It was recently reported by the trades that Lovecraft Country star Jonathan Majors has signed on to play the time-traveling Avengers villain Kang The Conqueror in Ant-Man 3.
The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon has now asked Majors if he had heard this rumor about playing Kang in the MCU and Jonathan responded as follows.
MAJORS: “It’s just you and me? Man, I heard the same thing, bro. I heard the same thing bro and was like ‘What, what, what?’. We apparently have the same source cause I heard it too.”
Peyton Reed is officially returning to direct Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lily.
Filming is expected to take place in the United Kingdom at Pinewood Studios UK and the studio is aiming for a 2022 release date, but that isn’t set in stone.
Yesterday, Deadline reported that Canadian actress Tatiana Maslany (Perry Mason, Destroyer, Orphan Black) had landed the Marvel Studios role of Jennifer Walters for the upcoming superhero comedy series She-Hulk that will be exclusively on Disney+, airing possibly in 2022 given the VFX involved.
The Emmy winning actress had previously tested for major roles in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, so Tat had been on Disney’s radar for quite some time now.
Jennifer is a defense attorney and cousin of Bruce Banner, who transforms into the superheroine She-Hulk after a blood transfusion from Bruce gives her superpowers of her own.
The series is expected to skew more comedic given that Jessica Gao (Rick & Morty) is the head writer and they’ve seemingly hired Kat Coiro (The Mick, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia) to direct multiple episodes. It’s also said that Mark Ruffalo may reprise the Bruce Banner/Professor Hulk role for the show to help connect Jennifer to the greater MCU.
Kevin Feige has confirmed that these new Disney+ characters would most certainly make the jump to the feature films and She-Hulk has the potential to become their next big crossover characters given that is how she was utilized in the comics books.
Here is a rundown of just some of the film projects I think she makes the most sense for.
SPIDER-MAN 3: There have been plenty of team-ups over the years in Marvel Comics and planting seeds for upcoming projects has always been something Marvel Studios has always been keen on doing.
Spider-Man 3 is a strong candidate to introduce the regular human version of Jennifer Walters before the She-Hulk series.
At the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home, Quentin Beck aka Mysterio’s death was spun as murder at the hands of Spidey by J. Jonah Jameson and he also outed his secret identity as Peter Parker. Plenty of fans have suggested that Peter Parker if caught by authorities would be in great need of a defense attorney. A noble profession that doesn’t only fall on the shoulders of Matt Murdock aka Daredevil in Marvel Comics but also Walters, who happens to specialize in superpowered cases.
Interestingly enough, Jennifer has a connection to J. Jonah Jameson as she married J. Jonah Jameson’s son John Jameson aka Man-Wolf.
A nifty connection to the Spider-Man franchise is that Tatiana just happened to co-star in the Boston bombing drama Stronger alongside Jake Gyllenhaal, who played Quentin Beck aka Mysterio.
It is worth noting that according to production grids (take with a grain of salt) making the rounds online both Spider-Man 3 and She-Hulk shoots are expected to overlap at some point next year in Atlanta, Georgia. This potential shooting schedule could theoretically allow Tatiana shoot scenes as Walters due to the proximity to each other, but this is only speculation.
Potentially seeing Jennifer seriously injured during the events of Spider-Man 3 via a villain trying to kill Peter Parker just might be a reason to lead to her cousin Bruce Banner to give her the blood transfusion that not only saves her life but gives her superpowers. A perfect way to help establish her origin outside of the Disney+ series and also connect her to the MCU beyond Banner.
There is also the possibility that Spider-Man 3 sees Parker simply on the run from authorities with the help of parental figures Happy Hogan and Nick Fury being tracked down by the film’s villains.
I don’t see the entire film being a courtroom drama, do you? But if Peter needs a lawyer, Jennifer could be easily suggested by Bruce or Happy.
FANTASTIC FOUR: After the merger between Disney and 21st Century Fox, Marvel Studios finally got full rights to use both the X-Men and characters connected to the Fantastic Four.
She-Hulk happens to be an official member of the team.
While there have been hints that there is quiet development on the MCU reboot of the franchise (via Slove Everything Productions LLC), neither a director nor screenwriter has been officially announced by the studio.
Ant-Man 3 will include Avengers villain Kang The Conqueror played by Lovecraft Country’s Jonathan Majors, who happens to be a villainous ancestor of Reed Richards from the future. Nothing says at the moment that Marvel Studios will carry over that tiny family connection from the comics with the MCU version of Kang but it is worth considering.
I’m also extremely hopeful that the Fantastic Four franchise will be an excellent excuse for Kevin Feige to take a second crack at The Inhumans, as Crystal was a member of the team. The introduction of Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel in her own Disney+ series, who is part of The Inhumans, would certainly open the door for the studio to explore those other characters in more accurate way than the sub-par ABC series.
Marvel Studios is expected to make some announcement soon if they are indeed gearing up to shoot Fantastic Four within the next two years or so.
SECRET WARS AKA AVENGERS 5: The Fantastic Four wasn’t the only big-league superhero team that Jennifer joined as she was part of the Mighty Avengers and could easily be involved with the Secret Wars lineup given she was included in the original comic book run.
The Russo Brothers have teased an interest to tackle the Secret Wars as a follow-up to their box office smashing Marvel film Avengers: Endgame. I’m sure if Secret Wars does materialize they’ll want to wait for the Eternals, Fantastic Four, and X-Men to be well established beforehand so they’re not spending all their time on character introductions.
Romance hasn’t been a huge part of the MCU but Eternals is expected to change that slightly and could allow She-Hulk’s love life to be explored in the series and films.
In more recent comics, Thor and Jennifer are in a relationship that could be used for future films.
She-Hulk has also has had romantic encounters with Hercules and Eros of Titan aka Starfox the womanizing brother of Thanos both are expected to be part of the Eternals franchise the two just happen to be fellow members of The Avengers. Gemma Chan’s Sersi and Kit Harington’s Black Knight are likely also going to join the Avengers ranks just like their comic book counterparts.
A-FORCE: Marvel actresses approached Kevin Feige on the set of Avengers: Endgame to pitch him an all-female superhero film which most have suggested could be a live-action version of A-Force. A feature film that could easily see characters like She-Hulk among those ranks.
I also wouldn’t rule-out cameos in stuff like Thor: Love & Thunder, Ant-Man 3, and Captain Marvel 2 to help establish Jennifer’s relationships with Hope (a surrogate for Janet), Valkyrie, and Danvers leading up to an A-Force film.
There is a lot of crossover potential with a character like She-Hulk and I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of her in the future beyond this Disney+ series.
The other day I posted on Twitter that Ant-Man 3 won’t only be bigger as suggested by director Peyton Reed, but essentially an event film.
Well, it looks like there is some support to that as Deadline is reporting that Lovecraft Country’s Jonathan Majors has joined the film and is said to be possibly playing the super-villain known as Kang The Conqueror, who first debuted as Kang in the pages of The Avengers comic books and is also known as Nathaniel Richards (possible descendant of Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards).
The studio had no comment, but sources close to the project say he is likely to play the super-villain Kang the Conqueror.
A character that has been long teased to be feature in Loki, however, never confirmed.
It’ll be interesting if Kang indeed has connections to the Fantastic Four, but this MCU version might differ from the comic book version as Marvel does take liberties with the origins of their villains very often. Also, he more or less is likely coming into the picture because of the use/invention of time-travel in Avengers: Endgame and not exactly because the Fantastic Four are now at Marvel. But we’ll see.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Kang will be a Multiverse villain potentially from Earth X, the version of Earth where everyone has superpowers. It could be one of many way to introduce an adult group of mutants into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as they might have to abandon Earth X for the safety of 199999 aka MCU’s Earth.
Casting would suggest that they are gearing up to begin shooting in the near future and as I confirmed are indeed expected to released the film sometime in 2022, if all goes to plan. Filming is expected to take place at Pinewood Studios UK and most likely will implement ILM’s StageCraft technology which Reed used on Season 2 of The Mandalorian.
In a post-COVID-19 world, it looks like Disney is looking to adopt safer methods of production which includes expanding the use of the StageCraft technology used to shoot the first two seasons of The Mandalorian. Using this technology means less production crew would be potentially put in harm’s way for set construction and also limit the number of secondary exterior locations as productions traveling to multiple countries might not be the wisest idea at the moment.
The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that ILM’s StageCraft technology will be used for Marvel Studios’ Thor: Love & Thunder (MCU Cosmic mentioned this previously) at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
This comes after writer and director Taika Waititi had used the technology when filming the final episode of the first season of Lucasfilm’s Star Wars series The Mandalorian.
There has been an expectation that Thor: Love & Thunder will begin shooting sometime between January-February of next year as director Destin Daniel Cretton is trying to finish up production on Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings allowing Taika to move in for the Thor sequel.
THR adds that they’ll also be adding StageCraft to the Pinewood Studios UK facility.
In addition, ILM is building a StageCraft volume at Pinewood Studios in London (expected to open in February), and a larger custom volume at Fox Studios Australia that will be used for Thor: Love and Thunder. Waititi previously used virtual production when he helmed the final episode of The Mandalorian season one.
Actor Ewan McGregor previously confirmed that his Star Wars series Kenobi directed by Deborah Chow (The Mandalorian) would be implementing the technology during an interview with Ace Universe back in June.
The next Marvel Studios feature film to shoot at Pinewood Studios UK is expected to be Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man 3, who happened to direct an episode of The Mandalorian for Season 2 just like Taika and may also be familiar with StageCraft after his own experience with that show.
Yesterday, I posted an update of sorts on Ant-Man 3 via Twitter that they are deep in pre-production and that we should expect some massive action sequences given they’ll be moving filming from Pinewood Atlanta Studios to Pinewood Studios UK, the latter facility has been used for the Star Wars films and traditional all of the James Bond movies as well.
We should expect this installment to feel more like an event.
#AntMan3 is well into pre-production and "big" is going to be an understatement… there is a reason this movie is moving to the stages home to BOND and STAR WARS.
I was also able to confirm Marvel/Disney is aiming to release the film sometime in 2020, however, release dates for the next little while will be in flux and most will unlikely be set-in-stone for the foreseeable future given multiple projects will begin production in 2021 meaning that some projects may have be delayed to 2023.
Peyton Reed recently mentioned that the film would be “bigger” and “sprawling” while speaking on The Jess Cagle Show and reaffirmed via Yahoo! Entertainment that Evangeline Lily’s Wasp would be getting equal billing on the sequel.
REED: “They’re a partnership, and she’s a very, very important part of that. And that was a very gratifying thing, I guess technically we were the first Marvel movie with a female hero in the title of the movie. Finding that balance in that movie, that’s very important to me because that’s very much a men’s playing field, historically. But that’s really, really changing now in a great way.”
I’m personally holding out the hope that we’ll see the film morph into some sort of MCU version of Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim as Peyton Reed hasn’t been shy about how the films have been influenced by Japanese kaiju projects like Ultraman. Moving the setting of the film outside of San Francisco might also help shake things up given that Scott Lang might be allowed to move a little more freely around the world after the events of Avengers: Endgame.
Most recently the Pinewood facility has been used for Black Widow and Eternals both films are expected to be larger in scale than Ant-Man or Ant-Man & The Wasp. There is also an expectation that the Moon Knight series will spend some time there as well and we should be getting some updates on that show in the near future.
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness is confirmed for Longcross Studios in Surrey, England and it’s unknown at this point if they’ll have access to the StageCraft tech, but it’s possible.
This new technology certainly would cut-down costs and post-production time, the safety element is simply a massive benefit.
Marvel Studios is still trying to finish productions on both film and television shows they weren’t able to complete earlier in the year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we finally have a neat update concerning Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man 3.
While speaking to The Jess Cagle Show on SiriusXM (via Collider), Peyton mentioned that Ant-Man 3 will be bigger and much more sprawling than the previous two installments of the franchise as they’re still working on the film during the pandemic.
REED: “We are working away through the pandemic. There’s some really really really exciting things in store, none of which of course I could speak to you about right now, as is the Marvel way. I think the third Ant-Man movie is going to be a much bigger more sprawling movie than the first two. It’s going to have a very different visual template.”
It might be a good idea to see them change gears with the upcoming film given that the Ant-Man films are arguably the ones that have the least connection with global audiences as reflected in the box office returns in comparison to the other solo films.
Thor had been in a similar situation before Taika Waititi took over with Thor: Ragnarok giving the franchise a much need boost of creativity and Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness is expected to up the stakes in a similar way. The commonality is that they’re including way more characters than previous films to help increase the energy and scale.
Considering the power-set of Ant-Man and Cassie Lang’s superhero persona of Stature the “bigger” sentiment might actually be literal.
One way to go is to really lean into the homage of Japanese kaiju movies as Reed previously has mentioned in the past. In 2018, Reed responded on Twitter to a fan question that Ant-Man’s suit was directly inspired by Ultraman and Infra-Man.
REED: “Ant-Man’s look wasn’t inspired by Kamen Rider, but I will say that we referenced both Ultraman and Infra-Man when discussing the suit. Close enough, right?”
Ant-Man 3 could be an excellent excuse to take on elements of traditional large-scale monster movies placing the MCU into the realm of the Monsterverse (Legendary’s Godzilla and King Kong cinematic universe) and Pacific Rim, given that there are plenty of large monsters in Marvel Comics allowing Scott or Cassie (as Stature) to battle building-size threats.
Having various creatures escape the Quantum Realm only to increase to a massive/destructive size could be a fun way to go.
Attempting to move things outside of San Francisco would also be nice change and could lead to the film being “visually different”. I’d love to see a Marvel Studios movie take place in Tokyo, Japan as we only briefly saw the location used in Avengers: Endgame.
Before the pandemic, Ant-Man 3 was said to be aiming for an early 2021 shoot and would be spending some of its production in the United Kingdom at Pinewood Studios UK and also return to San Francisco for exterior scenes.
We already know that officially Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lily, and Michael Douglas will be returning with the assumption that we’ll see Michelle Michelle Pfeiffer back as Janet and newcomer Emma Fuhrmann as the teenage version of Cassie Lang.
Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings has finally resumed production at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Other productions such as Spider-Man 3, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love & Thunder have yet to begin as they were originally planned to start up in 2020 but will likely be bumped into 2021 leading to more production/release delays in the future.
While Disney/Marvel Studios haven’t officially announced a release date for the third Ant-Man movie, there is an expectation it could be ready to be released sometime in 2022 if production gets off and running next year.
THE RONIN 