The weekend may have come and gone, but we’ve got just what the doctor ordered to start your week off right! No, not an IV drip of French pressed Kopi Luwak, but the next best thing: Movie Morsels! Today, we’ve rounded up the best news from around the web, including updates on Justice League, Suicide Squad, The Maze Runner sequels, Birdman, MacGruber 2, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, and much more!

Justice League

While we’re getting our DC movie news fix from a steady stream of blurry Instagram videos trickling out of the set of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, other rumor-mongers are looking to the future and offering up some tantalizing tidbits about Justice League instead. Recently on the Meet the Movie Press podcast, Latino Review‘s superhero scoop-hunter El Mayimbe dropped some intriguing details about who will be battling the Justice League in the forthcoming 2017 film now that Argo writer Chris Terrio is tackling it.

Warning: mild spoilers follow, so if you don’t want to know anything about Justice League, keep on scrolling down.

“Brainiac is going to be villain in Justice League with a cool setup… Turns out Brainiac also heard the same Kryptonian beacon the Superman set off in Man of Steel. The same beacon that brought Zod to Earth. Very cool.”

Oh ho ho! Well, this is an interesting development. Many fans were speculating that the Justice League would be going toe to toe with the likes of Darkseid, but I think Brainiac would make for a much more interesting match-up on their first go-round. Plus, it wouldn’t waste one of the heaviest hitters in the DCU right off the bat and will avoid any comparisons to Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (even though Thanos was a ripoff of Darkseid in the first place). Still, considering El Mayimbe’s track record, there’s about a 50-50 chance that this is actually true, so until we get closer to production, you may want to take this with a Watchtower-sized grain of salt. [SchmoesKnow]

Suicide Squad

Doubling down on DC news? You’d better believe it! On the same episode of Meet the Movie Press, El Mayimbe also revealed that he knows just which characters will be in the rumored David Ayer-directed Suicide Squad film, which will bring together seven baddies for some good old fashioned Dirty Dozen-style black ops battles on the big screen:

“The seven members of the Suicide Squad directly from the script are as follows: Seven doors open and SEVEN PRISONERS step on the line. They will be our newly-formed team. To summarize:
BLOCKBUSTER — the strongman.
MULTIPLEX — the human replicator.
JACULI — the speedster.
MINDBOGGLER — the female telepath.

It’s a lot of names.  But don’t worry — our story is not going to feature them.  Instead we will emphasize…

HARKNESS — special weapons.
VIXEN — female with animal abilities.
And LAWTON (DEADSHOT) — you know what he does.”

Fans expecting Harley Quinn might be disappointed, but I think it’s smart to focus primarily on Deadshot, Vixen, and Harkness with the other characters featuring as needed. Seven characters can be a lot to manage, but given David Ayers’ track record thus far, I’m sure he’s more than up to the task. [SchmoesKnow]

The Maze Runner

Though I may have found the book the be an excruciating read, I have to give it up for the film adaptation of James Dashner’s The Maze Runner. Not only is it slick, well-produced YA fiction (and well-liked by our own Kyle Anderson), but director Wes Ball revealed that they’re not going to be greedy jerks about it by unnecessarily splitting the finale of the trilogy into four films. Speaking with Digital Spy, the director had this to say:

“I think three is the number; beginning, middle, end, that’s it. Four? I think there’s something off about four. For me, if I have any say in it, there’s three movies basically.”

You said it, Wes! Plus, considering the headscratchingly dumb names of the next two films, The Scorch Trials and The Death Cure, there’s no need to append a “Part 1” at the end of any of those. And if you’re really jonesing for more Maze Runner-universe films, Dashner already penned a prequel novel called The Kill Order and a follow-up The Fever Code is dropping in 2016. See? Sometimes you can have your cake and read it too! [CinemaBlend]

MacGruber 2

STOP THE MOTHERF–KING PRESSES! Anytime there’s even a sliver of news about the long-rumored MacGruber 2, it’s a cause for celebration. The latest update comes courtesy of Ryan Phillippe, who told MTV that “We are going to do MacGruber 2, we are very close to making [it]. And wait until you find out who’s going to be in it. The villain is going to blow your mind.”

Not that anyone can compare to Val Kilmer, but my mind is already racing with possibilities. As for the script, it’s nearly completed, according to Phillippe. “They’re nearly done with the script, yeah. Will [Forte] and Jorma [Taccone] have been working on the script for a while, and there’s an audience for it now!” the actor said. “So it bombs at the theaters, gets the worst reviews of all time, but every comedian that you know loves this movie.”

Every film critic too — seriously, half of the people I see around the press junket circuit make a yearly tradition of watching MacGruber, and you should too. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go buy some more celery stalks. [MTV]

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

After getting a massive tapestry-style poster and character posters for the likes of Gandalf and Galadriel, as well as a slew of other characters, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies has unveiled its latest character poster: Evangeline Lilly’s Tauriel. Who needs Tyra Banks? Tauriel is smizing so hard that she’s already won Middle-earth’s Next Top Model and Archery Competition.

Though, maybe I spoke too soon because Thorin here is doing a pretty solid Blue Steel himself:

[Flickering Myth]

Wytches

After only one issue, Scott Snyder and Jock’s new creator-owned Image Comics series Wytches has been optioned by New Regency and Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B to be turned into a feature film. To be fair, the official synopsis makes it sound like a pretty rad film in the making:

Across the globe, century after century, men and women were burned, drowned, hanged, tortured, imprisoned, persecuted, and murdered for witchcraft. None of them were witches. They died protecting a terrible and hidden truth: witches, real witches, are out there. They are ancient, elusive, and deadly creatures that are rarely seen and even more rarely survived.

Want even more Wytches goodness? Check out out interview with Scott Snyder and our exclusive Spotify playlists that he and Jock curated for us! [Deadline]

Birdman

Do you like your superhero films with an unhinged, metatextual undercurrent to them? Then you’ll love Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, which stars Michael Keaton as an actor who is trying to escape his iconic role (the titular Birdman) by mounting a new play to serve as his comeback. The film opens in limited release on October 17 and, to celebrate, there is a beautiful batch of new posters featuring Birdman majestically posing in different cities around the US.

And if that weren’t enough to get you excited, check out two brand new clips featuring the cast in all their delightful awkwardness.

Now if only we could get some news about Birdman Returns… [Slashfilm]

Citizenfour

Although he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize, Edward Snowden has still managed to make headlines across the entertainment industry. Not only is Joseph Gordon-Levitt set to play him in an Oliver Stone-directed biopic, but a documentary about him, Citizenfour, just bowed at the New York Film Festival and already has the critics hailing it as one of the best of the year. Executive produced by Steven Soderbergh and directed by Laura Poitras, the documentary offers a riveting account of the events leading up to Snowden leaking the classified NSA documents to members of the press. Unless a whistleblower leaks it sooner, you can see Citizenfour in theaters on October 24. [Collider]

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What do you make of today’s top stories? Let me know in the comments below or tell me on Twitter (@osteoferocious).

Images: DC Comics, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Image Comics