Marvel News & Notes

Three further changes have come to the MCU slate, ostensibly due to the pandemic:
2021
November Spider-Man 3 (moving from July; this is a Sony date, keep in mind)
2022
February Thor 4 (moving up exactly one week)
March Doctor Strange 2 (moving from November to make room for SM3)

What's not clear about this is how having Thor 4 and DS2 switched impacts the plot. My guess is that it doesn't, suggesting the two weren't very connected to begin with (with Thor covering the cosmic side of the MCU and DS2 the earthly).

In relation to the shifting schedule I've seen speculation that Loki will come out after Thor 4, an idea I find baffling as the show will resume production as soon as that's possible, giving it plenty of time to wrap in 2020 and then air in 2021 (if production resumes in September, I'd expect it to wrap in December or January, which is plenty of time before Thor).

Once these changes came out Murphy offered three options for 2023's slate:
1. Blade, Guardians 3, Ant-Man 3, a movie whose title he won't say
2. Blade, Guardians 3, Ant-Man 3, Fantastic Four
3. Blade, Guardians 3, the movie he won't name, Fantastic Four

What's interesting to me is the 2/3's odds for AM3, FF, and the unnamed project. One would think, given that AM3 has been announced and Michael Douglas isn't getting any younger, they'd want to push that forward (especially since the longer they delay the more aged the Young Avengers cast becomes), but he remains unsure. I'm also puzzled why he's so coy with the unnamed title.

Conrad says Marvel is building up towards an Ultimatum event, which was a Jeph Loeb crossover in 2009 that involves the X-Men, Fantastic Four, etc. Conrad doesn't mention Loeb in his article and there's good reason for that, as it's long been clear how little Feige cares for the man--I have a hard time believing he'd pay homage to him by using his story in the MCU. When Conrad was challenged about this idea, he subsequently clarified that it's via production grids he's seen. No one else has echoed this, so I'd take that with a grain of salt.

Daniel said a character had been added to the Thor 4 grid: a male 11-12 African-American or British-Black character code named 'Zappa' (described as smart, brave, mature, with a good sense of humour), who is listed as a supporting lead. Adding children is always terrifying, but it's not clear who this is meant to be. TI's Nebens has two pieces of speculation, one of which I think is plausible, and the other is not. The implausible one is that it's Kid Loki (which I think is preposterous), but the other is a reincarnated Heimdall (he doesn't include the possibility of flashbacks, but that's also possible). The characteristics would fit the latter idea. It's also possible, as Nebens' suggests, that it's a character Taika invented. Charles Villanueva, who says he saw this casting call weeks ago (keeping it to himself for reasons that are hard to fathom), wonders if he's Heimdall's son, which is also plausible.

Reddit: "Christian bale is going to play Gorr. he will be cgi and Bale do all mo-cap and voicing. i have seen some early concept arts of the character in B&W and it look really badass. Beta ray bill appear in the film. Thor's magic belt appear and Loki reprise his role from the show."

There's literally nothing here that either hasn't already been speculated or (in the case of the belt) isn't easy to insert, so I pay it no mind.

Podcaster Kris Tapley said "Psst: She's [Becky Lynch] also in a certain upcoming Marvel movie...." If he's correct, he said movie and that eliminates a Disney+ show (the first thing that came to mind is her being one of the Grapplers, rumoured to be in Falcon and the Winter Soldier). It's difficult to guess what this could be--is she just another Black Widow running around (in a gratified cameo), or does she have an actual role that might carry forward? Tapley has no track record for scoops or clickbait that I'm aware of, so grains of salt, but keep it in mind.

Conrad was pushing the idea of Daredevil in Spider-Man again, this time on social media (an idea he originally floated back in July). In the Tweet he suggests the rights to Daredevil are back early with Marvel, but doesn't source the information (nor has he repeated it on his own site and no one else has backed that idea). Because of the shifting Spider-Man 3 date, early access to the rights aren't necessary anyway. I've gone over before how ubiquitous the return of the Netflix characters has become (cf), but none have tackled the logic of why Feige would want to retain the connection to shows he doesn't own.

After this story came out, someone finally asked Charlie Cox about it and he confirmed it was not his iteration of the character if Daredevil is involved (he hadn't heard the rumours until then), he doesn't expect Marvel to continue with his version.

Sebastian Stan told THR that Falcon and the Winter Soldier was a few weeks away from wrapping filming before the pandemic shut down production.

Murphy suspended his retirement from posting articles on his site to put up a theory post where he posits that Wakandans will appear in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. His logic is: Zemo killed T'Chaka, therefore if he escaped, they would be involved; two or three of the stunt doubles for Okoye and the Dora Milaje seem to be involved with the show; ergo, Wakandans appear. It's plausible, and if the stunt doubles are truly there for those characters they might be something other than easter eggs (but that remains to be seen).

We have another 4chan post about WandaVision:

I am working on an effects team for the next Marvel WandaVision show. I don't know much about superheroes, but I'm a big fan of what I saw from this show. There are some really psychedelic pictures. I worked on several scenes focusing mainly on the formation of fractals from the surrounding area. For example, the scene where Kathryn Hahn grabs Wanda from the reality she finds herself in, and it was the Brady Bunch's pastel from the 80s, and from the real world, which is dark and chaotic. Another scene in which Kat Dennings dresses as a cleaner and Doctor Strange forces her into an astral project [projection?] so she can exit the role she was housed in. The show seems to be half sitcom, half blockbuster. The last and last scene was their living room and their kids, but everything exploded. Seeing many different versions of Vision, their children, Randall Park, Wanda yells and explodes with different dimensions and red lights. Forgive poor translate [translation]. I do not speak English and used Google to make.

While the substance isn't implausible, this idea of being an FX worker posting about the MCU has become a meme and I think that's all that's happening here.

Daniel says according to the latest She-Hulk grid, pre-pandemic Mark Ruffalo was in negotiations to appear in the show (something that isn't unexpected or surprising, but implies he hadn't signed when that grid was produced--this would match his comments a few weeks ago).

One of GWW's contributors claims someone at Marvel wants Keanu Reeves to play Moon Knight (despite turning 56 shortly). This echoes an old LotLB rumour from July. I like Keanu, and you could have a stunt double do some of the stunts, but that's not someone you cast for anything that's going to be long term.

Daniel reports that Helstrom was cancelled before it debuted, but will still air on Hulu. If true this is no surprise at all, as Feige has happily deleted everything Jeph Loeb was involved with. This almost certainly means the animated MODOK and Hit-Monkey will also be one-and-done.

Sony has finally shifted the Venom 2 release date, moving it to June, 2021, allowing Morbius to lead into it as originally planned.

There was a viral (if nonsensical) rumour about Silver & Black coming to Disney+ (which makes no sense whatsoever). The source of the idea is from the former director of the project (Gina Prince-Bythewood) who, while talking about her first film Love & Basketball, said the following to THR [Is there any hope for Silver & Black?]:

(Laughs) That’s a book! Things are the status quo on my side. I really love that project, and I do hope it can still happen in some way. It keeps going through different thoughts. First, it was going to be the two of them, and then the decision was made to separate the two. Now, there’s a thought of “Hey, maybe we put it on Disney+ as a limited series,” but I loved it more as a film with the two of them. So, my hope is that one day it can still happen.

Let's unpack this:

• Everything is status quo, which, given the Sony slate, means nothing official has happened since the film was cancelled in August, 2018. The Wikipedia page about this has issues, so let me address them as well: Matt Tolmach (one of the producers, along with Pascal) implied to Screen Rant in September (2018) that the original film was moving forward--this isn't a direct quote, and the substance is clearly inaccurate as the cancellation came from on high (nor has this idea ever been repeated or hinted at since). Secondly, Fandom Wire is used as a source to indicate the IP (as-is) would become a TV series, but that site has deleted the article (which it put out this January) and it can only be found via the archive, making it clear they don't stand by it. Finally, the Prince-Bythewood quote above is being used to confirm that a show is indeed coming, which brings us to the next point
• Reading the comment above it's clearly just her fanciful opinion, not something discussed with anyone at Sony, as there's no rational reason to put their original IP on Disney+ when Crackle would be, presumably, be the home for Sony TV shows

Unrelated, but in researching this I went through her other films and had no idea why anyone looked at that resume and thought she was a match for this IP. She worked for Jeph Loeb on Cloak & Dagger, but I doubt that would impact Feige's interest in working with her.

I've mentioned before that I find it interesting what the boys from LotLB auction off that's related to their scoops. In the most recent auction, Excalibur books were dropped (Pete Wisdom's first appearance, cf), along with Spider-Woman and Annihilus (the former goes back to October, the latter they referenced in March). This wasn't done by all the participants, but it does imply that some of them have lost faith in those scoops happening any time soon.

Deadline went over the biggest box office bombs of 2019 (whose tallies were determined by 'experts'--whatever means exactly I have no idea):
Dark Phoenix: -133 million
Terminator: Dark Fate: -122.6
Cats: -113.6
Gemini Man: -111.1
Missing Link: -101.3

None of those appearing are surprising, but we have to again congratulate Simon Kinberg for killing the X-Men franchise a second time, and can only imagine the damage Tim Miller did to himself by pulling out of Deadpool 2 and killing off the Terminator franchise.

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)