It looks like Marvel Studios won’t be bringing back rapper turned actor T.I. for their upcoming Ant-Man sequel as The Hollywood Reporter says the studios don’t have plans for him to return to the role of Dave in Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. This likely stems from fallout due to the multiple sexual abuse allegations made by women against the actor and his wife, but hasn’t been confirmed as a direct connection.
T.I. will not be returning for Marvel Studios’ upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. The embattled rapper and actor is not a part of the cast, The Hollywood Reporter has learned, but it’s unclear whether this is related to recent accusations of sexual abuse he is facing alongside his wife, musician Tiny.
You can read more about those allegations in the THR’s report from the link below.
While Disney hasn’t given the sequel a release date, filming is set for this summer and they’ve been aiming for a spot in 2022.
Lovecraft Country actor Jonathan Majors is set to play Marvel Comics villain Kang The Conqueror, which could mean he’ll appear in multiple films.
Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania seemingly has a seasonal start date according to Evangeline Lilly. The Canadian actress has revealed in the comments section of a recent Instagram post they’re aiming to start shooting the sequel sometime in the summer.
Below is a screenshot of that interaction.
Lilly will be returning alongside director Peyton Reed and fellow cast members Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Newcomers include Kathryn Newton as the new Cassie Lang and Lovecraft Country’s Jonathan Majors playing Kang The Conqueror, the latter is assumed to be the main villain of the picture.
There are multiple signals that filming will take place at Pinewood Studios UK, the British stages were previously used for Black Widow and Eternals.
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, directed by Sam Raimi, is currently in production over at Longcross Studios in Surrey, England with cameras still rolling on Spider-Man 3 in Atlanta and Takia Waititi’s Thor: Love & Thunder just starting production last month at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, Australia.
Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther 2 is reportedly aiming to start filming in the summer as well but will be shooting in Atlanta, Georgia. There is also evidence that Nia DaCosta’s Captain Marvel 2 will be shooting in the UK as well but given it’s November 2022 release date likely won’t begin shooting until September-October. James Gunn is busy with his HBO Max series Peacemaker but will eventually return to the Marvel family to shoot Guardians of The Galaxy 3, most likely in 2022.
Sadly, the Ant-Man & The Wasp sequel is without an official release date from Disney/Marvel.
We’ve been really interested in the upcoming Korean War film Devotion, directed by JD Dillard with Lovecraft Country‘s Jonathan Majors and Top Gun: Maverick‘s Glenn Powell in leading roles.
The aerial epic will chart the true story of U.S. Navy fighter pilots, Jesse Brown and Tom Hudner, two young men from different worlds. Initiated together into the VF-32 squadron, they are pushed to their limits flying a new design of fighter jet. But their friendship is tested when one of them is shot down behind enemy lines.
Deadline reports that the cast has added Thomas Sadoski from HBO’s Newsroom, Christina Jackson from HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, and singer Joe Jonas. Thomas might be best known out of the three for acting previously seen as the New Jersey cop Jimmy from the first two John Wick movies starring Keanu Reeves.
Filming is said to begin this February in Georgia.
Majors recently caught the attention of Marvel Studios landing the role of comic book villain Kang The Conqueror in Peyton Reed‘s Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, the Marvel Studios film is expected to begin shooting later this year in London.
People after San Diego Comic-Con 2019 started making theories on when Phase 4 would end that led to plenty of assumptions what would end up becoming Phase 5 projects, however, a brief comment from Kevin Feige is suggesting he’s not ready to say when Phase 4 is ending and when Phase 5 begins. Because of the pandemic Phase 4 will kick-off with WandaVision instead of Black Widow, which was originally set to be released in May 2020.
Murphy’s Multiverse asked Kevin Feige during a WandaVision press conference for clarification if the Marvel Studios president would reveal when in the release schedule we’ll see the end of Phase 4 and got a straight-up “no” in response.
We’ll just have to wait and see when they want to reveal that information publicly.
It’s worth mentioning that Phase 3 included 11 feature films starting with Captain America:Civil War and ended with Spider-Man: Far From Home. There is a good chance that Marvel might extend Phase 4 further than where they originally wanted.
I think the delays in release could also make things a little more complicated.
Something like James Gunn’s Guardians of The Galaxy 3 might be something that could end Phase 4 if they want to push the slate into 2023-2024.
WandaVision begins airing on Disney+ starting January 15th.
Here’s a reminder of the current MCU movies that are set for release and is still subject to change.
Tomorrow will see the final episode of The Mandalorian Season 2 air on Disney+ and we know who will be directing that episode. During an interview with Extra, Pedro Pascal has now revealed that Peyton Reed will be back to direct the Season 2 finale.
Peyton Reed directed the fantastic second episode of this current season which featured the Frog Lady and the live-action version of the Krykna. The director is best known for Marvel’s Ant-Man, Ant-Man & The Wasp, and will shoot Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania next year.
We know that Grogu is in the hands of Moff Gideon and Mando will attempt to rescue him with a handful of his cohorts, how this all turns out remains to be seen and there have been speculation a Jedi may show up.
It’ll be a little while before we get more Star Wars as Andor just started shooting and Obi-Wan Kenobi won’t begin production until March. However, it’s very likely that Season 3 of The Mandalorian will begin filming soon if it hasn’t already. We’re getting a whole bunch of new shows on the horizon with Ahsoka, Rangers of The New Republic, and The High Republic era show The Acolyte.
We’re hearing there are more shows to be announced as well.
Marvel Studios had a rather large presentation at last week’s Disney Investor Day event and Kevin Feige had a lot of information to share in such a short period. Below is a rundown of most of the new information and adjusted release dates.
What seemed like the biggest announcement made during the massive amount of information was that director Jon Watts has been selected by the studio to reboot The Fantastic Four for them. Watts having worked with Marvel Studios to reboot the Spider-Man franchise with Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and the untitled Spider-Man 3 (currently filming in Atlanta as The November Project).
When Fantastic Four will begin shooting is unknown as Jon will be busy with Spider-Man 3 until it’s release in 12 months and they failed to mention any screenwriters. This will mark the first Marvel film for Watts that won’t have Sony Pictures’ involvement and might suggest that he won’t be coming back for Spider-Man 4.
Fandom has collectively chosen to campaign for John Krasinski and Emily Blunt to play the roles of Mister Fantastic and The Invisible Woman, however, there hasn’t been any concrete casting news concerning the project as it only just got confirmed.
Feige had telegraphed back at San Diego Comic-Con 2019 that Fantastic Four was the priority former Fox property they were aiming to reboot ahead of the X-Men. There is a possibility that Dr. Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm could appear in other films first.
One of the more frustrating things concerning Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings is that they kept most of the cast unofficial for the entirety of the shoot but they’ve now announced a good chunk of the cast, while not all of them. The cast so far includes actors Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, Tony Leung as Wenwu aka The Mandarian, Awkwafina as Katy, Meng’er Zhang as Xialing, Michelle Yeoh as Jiang Nan, Ronny Chieng as Jon Jon, Fala Chen as Jiang Li, and Florian Munteanu as villain William Young aka Razor Fist.
Shang-Chi along with Black Widow are still set to be released in theaters, not on Disney+, with the Destin Daniel Cretton martial arts action film set for July 9, 2021.
Director Sam Raimi has started filming Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness is officially shooting and will not only connect to WandaVision but also Jon Watts’ Spider-Man 3. While Kevin didn’t confirm it, there is a good chance that Tom Holland‘s Peter Parker and other characters carrying over to the Doctor Strange sequel.
However, he did confirm that that Xochitl Gomez will be playing America Chavez aka Miss America. The young newcomer joins Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, and Chiwetel Ejiofor as villain Baron Mordo.
It’s release date is set for March 25, 2022.
We finally know Christian Bale‘s character in Thor: Love & Thunder as he’ll play the film’s villain Gorr The God Butcher. A role we assume will be done with motion-capture given the design of his comic book counterpart.
Deadline recently reported that Jaimie Alexander will reprise the role of Lady Sif.
The rest of the cast consists of Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Chris Pratt as Star-Lord, and director Taika Waititi will return to the role of Korg.
Filming begins next month in Australia and it’s release date has been moved once more to May 6, 2022.
Captain Marvel 2 director Nia DaCosta was finally confirmed alongside the return of Brie Larson as Carol Danvers. New additions to the franchise are Ms. Marvel‘s Iman Vellani co-starring as Kamala Khan and WandaVision actress Teyonah Parris as the adult version of Monica Rambeau aka Spectrum.
There is a good chance that it will connect to Secret Invasion as it will also shoot in the United Kingdom.
The film’s date was bumped to November 11th, 2021.
Marvel revealed the title for Ant-Man 3 will be Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. Peyton Reed will be back as director with Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lily, Michael Douglas, and Michelle Pfeiffer returning as part of the main cast. The title suggesting the film will be entering the Quantum Realm or have strange things come out it.
The big announcement concerning the film is that Kathryn Newton (Freaky) has been recast as Cassie Lang aka Stature with rising-star Jonathan Majors (Lovecraft Country) confirmed as villain Kang The Conqueror. It remains to be seen if the third installment will help introduce The Fantastic Four before their own solo film from Jon Watts given Kang’s connection to the former 20th Century Fox heroes.
A release date wasn’t mentioned but is expected something in 2022.
James Gunn is officially back for Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3 with them aiming for a 2023 release date. They’re also developing a holiday special and Groot shorts for Disney+.
Kevin Feige didn’t give much in the way of details for Black Panther 2 but revealed they would not be recasting Chadwick Boseman‘s role of T’Challa. He stopped short from explaining what they are doing with the sequel and reaffirmed that writer/director Ryan Coogler is still working on the film.
While we suspect potential delays on the project, they announced the film is coming July 8th, 2022. The spot was previously held by Captain Marvel 2.
Marvel also announced another round of Disney+ shows.
The Nick Fury series was confirmed to be an adaption of Secret Invasion, which involved a bunch of humanity revealed as being replaced with Skrulls. In the comics, it was revealed that a bunch of Avengers were uncovered to be Skrulls too. As assumed, Samuel L. Jackson will reprise the Fury role with Ben Mendelsohn back as Skrull leader Talos.
The Fox portion of the Skrull rights via Fantastic Four are now in the hands of Marvel and could allow for Super-Skrulls to come into play becoming a big threat as they mimic superpowers of various Marvel Comics heroes.
It had been reported that Kyle Bradstreet would be developing the show.
There are signs the series will shoot in the United Kingdom around the same time as Captain Marvel 2, which could suggest a direct connection via S.W.O.R.D. and the Skrulls.
Olivia Wilde is reportedly directing a Spider-Woman film for Sony Pictures. It’s worth mentioning that Jessica Drew is an Agent of S.W.O.R.D. and is one of the characters in the comics revealed to be a Skrull (Veranke The Skrull Queen). Marvel’s participation on that film while assumed hasn’t been made official.
Don Cheadle will lead his own Disney+ series as War Machine titled Armor Wars.
If the series takes cues from the comic book series we could see the return of Sam Rockwell‘s Justin Hammer, another fan-favorite that is still kicking around in the MCU.
We could also see the addition of unused Iron Man villains such as the Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, and others.
An Ironheart series will star Dominique Thorne as whiz-kid Riri Williams, who creates her own advance armor. I wouldn’t be shocked if there happens to be a crossover with Armor Wars.
They revealed new trailers for their upcoming slate of Disney+ series including WandaVision (coming January 15,2021), The Falcon & The Winter Soldier (coming March 19, 2021), Loki (coming May 2021), and their animated series What If…? (coming summer 2021). The trailers give us the first look at X-Men location Madripoor in Falcon and the scale of the Loki series with teases of his return to Asgard.
Additional information concerning the upcoming shows includes that Ms. Marvel and Hawkeye will indeed be aiming for a 2021, something The Ronin reported on earlier this month. Kevin Feige providing an sizzle footage for the former which is impressive given it only recently started shooting in Atlanta.
With She-Hulk, Kevin confirmed that the cast will include Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk, and the return of Tim Roth‘s Abomination. The latter addition could help support previous chatter that we might see William Hurt‘s Thunder Bolt Ross and Liv Tyler‘s Betty Ross in the series as well bring most of The Incredible Hulk cast back.
I’m sure there are more things to be announced in the future as they hinted to upcoming news concerning Mahershala Ali‘s Blade. Although, I’m sure fans were a little upset they left-out Ryan Reynolds‘ Deadpool 3 or an update on the X-Men reboot. There is now overwhelming evidence that The Young Avengers are coming at some point given that most have been cast already.
In a report from Deadline, Mike Fleming claims that Disney will make announcements at Investor Day 2020 on December 10th concerning new projects (theatrical films and television) from Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and Pixar.
Details aren’t mentioned or what those “new” projects will be.
Disney on December 10 will announce its upcoming slate. While the studio will solidify what Deadline revealed recently – that the Tom Hanks-starrer Pinocchio, Peter Pan and the Emma Stone-starrer Cruella will bypass movie theaters to become Disney+ releases, the studio will also announce new projects from Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar that will encompass TV as well as theatrical. It will be a gesture toward not abandoning the exhibitors.
Fans will be curious to hear if Disney will attempt a similar day-and-day model that was recently announced by WarnerMedia for their entire 2021 film slate, as delayed Marvel films such as Black Widow and Shang-Chi could be part of that hypothetical announcement seeing large theatrical films landing on Disney+.
Collider recently suggested that Disney might be considering merging Disney+ and mature content from Hulu into a single service, another big update from Disney that could be announced (if true) at Investor Day this week.
Kevin Feige would likely confirm castings concerning Oscar Isaac as Moon Knight and Tatiana Maslany as She-Hulk. A Nick Fury series was announced to be in develop, which we assume will star Samuel L. Jackson and possibly include Skrulls/S.W.O.R.D. but that would need to be confirmed. They could also announce their plans for an MCU reboot of Fantastic Four on the film side or updates concerning things we know are happening officially like Ant-Man 3, Captain Marvel 2, Black Panther 2, Deadpool 3 and Blade.
Concerning Lucasfilm, we know that Star Wars shows such as Boba Fett, Cassian Andor, Kenobi, The Mandalorian (Season 3), and a series coming from Leslye Headland are in varying stages of prep/production. There are a couple of films in development from Taika Waititi and Rian Johnson as well.
They’re also about to begin shooting their Willow sequel series in Wales with director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) and we might finally get a concrete update on James Mangold’s Indiana Jones 5.
Hopefully, we get some new details on December 10th and we’re not hearing new information for projects already made known.
The Ronin has learned that Marvel Studios has added Will Htay as the production designer of Peyton Reed’s upcoming Ant-Man 3 and could speak to the scale of the film.
Will’s impressive credits on massive blockbusters as a concept designer includes films such as Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, No Time To Die, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Solo: A Star Wars Story. His work on Star Wars isn’t relegated to just feature films as has been part of the production design team on Disney+ series Kenobi and the untitled Cassian Andor show.
Reed is no stranger to Star Wars either as he directed Chapter 10 of The Mandalorian.
Returning cast members include Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Emma Fuhrmann
Lovecraft Country’s Jonathan Majors is reportedly playing the villain Kang The Conqueror in the sequel which suggests the scale of the Marvel Comics sequel.
We’ve been hearing for months that filming on Ant-Man 3 will be taking place mainly on the stages of Pinewood Studios UK in Buckinghamshire, England and they’ll have access to The Volume/StageCraft for their shoot. The facility was used for upcoming Marvel films Black Widow and Eternals, the latter finishing up their reshoots.
Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness is currently shooting at Longcross Studios in Surrey, England with Elizabeth Olsen suggesting she’ll join them next month.
Ant-Man 3 is without an official release date but is coming out sometime in 2022.
In Chapter 10, directed by Ant-Man’s Peyton Reed, we see Season 1 actress Misty Rosas return after playing Kuiil (voiced by Nick Nolte) to take a new role of the Frog Lady fare and Richard Ayoade’s droid bounty hunter makes a brief return too.
Mando encounters some tie-fighter pilots leading to him wrecking the ship and stranding the group on an icy planet.
We also see a huge call-back to the white spiders created by artist Ralph McQuarrie for The Empire Strikes Back (seen above) and excellently used on this snowy planet, the new episode also homages both James Cameron’s Aliens and John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing. They were also used in Star Wars: Rebels and given the name of Krykna.
Between tackling the Krykna in this new episode and the Krayt dragon on Tatooine in Chapter 9, it is starting to feel like the visual effects budget has been greatly increased from Season 1.
Here is a new batch of concept artwork from Chapter 10.
The British government has announced via Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s national address over the weekend that after weeks of dire COVID-19 predictions for the region they’re finally moving back into a second national lockdown starting on November 5th and lifting it on December 2nd (could be extended if necessary).
JOHNSON: “Unless we act, we could see deaths in this country running at several thousand a day”
For comparison, UK COVID-19 cases have topped 1,000,000 including 47,717 deaths while the United States still hasn’t instituted a national lockdown with 9,280,000 million cases and over 231,000 COVID-19 deaths.
While dine-in bars/restaurants (can do takeout), cinemas, and other non-essentially businesses are closing film productions are expected to chug along like nothing is happening. I’m curious how long that will last if more productions publicly deal with new positive cases after both Jurassic World: Dominion and The Batman dealt with their own recently, the latter seeing star Robert Pattinson test positive for COVID-19.
This was later backed-up by Oliver Dowden, the government’s Culture Secretary on Twitter.
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The changes mean people should WFH where possible
But where this is not possible, travel to a place of work will be permitted – e.g. this includes (but not exhaustive) elite sport played behind closed doors, film & tv production, telecoms workers
Things like schools, universities, construction sites and manufacturing businesses will stay open. However, that could change if they don’t see a decrease in numbers which might also lead to stricter measures and might lead to everything non-essentially getting closed including film shoots (filming in a bubble or not).
As previously stated, The Batman and Jurassic World: Dominion are filming in the United Kingdom alongside Fantastic Beasts 3. There is an expectation that the Moon Knight series, Ant-Man 3, Captain Marvel 2, and The Flash are prepping to shoot as well in the new year. Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness was supposed to film at Longcross Studios in Surrey, England, however, trades have suggested that lead actor Benedict Cumberbatch is set to shoot his scenes in Atlanta for Spider-Man 3 before filming starts on the Strange sequel.
A lot can happen in a month and it doesn’t seem they’re going all-in with this new lockdown, which might return to bite them in the ass as did the slow response to rising new cases and delayed second lockdown when the government knew months ago that this was only getting worse in the UK. I’m worried these half-steps just won’t be enough and they’ll essentially announce a more rigorous lockdown in a couple weeks or in December, extending it throughout the holidays.
THE RONIN 