Conrad claims two eight-year old twins have been cast for WandaVision (the two heroes having children has been in the rumour mill ever since the show was announced in 2018 and seems to have been confirmed by artwork shown in the Expanding the Universe featurette released on Disney+). If Conrad is right, this busts my idea that Marvel would gender swap Speed. Incidentally, it looks like LotLB's rumour of Quicksilver's return is incorrect, as Aaron-Taylor Johnson says he isn't in the show (I take him at his word since he said the same for Endgame and that was true).
Charles Murphy says pre-production on Ant-Man 3 has already started because the film is meant to have a much larger scale than its two previous entries. He says he has no proof for or against the rumoured inclusion of the Young Avengers (in October he said only one source was making the claim, so in the four weeks since that hasn't changed--my guess is his source is Daniel, who said as much a week before Murphy's scoop (people claiming the team would appear goes back at least to January (4chan and WGTC), with the idea seeded when Murphy scooped Cassie Lang was appearing in Endgame (April 2018); the most recent rumour saying the same comes from 4chan a few weeks ago). Murphy speculates how the original version of YA team could come about, but I think he's far too hung-up on the team being composed identically to its original iteration (there's no indication that Marvel feels any requirement to copy the team comp precisely).
Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFeely told Vanity Fair that the fate of Iron Man and Captain America was decided back in 2015 (prior to Civil War). Given how long that information was floating around, it's no wonder the idea of Cap dying was being pushed before and after Infinity War as a misdirect. The reasoning they offer for killing Tony instead of Steve is exactly the same that I used when making the argument that the former would die (eg; essentially that Steve sacrificing himself served no narrative purpose because he was already that kind of person--the sacrifice for Tony is a change because he's giving up on the happy family life he always wanted for the sake of others).
Murphy, after months of doing a podcast without gaining traction (why he refuses to include time stamps is beyond me), made the intelligent choice of creating a website for himself where he can post scoops and theories--it's a vast improvement over both his podcast and his intolerable Twitter feed. In that vain he's scooped that Adepero Oduye is in Falcon and the Winter Soldier (confirmed just hours after his post). He guesses she'll play either Sarah Wilson (Sam's sister) or Leila Taylor (his girlfriend), both of which seem plausible (the pictures have me leaning towards the former). I'm completely unfamiliar with Sam's lore, so I can't offer thoughts on how she'll be used.
Shortly after this Murphy scooped that Battlestar (Lemar Hoskins) will also be introduced in the show--probably serving as John Walker's partner (as he was in the comics).
Murphy also posted speculation that Songbird will appear (a cohort of Zemo). No one else, as far as I can tell, has made this suggestion (although afterwards Kinda Culty discussed it). The basis of his theory is a woman seen on set who looks like her and was in a harness.
Articles did the rounds claiming that Mark Ruffalo had pitched a Hulk vs Wolverine story to Kevin Feige. This idea has been floating around in the rumour mill since September (Sutton), although it was given life by Anthony Russo quite some time ago as he's brought it up several times. When the video came out, Ruffalo never specified what he pitched, but when asked about HvW he said he'd like to see it.
We have a 4chan rumour which I think ultimately springs from LotLB (July and August):
- Marvel Studios is currently working on the CGI for an 8-episode Disney+ series for phase-four with the working tittle been [being] S.W.O.R.D. and the first episode was written by Jon Favreau.
- Leading actors: Samuel L. Jackson [Nick Fury], Cobie Smulders [Maria Hill], Cameron Monaghan, Katheryn Winnick, and Nicholas Hoult.
- Supporting actors: Paul Mendelsohn [Ben Mendelsohn, ie, Talos], Sharon Blynn [Soren], Clark Gregg [Agent Coulson], Chloe Bennet [Quake], Ming-Na Wen [Melinda May], Natalia Buckley [Natalia Cordova-Buckley, ie, Elena Rodriguez], and Jeff Ward [Deke Shaw].
- Newcomers, Cameron Monaghan will play Victor Kohl [The Exile] as the lead protagonist who is an Inhuman, and the twin son's of Thanos will be the villains played by Katheryn Winnick (Supergiant) and Nicholas Hoult (Thane).
- I'm told the supporting actors will have less than five minutes of screen time across season one.
One thing I wanted to ruminate on is Feige's creative control of the comics. We should expect there to be a much more synergy because of it (comics can function both as early advertising and as a testing ground for concepts). This comes to mind as I've long wondered what Marvel-Sony will do with Mary Jane Watson (since we're currently in the land of Michelle)--MJ sells merchandise and remains very popular, so it's hard to imagine never seeing her, but how to approach that? Recently it's been teased that she's a new version of Black Cat in the comics and that would be an interesting way to modernize the character and make her more dynamic (while maintaining her classic look). I'm not suggesting this will happen, but it's this of experimentation we might expect Feige to do to test ideas.
LotLB
- Claim the prison-Spidey rumour (cf) is false (I agree)
- Sutton repeated that another Sony-Disney deal is coming and it will start a second trilogy continuing Tom Holland's story (echoing an LotLB rumour from August)--covering his time in college (where he'll meet Harry Osborn); Norman Osborn will be the main antagonist of the trilogy, who will form the Sinister Six and assemble in the final film [this would come out in 2027, so Michael Keaton would be filming it in his 70s]
- Sutton repeats that Disney still wants to buy the Spidey IP (ie)
- Repeated an LotLB rumour (August) that Spider-man will appear in Venom 3
I don't believe Sutton's specific storyline in college--not that Peter in college couldn't be the focus of a new trilogy, but I feel like the basic premise is too similar to Sam Raimi's films. I also don't know why anyone at Marvel would be planning out a new trilogy before a deal is in place--why waste the energy? Is it possible this is Sony's expectation? Even that seems unlikely, since a new deal would leave Kevin Feige in creative control such that their wants have limited impact. I frankly think this is speculation from Sutton being passed off as insider knowledge (time will tell).
Debunking: back in September Production List claimed Shang-Chi would start filming November 1st--not so much!
Daniel is claiming the LotLB rumour from August that Deadpool would appear in the post-credit scene of Black Widow is false. The idea was always a long shot to begin with, since the BW script was completed before the sale of Fox, meaning a Deadpool cameo could only be inserted after that process was complete (not impossible, but making it less likely--it's also difficult to imagine a mechanism whereby his inclusion would make sense in the MCU in that film).
Because The Mandalorian has half-hour episodes, some are speculating that Marvel's Disney+ shows will be that length as well. I hope not--long form storytelling is always better.
About a month ago I wondered how Damon Lindelof's Watchmen show would fair on HBO, given his mostly horrendous track record. The show received incredible support from critics (97% on RT, which is ridiculous) and a great deal of coverage from various genre personalities on Youtube etc. But it's Lindelof--would the show work? We're six episodes through nine, so we can't be sure, but there are indicators.
First, the ratings. The show opened with a modest 0.799 viewers (0.25 in the key 18-49 demographic); this was good for 16th vs other original cable productions (for comparison The Walking Dead was 1st at 3.479). Here are the first six episodes:
1 - 0.799 (0.25) 16th
2 - 0.765 (0.25) 18th
3 - 0.648 (0.19) 33rd
4 - 0.707 (0.22) 17th
5 - 0.752 (0.26) 16th
6 - 0.620 (0.21) 20th
The show is declining in the key demographic (ep5 seems like a hiccup in the trend), while staying relatively stable in its middling opening on the general public's radar. It's not gaining traction, but hasn't bottomed out either.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, another way to gain a sense of interest is how the secondary market (like YT videos) are fairing in covering it. The weather vane that is Emergency Awesome is a great way to look at that, so what about his coverage? Here's the full list of his videos about it (chronologically):
Watchmen trailer - 347.3
Watchmen season preview - 223.3
Watchmen ep1 - 299.4
ep1 review - 157.0
Watchmen ep2 - 215.3 (this is the most viewed video about the show in the last four weeks)
Watchmen ep3 - 203.9
Watchmen ep4 - 185.7
Watchmen ep6 - 127.1
There are a few things to note here: Charlie does not skip episode reviews for shows that are popular, but he skipped episode five; he ambitiously produced two videos for the first episode, but immediately cut that with the muted response to his review. There's a pretty easy comparison of the views with The Mandalorian, which had much more muted hype with his audience coming in (his trailer review only has 152k views). The positive response has given a big bump to his episode videos (485k for the latest). Star Wars is a much bigger IP, but it's the trends that matter.
That's just one Youtuber, but you can do down the line (John Campea hasn't covered it at all; IGN's numbers are: 81k, 27k, 52k, 33k--they haven't fully reviewed an episode since 3; Screen Crush: 172k, 79k, 98k, 51k, 78k, 34k; only Think Story is bucking the trend: 120k, 115k, 110k, 126k, 135k, 79k).
I don't know HBO metrics enough to discern if his numbers (or critical response) will warrant another season, but whatever happens it's not a popular hit (even if it won't hurt Lindelof's reputation--nothing, apparently, can).
I had no idea there was a Charlie's Angels reboot on its way until I read that it had bombed at the box office (43 million as I write this). The film was put into production by Amy Pascal before she was fired from Sony, and was produced by Tom Rothman (who arrived after being fired from Fox). What's noteworthy isn't its performance, but what director/writer/star Elizabeth Banks said a week prior to release:
Look, people have to buy tickets to this movie, too. This movie has to make money. If this movie doesn't make money it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don't go see women do action movies. They'll go and see a comic book movie with Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel because that's a male genre. So even though those are movies about women, they put them in the context of feeding the larger comic book world, so it's all about, yes, you're watching a Wonder Woman movie but we're setting up three other characters or we're setting up Justice League.Virtually everything in this statement is wrong, and it's a particularly odd thing to say given that in August, Banks said the film was intended for a female audience. Let's start with the premise: men won't see women in action movies. I think there's no evidence for this assertion, something especially obvious since the 1970s (Alien, Terminator, Milla Jovovich films, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Hunger Games franchise, Tomb Raider franchise, Underworld franchise, etc ad infinitum). Clearly, men will see action movies with leading women.
Next: comic book movies are a male genre. This is a strange idea--I'm out of touch with current academic feminism (not that you can really generalize about it--I think most of the current interdisciplinary battles are about and within intersectionality), but we can safely reject the idea that comics are a 'male genre'--comics are simply a format for storytelling and can serve any ideology.
Next: the idea that men only attend female-lead superhero movies because the genre is male--this didn't help Supergirl, Tank Girl, Catwoman, Elektra, or Dark Phoenix, so that's not the deciding factor in what they choose to see. Banks also claims it's the connections that brought people to Captain Marvel etc, but if connective tissue was all that was required Justice League would be a smash hit, as would Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man 2, etc; hell, The Defenders should be one of the biggest TV hits of all time.
These are bizarre assertions to make. If I was going to give Banks any credit, it's that this assessment could refer to executives, but there's not much evidence to support that either (Amy Pascal, Kathleen Kennedy, and many others in positions of power fully embrace at least the superficial elements of intersectionality in film). Occam's Razor will tell you that people didn't go to Charlie's Angels because it looked like a bad film and didn't receive positive word-of-mouth--women being involved had nothing to do it (if women as leads was a problem, how did the previous reboot succeed?).
You might read all this and think, who cares? But I think it matters--Banks comments are pernicious--they create ammunition for actual regressives the next time a film like this comes out (there are plenty of 'get woke, go broke' videos out there in the wake of how this film has done). Sexism should not be used as a shield to deflect blame for commercial failure--Banks should simply take responsibility for the box office and say, hey, I'll do better next time.
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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