Marvel News

Best of the holidays to everyone--I hope it has been a happy one for you all.

We've had yet another toy leak showing sets coming out for the movie and these (translated roughly from Romanian by the poster) are: Captain America against Outrider; War Machine Crusher; Iron Man Armour Room; Avengers Super Quinjet; Battle of Assembled Avengers. These are listed by price from lowest to highest. Assuming this is real it's so vague I don't think it tells us much (the inclusion of an Outrider puzzles me). The only information that stands out is simply the final one, a battle with the assembled Avengers which (if true) would match the 'everyone scene' that I've covered before.

A recent popular Reddit thread painstakingly tries to give each Avenger with a solo film an arc that matches their first film, which I think misses the point of the Russo's revisiting films from the past (see the link above). We aren't going to see exact parallels from those stories--character growth should mean no exact imitations from the past.

Just as I was about to post more promo leaks dropped for Captain Marvel and what's interesting is the name used for Jude Law's character: Mar-Vell. Remember that less than a month ago a toy leak listed him as Yon-Rogg, so what are we to make of the contradiction? I can think of many ideas, from the simple one that someone faked one or the other, to the character having two identities (hell, he could even be a skrull). All I'll safely say is the toy company is not going to list a name unless it is given to them, so either both are correct and he has two identities or one is wrong--what that will mean we'll have to wait and see.

When I was talking about the Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer shown at CCXP (which, after the fact, Sony decided not to release publicly), one of the curious villains mentioned in the descriptions was Sandman. It was hard to imagine such an iconic character being thrown in with these very generic 'elemental' villains (as I mentioned at the time). It turns out that the initial description is likely wrong and simply due to a shot that's shown. Charlie (not an original thinker, keep in mind) said the elemental villains consists of: Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire (he says Lava, but that doesn't fit the theme). This would make a lot more sense than having one of Spider-Man's iconic villains lumped in with rent-a-thugs.

The toy leak mentioned above also included sets from Far From Home and these are much more interesting. Hydro Man and Molten Man are confirmed as such, and more interestingly: 'Stark's plane and drone attack.' Why is Stark tech there? Is it related to Pepper Potts? Has Mysterio infected that tech? It raises some interesting questions that can't be answered until we know more.

Disney's Kevin Mayer, chief architect of the deal to buy Fox, has been shifted to run the company's streaming service. I bring this up only to point out that, if the deal had ever been in serious jeopardy, it's unlikely Mayer would have been released of that duty back in March.

After writing the above NBC reported that the deal is expected to be finalized in January. If this is true we can put to bed the lugubrious comments from luminaries like Campea and Charlie who have been so irrationally conservative about when (and for the former, if) the deal was going to happen. This would also come close to matching my original expectation of December (which Deadline's echoed in October).

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse wound up making 35 million in its opening weekend, hitting the middle of projections. It experienced a 53% drop in week two (16.6 million), which isn't bad considering the competition. For the movie to break even it needs to hit at least 180 million, so will have to rely on smaller drops domestically and overseas to do so (it's at 64.3 in the latter case). It has an overall total of 138 million through Tuesday, making it unlikely to break even (undoubtedly, on home release, it will turn a profit). I bring this up because I still only see unending praise for the film with Sony talking about sequels and spinoffs--as I mentioned before, I really wonder how many (if any) of those efforts will actually come to the big screen if the film can't turn a profit in theaters.

I saw Aquaman on opening day and wanted to share my thoughts on it: the film suffers from a terrible script and bloated plot (David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrik and Will Beall were the writers--neither is distinguished and both better known for TV); the leads have no chemistry and the film ignores its set-up in Justice League; like virtually all DC movies begs the question of why doesn't Superman solve this problem? Despite what should be crippling problems the film was the most fun DC venture thus far (keeping in mind I've never seen Man of Steel, although even fans of that film don't call it 'fun'). There's something absurdly entertaining in how ridiculous it all is, with an undercurrent of frustration of how much better the film could have been with better writing. The movie seems on target to make enough money to warrant a sequel at least (556.8 thus far), so James Wan (if he wants to do it) has a chance to improve the franchise. There's no sign in it, incidentally, that Warner Brothers has figured out how to make their superhero universe work (no set-up for Shazam, no meaningful nods to the rest of the DCEU, etc).

The interesting experiment called Once Upon a Deadpool (the re-release of Deadpool 2 cut for a PG-13 with 20 minutes of additional footage) has finished its planned 12-day release, grossing 5.94 million. This is, I suspect, a disappointment for Fox and Ryan Reynolds (the money will be added to the gross of the original, which doesn't shift it's all-time position among comicbook films). It was an interesting experiment to see if Deadpool can work in a PG-setting, but I don't think Deadpool 2 is beloved enough to intrigue people.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)