Tag: Daredevil

Posted on in Film News

Former ‘Daredevil’ Actor Ben Affleck Praises Marvel’s Kevin Feige Calling Him “The Greatest Producer”

Before Ben Affleck wore the cowl in Batman v Superman and Justice League, he starred in a Marvel project with 20th Century Fox’s Daredevil feature film which predated the fan-beloved Netflix series starring Charlie Cox. That 2003 film saw Ben Affleck co-star with Jon Favreau, the director of Iron Man and Iron Man 2. Jon became one of the architects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and still plays the role of Happy Hogan in Tom Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy.

As a filmmaker and producer, Ben most certainly was watching the success of Marvel Studios, which has led to some praise to Kevin Feige in a new interview. While chatting on The Hollywood Reporter’s podcast Awards Chatter, Affleck gushed about how successful Feige has been.

AFFLECK: “Fucking Kevin Feige is absolutely, you have to say, the greatest producer, most successful producer who ever lived. He’s the only guy in the world who, if he told me, ‘I know what the audience wants! This is what we’re doing!’ I would believe him 100%.”

“That fucker knows his audience like no producer (ever), he’s a genius. Kevin is like a ringmaster at the circus; he knows exactly how much to wink at the audience, exactly when to pull at the heartstrings, exactly when to do the effects, how many jokes, what the sensibility, what the tone is. Because people didn’t know to run away from the pajamas or embrace it or make it serious.”

Affleck is reportedly set to direct a film Disney with an adaptation Keeper of The Lost Cities and his pal Matt Damon has seemingly joined the cast of Marvel’s Thor: Love & Thunder.

I’m sure fans would enjoy to see Ben Affleck join the MCU in some capacity.

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

Posted on in Television News

Kevin Feige Doesn’t Sound Terribly Interested In Reviving The Netflix Shows Anytime Soon

Ever since the cancellations of the Marvel/Netflix shows in the wake of Jeph Loeb’s exit and the demise of Marvel Television, there have been plenty of speculations and rumors about what Marvel/Disney plans to do with the character rights as they revert back to them.

These various rumors over the last two years have run the gauntlet of the main actors reprising roles in the MCU to even bolder claims that their shows would get a complete resurrection elsewhere on Disney’s streaming services. It’s worth noting none of this has ever been made official despite the hopefulness of fans.

During a chat with Deadline, they asked Marvel’s CCO Kevin Feige his current intentions on reviving the Netflix shows specifically mentioning Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, his answer alludes to them being too busy with their own material. However, not entirely closing the door.

FEIGE: “Well, certainly you’ve seen what we announced at Comic-Con a year and half ago and on Disney Investor Day a few weeks ago, so that’s our focus. But I’ve been at Marvel long enough to never say never about anything.”

Marvel Studios focusing on their own projects sounds about right as they really haven’t given the impression they are interested on returning to those projects. Instead, developing bigger things and introducing new heroes/franchises to audiences. Feige has the power to bring back shows or actors as the chief creative officer and is now running the newly branded Marvel TV Studios.

They also got the rights to a string of Marvel characters from the merger with 21st Century Fox that would likely be more of a priority for them as seen with the Fantastic Four announcement and official development on Deadpool 3.

Considering the Netflix shows had always fell outside of the main Marvel Cinematic Universe canon and they weren’t projects that were developed by Marvel Studios, there isn’t a huge obligation to continue those shows with those exact actors (their contracts have all expired). Of course, there are plenty of fans of those shows that would disagree and have convinced themselves that they could have a second life elsewhere despite the mature nature of those shows would mean they’d have to land on Disney+’s adult arm Star or Hulu.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Television News

‘She-Hulk’: Marvel Hires ‘Love Life’ Director Anu Valia For Disney+ Series

Another interesting Marvel tidbit announced from the Disney Investor Day events last week is that the She-Hulk series has officially added director Anu Valia. Some of Anu’s credits include Love Life, A.P. Bio, Mixed-ish, and Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens. She also recently worked on the series Love, Victor.

Kat Corio had been previously named as one of the directors as well and was announced by Marvel.

READ MORE: Marvel In Talks With Kat Coiro To Direct ‘She-Hulk’ Series Pilot and Multiple Episodes – Will Also Executive Produce

READ MORE: Tatiana Maslany’s ‘She-Hulk’ Could Become The MCU’s Crossover Queen

She-Hulk, a new comedy series coming to Disney+, stars Tatiana Maslany as She-Hulk/Jennifer Walters, a lawyer who specializes in superhuman-oriented legal cases. She-Hulk will welcome a host of Marvel characters to the series.

Kevin Feige confirmed during the Marvel presentation 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 Emil Blonsky aka The Abomination. Roth previously playing the villain in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk and there had been previous rumors that Blonsky could be part of a Thunderbolts project.

Did he also tease that characters like lawyer Matt Murdock aka Daredevil or potential client Peter Parker aka Spider-Man might be showing up in the series? Check out the brief hint Kevin made below.

FEIGE: “And since Jennifer Walters is a lawyer that specializes specifically in superhero oriented legal cases you never know what Marvel characters might pop-up from episode to episode.”

I guess we’ll have to wait and see what characters he is actually teasing here.

However, it is worth mentioning that Spider-Man 3 director Jon Watts is working on a Fantastic Four film and She-Hulk at one time was a member on that roster, making her a strong contender to play a role in the MCU reboot alongside Spider-Man. Tom Holland’s Peter Parker originally made his comic book debut in the pages of Fantastic Four. However, if Holland’s finally MCU film is the Doctor Strange sequel it might be unlikely we’ll see him show up.

Filming on She-Hulk was reported to begin this March in Atlanta, Georgia which would suggest the series is heading towards a release in 2022 on Disney+.

READ MORE: Marvel Will Reportedly Begin Shooting ‘She-Hulk’ In Atlanta and ‘Moon Knight’ In London Starting In March

READ MORE: Marvel Cinematic Universe: Rundown of All The News At Disney Investor Day 2020

SOURCE: DISNEY

Posted on in Film News

‘Spider-Man 3’: Do Casting Calls Support The Daredevil Rumor?

Ever since Spider-Man: Far From Home was released there has been an assumption or speculation that Matt Murdock would be called in as a lawyer. Over the summer of 2019 there was all sorts of speculation concerning what would happen to Peter Parker now that he was being framed for the murder of Quentin Beck aka Mysterio.

The rumors kept swirling and even caught the attention of director/podcaster Kevin Smith, who off-handedly mentioned the rumor on his podcast Fatman Beyond back in March and had to clarify he wasn’t confirming anything.

In April of this year Daredevil star Charlie Cox spoke to Comic Book denying any involvement and even suggesting if the character was indeed part of Spider-Man 3 he wasn’t going to playing him.

COX: “I hadn’t heard those rumors, but it’s certainly not with my Daredevil. I’m not involved in it. If that’s true, it’s not with me. It’s with another actor.”

Murphy’s Multiverse, who are notably often accurate about production news are claiming that Cox has closed a deal with Marvel to reprise the role in Spider-Man 3 months ago but are unsure the scale of his appearance.

Murphy’s Multiverse has learned that Charlie Cox, star of the beloved Netflix show, is set to make his grand debut in the MCU in the third Spider-Man film in a deal that has been set in stone for several months now.

What happens beyond that appearance wasn’t elaborated to us but any logical person would think that a series is slated at some point in the MCU’s future.

If true, there might be some possible clues in recent casting calls spotted by The Ronin for the Spidey sequel.

A while back there were Spider-Man 3 casting calls in Atlanta for extras to play protesters and shoot for multiple days which suggested it might be for court house scenes. I could see folks outside the court protesting the trial of Parker but that would need to be confirmed once those set photos come in revealing what the protests are actually about via signs or slogans. They’ve been casting high school students for scenes at Parker’s school and one casting call for various people to play “Madison Citizens”, what’s interesting is that the law offices of Nelson & Murdock is mentioned on one of the Wikis as being located in or near Madison Avenue and that Marvel Comics offices used to be there as well.

They are also casting various detectives and criminals for Spider-Man 3, further pointing towards legal/court troubles for Peter.

These scenes are expected to take place in January and some like the ones featuring protesters will be shot outdoors.

If there is a deal in place a trade will likely attempt to confirm the information as The Hollywood Reporter recently did with GWW’s scoop that Alfred Molina would be reprising the role of Doctor Otto Octavius aka Doctor Octopus (despite dying in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2) in Spider-Man 3.

Collider recently echoed previous online rumors that Andrew Garfield and Kirsten Dunst would be returning for Spider-Man 3 alongside talk of there are plans to have Tobey Maguire and Emma Stone come back as well.

Posted on in Film News

Zoe Saldana and Jennifer Garner Join Fellow Marvel Alumni Ryan Reynolds In Sci-Fi Flick ‘The Adam Project’ – Adds ‘X-Men’ Franchise 2nd Unit Director

Today, Netflix officially announced that actresses Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek, Guardians of The Galaxy) and Jennifer Garner (Daredevil, Elektra, Peppermint, The Kingdom) have been added to the cast of Shawn Levy’s sci-fi action film The Adam Project, which is said to include time travelling.

The ladies join fellow Marvel alumni Ryan Reynolds as filming began this week in Vancouver and is expected to complete in early March.

The Ronin can confirm that the Brian Smrz will act as the second unit director on The Adam Project and will be overseeing the film’s action sequences. Brian’s credits include X-Men 2, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Iron Man 3, Terminator Genisys, The Predator, Rise of The Planet of The Apes, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and Venom: Let There Be Carnage.

There is word that production designer Claude Pare (IT, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Spider-Man: Far From Home) may have joined the crew as well.

This might suggest the film will skew more in the action realm.

Reynolds has been working closely with Netflix lately with their pricey action films 6 Underground and Red Notice. He previously worked with director Shawn Levy on 20th Century Studios’ Free Guy that had been bumped from a December release to sometime in 2021.

FREE GUY – A bank teller who discovers he is actually a background player in an open-world video game, decides to become the hero of his own story…one he rewrites himself. Now in a world where there are no limits, he is determined to be the guy who saves his world his way…before it is too late.

Netflix has yet to announce a release date for The Adam Project but late 2021 or early 2022 is a good bet.

Posted on in Television News

Jon Bernthal Still Hopeful Marvel Will Ask Him To Reprise ‘The Punisher’ Role – “I’ll Be Ready”

Despite fan wishes and rumblings that Marvel Studios was going to resurrect the Netflix lineup of Marvel shows for Hulu/Disney+, that doesn’t seem to be happening as Marvel Television was re-branded as Marvel TV Studios with Kevin Feige overseeing future television projects after Jeph Loeb exited the company.

This hasn’t detoured The Punisher actor Jon Bernthal and has been vocal about reprising the Frank Castle role if Marvel wants him to. This is reinforced in a new interview with Geek House Show (via The Playlist). As great as Jon’s enthusiasm is, as he points out himself he’s not part of those decisions.

BERNTHAL: “I think with that, there’s always hope, you know? It’s unbelievably humbling how much people responded to this version of Frank. I can’t tell you how much he means to me. He’s in my blood. He’s in my bones. And for me, it’s not really a question ever with this kind of stuff about whether you get the opportunity to do it or not…It’s not about whether we do it, it’s about doing it right. And doing the version the fans really deserve.”

“We’ll see. All of those decisions are made in rooms I’m not invited into. That’s okay with me…When we get the call to go, I’ll be ready. And I’ll do everything I can to make sure we do it right or we don’t do it at all.”

The actor first played Frank Castle in Season 2 of Daredevil before getting his own solo Punisher series that landed two seasons itself before it was cancelled.

Jon Bernthal sounds more optimistic than Daredevil’s Charlie Cox, who said he wasn’t even expecting the series to get a Season 3 despite the online fan campaign #SaveDaredevil and poured cold water on the rumor he was going to be involved with Spider-Man 3.

We ultimately don’t know what Kevin’s plans are for characters like Frank Castle, Matt Murdock, Elektra Natchios, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand (despite Iron Fist connections rumored for Shang-Chi). Also, if he wants to bring them into the real Marvel Cinematic Universe I’m unconvinced he’ll even ask those actors to return to their roles or attempt soft-reboots with new actors instead. Even if characters are slowly reverting back to Marvel from Netflix the contracts for actors and showrunners (many have found new gigs) have expired, meaning that Marvel TV Studios has zero obligations anymore.

Fiege didn’t seem terribly interested in continuing the Loeb era of Marvel Television projects as reflected with the cancellations and it doesn’t look like those projects will find new lives elsewhere. It might also irk Disney to have off-shoots on places like Netflix and rebooting might be a way to sever any ties to those Netflix shows or being branded as “MCU”.

However, speaking of Spider-Man 3, Jamie Foxx is seeming getting a second shot at playing Electro in what is likely going to be an MCU take on the character not unlike J.K. Simmon’s new version of J. Jonah Jameson first seen in Spider-Man: Far From Home. There is a chance they could bring Cox and Bernthal back but ignore the events of the Netflix shows entirely given that Feige and the producing team didn’t have oversight on that material which would suggest they’re more likely to just jettison it.

There has been zero sign from Marvel that they’re even interested in using those characters anytime soon, so we’ll just have to be patient.

SOURCE: GEEK HOUSE SHOW

Posted on in Television News

Peter Shinkoda Says Marvel Promised Him Nobu Would Be The Lead Villain In ‘The Defenders’ Before Sigourney Weaver Took That Spot

Daredevil actor Peter Shinkoda has been highlighting his experiences working with Jeph Loeb and Marvel Television, highlighting some racism behind the scenes at the production company concerning his character Nobu and Wai Ching Ho’s Madame Gao.

After pointing out that Loeb had told writers/showrunners to throw away plot lines for Nobu and Gao because “nobody cares about Chinese people or Asians”, the pair of actors were never invited to the Season 2 premiere despite having decent sized roles in the series.

Peter has now taken to Twitter to further state that Marvel promised him a larger role in The Defenders, as the show’s main villain which instead went to veteran actress Sigourney Weaver.

https://twitter.com/PeterShinkoda/status/1287502670962388992

All these things combined seem to reveal a huge bias towards both the actors and characters.

SOURCE: PETER SHINOKDA

Posted on in Television News

‘Daredevil’ Showrunner Doug Petrie Pitched An Asian-American/Mixed-Race Version of ‘Iron Fist’ To Marvel Television Early On That Was Rejected

It seems like Marvel Television didn’t only have issues with Asian villains in Daredevil having flushed-out storylines, they also weren’t too keen about having Danny Rand in Iron Fist being Asian-American or possibly mixed-race. 

During a panel for #SaveDaredevil on YouTube, the subject switched from Daredevil to almost having a mixed-race version of Danny Rand and this potentially was pitched to Marvel at some point in the development process by showrunner Doug Petrie (Daredevil, The Defenders).  

Daredevil actor Tommy Walker revealed that Doug attempted to pitch a progressive version of Iron Fist that was ultimately rejected while teasing that version of Danny might have been mixed-race. 

WALKER: “A very good friend of mine Doug Petrie, the showrunner of Season 2 of Daredevil, he was on Season 1 as you know and then an executive producer on Defenders. I think I can say this much safely that man came up with some brilliant pitches for Iron Fist early on before Iron Fist was well into production…but they were along those lines, very very thoughtful very progressive for the time.”

At the time of Iron Fist‘s casting Shang-Chi hadn’t been announced and Marvel didn’t have any public plans to give fans an Asian superhero, so there was an effort by fans to see various Asian-American actors considered for the role.

Ultimately, Danny was played by British actor Finn Jones and the character seemingly will be under the management of Kevin Feige in the not too distant future. 

SOURCE: #SAVEDAREDEVIL

Posted on in Television News

‘Daredevil’ Actor Reveals Racism Towards Asian Characters From Marvel Television’s Jeph Loeb

Former Daredevil actor Peter Shinkoda (played Nobu) reveals to #SaveDaredevil in a panel chat on YouTube some racism behind the scenes from former Marvel Television head Jeph Loeb. 

Suggesting that his character Nobu and Wai Ching Ho’s Madame Gao were essentially kneecapped by Loeb because he held some prejudice against Asian characters on the show getting deeper storylines. Revealing his own character Nobu had stuff scrapped directly by Loeb’s racist attitude.

Here is what Shinkoda had to say. 

Jeph Loeb told the writers’ room not to write for Nobu and Gao. Saying that Loeb’s reasoning was “Nobody cares about Chinese people and Asian people. There were three previous Marvel movies a trilogy called Blade made where Wesley Snipes kills 200 Asians each movie, nobody gives a shit, so don’t write about Nobu and Gao”. 

You can hear Peter’s words for yourself. 

He also highlighted on Twitter that neither himself or Wai Ching Ho were later invited by Marvel/Netflix to the Season 2 premiere.

https://twitter.com/PeterShinkoda/status/1287490338958041088

We support and believe Peter.

Loeb’s bizarre attitudes towards Asian folks/culture isn’t a new thing. It was on center stage at San Diego Comic-Con in 2018, where he wore a Karate Halloween costume to moderate the Iron First panel when actress Jessica Henwick rightfully had him take the costume off before the panel began.

There had already been some backlash from the fandom that Iron Fist had been a potential entry point to have an Asian-American leading superhero character from Marvel, years before Shang-Chi was announced. 

Below you can see that exchange between Jessica and Jeph right here. 

Jeph Loeb is now out at Marvel Television with the company re-branded as Marvel TV Studios with Kevin Feige overseeing it. It’ll be interesting to see if Shang-Chi was a direct response to this nonsense and if other stories will be made public. 

This isn’t the first claim of odd sexism/racism from Marvel brass. At one point, Ike Perlmutter had direct control over projects at Marvel Studios and was said to be behind the delay of films such as Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Black Widow. Perlmutter was later removed from the film division after an intervention from Disney giving Kevin Feige more control over the studio.

SOURCE: #SAVEDAREDEVIL