MCU News & Notes

I don't usually post articles like this in such close succession, but we have major news to discuss so let's get to it.

Not that long ago I raised the alarm for both Shang-Chi and Eternals in regards to their release in China, but the response within the fandom has been muted. Variety (Rebecca Davis) has now echoed those concerns:

In a report on the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase Four films, the CCTV6 China Movie Channel aired a list of the U.S. release dates for eight of the ten scheduled titles, but conspicuously left out “Eternals” and “Shang-Chi.” … The omission might seem small, but its significance lies in its provenance: the channel is under the jurisdiction of China’s powerful propaganda department, which has the final word on film approvals. … While the China Movie Channel report is not hard evidence that the two titles will be banned from the China market, their omission could be an indication that something about them is troubling Chinese officials.

As Davis' says, this doesn't guarantee issues for both films, but continues the potential trouble for both. The Eternals issue is comments made by director Chloe Zhao in an article long ago that's seen as critical of the Chinese government (good on Zhao for the criticism from an ethical perspective, but it was clearly a bad idea for her future career if China was an important part of that). The criticisms of Shang-Chi aren't presented as clearly by Davis, who I think is uncomfortable with the real ones (she begins with the non-issue of Fu Manchu, who isn't even in the film, then wastes time talking about the impact of Internet trolls because that fits a popular agenda in Hollywood). Once she's through those strawmen, the article repeats the comments we heard from The Direct (link above) that the cast plays into foreign stereotypes about how the Chinese look (along with unhappiness about the stereotypical kung fu, lanterns, pagodas, and the colour red)--the pandering itself is singled out (and they certainly aren't wrong, although I think part of that is aimed at the diaspora). I don't think those of us who aren't Chinese are in a position to say who does or doesn't best represent how they look, but it has to be a kick in the balls for Feige to get this kind of pushback (you either have to blame or congratulate casting director Sarah Finn). Davis also brings up that there's a chance Tony Leung (Mandarin) has been blacklisted, as his previous two films have not been released in China.

I said it when these films were announced and I'll repeat it again: neither Eternals nor Shang-Chi are popular IP, so bringing fans to the table was always going to be a struggle. If the worst case scenario occurs and they aren't released in China, that's a serious blow to their box office potential and we could be looking at Ant-Man numbers even if they are entertaining. What the Marvel sphere will do if that happens is difficult to imagine--poor Charles Murphy may go full Jeremy Conrad and nuke his online content...no I'm just kidding--Murphy loves the spotlight too much to do that, but I still think we'd see an existential crisis (the usual playbook is to blame the fans--toxic fandom!--whether the MCU would stoop to that I don't know--there was a plan very similar to that almost put in place for WandaVision, cf).

One thing that's occurred to me about the award buzz for Eternals: originally I thought this was marketing meant for the public, but given that the public doesn't care about awards, I wonder if instead this is meant to soften the blow because the MCU is expecting meagre box office returns. When something does poorly financially, you can still call it a success if it wins awards, so is this an Into the Spider-Verse play to disguise financial disappointment? It's just a theory--the film might be great and do well--but it's food for thought.

THS (Nick Santos) comes to us with a Ghost Rider scoop and here are the essentials:

I’ve seen concept art from Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness that shows Ghost Rider. From what I’ve seen and heard, it’ll be a cameo at best but considering Multiverse Of Madness is exploring the multiverse and will have horror elements, a cameo will fit in with the movie while not distracting too much from the rest of the film. While Ghost Rider can appear in his own movie, it’s said that like The Hulk, he’ll appear in other movies as a side character. ... As for casting, while this may be disappointing for fans, Marvel is not going to bring back Gabriel Luna, from Agents of Shield or Nic Cage. It will be the Johnny Blaze character but recast.

This story must have Sutton fuming, because he's been calling for the return of the character (albeit in different ways) for quite some time. Clearly, no one cares if Luna returns (otherwise he would, eg Charlie Cox), but a few will bemoan the loss of Cage even if his Ghost Rider films are broadly derided and he's become a caricature of himself as an actor (not the bees!). If this recasting is correct, what does that imply about the mass migration of Netflix characters we keep getting from Sutton? It's unclear. Speaking of Sutton, as with previous Santos material, while this is similar to things he's said, it's not exactly the same--we have a specific citation of evidence (concept art from Doctor Strange 2), but more importantly, the framework varies--recently Sutton has been talking about the character having their own IP, but Santos is talking about Ghost Rider as a secondary character who appears in other people's films. In that link we see 4chan echoing this idea (Ghost Rider in Doctor Strange 2). Sutton's own comments have been a bit confused--in July Gabriel Luna was returning, but by April he wasn't; Johnny Blaze will debut in Blade, but also Doctor Strange 2--I think the free flowing Q&A's he does with Tim just create confusion for those of us who keep track of what he says.

Speaking of Sutton, sometimes you are reminded of things when you're collecting comments for something else: how did Falcon pave the way for Luke Cage? If that happened, it alludes me, but (via the link above) apparently that was going to happen. The best argument you could make is introducing the serum to the MCU, but all the Nagle vials are gone and the serum was introduced in Captain America, so I'm at a loss for what the connection was meant to be.

Back to the Eternals briefly. We had another toy leak, but unfortunately it doesn't add anything to our understanding of the film (other than, perhaps, there's no sign of Black Knight anywhere, which would fit the leak). It's blase as leaks go.

We had two Black Panther 2 posts from Sutton (here and here) that are cross promotions for other people. The first is from Dietsch (Giant Freakin Robot) and Sutton adds nothing to it, so what Dietsch says is that Sam Wilson will appear in the film, although to what extent he doesn't know. This is certainly plausible given the ridiculous appearance of Wakandans in Falcon. The other is from Everything Always, which repeats a very old rumour that Namor will be the villain of the film. Other than Sutton repeating that the film rights are back at Marvel (which is only partially true, cf; it's odd that he puts it this way, since my Namor article is one of the few of mine I know he's read), Sutton adds nothing of substance to this. As for the Namor rumour itself, this is plausible (although I've never understood how a land-locked Wakanda would be a target for the sea-bound Atlanteans). You can see many of the old rumours here.

Our final Sutton entry, or actually, our final Dietsch entry (since this is again from him) is this, where he claims that Marvel is going to cast a young Iron Man with a different actor (ie, rather than de-aging Robert Downey Jr.), but Dietsch was uncertain which project it was for (Ironheart makes the most sense on a meta level, but Sutton thinks it will simply be a flashback). It's worth the reminder that right now there's no track record from Dietsch as either reliable or not, so I have no idea if he's credible (that applies to Everything Always as well).

This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)