Marvel News

SPOILERS below

Spider-Man: Far From Home is out, leaving us to hold the door for the MCU until Black Widow next May. While the director returned from Homecoming, that movie had six credited writers, whereas this comes from just the duo of Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. The pair bring us a very safe movie--Far From Home is enjoyable, but within the MCU cannon it's not in the upper echelon--it's roughly on par with Ant-Man and the Wasp--entertaining, but doesn't move the needle much. You can make the argument that only the very end actually matters, something I suspect will hurt its reputation as time winds on.

For whatever reason the writers decided to cut and paste the Vulture's origin for Mysterio, but the latter doesn't get as much time or development (barely more than Malekith), so doesn't pack the same punch (Gyllenhaal isn't given much to do--he's not quite as wasted as Jude Law in Captain Marvel, but it did feel like there was a lot more they could have done with him). The disgruntled-with-Tony Stark approach has become repetitive and I do think Kevin Feige and Sony need to shift away from that approach (although understand Feige wanting to attach the franchise to the MCU as much as possible to make it harder for Sony to walk away).

The film's first act is slow, far slower than Homecoming. Fortunately the later two-thirds of the film is much better paced and even with a weaker villain it's an entertaining ride (we get none of the pathos of Homecoming, however, as Mysterio's death doesn't pack a punch--its perfunctory and seems like a waste).

I was expecting to hate the romance with Michelle because of how weak the Liz-romance was in Homecoming (and how hamfisted Sony and Marvel have been with their attempt to use not-Mary Jane), However, so far the relationship works for me, even if it is very by-the-numbers. What's saved it is Michelle's quirkiness, although as a girl without goals or a background I don't think they can push it any further. I'm also lost on what the point of the Brad Davis character is--it's never clear if he's dating Michelle, and if he's not his time with her becomes creepy (something she seemingly would have called out). Remy Hill isn't given anything to work with, unfortunately.

The MCU doesn't like secret identities and we have Peter Parker's foiled here. I'm not sure where they want to go with this, since he's still high school aged and, realistically, he and May would be dead very quickly. Hyper-realism isn't a thing in comics however, so we shouldn't get hung up on that. What this change represents is a pretty clever move from Feige, as it makes it even harder for Sony to pull the character away to make their own movies since virtually all Spider-Man stories have, at their heart, his need for secrecy.

Bringing back J. K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson was a nice touch (making him an Alex Jones-type is an interesting move--and, again, makes Sony pulling away much more difficult since they can't simply lean on The Daily Bugle).

As for the final post-credit scene, the theory I've heard is Marvel might be looking for a reverse Secret Invasion plot (with the Kree as the villains instead of the Skrulls). That storyline doesn't interest me (and how much Kree-fighting do we need in the MCU? They've been antagonists in the first Guardians and Captain Marvel already). We also have a set-up for S.W.O.R.D. (something that seemed like a given for two reasons: 1) destroying SHIELD in Winter Soldier meant just rebuilding it wouldn't make much narrative sense, 2) one of the few specific elements in the modern iteration of Carol Danvers is her attachment to SWORD).

Finally, let's look at the accuracy of leaks prior to the movie coming out (I've used green and red to highlight relative accuracy):

• May, 2018 - 4chan leak: this seems to have come from someone associated with Charles Murphy, as the information is the same as the massive leak he received around that time; it broadly has the correct plot, albeit talks about Pepper Potts appearing, includes Liz Allen (I suspect her inclusion was an extrapolation from the 4channer when he learned that Peter's high school friends would be on the trip), Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman) appearing (in January THS posted a follow-up that she'd been replaced by Nick Fury and Maria Hill during the story process), Alistair Smythe as the rival for Michelle, Vulture and Scorpion making cameo's, and Mysterio's employer being a major villain--it's a very tempered accuracy
• July, 2018 - many speculated that Numan Acar's "Dmitri" would be the villain Chameleon based on his character's name, but if that's the case we saw no sign of it
• January - another 4chan leak, but this is clearly speculation riffing off the prior post (it incorrectly includes the Chameleon, Mysterio compromising SHIELD and using Chitauri tech, Peter not wanting to be Spider-Man, along with the inclusion of Alistair Smythe)
• April - Charles Murphy speculates that Remy Hill could be playing Shang-Chi (something he backed away from very quickly)
• May - speculation circulated that Michelle was actually Nick Fury's daughter
• May - a final 4chan post erroneously said Mysterio is actually from an alternate reality and that the final scene of the film reveals Oscorp Tower

The only accurate information that came out was via the huge MCU dump that Murphy received in May, 2018--none of the other leaks about the film were accurate (and nearly all were derived from the original).

Murphy says he knows for a fact that David Harbour's character is not Taskmaster (he believes that's O-T Fagbenle's role), and that whomever Harbour is playing is working with Rachel Weisz's character. He also clarified that the pre-Iron Man 2 idea for the film is two years old and that there have been three screen writers since (we only know two of them, Jac Schaeffer and Ned Benson). The original script he saw apparently did not include reference to the five-year jump between Infinity War and Endgame.

A Redditor posted a screen shot of what he claims is a now-deleted preview on Amazon of the Black Widow novelization (if true I'd guess the author is Will Corona Pilgrim, who has written the last seventeen official adaptations). Here are the key details he includes (he likes using ALL CAPS so I've adjust that):

[Title]: Black Widow: The Heroes Journey
(Set after Civil War)
Natasha Romanoff, the lethal super-spy known as Black Widow, is locked in a room within Berlin’s Joint Terrorism Task Force playing cat and mouse with Agent Everett Ross. She’s wondering if Ross has any idea why she agreed to come in. He’s wondering a lot of things. What possessed her to let Steve Rogers Captain America escape from the Berlin aircraft hanger with fugitive Bucky Barnes? Whose orders did she follow? Where is Rogers now?

This doesn't tease very much and doesn't sound like something dreamed up by the Redditor. We've heard nothing previously about Everett Ross being in the film, but looking at Martin Freeman's schedule, all his current projects are in post-production (including FX's The Breeders and ITV's A Confession), meaning he's available. It would also fit the timeframe we heard from Sebastian Stan, so I'd call this plausible, if not definitive.

While thinking about the movie, one other issue with it being an early prequel (an origin film) is this: if Far From Home is meant to wrap up the first three phases of the MCU, how can you have an impactful story from that same time period of the MCU? If you did, surely it would also be part of the first three phases, but we've been told again and again that we're moving forward.

Speaking of Murphy (same link), apparently he's seen a casting breakdown for The Eternals that he hasn't posted (that I've seen, at least); it includes a role for "Mature Latin Woman"--this is the role he believes Salma Hayek is being sought for. This unpublished leak is also the source of the "Big Muscular Guy" character he's referenced (which brought about his Hercules speculation from back in November).

We finally got some clarity on where Black Panther 2's development: Ryan Coogler has been working on the script only the last few weeks (despite re-signing in October, which is when I was presuming he'd started the story process). What this means is, for those of us who want to see Storm introduced, there's every opportunity to do so. It also means the film is going to come after Doctor Strange 2.

You may have seen or heard various Doctor Doom rumours floating about, but wondered where it's all coming from. The last time we heard about the project was in March via THR, where writer Noah Hawley had talked to Feige about the script he was working on with Fox (he was announced on the project back in July, 2017). Unfortunately for Hawley, he had that conversation before the sale was complete, so he didn't get much feedback in return. THR released a story just a few days ago where they again talked to Hawley (ostensibly about Legion) and he dropped this during the interview:

I did sit down with [Marvel Studios' president] Kevin Feige recently and I said that I look at myself as sort of the Marvel R&D department. I know the genre can do all of these amazing things that [the Marvel Cinematic Universe] is doing, but my feeling is, what else can we do with it? Can we make it surreal? Can we make it musical? Not as a gimmick, but all of these techniques are about putting you into the subjective experience of these characters. … Let's explore through this genre the every day evils we do to each other, the ways we hurt each other and take each other for granted. There are different stories and characters who will bring about other themes. I wrote a script about Doctor Doom, an antihero story I really like, and we're still talking about making it. I'm trying to get out from under this movie I made [Lucy in the Sky] and this last season of Legion [ongoing], and Fargo is coming back up [late 2019]… but for better or worse, these are the stories we want to hear right now. I think you can bury your head in the sand and say, 'That's unfortunate for our culture because they're simplistic.' Some people say that. I don't look at it that way. I think they are morality tales on a larger scale, and it's better to be part of the conversation than pretend the conversation isn't happening.

Feige hasn't officially cancelled Hawley's Doctor Doom, so the possibility remains that Marvel could push forward with the project, simply having him integrate it into the MCU proper (something he's able to do, unlike Edgar Wright with the original Ant-Man). Given Hawley's schedule, however, it's not something that could be started until well into 2020, so isn't coming any time soon.

A few days ago Jeremy Conrad floated the idea of Daredevil appearing in Spider-Man 3. There are two problems with this idea: 1) the rights return to Marvel in November, 2020 (that's when it will have been two years since Daredevil's cancellation), at which point the filming of Spider-Man 3 will be complete (assuming it follows the usual pattern, wrapping in October), leaving no room to insert him, 2) through two Sony movies Feige has refused to insert new MCU IP into the films--only existing IP (Iron Man, Fury, etc) have appeared. Conrad's other lawyerly speculation is She-Hulk, which has the same issues as #2. In the end his article seems like clickbait, but it has made the rounds.

We have more claims from LotLB (their veracity as a source remains dubious, but I haven't debunked them yet):
-Omega Red is the villain for the Black Widow sequel
-Henry Cavill will be US Agent in the Falcon and the Winter Soldier show
-An X-Factor series will be on FX (the Loeb ghetto), claiming it will be the early 90s Peter David team that I like (rather than the original X-Men roster it began as in the 80s)
-Werewolf by Night will be a Hulu show
-There's going to be a Western-themed series on Hulu spinning off of Ghost Rider

I consider the Cavill rumour debunked as he's just started filming Enola Holmes (whose production will overlap Falcon and the Winter Soldier). It's hard not to conclude their scoops are simply excuses to push comicbook sales, although they still have some rope left with me because of what might be authentic info on Shang-Chi casting.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)