics counterparts, with changes in powers, backstories, and relationships. Natasha Romanoff and Hawkeye both share similarities with their comic book counterparts but differ in personality and relationships. Characters like Wong, Mantis, Drax, Hope Van Dyne, Star-Lord, G'iah, Namor, and Scarlet Witch have undergone significant changes when transitioning to the MCU.

Marvel Studios made many changes to some iconic characters from Marvel Comics when adapting them for the live-action Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Studios may have only been developing live-action superhero films since 2008's Iron Man, but Marvel Comics has been publishing the stories they're based on since 1939, then known as Timely Comics. Marvel Comics was officially born in 1961, revitalized with the release of The Fantastic Four #1, which introduced Marvel's First Family to readers. Over the last eight decades, Marvel Comics has showcased hundreds of vibrant characters, and only a handful of these...

Louis Malle’s French thriller is cooler than cool — his first dramatic film is a slick suspense item with wicked twists of fate and images to die for: 1) Jeanne Moreau at the height of her beauty 2) walking through beautifully lit Parisian back streets 3) accompanied by a fantastic Miles Davis soundtrack. Murder in Paris doesn’t get any better.

Elevator to the Gallows

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 335

1957 / B&W / 1:66 anamorphic 16:9 / 88 min. / Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, Frantic / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 6, 2018 / 39.95

Starring: Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Yori Bertin, Jean Wall, Iván Petrovich, Elga Andersen, Lino Ventura, Charles Denner.

Cinematography: Henri Decaë

Film Editor: Léonide Azar

Original Music: Miles Davis

Written by Louis Malle, Roger Nimier, Noël Calef from his novel

Produced by Jean Thuillier

Directed by Louis Malle

French director Louis Malle’s first fiction film is an assured and artistically adventurous suspense item. Unlike...

What about Natasha?

Scarlett Johansson introduced Black Widow in "Iron Man 2," and she returned in "The Avengers," "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," "Age of Ultron," and the new film "Captain America: Civil War," opening May 6. Black Widow has become a fan favorite character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but if you check out the busy slate for Phase Three, there are movies for Doctor Strange, Thor, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Captain Marvel, plus another Guardians of the Galaxy Movie and two "Avengers: Infinity War" films. But no Black Widow standalone movie.

Since Robert Downey Jr. just hinted that maybe he'd be willing to do a fourth "Iron Man" movie after all, it seems high time to address the bigger question: When is Black Widow going to get a first movie?

Collider had a Black Widow chat with "Civil War" directors Anthony Russo and Joe Russo,...

Rex Ingram in 'The Thief of Bagdad' 1940 with tiny Sabu. Actor Rex Ingram movies on TCM: Early black film performer in 'Cabin in the Sky,' 'Anna Lucasta' It's somewhat unusual for two well-known film celebrities, whether past or present, to share the same name.* One such rarity is – or rather, are – the two movie people known as Rex Ingram;† one an Irish-born white director, the other an Illinois-born black actor. Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” continues today, Aug. 11, '15, with a day dedicated to the latter. Right now, TCM is showing Cabin in the Sky (1943), an all-black musical adaptation of the Faust tale that is notable as the first full-fledged feature film directed by another Illinois-born movie person, Vincente Minnelli. Also worth mentioning, the movie marked Lena Horne's first important appearance in a mainstream motion picture.§ A financial disappointment on the...

David Hayter knows how to write a comic-book movie. With titles such as X Men, X Men 2 and Watchmen on his screenwriting resume, when this guy brings you a script, you pay attention. Back in 2004, it seems that Hayter was all set to make Black Widow the foundation of Marvel Studio’s future success – a full four years before Iron Man blasted onto our screens – but that project was killed off by the sexism of Hollywood. We know this, because an interview he gave to FemPop in 2011 has resurfaced, thanks to the intensified calls for a female-led superhero movie.

So, it seems that Hayter wrote what sounds like a very cool Black Widow origin story, which he described in his own words:

“We would have seen her early training in Russia. Once the Soviet Union fell, she would have moved to America, but her Russian mentor, Ivan Petrovich (aka The...

Francis Ford Coppola wasn’t around to give writer W. Somerset Maugham his father’s famous advice about “stealing” from the best to create your own art, but mystic Aleister Crowley accused the British author of doing just that after he read Maugham’s 1908 novel, The Magician. Maybe it was just sour grapes—seeing as how Maugham’s fantasy-terror tale was said to be inspired in part by Crowley’s life—but in Maugham’s story of a mad medical student who dabbles in the occult secrets of creating life (not to mention unnecessary surgery), Crowley saw elements he felt were directly lifted variously from Rosenroth’s Kabbalah Unveiled, as well as a book about 16th-century physician/alchemist Paracelsus and H.G. Wells’ man-beast classic The Island of Dr. Moreau.

Sounds like that could be a great movie? Not only has the obscure 1926 silent thriller made from Maugham’s book, produced and directed by Rex Ingram,...

From the moment that Mickey Rourke’s name was brought up in connection with “Iron Man 2,” the exact identity of his character has been up for debate. Some reports peg him as Whiplash, while others say he’ll play Crimson Dynamo. Still others think it’s an amalgamation of the two.

Now, a new interview with Rourke is putting that very question at the forefront once more — which character is he playing? According to The Guardian, the actor will star in the “Iron Man” sequel as “Tony Stark’s tattooed Russian nemesis, Ivan,” which is the name of the fourth Crimson Dynamo’s father.

It’s also worth mentioning that Ivan Petrovich was partners with fellow Russian agent Natasha Romanoff, more commonly known as the Black Widow — the sultry spy played by Scarlett Johansson in the superhero flick.

Whether or not Rourke is Whiplash, Dynamo or a combination, there...