Tag: Jo McLaren

Posted on in Film News, News

‘The Marvels’ Enlists ‘Doctor Strange 2’ & ‘Overlord’ Stunt Coordinator Jo McLaren

Director Nia DaCosta is hard at work in the United Kingdom with the Captain Marvel sequel, The Marvels, that stars Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, and newcomer Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan (to debut in the Ms. Marvel series).

While most of the film’s crew has been revealed, The Ronin can confirm that the film’s stunt coordinator will be Jo McLaren. The veteran stunt woman recently worked with Marvel and director Sam Raimi on Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness. McLaren was also the stunt coordinator on Bad Robot’s WWII horror action pic Overlord alongside Alex Garland’s sci-fi film Annihilation and his tech thriller series DEVS.

We first revealed that James Gunn has hired Hawkeye’s stunt coordinator Heidi Moneymaker for Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3, which will begin shooting next month if the IATSE strike can be avoided next week.

New additions to the cast are expected to include Zawe Ashton set to play a villain and Park Seo-Joon (Parasite) also is said to have a role.

Plot details on the pic are scarce, but there is an expectation that there will be cross-pollination between the casts of The Marvels and the Skull event series Secret Invasion, this was highlighted when Samuel L. Jackson shot his scenes for the film before announcing today on Instagram he’s starting shooting the Disney+ show.

Filming 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). However, we learned not too long ago that some sequences will be shot at Pinewood Studios UK, likely related to The Volume/StageCraft facilities.

The original film earned an impressive $1.128 billion at the global box office making it one of the most successful superhero debut films of all-time.

It’ll be interesting to see if Disney+ Day on November 12 will reveal any spinoffs connected to the cosmic side of the MCU or if they’ll announce a Season 2 commitment for Ms. Marvel.

The Marvels has a release date of November 11, 2022.

Posted on in Film News

‘Doctor Strange 2’ Stunt Coordinator Team Includes ‘Overlord’s Jo McLaren & ‘Mission: Impossible – Fallout’s Liang Yang

Director Sam Raimi is returning to the world of Marvel Comics films with Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, which has wrapped filming at Longcross Studios in Surrey, England. Raimi’s Spider-Man movies alongside Blade and X-Men helped launch the popularity of the characters leading to the formation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at Marvel Studios. 

One of the interesting elements of the production are the folks assembled to handle the action in the Doctor Strange sequel. The team of stunt coordinators consists of seasoned vets such as Jo McLaren and Brycen Counts, with Liang Yang taking the role of fight coordinator. Their combined knowledge and vast credits in the stunt community should give the sequel a bit of an elevated edge when it comes to action sequences. 

McLaren did stunt double work for Angelina Jolie in the original Tomb Raider movies before rising up the ranks working as a stunt coordinator on things like the J.J. Abrams-produced WWII horror film Overlord, Annihilation, Enola Holmes, The Favourite, Doctor Who, and the Alex Garland tech-thriller series Devs. 

In December 2019, McLaren confirmed her involvement with the sequel during an interview with FanSided. 

Brycen Counts has the most experience with Marvel Studios as he was the assistant stunt coordinator on Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Ant-Man & The Wasp, and did additional work on Black Panther. He was recently the stunt coordinator on Charlize Theron’s hit comic book film The Old Guard at Netflix. 

Yang (Morbius, Wonder Woman 1984) is likely more recognizable out of the trio thanks to his standout on-camera scene in Christopher McQuarrie’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout where he beats the stuffing out of both Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill during the big Paris bathroom fight scene. He also was Emily Blunt’s stunt double on Edge of Tomorrow alongside working on big action sequences for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3HMz25LvnY

Marvel has been hiring some impressive stunt people lately such as Olivier Schneider (No Time To Die, Taken, Spectre, Fast & Furious 6) for Oscar Isaac’s Moon Knight series, which is filming in Budapest.

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness will hit screens on March 25, 2022, and we’ll likely have the first trailer by the fall.