The Ronin has been able to independently confirm that American actress Paula Newsome will have a role in Marvel’s upcoming Spider-Man installment, Spider-Man: No Way Home. The size of her character’s role in the superhero flick is currently unknown at this time. Audiences will likely know Paula best from the HBO series Barry led by Bill Hader and plays Detective Janice Moss.
UPDATE: It looks like Paula is not only teasing her involvement in the sequel on Twitter but that she could be playing MJ’s mother.
Filming on Spider-Man: No Way Home (The November Project) has been mostly talking place in Atlanta, Georgia with Jon Watts directing before making his jump to helm Marvel’s Fantastic Four reboot.
The returning cast is set to include Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Tony Revolori, Marisa Tomei, Hannibal Buress, Jon Favreau, Angourie Rice, and J.K. Simmons.
Benedict Cumberbatch is appearing as Doctor Strange as Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness has/about to complete principal photography in the United Kingdom. There has been some speculation about how Strange connects to No Way Home and if we’ll potentially see Peter Parker in The Multiverse of Madness.
Spider-Man: Far From Home ended on a massive cliffhanger as J. Jonah Jameson revealed Peter’s secret identity to the world and pushed the narrative that Spider-Man killed Quentin Beck aka Mysterio.
Spider-Man 2 actor Alfred Molina recently confirmed to Variety that he would be playing Doctor Octopus (first reported by GWW) in the MCU flick, but that he would be reprising the Sam Raimi incarnation to boot. However, Jamie Foxx had stated on social media that his version of Electro wouldn’t be blue giving the impression it would be a different incarnation from The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Tom Holland has denied in press interviews that former Spider-Man actors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield are in the movie, but that hasn’t detoured fans getting excited about seeing multiple generations of Peter Parker in the third MCU installment. The British actor has also stated that Spider-Man 3 fulfills his contract and likely means a new deal will have to be made for him to continue the Spider-Man role.
Sony has given Spider-Man: No Way Home a release date of December 17, 2021.
The Ronin has been confirm that The Kids In The Hall revival for Amazon Prime Video has landed production dates as the Canadian comedy series will shoot from May 19 to July 15 in Toronto. Original cast members Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson are all expected to return.
Kids In The Hall was hugely influential on me as a kid growing up as there were limited examples of Canadian entertainment outpacing American counterparts. It wasn’t until HBO’s Mr. Show that it felt like American sketch show was able to catch-up with Kids In The Hall.
Speaking of Canadian comedy revivals, there was also an SCTV reunion special coming to Netflix from Martin Scorsese but there hasn’t been an official announcement about it’s release date.
Paramount Pictures is attempting a remake of the Dungeons & Dragons movie, based on the beloved table-top fantasy game that recently got a resurgence with a new generation thanks to Netflix’s Stranger Things and it growing popularity again in the gaming community.
The fantasy project originally had Chris McKay (The Tomorrow War, The Lego Batman Movie) attached to direct before Paramount pivoted to Game Night filmmakers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. The duo, who previously wrote Spider-Man: Homecoming will tackle the script as well.
There is a new casting update as Deadline reports that they’ve just added young actress Chloe Coleman to their Dungeons & Dragons remake. Chloe is best known for co-starring with Dave Bautista in the comedy My Spy and will be seen the Karen Gillan action flick Gunpowder Milkshake later this year. She also has a role in James Cameron’s Avatar 2.
It’s growing cast includes Chris Pine (Star Trek, Wonder Woman), Michelle Rodriguez (Avatar, F9, Alita: Battle Angel), Rege-Jean Page (Bridgerton, The Gray Man), Justice Smith (Detective Pikachu, Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom), Sophia Lillis (It), and Hugh Grant (The Gentlemen, Five Eyes) is reportedly playing a villain.
Filming under the working title Chainmail will take place this year in Belfast, Northern Ireland and France with a production team that includes cinematographer Barry Peterson (Game Night) and production designer Raymond Chan (The Falcon & The Winter Soldier).
They’ve officially moved the fantasy adventure film from May 27, 2022 to March 3, 2023.
Sony Pictures recently signed a lucrative deal with Netflix for post-theatrical release Pay 1 window, but that doesn’t end there. Variety states that Disney and Sony have made a new streaming deal for their Marvel properties that will see their films jumping to Disney+ after their post-theatrical run at Netflix. The deal kick-ins in with 2022 releases likely starting with Jared Leto’s Morbius and subsequent Marvel releases from Sony up until 2026.
Disney will also get access to other Sony content.
The wide-ranging deal, which runs through Sony’s 2026 theatrical slate, also calls for Sony titles to run across Disney’s array of streaming and linear platforms, making it unprecedented in scope as it covers Disney Plus, Hulu, FX Networks, ABC, Disney Channels and Freeform. It also includes a significant number of library titles that will be spread among various outlets.
There are heap of Spider-Man spinoffs in the works at Sony with Tom Hardy’s Venom 3 (quietly announced with the Sony/Netflix deal), J.C. Chandor’s Kraven The Hunter, Olivia Wilde’s Spider-Woman, Madame Web, Jackpot, Nightwatch, and Sinister Six (if they end-up resurrecting it). The sequel to Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is likely part of the deal and the other animated Marvel projects in the works at Sony Animation Studios.
In September, it was reported that Amazon and Sony were in negotiations to bring their Marvel television projects such as Silk to the streaming giant that is already home to The Boys and Invincible.
It seems like a win-win for Sony Pictures as the studio didn’t have a streaming service and now has two homes allowing them to make revenue post-theatrical without having to launch a new service during a crowded market, which has been an extremely costly venture for other studios.
While the series finale of The Falcon & The Winter Soldier will hit Disney+ this Friday, Marvel Studios has a wave of other live-action shows on the horizon this year. Next-up will be Tom Hiddleston’s Loki series on June 11, 2021 with Ms. Marvel and Hawkeye debuting in late 2021.
It looks like filming on the Hawkeye series has officially wrapped today, according a new social media post from Jeremy Renner’s Instagram account.
Production kicked-off last year in New York City before moving over to Marvel’s filming hub in Atlanta. This post feels like the actor saying goodbye to the Avenger role but we don’t know if Barton will be sticking around for future projects or if this series will the final stretch for Renner and Hawkeye. He first played Hawkeye in a small cameo for 2011’s Thor before taking a supporting role in The Avengers the following year.
Renner’s Clint Barton will be mentoring a young protege named Kate Bishop played by Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld (Dickinson, True Grit, Bumblebee). The heroine eventually joins the ranks of the Young Avengers, a potential new team in the MCU that is slowly being assembled which each new project.
While something like Loki is being lined-up to get multiple seasons it’s unclear if Hawkeye will be a one-off or not.
Marvel Studios seems impressed enough with the show to already be moving forward with a spinoff show featuring the deaf Native-American character Maya Lopez aka Echo played by Alaqua Cox with Etan Cohen and Emily Cohen overseeing it. Echo first appeared in the Daredevil comic books and also took on the persona of Ronin, just like Clint Barton.
Other Disney+ shows officially on deck include She-Hulk, Moon Knight, Armor Wars, Secret Invasion, Ironheart, and a Black Panther/Wakanda series from Ryan Coogler.
As mentioned at the top, Hawkeye is expected to debut on Disney+ later this year and we should get some sort of trailer by the summer.
Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings looks like it could be going to be another moment for Marvel Studios to give another obscure comic book superhero their own blockbuster film franchise. The Marvel Studios trailer, that debuted on Monday morning, has already earned 24.1 million views just from the Shang-Chi Twitter account (amplified by other Marvel-owned accounts) and Marvel Entertainment’s YouTube channel.
It remains to be seen if this will equal box office dollars but it’s a good sign that folks are indeed ready for an Asian-led superhero franchise from Hollywood and could be an important moment to see more high-budgeted Asian-led blockbusters in the future.
While most people might assume that Shang-Chi was a recent decision at the studio, Marvel has actually been trying to get a live-action adaption going for decades going back to the 1980s.
Brandon Lee in RAPID FIRE (1992)
Inverse was able to speak with former Marvel Productions CEO and President Margaret Loesch, who revealed that Stan Lee met with Bruce Lee’s son Brandon Lee (Showdown In Little Tokyo, The Crow, Rapid Fire) at the Marvel offices for a potential Shang-Chi television series in the 80s. The late Bruce Lee and his film Enter The Dragon had been the template for the martial arts superhero. Sadly, Brandon had a tragic death as he was killed during the filming of The Crow.
There were also attempts to get a feature film back 20 years.
In 2001, Blade director Stephen Norrington was reportedly attached for a feature film of Shang-Chi alongside an early incarnation of Ghost Rider too. He quietly retired after making 20th Century Fox’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and headaches he had during that production. Norrington had originally wanted to cast Jet Li as Blade villain Deacon Frost but the actor was busy shooting Richard Donner’s Lethal Weapon 4. You can tell from Blade that the filmmaker was heavily influenced by Hong Kong action movies with their use of wire-work, a year before The Matrix.
DreamWorks attempted to get things going again in 2003, as Variety reported they had hired Woo-ping Yuen (True Legend) to direct and script from Band of Brothers writer Bruce McKenna. Woo-ping Yuen had been the fight choreographer for The Matrix, Kill Bill Vol.2, Kung Fu Hustle, The Forbidden Kingdom, The Grandmaster, and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Oscar-winner Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi) boarded as a producer in 2004, a year after his Hulk movie was released. However, the rights to Shang-Chi eventually reverted back to Marvel.
Fast-forward to Marvel Studios being acquired by Disney and in late 2018 Deadline reported that the studio would be seeking a director for their Shang-Chi movie. Director Destin Daniel Cretton was ultimately selected with Canadian actor Simu Liu announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2019 as landing the superhero role.
Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings will be released by Disney on September 3, 2021.
SHANG-CHI & THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS – Marvel Studios’ “Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings” stars Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, who must confront the past he thought he left behind when he is drawn into the web of the mysterious Ten Rings organization. The film also stars Tony Leung as Wenwu, Awkwafina as Shang-Chi’s friend Katy and Michelle Yeoh as Jiang Nan, as well as Fala Chen, Meng’er Zhang, Florian Munteanu and Ronny Chieng.
Last August, it was reported by Deadline that Universal 1440 and Netflix would be teaming-up for a sequel to the fantasy adventure film 47 Ronin starring Keanu Reeves, Horiyuki Sanada, Tadanobu Asano, Rinko Kikuchi and Ko Shibasaki. The 2013 movie was a fictional Hollywood take on the real-life historical event that took place in Japan during the 18th century.
47 RONIN – In feudal Japan, Lord Asano rules his province with fairness. However, jealous Lord Kira (Tadanobu Asano) fears that the shogun favors Asano over him and hatches a plot that ends with Asano’s ritual suicide. After Asano’s death, his samurai, led by Oishi (Hiroyuki Sanada), are forced to live as outcasts. Oishi wanders for several years but realizes that he must turn to Kai (Keanu Reeves), a mixed-blood warrior he once rejected, to help him and his ronin comrades take revenge on Lord Kira.
The sequel directed by Ron Yaun is said to take place 300 years in the future with a cyberpunk angle. Things such as Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049, The Matrix Trilogy, Ghost In The Shell, Akira, Upgrade, RoboCop, Total Recall, Dredd, The Terminator, Ready Player One, and Alita: Battle Angel are feature film examples of the cyberpunk genre alongside the recent video game Cyberpunk 2077 (also features Keanu Reeves).
Deadline is back with more information on the creative team as they’ve hired actress Aimee Garcia (M.O.D.O.K., Lucifer) and former WWE wrestler AJ Mendez to write the sequel. The pair are behind the Glow comic book based on the Netflix series that focused on women’s wrestling. They’ve also tackled Dungeons & Dragons for IDW and Wonder Woman for DC Comics.
Production was supposed to take place this year but is looks like they’re still in the development stage with the announcement of these two screenwriters joining the 47 Ronin sequel. It’s unknown if they’ll attempt to wrangle Keanu Reeves for a cameo as he’s about to begin shooting John Wick: Chapter 4 this summer.
Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige remarked a while back that their event series Secret Invasion would have more characters than Avengers: Endgame, which is an extremely bold claim to make even for the Marvel spokesperson. While we’re still waiting for confirmation on what Avengers or new heroes will be appearing in Secret Invasion, we got two high-profile additions to the cast this week.
Oscar-winner Olivia Colman (The Crown, Hot Fuzz, The Father, The Favorite, Peep Show) and four-time Emmy nominee Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Terminator Genisys) are more or less names you’d expect to be cast for a Marvel Studios feature film, not a Disney+ show. This could suggest that the roles may end up having a larger impact on the MCU and could carrying over to the films as well.
The stand-out here is obviously Emilia Clarke as she had been tapped for an unnamed role in Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 possibly when the script had a main female villain. Screenwriter Drew Pearce confirmed that Clarke had a major role in the film before there were script changes which director Shane Black further explained to Uproxx back in 2016 that is was Marvel corporate that squashed (by the remarks sounds like Ike Perlmutter) their attempt to have a female villain in Iron Man 3. The role according to Black was essentially going to be a female version of Guy Pearce’s Killian.
BLACK: “All I’ll say is this, on the record: There was an early draft of Iron Man 3 where we had an inkling of a problem. Which is that we had a female character who was the villain in the draft. We had finished the script and we were given a no-holds-barred memo saying that cannot stand and we’ve changed our minds because, after consulting, we’ve decided that toy won’t sell as well if it’s a female.”
“In the earlier draft, the woman was essentially Killian – and they didn’t want a female Killian, they wanted a male Killian. I liked the idea, like Remington Steele, you think it’s the man but at the end, the woman has been running the whole show.”
Connecting the two bits of information, Clarke was likely being tapped to play this female main villain before the changes were made. This alteration to the script was potentially why the villain hierarchy was a huge mess in Iron Man 3 and why a lot of people weren’t thrilled about the Killian/Mandarin twists, because it sounds like they were mandated changes from outside of the studio.
That wasn’t her only brush with an MCU casting as Emilia was a hopeful in 2012 to play the Sharon Carter role in the Russo Brothers’ Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The part eventually went to Emily VanCamp, who at the time was best known for her ABC series Revenge and wasn’t on many people’s radar at the time. Carter sadly didn’t have a massive impact in Captain America: Civil War and the character is only now getting some neat stuff to do in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier.
So, Marvel has been trying to find her a role for ages and unlikely would be courted to play some one-off if she had been eyed for both villain and heroic roles in the past.
Secret Invasion is going to likely feature multitude of film characters as there could be a direct tie-in with Nia DaCosta’s Captain Marvel 2 given their production (both shooting in the United Kingdom) and release proximity. It’s already been confirmed that Captain Marvel 2 will feature Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Iman Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel, and Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau. We still don’t know who Zawe Ashton is playing the sequel outside of a villain and if she is a Skrull.
There is a small chance that Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther 2 could have connections to Secret Invasion given that Skrulls have attempted to invade Wakanda only to have their asses handed to them and would likely need to infiltrate them given their advanced technology/access to vibranium. Skrulls kidnapping T’Challa could be a good excuse for Marvel to have another character in the Black Panther mantle without the need to recast or use a CGI double in the sequel.
Once S.W.O.R.D. was introduced in WandaVision it opened the door for a wave of characters connected to the cosmic agency and it’s expected to play a large role in both Captain Marvel 2 and Secret Invasion. The two big female S.W.O.R.D. agents that could be perfect for Clarke are Abigail Brand (a mutant) and Jessica Drew aka Spider-Woman.
Having Abigail Brand in Secret Invasion could be the first move by Marvel Studios to slowly introduce mutants and X-Men into the MCU, as their X-Men reboot is still in early stages and despite continued rumblings of a Wolverine series they really haven’t announced anything official concerning mutants.
While the name Spider-Woman is owned by Sony, Jessica Drew debuted outside of the Spider-Man comic books making her fair game to be used by Marvel Studios. Sony Pictures is reportedly making a Spider-Woman movie with director Olivia Wilde (Booksmart, Don’t Worry Darling), however, it hasn’t been confirmed if Jessica Drew will lead that project or if Marvel Studios will produce it like they have with Jon Watts’ Spider-Man trilogy.
While the MCU’s version of Secret Invasion is going to have to be different from the comics to make it less predictable, Jessica Drew is revealed to be Skrull Queen Veranke. An interesting way to go could be that Clarke plays Brand or Drew with Olivia Colman playing real version of Queen Veranke in make-up. It’s still unclear if they’ll be friends or foes in the Disney+ show as Kingsley Ben-Adir is the only cast member specifically mentioned as playing a villain.
Secret Invasion will begin shooting this fall in the United Kingdom and assumed to debut on Disney+ in late 2022.
Yesterday, it was revealed that Oscar-winner Olivia Colman (Hot Fuzz, The Favourite, The Father) would be joining the Disney+ series Secret Invasion from Marvel Studios. A huge crossover event that will see the shape-shifting aliens, Skrulls, quietly taking over positions of power on Earth replacing humans. In the comics, it also bleeds over to the ranks of the Avengers as well seeing various.
Another high-profile actor is being courted for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Variety reports that Emilia Clarke is the newest addition to the cast of Marvel’s upcoming event series Secret Invasion. The Game of Thrones and Solo: Star Wars Story actress is currently in talks with Marvel to join the Skrull series.
Apparently, this wouldn’t be her first brush with Marvel as she had been wanted for role in Iron Man 3. This being revealed by the film’s screenwriter Drew Pearce on Instagram back in 2019 but things obviously didn’t work out.
Emilia told The Sunday Times she would be keen to join the Marvel family.
CLARKE: “I think, if I did, it would be me having a giggle. I want to do something absolutely stupid and silly, like, you know, The Avengers or whatever. Something where I got to have a giggle with mates.”
She would join Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Ben Mendelsohn as Talos, Olivia Colman in an undisclosed role, and fellow Brit Kingsley Ben-Adir reportedly taking a villain role in the Disney+ series.
Filming is said to begin this fall in the United Kingdom.
Could we end up seeing Guardians of The Galaxy actor Dave Bautista join the cast of a DC Comics film in the future? According to Dave, he’s been actively trying to get his foot in the door recently.
While speaking during Justice Con (via Screen Rant), the wrestler turned actor revealed he had met with Warner Bros./DC about playing Batman villain Bane, but the studio apparently was shocked about his request as they weren’t even actively casting the role. It remains to be seen if he’ll ultimately play the character but you can’t get the impression he was passionate about trying to land it.
BAUTISTA: “Oh, it would be Bane all day long. I’ve made no secret about this. I want to play Bane so bad I went to Warner Bros., had an appointment with them, had an appointment with DC, walked in the door and said, ‘I want to play Bane.’ I’m not kidding. They were a little like ‘Woah, we’re not even casting Bane.’ I was like ‘I don’t care, I’m playing him.'”
Bane is traditionally a Batman villain and we don’t really know the next time we’ll see him on the big screen as Matt Reeves is currently overseeing the new Batman trilogy starring Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne and it’s unclear if he plans to introduce Bane anytime soon. Something like the Suicide Squad franchise might be a project where Bane could have popped-up without the need to have him interacting with Batman.
The most notable version of Bane was Tom Hardy’s incarnation featured as the League of Shadows leader in The Dark Knight Rises directed by Christopher Nolan.
Dave Bautista’s next big project will be Zack Snyder’s Army of The Dead which will be released on May 14, 2021, and is still expected to return for James Gunn’s Guardians of The Galaxy 3.
ARMY OF THE DEAD – After a zombie outbreak in Las Vegas, a group of mercenaries takes the ultimate gamble by venturing into the quarantine zone for the greatest heist ever.
THE RONIN 