Marvel News

I was mostly alone (other than Captain Midnight) over the past year proclaiming that Disney wouldn't release Dark Phoenix to avoid damaging the brand going forward. Clearly that's not the case, but the final Fox X-Men film (that's what people keep saying--I don't know what that portends for New Mutants) has landed with an atrocious RT score (24% at last check). This is not unexpected--the film had been repeatedly described as a mess--so why release it? It could be the conventional argument--to make back some of its budget (it badly missed it's weak 50-55 million domestic projection with just 33 million, making it by far the worst opening for a Fox Marvel film). I wonder if Disney wants it to bomb--for the public to be sick of the Fox version and clamoring (even more so) for a reboot. The fact that it's apparently this bad actually opens to door to trying the "Dark Phoenix" storyline again (albeit, a long way down the line).

You also have to wonder if this catastrophic reception is going to change Disney's mind about releasing New Mutants next year. Could Dark Phoenix bomb so badly that Marvel won't release Fox's final lame duck production as currently intended (especially one that badly needs reshoots)?

Geeks WorldWide (who I've never heard of) put up a cast listing for the Marvel film occurring in Australia (generally thought to be Shang-Chi):

• A “wise, old statesman,” who is “the leader of his people.” The studio is searching for an Asian actor between the ages of 40 & 60.
• “One of the leader’s most skilled warriors.” The studio is searching for a female Asian actress, in her 30s or 40s.

Speculation has the former role as the Mandarin, but I'm less sure of that (would you really want a 60-year old Mandarin?). The only guess I've seen for the latter role is Fah Lo Suee, who is Shang-Chi's half-sister. It's well past time for casting news to leak given that filming begins in the fall, so I expect more out shortly.

Conrad is still pushing hard for Black Widow to be set in the 1990s and will involve Y2K. While such a film would have no stakes whatsoever, until we know more it can't simply be dismissed--what would be achieved by such a film I have no idea, unless the 90s are simply a flashback. One of my problems with this idea is that we don't see any signs of de-aging Scarlett Johansson who, while she can certainly pass for much younger, at 34 can't hope to look like a teenager (which is what she'd be in the 90s).

 

Discussing Film is claiming Doctor Strange 2 will begin filming in January, 2020, information that seems to comes from Production Weekly (a very hit & miss source). The idea echoes what Benedict Wong said recently:

"I know they’ve now got a writer on board who I met at the Endgame premiere. So I think that may be happening some time next year."

Wong is not a good source for this kind of information, but the 2020 filming fits expectations.

Speaking of GWW, they and others are broadcasting a rumour Jeremy Conrad started that Marvel is aiming for a 2022 release for their Fantastic Four film. This is plausible, although would run contrary to comments made by Kevin Feige that we have a five year wait--note that Feige specifically said the X-Men when talking about the Fox IP, but the implication was a wait for FF as well (he's talked about a five-year plan excluding the purchased IP). Feige is, however, an unreliable source at times and his comments leave plenty of wiggle room.

Do I think Conrad has a source for this, or is he simply engaging in speculation? It's vague enough that it's hard to tell--his only specific is the year and that would be easy to walk back if it's incorrect. A lot of people are floating Peyton Reed (and the story idea he pitched to Fox years ago) as the potential director, but while I think Reed would want the job, I believe Marvel would pass after the anemic box office of both his Ant-Man films. Some have talked about the film taking place in the 1960s (Reed's idea) and I dislike it for many reasons, but on a meta-level the MCU has avoided the substance of the early days of Marvel almost completely (only borrowing its aesthetic from time-to-time, but running away from its stories and characters--look at Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, etc).

Subsequently Roger Wardell debunked the idea and, given he and Conrad's respective track records, I believe him (more about Wardell below).

There's a Reddit thread floating around claiming to know the current plot for Captain Marvel 2 and while there's nothing to suggest this is authentic, I wanted to briefly look at it:

The film will take place between Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame. [It] will involve the Kree once again and the Skrulls, and focus on their conflict. Carol learns of a 'superweapon' and goes on a search for it, only to realize it's Korvac. She sympathizes with him; her and Korvac bond over being guinea pigs for the Kree basically. So when he betrays her and turns heel she's left devastated. They fight it out, with Carol actually trying to protect the Kree from Korvac, and he's defeated but scurries away.

It's difficult to express how underwhelming this is. It's in the past, so there are no stakes, involves Carol being betrayed (just like she was in her first film), and echoes the exact same conflict from that movie (Skrull vs Kree). I don't buy this as the plot they go forward with--it would be, with a fresh coat of paint, Captain Marvel done over again. The Redditor believes Korvac is going to be one of the big bad's going forward, but as an little known villain I highly doubt it.

Marvel has been talking to Mindy Kaling about Ms. Marvel and I agree with Kaling that it's probably best to cast an unknown in the role and that it's headed for Disney+ (the latter idea fits what we've heard from Wardell about the property back in December).

Executive VP at Marvel Victoria Alonso added a little fuel to the fire for a Lady Sif project (on Disney+ presumably) saying: "We love Sif the character as we do our actress, Jaimie Alexander." It's difficult to know what they like about Sif, since the Thor-films did nothing with her other than unrequited romantic feelings (Marvel has really struggled making their romances work), but I'd be open to a show with her.

The image above was shown at a Disney investors presentation and suggests (again) that the rumours about the Loki show being a look at his past deeds (via THS and a pair of 4chan posts) is at least partially on the money (Jaws is a 1975 film). I'm mentioned before that I hate prequels, so Marvel will have to do something extraordinary with this premise to drag me in.

I wanted to briefly go through who "Roger Wardell" is because, unlike all the other fan posters, he's not attached to a site so we don't really know who he is (the name is almost certainly a pseudonym). Let me quote CurtainCobain from Reddit about the background:

There we’re two accounts, RogerWardell and RogerWardell2. RogerWardell stopped posting regularly around 2015, prior to Age of Ultron’s release and even then, he only ever posted information rarely. RogerWardell2 popped up prior to Age of Ultron’s release and remained active for years posting all kinds of shit while the original RogerWardell account continued to tweet rarely and then vanished from Twitter completely. I followed both accounts during this time. RogerWardell’s information always ended up being legit while RogerWardell2’s information was completely fake nonsense. The fact this new RogerWardell ended up tweeting accurate information leads me to believe he is the original RogerWardell.

When RogerWardell returned to Tweeting (early December), RogerWardell2 stopped Tweeting--that account stopped the day the former started again. Anecdotally what I've heard from various people who cover Marvel is that they were familiar with the second account--the one routinely incorrect. This suggests that Wardell is not connected to the fan community--no one paid attention to him until after Endgame came out when his Tweets about it were discovered.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)