THR reports that director team Amber Finlayson and Katie Ellwood, along with Rhys Thomas, will be directing Hawkeye. This is the first Disney+ series that hasn't leaned on just one director for every episode (for whatever that's worth).
Speaking of the show, Derek Cornell (who runs The Disinsider, ie, the Disney Insider) claims popular Kate Bishop-pick Hailee Steinfeld is long out of the picture. I thought this was clear months ago, due to her exclusive contract with Apple, but that message has not seeped very far into the fanbase. Given how soon the show is, Marvel would have moved on from her a long time ago and it wouldn't surprise me if the role was already cast. After this came out, Conrad said Taissa Farmiga and Olivia Cooke were rumoured for the role--I couldn't find another source that suggested them, so either it's an actual scoop of Conrad's or simply his speculation (I'd lean towards the latter).
There was some unintended drama within the fandom over the release date of WandaVision courtesy of an offhand remark by Borys Kit of THR (who you may remember did something similar regarding the Namor-rights long ago). Hill goes through this and, ignoring her surmise about the show (which was debunked via Kit's subsequent correction), it was clear Kit mis-remembered when WandaVision was supposed to release because he wasn't claiming that the date had changed. Not long after this he Tweeted that he'd made an error and nothing has changed.
Back in June I discussed Murphy's analysis of comic images shown during the Expanding the Universe vignette specific to WandaVision. At the time Murphy had no idea who would fill-in for the role of Charles Xavier. My thought at the time was perhaps Doctor Strange, but Cumberbatch could only do so if he was appearing throughout the series, and that's not the case. In doing research for my upcoming WandaVision Theory File, another possibility occurred to me: Agatha Harkness (a magic user and possible mentor-like figure).
Sutton has expanded his Inhumans scoop (his prior comments were in February, saying they would appear in Fantastic Four 2, and then in July that Vin Diesel still wants to play Black Bolt--this echoes a very old rumour from the Diesel himself):
When a group of explorers rocket into his hidden city in the Himalayas, Black Bolt launches a ferocious attack on the ship’s crew, the Fantastic Four. Reed Richards and his wife Sue; her brother Johnny Storm; and Reed’s best friend Ben Grimm, find themselves in the cockpit of an exploding jet. Sue quickly envelops her family with a force field to protect them, but they quickly adapt into action. Johnny flames on, his body on fire as he soars down to fight the surprised enemy below.All of this is plausible to me except for one element: Agents of SHIELD. Sutton and I have a fundamental disagreement on Feige's approach to Jeph Loeb's properties. He believes Feige will integrate the old ME IP--his current Netflix theory is rebooting them with the same actors (for those with good memories, I went through Sutton's theory about this back in September--his reasoning has changed since (cf), but it's good to be familiar with the antecedents) and canonize AoS. I don't believe either is true for this reason: Feige wasn't creatively involved in any of them and he's never allowed anything in canon that he didn't work on himself (Deadpool will, presumably, be our first exception to this rule, but I believe that's a command from on high, ie Iger). This does not mean I think Sutton's general idea for the Inhumans is invalidated--it's entirely plausible--although it does fly in the face of the many scoopers who believe they will be rebooted in Ms. Marvel (eg Daniel, GWW, and Conrad). If they appear in Kamala Khan's debut, it's hard to conceive of the encounter as described above, which comes across as a first encounter.
But Blackagar Boltagon is not alone. He has a family of his own, a Royal one. Medusa; Crystal; Gorgon; and Triton. All in full costume, in their Jack Kirby glory. Marvel TV once attempted a no-budget take on the Inhumans. It went nowhere, fizzling fast. The current plan is to recast and reboot the Royal Family; all the build-up from Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will finally pay off.
It’s unknown exactly where the Royal Family will debut in the MCU first, but they are planning on having them appear in Fantastic Four 2. Long-range goals have always been the Marvel Studios way. Discussions begin years in advance before directors or screenwriters are hired. And that’s where the Inhumans are at the moment, waiting in the Himalayas of the imagination before the sound that can be heard around the world.
We have another Sutton Q&A (my comments in pink):
- Beast will appear on Agents of SWORD [This is a new claim, but he was part of the org in the comics]
- Kitty Pryde's main series will be Exalibur [Ergo, not X-Men; this was originally an LotLB scoop in August, which Sutton repeated in November; I've mentioned before that this would disappoint me, as Kitty's early days with the X-Men are charming and I'd be sad to lose them (nearly a hundred Claremont issues of X-Men, 129-212)]
- Reiterated that all the Netflix actors (except Finn Jones) will return [This is something current for Sutton since November, link above, although the basic idea goes back to Conrad last July]
- Helstrom not part of the MCU [This was never in question for me, although Daniel thought he would be back in April--granting he may have meant 'MCU' in the wider sense; it's an interesting opinion for Sutton to have since he broadly believes the Marvel Entertainment properties are going to be folded back into the MCU]
- Darkhawk being developed to be the best friend of Nova [Sutton was the first to suggest that he'll appear in the MCU when he made this claim back in May]
- Gabriel Luna will return to play his version of Ghost Rider, although the Johnny Blaze iteration will be the main one in the MCU [I believe this is a new idea from Sutton, although it originally cropped up on Reddit back in October and was repeated by Daniel at that time (something that, oddly enough, refuted his own claim a month earlier on his Patreon, where he said Feige doesn't want to use anything of Loeb's); I frankly don't believe this, although it fits the metanarrative Sutton believes in--if memory serves, I believe Luna has said Marvel hasn't contacted him since his show was cancelled]
- Reiterated that Black Knight will be part of Excalibur [This was first suggested by LotLB back in August, then repeated by Sutton in November]
- John Krasinski and Emily Blunt are still front runners for The Fantastic Four [This matches what he said back in February, although in April (same link) he thought Blunt was less likely]
- He believes two of Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Leonardo DiCaprio will take on MCU roles in the future (he also added Ben Affleck) [DiCaprio is the obvious exception, since all three of the others have already appeared in superhero films, which means the prediction itself is plausible (but also easy speculation to make)]
4chan weighs in on Black Widow (this is long and I think it's fanfiction, but to track these things I've included it; comments in pink):
Disney is in a real fuckin tizzy trying to figure out what to do with Mulan and Black Widow with all these Covid delays. They've been showing the movies to all sorts of different teams to see what the best way to re-coup their investment is. My marketing team was one [This is preposterous--Disney would not need to show their films to marketing companies to decide what to do because of the pandemic]. I feel safe sharing this because of the sheer amount of people in this industry I know who've seen the movie.
For starters, a review, it's okay. Basic capeshit. The story is uninspired and generic, a lot of the jokes aren't funny. The action makes an attempt at a clean John Wick style but really only achieves it twice. I'll describe what I can, as limited by human memory [This is way too long to be someone's memory and doesn't match the premise of a marketing team's approach, which would take notes in order to provide coherent feedback].
So the movie opens with RDJ's voice over a timecard setting up that it's right at the end of Civil War. He tells Nat she needs to run, because they're gonna come after her the hardest due to her past. She gets on a motorcycle and drives away from the Avengers facility and we get the Marvel logo. [The idea of RDJ appearing via cut footage from Civil War is widely believed]
The next scene is a flashback to young Nat. She's talking with young Yelena in a hallway, she's been asked to kill a diplomat or something and she's unsure if she can do it. She tries but can't bring herself to pull the trigger. She goes out into the hallway and cries, the woman leading the red room leads Yelena in and through a opaque glass door, we see her shoot the man without a thought.
Back in the present/past/when the fucking movie is set, Nat goes to Budapest. She's looking for something to make her/Cap/Sam be untraceable. There's a voice cameo of Anthony Mackie as she relays info to him. She knows that Yelena can find it, because the Red Room used to use it for its Widows. [This references the 4chan/Reddit MacGuffin, cf, although he avoids using their term for it--no doubt to seem original]
She tracks her down to her apartment. They fight (second best fight in the movie) then once they know they aren't gonna kill eachother, they have a beer. They talk about guilt. They bond. Yelena tells Nat she can't give her the thing because the Red Room still has it. Dreykov has started up a new program and started training new Widows. [The first part of this is summarizing the first trailer]
Another flashback shows slightly older young Nat(de-aged ScarJo) escaping the Red Room program. it's run by Rey Winstone and he's got his daughter with him who isn't part of the program, probably like 7-8 years old. She does a bunch of spy stuff to escape but she gets caught by Dreykov, she says something about always being taught to shoot first and tries to kill him but he attacks her and somehow she shoots something that makes the hallway explode. Seemingly killing Dreykov and his young daughter who was hiding behind him. Nat survives by jumping out a window into a river. Her underwater face transitions to her in a bath in Yelenas apartment. They have beef over the fact Nat abandoned her and never came back. Suddenly they're attacked by Taskmaster and his goons. Someone doesn't want them talking. Taskmaster looks stupid as hell but is actually kinda cool. He trounces both of them easily. They escape. [This borrows the accidental kill scene from a different 4chan post in March, link above, followed by more cribbing from trailers; it's difficult to say if the poster misunderstood the Loki reference made in The Avengers--by 'Dreykov's daughter' he seems to mean Natasha--or if he's reapplying the reference as motivation here (which isn't a bad idea, although I don't buy it from this)]
They decide they need to find out what's up with him and also end the Red Room program for good. They travel to the Swiss Alps to find Melina, who was an older widow who was matronly to them. She's retired, living a quiet life and is happy to see them. She knows that the Red Room is active and that the new Widows are being trained by a mysterious mercenary called Taskmaster. His ability to memorize the fighting styles of others makes him invaluable to the program. She reluctantly agrees to help them take him down but they all concede they'll need help. [A mishmash of common speculation and what's known]
We see Taskmaster in a command center. He's watching footage of Nat fight from the movies we've seen. Also watching footage of Yelena. Dreykovs voice over an intercom gives orders to the Widows to follow his orders and let him teach them. He takes on several Widows at once and wins easily. Dreykov tells them to do better. [Cribbed from trailers]
Meanwhile in Siberia, we get the most fun sequence of the movie. Nat, Yelena, and Melina all do a full fun spy movie Charlie's Angels style prison break to get Alexi, their father/big brother figure out of a Russian state prison. [Trailers]
They succeed. Family reunion scene in the cabin that you've all seen in the trailers. They go to the old Red Room facility that's been long abandoned but can't find much. We get another flashback that I honestly don't remember much of. Just generic young teen spy frustration from Nat and Melina giving her advice. Young Yelena is jealous of their bond.
Melina hacks an old computer that's got a list of the programs safehouses on it. They head to the most likely one, trying to find Dreykov. Taskmaster is secretly watching them. [Trailer cribbing along with a tiny bit of invented plot]
While crossing a border they are captured by CIA agent Rick Mason. Nat and him used to fuck. He reveals he's working for Thunderbolt Ross directly to bring them back home. Ross and Widow make a deal that if Mason accompanies them the whole way, and she turns herself in after, they'll be allowed to continue shutting the Red Room down.
We see a flashback of a younger Ross and younger Nat making a similar deal when she's recruited into Shield. Ross wanted her for his own reasons but says something like "Fury always gets what he wants ever since he saved the world from aliens or whatever"
I'm butchering it but Hurt's delivery of it was maybe the best joke in the movie. [Mix of trailers, public info, and common speculation]
They go to the safehouse. It's empty. Big obvious trap. Explosion separates them all. Giant fight scene/chase scene where Taskmaster shoots at them with the bow and arrow. He uses all the MCU greatest hits in this movie. [Trailers/common speculation]
Nat escapes on her own and goes to a bridge where they planned to rendezvous but Taskmaster is waiting for her. Coolest fight of the movie happens here. Really shows off his gimmick. She actually gets a hit in that slightly cracks his helmet, and he jumps off the bridge. [Trailers]
Shortly after, Yelena appears. Then Mason, then Melina and Alexei.
Mason and Nat tend to eachothers wounds at a campsite. They kiss. Nat pulls away and says she doesn't have the best luck with men. "My last boyfriend flew away into space or something" Mason agrees, saying his last girlfriend literally shot him in the head, showing her his scar. They seemingly hook up. [Poster invention]
The next morning, as they prepare to leave, "Taskmaster' attacks. "He" seemingly kills Mason with his sword. Nat is devastated, but Yelena makes her leave with them. Melina was scouting ahead in the city and comes back and comforts her. Telling her the story of how she had a husband, a daughter, who died. Nat is shocked to learn she had a child and Melina says that the sterilization procedure didn't work on her and she had to hide the fact she was pregnant by faking that she was a prisoner of war. Saying "we all do crazy things for our family" [Meant to fit the many rumours of Taskmaster dying, as well as gender confusion over who was playing him, link above; the rest is invented]
This leads us to the big finale in the mountains you've all seen in the trailer. Black Widows, Taskmaster, goons, and Red Guardian all duking it out. Theres a some kind of bioweapon that's gonna be launched with this crane thing as the Red Rooms current mission. It's a REALLY sudden mcguffin that no one I watched the movie with was paying attention enough to know where it came from. But there was probably some exposition dump that explained my brain glossed over. [He's nuking his premise, as missing a large chunk of exposition makes no sense at all]
Anyway. Huge set piece. Skydiving from exploding crane. Taskmaster and Red Guardian have a pretty decent fight. Tasky kills him in front of Yelena Melina and Nat. [Common speculation]
Melina holds him off while Nat and Yelena fight their way inside to where they think Dreykov is. Turns out, he isn't. It's just a computer that's been changing the voice of someone to sound like Dreykov. You guessed it, it's Melina. Her and Dreykov were in love, and had a daughter together. Nat killed both of them. We see lots of flashbacks during this. Like Saw movie amounts of flashbacks. [Matches rumours of Melina in charge, but with his own twist for why]
Taskmaster is revealed to be Mason. He tells Nat she trusts to easy and he just works for the highest bidder. Melina is pissed he killed Alexei but he justifies it saying "he was in the way of my target." Melina wore the suit when Mason was "killed" [Mason as Taskmaster has been known for a long time]
The 4 of them fight. Melina escapes to suit up in this pretty sick armor thing. They are surrounded by Widows and Taskmaster says he's won but then Nat and Yelena give a real "girl power" speech and the Widows decide to help them. They overwhelm Taskmaster by attacking him all at once. Nat and Yelena using eachothers moves(something else set up in flashbacks) to confuse him. They finally have him beaten and on his knees but Nat won't kill him because of their past. Yelena doesn't hesitate and shoots him through his cracked mask in what to me felt like super cringey moment. She tells Nat go ahead. Nat's bleeding and her suit is cut open so Yelena gives her her vest and says she'll see her on the other side. [Yelena killing Taskmaster is another old rumour, link above]
Nat and Melina have a one on one showdown. Nat is overpowered by the advancements of her suit, but remembering the training Melina herself gave her, outsmarts her and uses her Widows bite to short out the system. Nat says that killing Dreykovs daughter has haunted her for 20 years. That she never meant for it to happen. She gives Melina a chance to forgive her, but she doesn't and Nat has to push her off a ledge. Falling to her death. [Melina dying is another common rumour]
Post resolution was a scene where Nat and Yelena meet up. They hug goodbye. Nat tries to give the vest back but Yelena says she doesn't want it because Nat got "her stink all over it" then smiles and says "it looks better on you anyway." Yelena feels bad that their whole family fell apart or died. But Nat says that this made her realize she already has a family worth dying for in the Avengers. She offers Yelena to come with her, but Yelena says saving the world isn't her thing. Nat points out they just did and Yelena smiles and says "well that was a one off" then rides off. [Mirrors common speculation]
Last shot of the movie is Nat realizing that Yelena stole the "impossible to track" gadget from her when they hugged goodbye and smiling to herself. [This doesn't make much sense, since the whole point of the MacGuffin was to explain why Nat, Cap, and Falcon couldn't be found from Civil War to Infinity War]
Credits.
Post credits 1 is Yelena walking into a dark warehouse. A bunch of soldiers point guns at her. Her casually puts her hands up and throws the device on a table. Sitting at the table is Thunderbolt Ross. Taskmaster is there and Yelena gets pissed saying that he killed her friend and that wasn't part of the plan. He takes off his helmet to reveal a bandage and points out that she returned the favor by shooting him in the head. She points out it's not the first time she's done that. She says to Ross "I think that relieves me of our deal" And Ross responds "oh no, we're just getting started" [Terrible dialogue writing, but that aside, this is also directly from an old 4chan post]
Final credits scene is Clint looking at Natasha's grave with his kids. Nice tender moment, but honestly a bit of emotional whiplash from the twisty turning spy movie that preceded it. [From the exact same 4chan post mentioned above]
That's pretty much it. I'm sure there's some scenes I forgot or glossed over a part of. But overall that's the gist. I really feel like the movie isn't gonna come out until next year now and I know the nerds are hungry so feast on this for a while to tide you over.
I dropped a Sutton scoop about Agents of SWORD a few days ago and it was interesting to see how minimal the response to it was versus the Wolverine scoop from a month ago (roughly 4-to-1). It's what I'd expect, but there are some hardcore Agents of SHIELD fans in the scoop community who I think have an inflated sense of how invested fans are in that show.
Other than the Russo brothers, all the MCU directors who have made more than one film have produced a sequel worse than its forebearer. From Joss Whedon to James Gunn to Peyton Reed to Jon Watts, all have seen a decrease in quality with their sequels. This isn't an MCU-specific phenomena either, as the Netflix shows that kept the same showrunners saw a precipitous decline (Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Punisher), and I'd argue it's largely the case across the board in film. What's interesting is that, typically, part of the problem with a sequel is that there were no clear plans for the follow-up--something especially true in the past. The MCU doesn't work that way however, so there are plans, so why are these sequels weaker?
In all the MCU cases, while the director remains the same, the writers have changed. Here are those transitions:
- Whedon: Zach Penn had a story credit on The Avengers, even though Joss tossed his script, but Age of Ultron is all Whedon (I think most people would accept that plot has never been Joss' strong suit)
- Gunn: Nichole Perlman wrote the initial treatment of Guardians, but the sequel is all Gunn (the humour is on par, but the other elements are tangibly weaker)
- Reed: Edgar Wright and his writing partner Joe Cornish, along with production rewrites from David Callaham were part of the original film; the sequel lacked those three and added Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari (part of Rudd's writing team), along with Far From Home writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers (much like with Gunn, the humour remained consistent, but the other elements were weaker)
- Watts: Writing teams Watt and Christopher Ford, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daly, and fixes from Eric Pearson did not carry over (again, the humour was consistent, but the other elements were weaker)
I wanted to dive into something that I've touched on before--the sources of information about what Marvel is doing beyond what's official (by which I mean the categories and who is or isn't connected to them among the scoopers):
Insiders - Someone working for the MCU (directly or indirectly); the real Roger Wardell is the only person who fits this bill (I assume he's someone's kid); Sutton also claims inside sources, which seem genuine at Sony, but are less clear at Marvel Studios (a bit clearer at Marvel Entertainment)
Agents - Some insider information makes its way to agents; Murphy is the only one who has ever cited an agent as a source
Production Weekly - A subscription based site that puts out casting calls and production information; this is, as far as I can tell, the only 'inside' source for Daniel and it's used (directly or indirectly) by Murphy and The Illuminerdi
Set Leaks - Photos, videos, and eye witness reports; Murphy seems to have the best connections for the first two, while the latter is extremely hard to judge
R&D - Marvel and Sony have to do research when they want to put something on screen and that means making a request through the company to the comic branch for source material (undoubtedly some low level admin actually puts these things together--there would be physical and digital resources required); this is the process LotLB's original source ('The Black Knight') seemed connected to, as does Sutton (although the pair apparently have different sources for this--perhaps Sutton via Sony and TBK via ME, but I'm guessing); we know Geoff Boucher (formerly?) at Deadline briefly had this access (perhaps indirectly), because his erroneous scoop about Deathlok is clearly based on him misinterpreting why Marvel was researching his first issue (which, we now know, is because of The Grapplers in Falcon and the Winter Soldier)
Ancillary Information (social media, IMDB, etc) - Murphy uses this extensively and it is the primary source of information for Conrad (I'll talk about his Eternals scoop below)
Questionable Information (Reddit, 4chan, etc) - The other Conrad domain--he spends a lot of time trawling through this material looking for things that seem plausible. Plenty of other scoopers, but for most its supplementary
Excluding actual insiders, all of these avenues of information have issues--they require detective work to unravel (and if its not well-reasoned, you get a Geoff Boucher face plant). You can see this process in action if you go back a few years--Murphy (when at MCU Exchange) figured out that Marvel's casting calls would always use the same first letter of the real character and he got very good at figuring out who they were based on descriptions. In light of that, Marvel changed their approach and his speculation promptly became no better than anyone else's (without that constraint he's as libel as the rest of us to push towards things he wants rather than what's most likely).
You can also work some things out from this. It's been pretty clear to me that TBK (the original LotLB source) had strong connections with Marvel Entertainment--a lot of his information steers that direction and he's been largely silent since Feige deleted it. He was also not aware that the Feige axe was coming--neither were most of the scoopers (a decision that would have been made months beforehand, albeit I thought it was pretty obvious the moment Disney+ was announced). The reason I can rag on Conrad is because he's been frequently wrong or caught stealing--where are his scoops? The big one he had (Eternals) feels like something out of ME (my guess is he was told the show at ABC had been cancelled because Feige wanted the IP for the MCU).
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
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