Universal has secured the rights to the upcoming murder mystery novel The Maid written by Nita Prose, which won’t even be published at Penguin Random House/HarperFiction until 2022. Deadline also reports that Midsommar-breakout actress Florence Pugh is set to play the role of Molly the maid in the new film, however, a director nor screenwriter were named at this time.
Set at the Regency Grand Hotel, where Molly the maid leaves every room perfect and pristine, while getting to know each guest’s dirty secrets. A Clue-like, locked-room whodunnit, The Maid explores Molly’s descent into the murderous underbelly of her gilded workplace, while telling a timely story about the strengths of our differences.
Florence has been having an interesting career so far with credits that include The Outlaw King, the AMC series The Little Drummer Girl, Little Women, and will be seen next in the solo Black Widow film opposite Scarlett Johansson. There are even reports she’s already primed to reprise the Yelena Belova role in the Hawkeye series which is currently in production. The actress is currently filming the New Line Cinema thriller Don’t Worry Darling from director Olivia Wilde.
It certainly sounds like genre got a large shot-in-the-arm thanks to Rian Johnson’s popular Knives Out and we expect to see more movies of these types being announced in the future alongside Rian’s untitled sequel.
Brian D’Arcy James has officially joined the cast of Hawkeye according to Marvel Studios and Disney. He was part of the Best Picture Winner Spotlight that featured a stellar cast that happened to include many Marvel Cinematic Universe alumni such as Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Stanley Tucci, and John Slattery.
Spotlight is a personal favorite and the drama is worth checking out if you haven’t already.
The news was announced as part of the Disney Investor Day event from last week and we have missed the casting tidbit in the shuffle.
Marvel also confirmed many other casting additions such as Vera Farmiga, Fra Fee, Tony Dalton, Zahn McClarnon, and newcomer Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez aka Echo. These names had been previously reported on. Filming on the series has been taking place in NYC with mostly exterior shots featuring Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton and Hailee Steinfeld as Barton’s young protege Kate Bishop. The production will eventually move back down to Atlanta.
While not announced by Marvel, there are reports that revealed characters such as Clown, The Swordsman, and Florence Pugh‘s Yelena Belova will be part of the lineup.
As previously reported by The Ronin, Marvel Studios is indeed aiming for Hawkeye to begin airing in late 2021 on Disney+ along with Ms. Marvel. This means there will be five live-action shows coming to Disney+ from Marvel next year not to mention the four feature films.
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.
Set photos from the NYC set of Marvel’s upcoming series Hawkeye have made their way online and gives fans their first look at Kate Bishop’s superhero costume. You can check out the latest set photos with Hailee Steinfeld’s Bishop all suited-up alongside Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton.
First Look: At Hailee Steinfeld in-costume as #KateBishop in the upcoming #Hawkeye series
The rest of the cast includes Florence Pugh confirmed to reprise the Black Widow role of Yelena Belova, Alaqua Cox is Maya Lopez aka Echo, Vera Farmiga is playing Kate Bishop’s mother Eleanor, Fra Fee is playing Kazi aka Clown, Tony Dalton is playing Jack Duquesne aka Swordsman, and Zahn McClarnon is playing William Lopez (Maya’s father).
Previous set photos suggested the series will take place around 2025, well after the events of Avengers: Endgame. However, we could still see flashbacks to Barton’s dark patch as Ronin between Infinity War and Endgame.
Hawkeye is part of the first wave of live-action Marvel shows at Disney+ that also includes WandaVision, The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, Loki, She-Hulk, Moon Knight, and another show will reportedly focused on Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury.
According to Deadline, Disney is going to announce new Marvel Studios projects this week at their Investor Day 2020 event, which could include some updates on when they plan on releasing upcoming projects on Disney+ along with new movies.
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.
Filming on Marvel’s Hawkeye series began this week in NYC and there have been a few reveals including Lucky aka Pizza Dog. Another interesting group of set photos from the other day posted on HQ Celeb Corner reveals when the show could be taking place and it’s well after the events of Avengers: Endgame which took place in 2023.
A set dressing poster on a Chinatown set celebrates the Chinese New Year in 2025 (January 29th, 2025) , the year of the snake. This would allude to this scene being set around or after the Chinese New Year.
There had been some question if the series would be taking place after Thanos’ snap leading him down to the path of his violent vigilante persona Ronin or would be taking place post-Endgame. It looks like at least the scenes with Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop will be taking place in or around 2025, around two years after Avengers: Endgame.
We could still see flashbacks to Barton’s dark patch between Infinity War and Endgame.
The rest of the cast includes Florence Pugh confirmed to reprise the Black Widow role of Yelena Belova, Alaqua Cox is Maya Lopez aka Echo, Vera Farmiga is playing Kate Bishop’s mother Eleanor, Fra Fee is playing Kazi aka Clown, Tony Dalton is playing Jack Duquesne aka Swordsman, and Zahn McClarnon is playing William Lopez (Maya’s father).
If production stays on track without anymore hiccups it’s possible that it could begin airing on Disney+ before the end of 2021.
Yesterday, was the official start of production on Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye series currently filming in New York City as Hailee Steinfeld was confirmed by set photos/footage in the role of Kate Bishop opposite of Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton aka Hawkeye.
Variety now reports Vera Farmiga, Florence Pugh, Fra Fee, Tony Dalton, Alaqua Cox, and Zahn McClarnon have joined the series.
Here is a rundown of the characters they’ll be playing.
Alaqua Cox is Maya Lopez aka Echo
Vera Farmiga is playing Kate Bishop’s mother Eleanor
Fra Fee is playing Kazi (thought to be villain Clown)
Tony Dalton is playing Jack Duquesne (thought to be Barton mentor Swordsman)
Zahn McClarnon is playing William Lopez (Maya’s father)
The Direct first reported Pugh’s involvement and return as Black Widow’s Yelena Belova.
Baron Strucker’s son Andreas von Strucker also took on the Swordsman persona in Thunderbolts.
It’s more of an info dump than we had been expecting considering how long it took to confirm Hailee Steinfeld as trades had really done a serious update on the Kate Bishop casting in a while. It’s interesting to see if Hawkeye will be using elements of Thunderbolts and if there will be a connection to The Falcon & The Winter Soldier.
Murphy’s Multiverse first had on set confirmation that Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit, Bumblebee, Dickinson) has taken the Kate Bishop role in Marvel’s Hawkeye series as they posted first set footage earlier today.
Now, a second video making it’s way on Twitter and Instagram has a much clearer look at Hailee Steinfeld and Jeremy Renner in the subway scene being shot in Brooklyn. Variety was first to report that Hailee was in the mix to play Clint Barton’s protege in the series who is likely to become part of the Young Avengers or a version of that team.
The Oscar nominated actress seemingly teased her involvement with a recent birthday post on Instagram that got rabid attention from fans.
UPDATE: Some high resolution photos are also on Twitter and HQ Celeb Corner as well.
The series is said to be based on the Matt Fraction run alongside villains from that comic and if they’re able to complete filming on schedule could be released before the end of 2021. Filming will return to Atlanta once the NYC shoot is completed.
We’re curious if we’ll end up seeing more cast announcements in the coming weeks as we only know about two cast members at the moment officially, despite the recent rumor of Florence Pugh joining them for an appearance as Yelena Belova.
Filming on Marvel’s Hawkeye series has officially started as a section of shooting is now taking place in a Brooklyn subway under the working title of Anchor Point.
The Hawkeye set, at least for today, is underground in the subway. Good luck getting any leaks. pic.twitter.com/4Pj1vmP5uu
Murphy’s Multiverse has posted what looks to be the first official footage from the Hawkeye set. The footage looks to be taken from someone’s phone from some distance and we don’t get a great look at Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton or what is expected to be Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop (according to the person who recorded the footage).
I personally can’t make out if it’s Hailee or not because of the quality of the video but my opinion likely doesn’t mean too much.
Because of the pandemic 2020 was the first year in ages that we didn’t get a brand new Marvel Studios release and 2021 looks like it will be an overload of content.
The Ronin first revealed back in August that The Falcon & The Winter Soldier’s debut had been bumped to 2021 and added a production order for upcoming shows which had been mostly on-point. We have another update tidbit to share as we’re hearing that both Ms. Marvel and Hawkeye are still expected to debut at some point in 2021 despite production hiccups due to COVID-19.
However, what is the plan now might change as time goes on.
The key thing will be how Disney+ plans to rollout their multiple MCU shows as WandaVision will kick-off on January 15th with Falcon, What-If…?, and Loki unclear where they’ll land on the streaming service’s schedule. WandaVision and Falcon’s delays will certainly help Disney+ keep more eyeballs on the service for the first half of the year.
She-Hulk and Moon Knight will not begin filming until March suggesting they won’t be ready until 2022.
Here is a reminder what the MCU film slate looks like.
Black Widow – May 7th 2021
Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings – July 9th, 2021
Eternals – November 5th, 2021
Spider-Man 3 December 17th, 2021
Thor: Love & Thunder – February 11th, 2022
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness March 25th, 2022
Black Panther 2 – May 6th, 2022 (Subject To Change)
Captain Marvel 2 – July 8th, 2022 (Subject To Change)
THE RONIN 