Tag: Fantastic Four

Posted on in Film News, News

‘Fantastic Four’: Cillian Murphy Open To Playing Marvel Villain Doctor Doom But Says “It’s Always About The Script”

Irish actor Cillian Murphy is getting a lot of early Oscar buzz for his performance of J. Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan‘s atomic bomb drama “Oppenheimer” along with decent box office success. Beyond the upcoming awards season, it also means studio offers could be around the corner for big tentpole projects. Murphy has previously dabbled with leading genre films with “28 Days Later,” the action-comedy “Free Fire” which co-starred Brie Larson, and the sci-fi thriller “Sunshine.” Of course, the actor isn’t a stranger to the world of superhero blockbusters either as he once auditioned to play Batman/Bruce Wayne in Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” trilogy but ended up coming away with the role of Dr. Jonathan Crane, aka, The Scarecrow in “The Batman Begins” returning in subsequent installments in brief cameos.

When speaking recently with Josh Horowitz on his podcast Happy Sad Confused, the host specifically asked Murphy if he would be open to the return to the superhero genre by asking if he’d be specifically open to the idea of playing Victor von Doom, aka, Doctor Doom for Marvel Studios’ new “Fantastic Four” movie.

“Yeah, I think you’ve answered the question. Yeah, I mean, I’m always… It’s always about the script. So, I’ll read… If someone sends a script, I’ll read it. And you never know what turns up,” Murphy responded to the Doom question.

Director Matt Shakman (“WandaVision“) is set for the reboot with script rewrites coming from “Avatar: The Way of Water” screenwriter Josh Friedman. Currently, the casting process has hit pause as both the actors’ and writers’ strikes are ongoing making it tough to get those “Fantastic Four” roles filled until the studios get back to the table to resolve the strikes.

Nothing says that Murphy would get an offer for roles like Doom or Reed Richards but he’s certainly the type of actor that Marvel tends to pursue. It doesn’t hurt he has a link to former Reed Richards actor Jonathan Krasinski (“Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness”) as he directed him in “A Quiet Place Part II” and fan-favorite actress for Sue Storm, Emily Blunt (Murphy worked with on “Oppenheimer” and “A Quiet Place Part II”).

“Fantastic Four” recently had its release date bumped from February 14, 2025, to May 2, 2025. Production had been originally planned to begin next year, but it’s unclear when cameras could begin rolling as the strike is looking like it might extend beyond the summer.

SOURCE: HAPPY SAD CONFUSED PODCAST

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‘4vibes Productions’ Confirmed For Marvel Studios, May Tease UK Shoot For ‘Fantastic Four’ Reboot

The Ronin has been on hiatus but is back to share an interesting tidbit about another new Disney Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) and also can confirm it’s indeed for Marvel Studios.

Titled 4vibes Productions, this “might be” the long-gestating Fantastic Four reboot that Marvel has been developing given the “4” aspect. Not only that, it looks like whatever the MCU project is it will be shot in the United Kingdom, which would suggest it’s a live-action project and would need studio space likely at Pinewood UK Studios or Longcross Studios.

At one time, director Jon Watts (Spider-Man: No Way Home) was attached to the reboot before he bailed on the superhero project to focus on other film projects including a new Disney+ series Star Wars: Skeleton Crew that will star Jude Law (Peter Pan & Wendy, Captain Marvel).

*Minor spoiler*

John Krasinski played a Multiverse version of Reed Richards alongside Patrick Stewart’s Professor Charles Xavier in Doctor Strange 2 but there aren’t any indications either of those actors will reprise those Marvel characters for the MCU’s main 616 universe moving forward.

There have been some indications from trades that a new director might be hired by the time D23 Expo 2022 takes place in September where Kevin Feige is expected to make all sorts of announcements. Perhaps, giving fans new information on things like Echo, Ironheart, Armor Wars, Captain America 4, Harkness, Daredevil, Nova, Thunderbolts, Wonder Man (we likely first caught wind of the project last September), Secret Wars, and their highly-anticipated X-Men reboot.

Bassam Tariq’s Blade reboot (confirmed for a shoot in Atlanta) and Shawn Levy’s Deadpool 3 (the R-rated sequel is confirmed to be a co-production with 20th Century Studios and could be potentially released by them) are expected to be the next films going into production in the near future as well, so there is some hope we’ll get casting/characters details soon.

We previously reported that Seasons 2 of Loki (confirmed by cinematographer Isaac Bauman) and Ms. Marvel (this might be announced in the coming months) will also be shooting in the United Kingdom. Most recently, things like Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, The Marvels, Ant-Man 3, and Secret Invasion have been shooting in/around the area. However, things had slowed down a little seemingly due to the pandemic.

Fantastic Four, Blade, and Deadpool 3 are without release dates but that is assumed to change soon.

Posted on in Film News, News

Tom Holland Says They’re Treating ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ As “The End Of The Franchise”

Spider-Man: No Way Home will be swinging into theaters on December 17, but what the future holds for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man isn’t as crystal clear as it was before the hiccups between Sony Pictures and Disney/Marvel. At one point, an extension was nixed and Sony almost moved forward without the help of Marvel Studios.

Tom Holland was able to get the two studios back to the table and the third Spider-Man film was shot, thankfully still takes place within the MCU.

During a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Tom Holland gives the impression that the end of the trilogy with Spider-Man: No Way Home, could ultimately be the end of the ride if new deals aren’t made.

“We were all treating [No Way Home] as the end of a franchise, let’s say. I think if we were lucky enough to dive into these characters again, you’d be seeing a very different version. It would no longer be the Homecoming trilogy. We would give it some time and try to build something different and tonally change the films. Whether that happens or not, I don’t know. But we were definitely treating [No Way Home] like it was coming to an end, and it felt like it.”

While there has been plenty of online fan speculation concerning the future of Spider-Man, Holland is currently without an official contract (despite an openness to return) as the actor said he completed it shooting No Way Home. Spider-Man 4 hasn’t been announced by either Sony Pictures or Marvel, alongside any future extension on their co-production deal.

Director Jon Watts is making a movie for Apple Studios that stars George Clooney and Brad Pitt, seemingly before he helps Disney/Marvel reboot the Fantastic Four (reportedly doesn’t have a script) for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This doesn’t leave much room for a return to tackle Spider-Man 4 anytime soon, Sony likely won’t wait too long before moving along with the solo films with or without Marvel/Watts.

Fans have simply assumed that Spider-Man: No Way Home will further connect the Sony Spider-Man Universe films to the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe, however, if Marvel parts ways with Sony that really doesn’t make much sense given Kevin Feige’s longstanding aversion to other people (even within the Marvel offices) tinkering with his cinematic space without his oversight.

What Sony does with their characters post-Marvel Studios is pretty much anyone’s guess with multiple solo movies on the horizon such as Jared Leto’s Morbius, Tom Hardy’s Venom 3, J.C. Chandor’s Kraven The Hunter led by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Olivia Wilde’s untitled but assumed to be Spider-Woman movie.

One plausible scenario that was mentioned when Disney and Sony first walked away from a co-production extension, that Marvel/Sony would partner on Spider-Man 3, giving some finality to the MCU trilogy and then essentially let Sony do what they want with their characters. The Multiverse could easily place Holland’s Spider-Man outside of the main-canon Marvel Cinematic Universe allowing Sony to continue to use those actors, including Tom Holland finally being able to show up in Venom 3 or other spinoffs.

Tackling a version of the Sinister Six and pairing Peter Parker with Doctor Strange certainly feels like bucket list things for Marvel to do before saying goodbye to the character.

Until there is a real announcement of a further extension, we can’t really get too comfortable with the idea future Spider-Man movies will always take place within the Marvel’s established universe. Because Sony was already willing to chug along without them before, I don’t see how that changes if a deal isn’t reached.

SOURCE: ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

Posted on in News, Television News

RUMOR: George Clooney Reunited With Oscar Isaac To Direct Episode Of Marvel’s ‘Moon Knight’

While Moon Knight has wrapped filming, there seem to be plenty of surprises left as we still don’t know the full cast/characters of the Marvel Studios series that will air on Disney+ in 2022.

Moon Knight, aka Marc Spector (Oscar Isaac), a mercenary who has numerous alter egos — cabbie Jake Lockley and millionaire playboy Steven Grant — in order to better fight the criminal underworld. But later he was established as being a conduit for the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. Most recently, the character was a consultant who dresses in all-white and goes by the name Mr. Knight. 

Filming took place in Budapest, London, and Jordan with an established directing team that consists of Mohamed Diab, Justin Benson, and Aaron Moorhead.

The Ronin has learned that George Clooney (The Midnight Sky, The Monuments Men, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind) may have directed an episode of Moon Knight for Marvel after finishing his shoot on the Boston-set drama The Tender Bar that stars Ben Affleck.

However, we’re treating this as a rumor as we can’t confirm the tidbit at this time and we’re unsure if he’ll have an acting role as well.

It’s worth mentioning that Oscar Issac and George Clooney have worked together before on the Clooney-directed thriller Suburbicon, so there is an established working relationship.

Clooney wouldn’t be new to directing television as he tackled a series adaptation of the war satire Catch-22 at Hulu and the HBO series Unscripted.

The actor-turned-director has a complicated relationship with comic book projects as he played Batman in Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin leading to a franchise reboot that was eventually assigned to Christopher Nolan giving us The Dark Knight Trilogy.

Recently, Brad Pitt and Clooney took lead roles in a non-superhero pic directed by Jon Watts at Apple Studios, who just wrapped up the MCU’s Spider-Man trilogy with Spider-Man: No Way Home. Watts had also been announced as the director of Marvel’s Fantastic Four reboot last December.

There is an expectation that Marvel Studios will be making a big presentation on November 12 at the Disney+ Day event and give 2022 shows like Moon Knight a promotional push, hopefully, we’ll get some footage or first look images as Oscar Isaac as Marc Spector/Moon Knight.

Posted on in Film News, News

Apple Studios Lands Director Jon Watts’ Thriller Starring Brad Pitt & George Clooney

Director Jon Watts has been spending a good chunk of the last ten years working on a Spider-Man trilogy for Marvel Studios, after making waves with his thriller Cop Car. He’s currently putting the finishing touches on Spider-Man: No Way Home and during that post-production process has been shopping around a massive package deal that has almost every studio/streamer in the Hollywood drooling.

Watts will write and direct an untitled thriller starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney as two lone wolf fixers given the same assignment.

Deadline reports after a large bidding war, Apple Studios has surfaced as victorious, however, not mentioning how much the deal is worth. The film will get a theatrical release which is not as common when streamers get their mitts on original projects.

The group vying for the film include Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, Annapurna, MGM Studios, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., Apple, Netflix, and Amazon.

It’ll be interesting to see when the thriller begins shooting as Watts has been attached to direct Marvel’s Fantastic Four reboot since last December, but is one of the few MCU films still waiting on an official release date.

At this point, we shouldn’t expect Fantastic Four to begin shooting before 2023.

Watts’ film Cop Car is very much recommended if you’ve only seen his work at Marvel.

COP CAR – When two rebellious young boys stumble across an abandoned cop car hidden in a secluded glade they decide to take it for a joyride. When the small town sheriff (Kevin Bacon) goes looking for his missing car, the boys find themselves in the center of a deadly game of cat and mouse and the only way out is to go as fast as their cop car can take them.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Film News, News

‘The Marvels’ Director Nia DaCosta Originally Pitched A Movie Featuring Galactus & ‘X-Men’ Characters

Candyman director Nia DaCosta made headlines this weekend becoming the first the film to give a black female director a #1 hit at the domestic box office. She’s also currently shooting Captain Marvel 2/The Marvels in England.

While promoting Candyman with an interview with The Guardian, the filmmaker reveals she pitched Marvel Studios and producer Mary Livanos a very different project before agreeing to make the Captain Marvel sequel.

“I just nerded out. I was like, here are the movies I think you should do! Galactus, Storm and Scott Summers team-up movie! Blah blah blah! She just endured me going in super-deep. And she also gave me a lot of confidence that I would have the creative latitude to not just basically be a puppet on a string.”

This sounds like this was after the merger between Disney and 21st Century Fox, as she may have assumed they were rushing into using those former Fox characters. Interestingly enough, Jon Watts did end up land the directing gig for Fantastic Four and was announced for it back in December.

The Marvels (working title Goat Rodeo) as we’ve previously confirmed will mainly shoot at Longcross Studios in Surrey, England with a production team that has cinematographer Sean Bobbitt (Widows, Judas & The Black Messiah) and production designer Cara Brower (Candyman).

The cast consists of Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau, newcomer Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, and Zawe Ashton is reportedly playing the film’s villain.

There is an expectation that cast members of the Secret Invasion event series will also cross-pollinate with the sequel.

Local South Korean outlets reported on Parasite actor Park Seo-Joon joining the film, but have yet to be supported by Hollywood trades or Marvel/Disney.

The Marvels will hit theaters on November 11, 2022.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

Posted on in Film News

Kevin Feige Says Marvel Studios Team Recently Met To Establish Rules For The Multiverse

Last week, the Season 1 finale of Loki introduced audiences to Jonathan Majors’ He Who Remains and confirming our support of rumors that Majors would appear in the show. His variant, Kang The Conqueror, will be seen next in Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, fully establishing that the Nexus Event is here and that the Multiverse is truly underway. We’ll see this explored in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, as the title would suggest, but the studio will have to make sure they’re not overusing it or being too loose with it too often making up things as they go along.

It sounds like Marvel Studios is going to be making sure to set rules for The Multiverse as stated by Kevin Feige to the D23 Inside Disney Podcast (via The Direct). Revealing he had just met with the Marvel team about exactly that.

“As you indicated before we started recording, the multiverse is coming up in a big way. There’s interconnectivity there that people have already started to see and suss out and I had a meeting this morning with the whole broad Marvel Studios team going through the multiverse and the rules of the multiverse and exactly how to really deliver on the excitement surrounding the multiverse,” studio head Kevin Feige told D23 Inside Disney.

It’ll be fun to see multiple versions of Kang and the other variants to become the main antagonists of many Phase 4 movies only to be defeated and return in the next project, over and over. Wouldn’t it be nutty if Kang suddenly showed up in Spider-Man: No Way Home?

Hopefully, the Multiverse comes to a conclusion like with the Infinity Saga and that could with something as epic as Secret Wars, The Russo Brothers have been teasing their interest in the massive crossover event film as a follow-up to Avengers: Endgame it would also allow them to play with X-Men and Fantastic Four characters among others.

I’d personally like to see Kang assemble his own team from various points of the Multiverse putting together a version of Squadron Supreme to combat the heroes/villains of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The characters are cheeky knock-offs of the Justice League and placing them against MCU teams could end up a version of Marvel vs. DC without the headache of trying to get two studios to agree upon all the details.

SOURCE: D23 INSIDE DISNEY PODCAST

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Multiple Marvel Studios LLCs Confirmed For Unannounced Projects Likely To Be Revealed Soon

It looks like Marvel Studios is about to make another big announcement about new film and television projects in the very near future.

The Ronin can now confirm the following LLCs are specifically for Marvel Studios projects, some of these were previously mentioned by us, but we can now confirm they are indeed for Marvel.

  • BATTLE ANYONE PRODUCTIONS
  • ACID POP PRODUCTIONS 
  • NATURAL HISTORY PRODUCTIONS
  • SPEYSIDE PRODUCTIONS 

The identity of the projects is unknown, but you’d have to imagine that things like Captain American 4, X-Men, Blade, Jon Watt’s Fantastic Four reboot, and Deadpool 3 could be candidates. However, at least some of these could be for Disney+ shows.

UPDATE: We have some follow-up information from a source that Natural History Productions is a Disney+ project that is aiming to begin shooting in February 2022 at Trilith Studios in Atlanta, Georgia.

It’s unclear what it could be but given it’s a television series we could speculate it might be something like a Ka-Zar or Savage Land (connected to the X-Men franchise) project makes sense given the obscurity of the characters (Disney+ shows seem to be introducing lesser known characters) and the cosmic genetic tinkering going on similar to things like Eternals, X-Men, and Inhumans. At one point, Marvel Studios was developing a feature film based on Ka-Zar but pumped the breaks for various reasons.

Eternals shot a scene at Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which is worth mentioning too.

Battle Anyone certainly gives us Secret Wars vibes given that Battleworld is a thing in the comics. Also, Kang The Conqueror and the Multiverse being established for Phase 4 it’s possible that The Russo Brothers will have a reason to come back and make Secret Wars sooner rather than later. Season 1 of Loki also mentioned a Multiverse War, and could be pushed forward with something like Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, and Season 2 of Loki.

We previously revealed that Ryan Coogler’s untitled Wakanda series was moving forward because Marvel had created an official LLC for the project with Maglev Train Productions.

There is also a new LLC called Ionic Productions, but we can’t confirm if this is Marvel-related. Stay tuned for updates! Other stuff that needs further confirmation include On Your Mark Productions and Bad Egg Productions.

Posted on in Film News

‘Fantastic Four’: Emily Blunt Downplays Sue Storm Rumors As Fan-Casting – “I Don’t Know If Superhero Roles Are For Me”

Marvel Studios casting real-life couple John Kraskinski and Emily Blunt for their Fantastic Four reboot from Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts is starting to feel like stretch given recent comments from the pair of actors.

Emily has been on Marvel’s radar going back to Iron Man 2 as she was originally attached to play Black Widow before 20th Century Fox exercised a contract and pulled her off the film leading to Scarlett Johansson taking the role instead. She was later in the mix to play Peggy Carter with John up for the Steve Rogers, neither landed the project.

Speaking on The Howard Stern Show, Emily Blunt revealed that despite online rumblings neither of them have got a call from Marvel about the reboot and even downplayed her enthusiasm for superhero roles entirely. After striking out twice before you can’t really blame Emily for feeling like the genre isn’t for her. There had been similar rumors about her being wanted for Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel but has since denied multiple times in interviews that was ever a thing.

BLUNT: “That is fan-casting. No one has received a phone call. That’s just people saying, ‘Wouldn’t that be great?’ It’s not that it’s beneath me. I love Iron Man and when I got offered Black Widow I was obsessed with Iron Man. I wanted to work with Robert Downey Jr., it would’ve been amazing but I don’t know if superhero movies are for me. They’re not up my alley. I don’t like them. I really don’t.”

This comes after hubby John Krasinski also nixed rumors last year and has recently landed a deal with Paramount Pictures that will likely keep him busy for ages.

Emily recently worked with Disney for the Jungle Cruise movie based on the theme park ride and if successful will likely spawn sequels. An Edge of Tomorrow sequel has been in the works for ages but as Blunt has stated multiple times it all comes down to scheduling with Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman.

Tenet actor John David Washington has voiced some interest in playing Reed Richards.

Back in February, Deadline reported the production was only early stages of development and didn’t have screenwriters attached. With 2023 release dates dwindling and Blade expected to be third 2023 release, there is a good shot that we won’t see Fantastic Four until sometime in 2024. We still don’t have a timeline as Watts is still seemingly working on the final days of shooting Spider-Man: No Way Home and will have to spend most of 2021 in post-production before it’s December release.

SOURCE: THE HOWARD STERN SHOW

Posted on in Film News

RUMOR: Marvel Studios Creating Even More Production Companies For Unannounced Projects

Marvel Studios dominated the news on Monday after giving new release dates for Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3 and Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania alongside the first footage from Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao’s Eternals. But even more productions are on the horizon beyond 2023.

It’s starting to look like there is another wave of Marvel Studios production companies being established at Disney that we recently came across. While I can’t 100% confirm this list is all Marvel-related at the moment (hence a rumor), I’m leaning heavily towards the majority being for upcoming MCU projects and for some that haven’t been officially announced by Kevin Feige. 

  • BAD EGG PRODUCTIONS LLC 
  • ON YOUR MARK PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • BATTLE ANYONE PRODUCTIONS LLC 
  • ACID POP PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • NATURAL HISTORY PRODUCTIONS LLC 

We know things like Fantastic Four, Deadpool 3, and X-Men are coming in the not too distant future. The last one Natural History sticks out to me as possibly one for X-Men, but that’s simply my own personal speculation. It’s possible that Marvel is aiming to make another lineup announcement over the summer or in the fall.

Other Marvel LLCs previously discovered and commented on by the sleuths over at Murphy’s Multiverse include the following companies below. 

  • BLUEBERRY WAFFLES PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • STANDOFFISH PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • CHANGEUP PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • LOG JAM PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • FREQUENT PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • GRASS-FED PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • SOLVE EVERYTHING PRODUCTIONS LLC