Marvel News

Further news has dropped confirming that the Fox-Disney deal is on-course to conclude in the earlier time frame (sooner than later--the soonest in January). Speaking of that purchase, I posted my article looking at what I think we can expect with the X-Men in the MCU (I may write about the Fantastic Four as well, although I've never been particularly interested in them).

There are stories floating around about this news that are making an erroneous conclusion: 1) the process of absorbing the physical elements of Fox will take longer, 2) therefore there will be a delay in the MCU using the returned Fox properties. The first has nothing to do with the second--MCU's on-hand production can easily make X-Men or Fantastic Four movies--the physical elements of Fox will simply add to how much production can be handled. The only thing that isn't set for the January 1st date provided in the article is the approval process on an international level (which may drag on a little longer).

I covered Jeremy Conrad's five-year gap theory in my comprehensive look at Avengers 4, but we have reason to return to that idea. In that article I brought up my two primary problems with it: 1) why is Nick Fury paging Captain Marvel if she's either arriving in five years or her arrival doesn't solve the immediate problem (which thematically the beeper implies), 2) the weak evidence supporting the fact (one ambiguous comment from Gwyneth Paltrow, the casting of twin boys, hair and wardrobe changes we'd get anyway, and a casting rumour about Scott Lang's daughter). Conrad is now jumping for joy about a Tweet from a guy who works at SuperBroMovies (having written exactly one article for the site):

Avengers 4 starts [five] YEARS after Infinity War. Not just a few months later as some people were hoping for. Sorry guys.

I've never heard of the guy, but Conrad calls him an 'industry insider' without elaborating (or responding to questions about him). I did my own research and he's primarily a DC rumour-guy who is hit or miss (it's difficult to tell what are simply educated guesses by him and actual scoops). Here are a couple of examples of things he's put out: he mentioned Ben Affleck wanted to stay in the Batman-role earlier this year and that seems completely untrue; in the summer he said Birds of Prey was casting, which doesn't take a genius to figure out given when the filming is scheduled to start. Conrad is pretty lazy when it comes to providing reasons why we should accept this information (outside his own confirmation bias). He also seems to have some emotional problems in dealing with criticism of this theories:

Resolving the death of half of the universe just days after it happened lessons the impact of what Thanos did. By picking up the story years after the event it gives the movie a chance to show the impact The Snap had on the world, how it broke the characters involved with it, and it also gives those characters a future (and possible family members) that they would need to sacrifice in order to reverse the events of a bad past. Starting Avengers 4 years after the events of Infinity War is very smart storytelling, and it’s going to be very cool to see where the movie goes from there.

Conrad is using a strawman ('a few days') to make his point--the speculation I've seen and share is that the time gap will be the usual one for the MCU (a year later in this case, following how long it has been between the films in real time). Given that Conrad isn't particularly subtle (as illustrated by how badly he got trolled over his as-yet unconfirmed Avengers Annihilation scoop), I wonder if he actually has inside information about the five year gap and isn't creative enough to come up with better reasons for it (his Twitter feed is filled with juvenile sparring with Star Wars fans who don't like The Last Jedi or Solo, which speaks to some emotional instability).

To sum this up: I have no idea if the source is credible, but Conrad's persistence with this idea (dating back to when there was even less evidence for it) makes me wonder if he was given an inside scoop that he can't reveal and simply doesn't know how to properly handle the information. I dismissed this idea previously, but I think given the histrionics I have to at least put it back in the 'maybe' pile. Let's briefly consider what it would mean:

The characters would be much older--a great deal would/could have happened off-camera. Conrad's primary argument is that Tony has a kid (the Paltrow statement and twin-casting) and thus fixing the Snap would mean giving up the child. I have a couple of problems with this: 1) I think that's much too hard on audiences to accept (and, really, why wouldn't he be able to have that child again once the timeline is sorted out?), 2) why would you want to portray a happy future post-Thanos? We know that when the film ends we'll be back to normal MCU time (probably a year after Infinity War, with a remote chance it occurs directly after Infinity War). The more you think about it the less sense it makes in terms of emotional impact--the Russo's aren't going to spend a ton of time on a future that's going to be undone and what, really, positive developments could you be losing by resurrecting half the universe? It's very implausible.

We've had our first toy leak related to the film and to me--or anyone who read my Avengers 4 article--there's not much new here. We get an image of the assembled heroes (the ones who survived the Snap: Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow, Hulk, Hawkeye, Rocket, Nebula, War Machine, Ant-Man, and Captain Marvel). The picture of the group matches the leaked art from a few months ago (which suggests someone involved with the toy companies leaked the image). The only new thing is the uniforms depicted (not shown here, but can be seen via the link)--Conrad says the white outfits match the style worn by Hank Pym in Ant-Man and the Wasp and their purpose is surviving the Quantum Realm--I see no reason to argue with that, but it's been assumed for quite some time that they would use that route to travel through time.

I don't typically comment on actor salaries because that's not my interest, but there are some general points to make about the THR report that Scarlett Johansson is being paid 15 million to star in the Black Widow film. The relevant quotes:

That salary equals what Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth earned for ... this year’s Avengers: Infinity War. Evans and Hemsworth also nabbed that same $15 million payday for Captain America: Civil War and Thor: Ragnarok, respectively, as well as the upcoming fourth Avengers film.

Just a note that both actors initially signed cheap, long-term deals when they started with the MCU. 

Marvel typically doesn’t open up its wallet for first outings – Robert Downey Jr. included as he took home $500,000 for the first Iron Man. Johansson pulled down about a low-seven figure salary for the first Avengers movie in 2012 (compared to Downey’s $50 million).... Still, Chadwick Boseman nabbed a seven-figure paycheck to star in Black Panther ($2 million, according to sources, which well tops Downey's first showing). ... And Brie Larson, whose Oscar win for 2015's Room figures into her deals, will be paid some $5 million for next year’s Captain Marvel movie (Larson landed a generous payday, but in exchange signed a seven-picture deal that locks her into multiple franchises.)

I hadn't heard that Larson's deal was for seven films, but we can assume that will consist of a trilogy of her own movies along with several Avengers (and possibly X-Men) appearances. This puts a lot of pressure on Marvel to get her character right. [After this story broke Larson Tweeted out a denial.]

While talent deals add to more than $100 million of Infinity War's budget [estimated at 316-400 million], it helps business affairs executives sleep easier knowing each Avengers movie easily crosses the $1 billion worldwide mark [1.5, 1.4, and 2.0].... And Marvel typically allows its actors to share in the upside of a film, including bonuses of up to several million dollars based on the film’s performance.

That profit-sharing arrangement is a great way to invest actors--even those being paid a much lower figure--into pushing for the MCU's success.

Ultimately, it appears that Evans, who announced that Avengers 4 will be his last film as Captain America, is leaving while the going is good.

THR is misconstruing Evans statement. As I explained at the time, nothing Evans said definitively says anything about what's happening between he and Marvel. He's a relatively young actor and there are going to be times he'll want to knock on the MCU's door to ask for Robert Downey Jr. money--the MCU won't want him to leave either because of how popular and bankable he is. If his comments mean anything they likely mean he'll appear less frequently, but I wouldn't be surprised if we found out another Captain America movie is in our future.

The other thing I take away from this is that Marvel likes to buy low when it comes to their actors, unlike Warner Brothers with DC (or Universal with their Dark Universe) where, out of the gate, they spend a lot of money on talent. One of the things that made the MCU so successful was deflating their talent cost--I suspect they will continue to try to do this, where possible, in order to maintain their profit margins (so look to lesser known actors, at least partially, for the returned Fox properties).

What a strange place it is for Disney with the problem they created for themselves by firing James Gunn. The script and actors are in place for Guardians of the Galaxy 3, but with no director and none internally who will take on the film, it will be interesting to see when they gear up for production and what changes (if any) they make to Gunn's script. I mentioned previously that Zoe Saldana (Gamora) has about 500 Avatar films to make with James Cameron, meaning her schedule could be a nightmare to sort out if she's meant to survive to the final film (granting that Disney is purchasing those films via Fox, which would make it easier to sort out).

THS is reporting that among the scripts the MCU has commissioned is one for the Dark Avengers (a 2009 Brian Michael Bendis comic), featuring villains working for the government. While THS has no idea how realistic it is to expect the property to be developed, I was interested in what they said about Sony's Silver & Black:

Though the details of Sony’s deal with Marvel Studios have never been made explicit, we do believe that part of the reason Silver and Black was delayed [late February and then cancelled in August] is because Marvel Studios made an effort to gain access to Norman Osborn, who was originally intended to be in Silver and Black.

I hadn't heard this before, but it would be no surprise at all if the MCU wanted to use Osborn. You have to think that one of the reasons the MCU has been using lesser villains in Spider-Man is due to Sony wanting to hold back on the bigger names to use in their own films (like Kraven the Hunter).

I haven't been out to see Sony's latest effort--I'm pretty indifferent to the character to begin with and none of the previews did enough to draw me in. The film had a better than expected opening weekend (pulling 80 million), arriving in a week filled with counter programming rather than actual competition. I was surprised by the response given its critical drubbing, but as was pointed out to me on Twitter, marketing likely played a huge role in that (even if it didn't specifically work for me). Will the film have legs? The next serious competition is the upcoming Halloween film and I don't know if that will push it back, but it does need legs. If the film goes full Batman v Superman and falls off a cliff, then all the news we're hearing about future Sony films will grind to a halt. If, instead, it has a more typical decline, then we may indeed get a Morbius movie (which is next in line for production).

I think Sony is hoping that when Marvel needs to resign their Spider-Man deal (after Far From Home), they can make shoehorning in the Sony-verse part of it, but with the re-acquisition of the Fox properties Kevin Feige is in position to decline and leave Sony floundering to explain why their lead character is no longer part of the MCU. It Sony's attempt at leverage which, I think, is doomed to fail. Only Universal, which is owned by Comcast, is likely to continue resisting Disney's efforts to reclaim all the lost Marvel properties (all of which the MCU can already use, just not in their own films).

James Gunn has been hired to write (and possibly direct) Suicide Squad 2--it's pretty unusual for Polygon to have a scoop like this so there must be a personal connection (direct or indirect) to Gunn, but that's just by the bye. The most interesting part of this story was an update:

Gunn is reportedly taking a totally new approach to the property so this isn’t exactly a sequel to David Ayer’s Suicide Squad. What exactly that means? We do not know

Charlie believes he'll be able to completely re-imagine the team, which could include recasting, recycling the roster, etc. Gunn is not a fan of Jared Leto, so it seems unlikely that his version of the Joker would reappear. The film has no release date (production was originally planned for this fall, but the script for the film was so similar to Margot Robbie's plans for Birds of Prey that it got thrown out), so it's not clear when it will appear.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)