Marvel News

Details have emerged about the upcoming Falcon and Winter Soldier series (filming begins in August). Sharon Carter and Zemo are on the slate (assuming negotiations are completed) and the show will air next August. I'm excited for the latter, but I never felt like Sharon was particularly distinctive--intended as Cap's romance, the MCU decided to go a different way (much like they did with Ashley Johnson's character in Avengers); as a character she's basically Maria Hill with a different name. I feel like she might get shoehorned as a romance for one of the other characters, but I hope not.

There's a supposed Guardians 3 leak on 4chan we can take a look at:

• The story is set 4 months after the events of endgame
• Thor [is] still fat
• Both Fin Fang Foom and Beta Ray Bill appear, they are results of High Evolutionary's experiment
• Adam Warlock and Gamora work together
• Peter, Drax and Rocket say goodbye to the team at the end
• Peter finally reunites with Gamora and they settle down on the planet Zhen-Oberi
• Beta Ray Bill, Groot, Nebula, [and] Mantis are [the] new Guardians of the Galaxy with Adam Warlock as their leader
• Beta Ray Bill invites Thor to his home planet and they teleport [away? to it?]

I'm not sure there's much to say about the first two points--exactly when it occurs after Endgame doesn't seem that relevant and Thor losing the weight could be an arc of sorts. Rumours about Fin Fang Foom has been floating around for awhile (not specific to the Guardians, but to the MCU), but I don't know what the point would be without knowing the story (he's often associated with the Manderin, who seems slated for Shang-Chi). Beta Ray Bill has also been heavily rumoured for awhile and his eventual arrival in the MCU was teased in Ragnarok. We know that Guardians 3 is the end of the current roster and certainly having Quill leave is the most obvious way to do that. Could this post be true? I think it's unlikely, at least as-is, although by naming a specific planet it will tell us if this was insider knowledge one way or another when the film comes out.

Speaking of Shang-Chi, a genuine scoop comes from Charles Villanueva who makes two claims and proposes a theory:

• The Russo brothers originally had a deal with Chinese investors for a Shang-Chi film
• Filming will begin this fall in Australia and casting has begun
• (Theory) he'll be an MI:6 operative

I don't know what to make of the first point, since Shang-Chi rumours have been floating around the MCU for a decade or more (it needs more context to be fleshed out), but in terms of the here & now it's simply interesting trivia. The second scoop is related to what we heard back in April about an MCU movie filming in Australia, which at the time had to be either Shang-Chi or The Eternals. This does mean my long-held theory (eg) that Marvel was going to add another date to 2020 (after removing one due to the James Gunn drama) holds up--the production date means Shang-Chi can appear next year.

As for the theory: I have no feelings about it whatsoever--there's nothing that requires him to be a British agent, although that could fulfill MCU-producer Nate Moore's dream of bringing Union Jack into the MCU (as well as space for Jessica Drew--assuming Sony cooperation--and other UK characters). The thing is, if Shang-Chi is going to go full Black Panther with a cast that is virtually all Southeast Asian (I keep seeing Asian--Asia is a big place, there are a lot of different people there), a UK-setting doesn't make much sense to me. You'd think Shang-Chi would be based somewhere in China, at least partially. I do think making him a secret agent is much more interesting than him simply being a martial arts hero without that context.

Jeremy Conrad has put out a rumour that Marvel plans to integrate Deadpool into the MCU. I've castigated Conrad before about his rumours (eg), but it remains a fact that he did scoop The Eternals, so we have to explore his ideas (whatever he heard seems to be what Charles Murphy was told as well), keeping in mind that MCU scoopers have talked about how little news has leaked the last couple of months.

Does Kevin Feige want Deadpool in the MCU? I'm not convinced. I've long thought that the closest association he would accept would be what we get with ABC, Netflix, and Hulu--alternate realities that have no impact on the actual MCU. The other problem with this rumour is that it posits Deadpool appearing in a Spider-Man film, ie, a Sony film, which is very unlikely (until they have full control, Marvel will keep Spider-Man's films very insular).

With that said, is the general idea plausible? I think the manner being discussed makes it very unlikely and I don't think it's a given that this is something Feige even wants (something echoed by Roger Wardell, who says Disney prefers he have the same relationship with the MCU that he had with the X-franchise). Personally, I also think Deadpool 2 was a significant step back for Deadpool and that it's entirely possible a third film simply bottoms out the character (which is why I thought a switch to X-Force was a good idea--whether Marvel wants to continue with that I don't know).

Speaking of Conrad, he's claiming Power Pack is in full development. Feige has talked about the IP going back about as far as you can go and we heard it was being considered (along with a slew or others) this fall. I'd say the idea is probably true, even if I can't summon any enthusiasm for the property. I agree with Conrad that it's far more likely to be a Disney+ show than a film (seeing Shazam and the Ant-Man films crash and burn, in relative terms, suggests that the comicbook film crowd isn't keen on properties that overtly target kids--this is true of this kind of comicbook themselves, incidentally).

I was thinking about Umberto Gonzalez and his value as a source for MCU leaks. While not the most prominent figure for scoops (at least for Marvel), he's well known both within the community and the industry. Since I switched my focus from Marvel Netflix to the main MCU back in 2018, he's had two major scoops and I wanted to examine them as compared to much more significant contributions from more marginalized figures like Villanueva.

• Spider-Man: Homecoming: a year before release he claimed Zendaya was playing Mary Jane Watson

What he actually heard was that she was playing "MJ" and then made the conclusion over what that meant himself. He was technically right, in that Michelle uses that as a nickname (a terrible decision I feel was Sony's), but otherwise she's a completely different character.

• Avengers: Endgame: in the fall he claimed that Katherine Langford was in the film, but he was unsure who she was playing

This was true--she was removed after test screenings--and Umberto seems to have learned from the MJ scoop blowing up in his face not to include his speculation as fact.

In each case Gonzalez heard something that was true, but didn't have access to the full context. These are both marginal scoops, completely unlike the megaton of info dumped on Villanueva last May. It suggests to me that his info isn't from MCU-insiders, but from ancillary sources (test screeners, extras, etc). I'll point out that no one else had either of his scoops (keeping in mind that, in spirit, the first one is wrong), but neither of them are significant.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)