After revealing that his character Rhodey aka War Machine would be appearing in Marvel’s next Disney+ series The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, Don Cheadle has given Entertainment Tonight an idea when production of his own solo series Armor Wars will begin. Stating things will begin filming in “a couple of months”, however, didn’t mention where that will be taking place.
CHEADLE: “It’s going to be dope. We’re really going to have a chance to explore a lot of stuff about [James] Rhodes. I mean, you look at what we’ve done so far, there’s a lot left to be explored. So I think there’s a lot of real estate that we’re going to dig into.It’s going to be just fully wide open.”
“We’re going to start filming in a couple months and we’ll see.”
The series will focus on War Machine cracking down on Tony Stark’s technology getting into the wrong hands, the comic book it takes inspiration from included Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer giving Marvel Studios a big opening to bring the character back to the MCU.
The assumption is that it would be shooting in Atlanta, Georgia as with the other Disney_ shows but it’s odd that with it starting so soon they haven’t announced writers, showrunner or director for Armor Wars at this point.
Yesterday, it was revealed by The Hollywood Reporter that Marvel’s search for screenwriters to tackle their upcoming Blade reboot (seemingly now titled Blade, The Vampire Hunter) has ended as the studio has reportedly selected writer Stacy Osei-Kuffour to tackle the reboot’s script. The studio is said to have been looking for black writers for the last six months that could jump onto their new incarnation.
Stacy is no stranger to comic book or genre project as she previous worked on HBO’s Watchmen and Amazon’s Nazi-hunter exploitation homage Hunters. A perfect choice if you ask me given those her credits. This will make her the first black female writer to work on a Marvel Studios feature film.
Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali is taking over the role of Eric Brooks aka Blade made famous by Wesley Snipes starting in 1998. The success of that first film led to two sequels along with messy live-action televisions that aired on Spike TV. It also predates the release of Fox’s X-Men by two years and proved that feature film adaptations based on Marvel Comics characters could connect with audiences, and make money.
Blade is a half-vampire which allows him to be immune to sunlight leading to his nickname, The Daywalker. He has the strength and speed of a vampire along with their thirst for blood. In the films, he used a serum to keep his thirst at bay. It remains to be seen how much of the established film lore will survive the new MCU version.
We’ll have to wait and see what their angle for the reboot as the trilogy (Blade: Trinity was produced by Kevin Feige) is best known as an R-rated genre hybrid of martial arts action and horror. If Marvel Studios is keen to keep Deadpool 3 an R-rated film there is a likelihood that Blade, The Vampire Hunter could be targeted towards adult audiences given that kids really don’t identify the character or for certain age groups even know he exists.
The next big step will be hiring a director.
While no names have been circulated to be in the running, I’d love to see Rick Famuyiwa to be considered as his work on Lucasfilm’s Star Wars series The Mandalorian has proven he can play within a large established sandbox and also contribute to it at the same time.
As they’ve only just announced a screenwriter, I don’t think the Blade reboot is going to be shooting in 2021 as Marvel is currently busy with productions such as Spider-Man 3, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love & Thunder filming in Atlanta, London, and Sydney respectively. They’re also expected to begin shooting Ant-Man 3, Captain Marvel 2, and Black Panther 2 later in the year.
A release date for Blade, The Vampire Hunter has yet to be announced.
WARNING SPOILERS FOR WANDAVISION AHEAD FROM EPISODES 1-5
There seems to be an assumption from those watching this week’s episode of WandaVision that Marvel Studios has ushered-in the Fox era of the X-Men franchise, despite the fact the studio has multiple times used the word reboot when talking about their plans for the X-Men moving forward. It’s worth noting among a bunch of iffy things about the cameo, Wanda and Darcy don’t seem to recognize the Evan Peters version of Pietro standing in the doorway.
Here are some things to think about as most viewers have taken the cameo as a literal introduction/recast and now believe that Evan Peters is taking over the Pietro/Quicksilver role from now on which seems a little shortsighted given how the show has previously manipulated the audience from the start. Taking the surprise at face value instead of stopping to think of the multitude of reasons why Peters playing Pietro from now on is extremely unlikely and potentially more of distraction or red herring if anything else.
Dr. Darcy Lewis makes it clear that whoever Evan Peters is playing in the show, that this person at the door is not her brother (previously played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Lewis shockingly states “they recast Pietro?.” This is somewhat reinforced by Wanda seemingly not recognizing the person at the door, something you can tell by the puzzled look on her face as it finally sinks in this is supposed to be her brother. We’ve seen actors recast in the MCU before but Darcy makes a point that isn’t Pietro,
Wanda’s father is reaffirmed to be the very dead Oleg Maximoff by Agent Jimmy Woo and not Magneto also using footage from Avengers: Age of Ulron. This could crush speculation that the Fox version of Magneto will either have a family connection or even appear on the show at all. If they wanted to establish the previous X-Men universe within the MCU that ship has long sailed after the merger as they originally announced Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool was the only character they were keeping.
Agnes is shocked to learn Wanda can bring things back to life using her abilities as she mentions her brother to the twins (in front of Agnes) and conveniently later in the episode Wanda’s “brother” is brought back to life. We never see how that happened exactly or where he even came from.
When Vision and Wanda get into a scuffle about what is going on in the bubble the doorbell rings, something she says she didn’t do and if she didn’t bring that version of Pietro back, who did?
Despite Wanda having “control” of everything in the bubble, she could stop their dog Sparky from dying or use her powers on the twins when they wouldn’t stop crying or aging. If she is 100% in control of everything and everyone you’d think she could have done something there.
Nothing can be trusted in the Westview bubble. Many things are distorted and they’re not all as they seem, making it less likely that Pietro is really Pietro. Mostly everyone within Westview is given a new name and persona. There is a good chance that Evan Peters is simply playing someone that was trapped in the town and given the role of Pietro as a way to torture or distract Wanda.
There have been teases via concept art that Wonder Man aka Simon Williams will be part of the show, an actor/superhero. There is a chance that Evan Peters was selected by whoever within the bubble to be recast in the Pietro role because he is Simon and picked because of acting experience as a way to be more convincing to Wanda and Vision as others have dropped character in various scenes. Agnes mentions doing another take in the episode and Wanda materializes a dog collar without her noticing.
Peters’ Pietro could be just a figment of her imagination and will disappear alongside the bubble.
Pietro might be Mephisto or another villain simply manipulating Wanda while pretending to be her dead brother.
Could both the twins and Pietro be manifested by someone else in Westview such as Anges or another mystery character?
Hiring Evan Peters, the former Quicksilver, is a great way to confuse audiences and help keep everyone guessing about what is really going on. If they had hired someone else for this part it likely wouldn’t have had the same impact. It seems like the entire point of the show is to keep fans on their toes and create their own theories. It certainly feels like the concept of the Disney+ series is to mimic water-cooler television.
I think we’ll know more in the next couple of episodes and I would not be shocked if ultimately we don’t see Peters in this role for very long revealing himself to be something else entirely.
The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Nomadland and Eternals director Chloe Zhao has been hired by Universal Pictures for a new Dracula film. Instead of treading on previous ground with the good Count, Chloe’s take is said to be a mix of horror, science fiction and western genres.
This new Dracula project, however, will be a far cry from the more traditional or even modern incarnations made over the years. Details are being kept in the coffin, but Zhao’s version is described as an original, futuristic, sci-fi Western. Themes of being on society’s fringes, something Zhao has tackled in her previous work, will course through the project’s veins.
Vampire movies that sort of come to mind here are Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark, Blade/Blade II, and Daybreakers.
Zhao’s latest film Nomadland is looking to become a huge Oscar contender and she will likely land some commercial success with her upcoming Marvel Studios movie Eternals coming out on November 5th, 2021.
Universal Pictures has been developing a heap of projects with their iconic Universal Monsters along with a recent remake of The Invisible Man, which has led to director Leigh Whannell to return for a new Wolf Man remake with Ryan Gosling attached to star. There many more projects in the works as well.
Early this morning, it was announced by Warner Bros. via The Hollywood Reporter that they’ve paused filming on Fantastic Beasts 3 due to COVID-19, production was taking place at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden in Watford, England. An undisclosed person working on the film has tested positive (likely because of the extra contagiousness of the UK variant) and are halting production for the time being. Their timeline for the small shutdown wasn’t given but we’ve seen similar shoots in the UK pause for two weeks (14-days) after positive tests.
“A team member from Fantastic Beasts 3 has tested positive for COVID-19,” Warner Bros. told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement, without confirming the team member’s identity. “The diagnosis was confirmed as a result of required and ongoing testing that all production employees receive, and the team member is currently in isolation. Out of an abundance of caution, Fantastic Beasts 3 paused production and will be back up in accordance with safety guidelines.”
Using the term “team member” is likely to prevent people from knowing if the person in question is part of the cast or on the crew.
The UK government has decided that while the new contagious strain of the virus is dangerous it’s apparently still a good idea to keep having large groups of people working on film and television sets. I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if we end up seeing more of these pauses in the coming months and into the summer.
Production on Fantastic Beasts 3 started in September after the pandemic delayed it’s early 2020 shoot, they also replaced Johnny Depp with Mads Mikkelsen as the franchise’s villain, Gallert Grindelwald. Last year, during the shoot for The Batman, Robert Pattinson tested positive for COVID-19 leading to that production being paused until it was safe for the actor to return to work. Jurassic World: Dominion also had to pause filming as well.
Two more Fantastic Beasts sequels are in development stages.
The studio recently bumped the release date to July 15th, 2022 allowing them some wiggle-room for future production delays like this.
Don Cheadle has revealed on the Post-Credit Podcast that his Marvel character Rhodey aka War Machine will be showing up in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier series. How much or how many episodes wasn’t mentioned but Don will be getting his own spinoff show on Disney+ titled Armor Wars, which is expected to take cues from the comic book storyline of same name and could mean the return of Sam Rockwell‘s Justin Hammer.
CHEADLE: “That’s some of the fun of the MCU, that we all get to show up in each other’s stories, and there are ways that we’re cross-platforming these characters, and they become storylines, sometimes, in the movies. And then these storylines in the movies become storylines in the shows.”
“It’s really a fun and interesting and, by all imagination, completely open-ended — this can go anywhere. It’s great, I can’t wait to get in the room with the writers and figure out how all those things [connecting Armor Wars to the MCU] happen. You know, Rhodey shows up in Winter Soldier and Falcon’s show. So, it can be a lot.”
This could mean that Falcon might help plant seeds for Armor Wars.
The Falcon & The Winter Soldier begins airing on Disney+ starting March 19th and it’s likely that Armor Wars won’t begin airing until sometime in 2022-2023.
Fans will have to keep their fingers-crossed for a full trailer this weekend.
Following the events of Avengers: Endgame, Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) team up in a global adventure that tests their abilities—and their patience—in Marvel Studios’ The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. The all-new series is directed by Kari Skogland; Malcolm Spellman is the head writer. Streaming exclusively on Disney+.
The Ronin has been able to verify that production designer Adam Stockhausen has indeed joined the crew for Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones 5 which will star Harrison Ford as the titular hero one more time as the new film will be a continuation rather than a reboot, as reaffirmed by studio head Kathleen Kennedy back in 2020.
Adam is a frequent collaborator with directors Wes Anderson and Steven Spielberg as his credits include films such as The Grand Budapest Hotel, Ready Player One, Bridge of Spies, The French Dispatch, Isle of Dogs, Moonrise Kingdom, Widows, and West Side Story.
He earned an Oscar for his work on Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Logan and Ford v Ferrari director James Mangold last year took over for Steven Spielberg when the filmmaker exited the project and is also rewriting the script for the sequel. James recently hinted on Twitter that the fifth installment might take place in the 1960’s.
Concrete plot details for Indiana Jones 5 are being kept under lock-and-key.
One thing we can likely rely on is that Shia LaBeouf won’t be returning as Indy’s estranged son Mutt given the recent allegations of abuse made by an ex-girlfriend making the idea of having him return a PR nightmare for the studio and headache they can avoid.
Disney has given the untitled Indy film a release date of July 29th, 2022 and suggested back in December production could begin shooting in late spring.
Yet another cast member of Guardians of The Galaxy franchise has arrived in Sydney, Australia for the shoot of Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love & Thunder, which is currently filming as the first set photos started rolling in.
Canadian actress Pom Klementieff, who plays Mantis, has announced on Instagram she’s arrived in Sydney in what looks like a video of her on the balcony of the quarantine hotel. Pom had been previously shooting scenes for Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible 7 and Mission: Impossible 8.
She joins fellow Guardians actors Chris Pratt, Karen Gillan, Dave Bautista, and Sean Gunn. The rest of the cast consists of Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Christian Bale as Gorr The God Butcher, Jaimie Alexander, Matt Damon, and Taika Waititi reprising the Korg role.
Deadline is reporting that Skydance Media is going to be making their own Buck Rogers project after there was news of Legendary hiring Brian K. Vaughn to write a new live-action series with George Clooney set to produce and possibly star as the titular Buck. This is certainly odd given that Legendary had announced it secured animation, film, and television rights to the sci-fi pulp hero.
But there seemingly have been ongoing legal issues and claims surrounding the property for ages.
Skydance is apparently developing a feature film with the Buck Rogers Estate sending a cease-and-desist letter to Legendary in the hopes of them nixing their projects claiming they’ve already signed away the property rights to Skydance. However, it doesn’t sound like Legendary is actually taking the threat of legal action seriously.
This isn’t the first or last time that a IP’s rights have been fought over.
After someone on Twitter suggested that Marvel Studios consider giving Randall Park‘s Agent Jimmy Woo his own X-Files-type series as Woo returned in WandaVision, Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings star Simu Liu wants in on the hypothetical pitch for a spinoff series and says he’d like to cameo on it.
Jimmy Woo isn’t the regular side-character as he predates a bulk of Marvel superheroes debuting back in 1956 from Atlas Comics (precursor to Marvel Comics) and eventually became the team leader of the Agents of Atlas, a team that feature a bunch of obscure heroes such as Gorilla-Man, HumanRobot, Venus, The Uranian, and Namor’s cousin Namora.
The more recent incarnation of the team includes Simu’s Shang-Chi alongside other Asian superheroes. There has been speculation that we’ll see the upcoming solo film plant seeds for Agents of Atlas as Shang-Chi, The Mandarin, and Jimmy Woo are expected to have direct ties to Atlas Empire/Atlas Foundation which in the comics has it’s headquarters located underneath San Francisco, California. A location that ties Shang-Chi to Park’s Ant-Man franchise.
In theory, there is a place for Jimmy in the MCU to lead his own team as it has been established in the comics.
Simu Liu isn’t a stranger to television since once he finished work on his Marvel movie in Australia he returned to Toronto to shoot the CBC sitcom Kim’s Convenience. Liu’s co-star Paul Sun-Hyung Lee is already part of the Disney+ family as he played Captain Carson Teva in Season 2 of The Mandalorian and most likely will appear in the spinoff series Rangers of The New Republic. The Shang-Chi star has also been hinting he’d like to join the Star Wars universe as well.
While a Jimmy Woo series is possible, there is a better chance that he’ll join the ranks of S.W.O.R.D. to potentially have a supporting role in things like the Secret Invasion series and Captain Marvel 2 as both are expected to have a heavy S.W.O.R.D. presence. Woo having a larger role within the MCU as a crossover character feels like the right move and it could eventually lead to a project like Agents of Atlas, something that could be worthwhile as a feature film franchise given the multiple untapped superheroes on it’s roster and not just a Disney+ series.
Also, given the title Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been previously used, I wouldn’t be shocked if Marvel Studios just referred to the team as simply Atlas, if and when they bring them into the MCU.
THE RONIN 