So many people in Hollywood love to complain about how a movie has to be rushed because of the merch and swag.
You can just imagine a studio executive screaming, “If the movie isn’t done on schedule, it won’t be ready by the time the toys are in the stores!”
Sure, merchandising and toys can be an incredible profit source for a studio, but a film is more important…right?
However you feel about movie toys, it’s interesting to note that fans have been looking at the toys for a lot of genre films in search of spoilers. Before The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises hit theaters, Collider examined the upcoming toys of both movies for clues. In the case of Spider-Man, the Lizard toy was probably the first time we got a good look at what the villain was going to look like, even if it was just a small, plastic replica.
So now with the Superman reboot Man of Steel about ten months away, there’s been more toy speculation hitting the ‘Net about what could be in the movie. The toys apparently tell us that General Zod is the villain, but we’ve known this for a long time. Michael Shannon, a tremendous actor who was also in The Runaways, Boardwalk Empire, and the upcoming biopic of the ruthless mob killer The Iceman, is playing Zod, and there’s little doubt he’ll be amazing in the role.
Funny enough, the toy General Zod in the commercial is bald, and we haven’t seen what Shannon looks like as Zod yet, so we don’t know whether he’ll have the slicked back widows peak like Terence Stamp did in the original Superman films, or whether indeed he’ll go chrome dome.
The toys also point to other potential plot points in the film, while the site screencrush thinks this could be overthinking things a bit. As screencrush mentions, the commercial has a spaceship called Black Zero, a reference to the “Destroyer of Krypton,” although it’s actually more of a “giant destructo-O thingie,” as the site iamrogue puts it. There’s also speculation from the commercials that Zod could have a robot army at his disposal, and that would certainly be one way to keep Superman busy for a while.
Also funny enough, the Superman doll is a lot like the legendary toy Stretch Armstrong, where you can stretch his arms out, and hurl him around the room. The doll looks pretty strong, and it would probably take a lot of work from a hyperactive kid to wear out its elasticity. Whether these toys do indeed have the keys to Man of Steel plot, or to paraphrase Freud, they’re just toys, we’ll find out when Man of Steel is in theaters June 14, 2013.
