Welcome to another fun-filled week of Movie Morsels, dear readers! To help you start your week off on the right foot, we’ve got the latests news about Robert Downey Jr. returning for Iron Man 4, the future of Hellboy 3, what characters might not be in Avengers 3, updates on X-Men: Apocalypse, and much, much more!

Iron Man 4

Remember a month ago when Robert Downey Jr. assured us that there isn’t any Iron Man 4 on the way? Point of fact, the actor said, “There isn’t one in the pipe…No, there’s no plan for a fourth ‘Iron Man.’” Well, there may not be a plan for one, but he’s still open to the idea. Recently, he asked if he would do the film if it were directed by Mel Gibson, saying “Why not? That movie would be bananas.”

Iron Man meets Apocalypto? I could get down with that. [Deadline]

Hellboy 3

Looks like persistence might be paying off for the droves of journalists – myself included – who take every opportunity possible to pester people like Guillermo del Toro, Ron Perlman, and Jeffrey Tambor about when we might see a Hellboy 3. While doing press for Transparent on The Colbert Report of all places, Tambor revealed that the project might not be dead and buried after all:

“There is actually talk of a ‘Hellboy 3,’ but they better hurry or I’m going to be in a walker.”

Walker or not, I want to see that movie, so get on it already, powers that be! [ScreenRant]

Deadpool

Remember the joy you felt when it was confirmed that the Merc with a Mouth would be getting his own feature film? We do too, and now there’s another reason to be excited: Deadpool will be part of a shared universe with the X-Men. The news was confirmed by X-Men: Days of Future Past writer/producer Simon Kinberg in a recent interview:

“There’s definitely a sort of overall plan that we’ve all been talking about for the X-Men universe now, and Deadpool obviously fits into that. So yeah, I guess I would say it’s part of certainly an overall timeline and thought process that goes into these films, some of which is inspired by the comics and some which is inspired by seeing what Marvel’s done with telling a larger tapestry and linking all those movies together, even as they stand independently as well. The same kind of thought is going to go into these X-Men movies at Fox.”

Does that mean we can expect a dogfight between the Blackbird and the Bea Arthur for control of the skies? Keep your fingers crossed, True Believers. [io9]

Avengers 3

Could your favorite characters be sitting out Avengers 3? Badass Digest certainly seems to think so. Last week, rumors broke that Avengers 3 will be broken into two parts, which probably isn’t true thanks to the nature of the multi-film contracts that the actors signed. However, while doing some digging, they discovered that it’s likely that Marvel may sit other characters out of Avengers 3.

With contracts for heavy hitters like Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth coming to an end and the success of Guardians of the Galaxy in their corner, Marvel is realizing that people will show up for the brand, not just the stars attached. This means that they could be replacing some of the core members of the Avengers with newcomers like Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, and possibly Captain Marvel. This would imply that Avengers 3 isn’t the finale of Thanos’ sinister schemes and that the House of Ideas could bring together the casts of all of their films for an epic Phase IV set piece like Infinity Gauntlet that brings together the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for massive throwdown. Whether or not this is the case remains to be seen, but the point is that there’s still tons of reasons to be excited about the MCU. But there’s also still an incredible amount of patience required. [Badass Digest]

Fantastic Four

Though we’ll still have to wait until August 2015 to see Fantastic Four, we’re getting more and more details all the time. The latest comes courtesy of Michael B. Jordan who reveals that the Josh Trank-directed reboot will feature modernized costumes:

“How did I feel about wearing spandex? The costume part wasn’t that bad. I think we did a really good job at making it modern, new, fresh without going to the cheesy superhero outfits. We didn’t take the easy way out at all. So I didn’t mind it so much.”

Hopefully they’ll still retain elements of the classic blue jumpsuits because I, for one, am pretty tired of seeing ever superhero under the sun wear stylized leather jackets like they’re part of a gang of cool dads who ride motorcycles on the weekend. [Joblo]

X-Men: Apocalypse

Simon Kinberg has been awfully talkative as of late, hasn’t he? Even I spoke to him last week about X-Men: Apocalypse and the recently announced “Rogue Cut” of X-Men: Days of Future Past just last week. This latest tidbit, though, reveals that the film will close out the trilogy started in First Class, and will likely focus on Beast and Mystique.

“I will say that [X-Men: Apocalypse] is definitely the close of a trilogy for those First Class characters, which isn’t to say we won’t see them in future movies, hopefully we will, but it’s a completion of an arc for them. I think that the friendship between Erik and Charles, which has always been so integral to the franchise, is something we’re continuing to explore and hopefully deepen with Apocalypse. And the relationship between Beast and Mystique is a really interesting one that we didn’t have a lot of time to explore in Days of Future Past, so we’ll have an opportunity to do more of that in Apocalypse.”

Though he couldn’t confirm directly that the film would focus on Mystique, he did offer this tidbit:

“Part of what’s really interesting about Mystique’s character is that she is, in some ways, the child of both Erik and Charles. She grew up with Charles and then she sort of became a woman with Erik, so her being the cross-pollination, if you will, of those two philosophies and those two men is something we can explore in the movie too.”

Honestly, the sooner we admit that the only thing that matters at this point is whether or not we’ll see Mohawk Storm. [Slashfilm]

Super Troopers 2

We told you here first that Super Troopers 2 was on the way, but now Chewin’ It with Kevin and Steve co-host Steve Laemme has confirmed it to Us Weekly that the film is on the way. They’re just a few dollars short, so they might have to turn to Kickstarter to shore up the war chest.

“The fans have been asking for it for a while, but we were finally able to package everything together. Fox is going to distribute the film, but we needed to raise the money for it, with a minimum budget of $27 million, which we’ve just about raised. There may be a Kickstarter launched to raise the last little bit.”

Laemme also revealed that the film will pick up shortly where the other left off:

“I think it’s one of the more unique and interesting stories I’ve seen in awhile. But the movie picks up pretty much where we left off in the first one. It’s a few years later. The biggest difficulty was trying to top that opening scene, which so many people have complimented us on. I think we’ve done it.”

Yeah, if we could see that movie right meow, that’d be great. [TheWrap]

American Sniper

Would Rocket Raccoon murder a child? That’s the central question at the core of the new trailer for Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, which stars Bradley Cooper as Chris Kyle, the most lethal sniper in U.S. history. Judging by the trailer, the biopic is going to present us with some seriously grueling moral quandaries, and like most Clint Eastwood films, it’s one I can’t wait to see. [CinemaBlend]

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Images: Marvel, Mondo, 20th Century Fox