A new casting tidbit for the Marvel Studios film directed and co-written by Oscar-winner Chloe Zhao has been revealed. An article from that L.A. Times has mentioned that actress Jashaun St. John, who starred in Zhao’s film Songs My Brother Taught Me has been given an undisclosed part in Eternals.
Reaffirming that vote of confidence, Zhao cast St. John again in her upcoming Marvel superhero saga “Eternals,” scheduled to be released on Nov. 5.
Word on the street is that there are plenty of actors that are in Eternals that haven’t been announced outside of the main cast and I’m super curious if they’re indeed big names or other actors Zhao was worked with previously.
The rest of the cast includes Gemma Chan as Sersi, Kit Harington as Dane Whitman aka Black Knight, Barry Keoghan as Druig, Richard Madden as Ikaris, Angelina Jolie as Thena, Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Kumail Nanjani as Kingo, Salma Hayek as Ajak, Lia McHugh as Sprite, and Don Lee as Gilgamesh.
I’ll be keeping my fingers-crossed that Marvel will be able convince Zhao to stick around for a trilogy of movies given that she had approached the studio with the idea of tackling the Jack Kirby characters after meeting with them to direct Black Widow. She very well could end up becoming the architect of the franchise, not unlike James Gunn with Guardians of The Galaxy.
The Ronin has learned that Marvel Studios is expected to shoot something related to the upcoming Loki series in the United Kingdom in the near future. However, it’s unknown if this will be for the first season of the Disney+ series, brief reshoot, shooting a simple end credit scene as seen in the last two Marvel series or if Season 2 will be moving from Atlanta to London.
Unlike the previous two projects, WandaVision and Falcon & The Winter Soldier, there have been reports that Season 1 writer Michael Waldron would be returning for a second season in some capacity and would suggest we are indeed getting Season 2 of Loki. It’s unknown if director Kate Herron would be returning. If Marvel moved Season 2 to the United Kingdom, it would be a slightly more comfortable situation and accommodating as a lot of the people working on the show are British.
Marvel Studios has recently made a big push to have many of their projects film in the United Kingdom including Black Widow, Eternals, and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness. The studio is also planning to have Moon Knight, Secret Invasion, Captain Marvel 2, Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, and Guardians of The Galaxy 3 shoot in the United Kingdom as well.
Tom Hiddleston is currently in the United Kingdom shooting another series for Apple TV+ called The Essex Serpent.
Season 1 of Loki will debut on Disney+ on June 11, 2021.
LOKI – Picking up immediately after Loki steals the Tesseract (again), he finds himself called before the Time Variance Authority, a bureaucratic organization that exists outside of time and space, forced to answer for his crimes against the timeline and given a choice: face deletion from reality or assist in catching an even greater threat.
Last Friday, there was a scoop from The Hollywood Reporter that revealed Marvel Studios was already moving forward with Captain American 4 hiring screenwriters Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson to begin working on a script.
This new was coming off the success of the Disney+ series Falcon & Winter Soldier, where Spellman was the head writer. That 6-episode series followed the journey of Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson transforming into the new Captain America alongside acknowledging the dark-side of the super-soldier program via Isiah Bradley’s history of being the first black Captain America, but his story being kept from the public and his subsequent 30 year imprisonment. It’s been all but confirmed that Mackie would end up leading Captain America 4 and potential further installments.
However, this has yet to be announced by Marvel/Disney and Malcolm Spellman doesn’t give a strong impression the project is a lock. When asked about the report by Comic Book, Malcolm has seemingly downplayed how involved he currently is with Captain America 4 and points back to Kevin Feige being the one that makes these things official.
SPELLMAN: “Who said it? Did Kevin say it? I would not put faith in anything you do not hear directly from the man himself!”
While we’ll have to wait for some official confirmations about Captain America 4, Falcon & Winter Soldier director Kari Skogland has revealed to Cinemablend’s Reel Blend podcast that she would be game if the offer came her way.
SKOGLAND: “I think if Marvel called me to do anything, if they called me to film the phone book, I would do it. … The Marvel characters are all very, very rich. I’ve become friends with Anthony and Sebastian, and I really enjoyed working with them. And Emily and Daniel Bruhl. I mean, I’ve worked with them for a couple of years, so of course, I have a special place in my heart. But as I said, if Kevin (Feige) picked up the phone, I would answer it.”
I’m pretty sure we’ll end up seeing some cross-pollination between Don Cheadle’s Armor Wars and Captain America 4, given that the heroes and villains are essentially mingling in similar government circles.
After Chloe Zhao making waves over the weekend earning two Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director for her fantastic film Nomadland, we’re all waiting to see footage from her next feature film, Marvel’s Eternals.
It’s based on the characters created by King Jack Kirby that mixed elements of Greek/Roman mythology alongside notions of aliens seeding Earth via Swiss author Erich von Daniken’s novel Chariots of The Gods, work that heavily influenced Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus and the idea that humans are a science experiment of an alien race. In the case of Eternals, they are created by the the giant alien creatures known as the Celestials (first seen in Guardians of The Galaxy) alongside their antagonists The Deviants and early humans have the mutant gene hidden within them to later become the mutants we know from the X-Men.
While speaking with Variety, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige reiterates that while it’s a team project, the film’s main character is Gemma Chan’s Sersi, who is expected to become a full-fledged members of the Avengers just like the comic books.
FEIGE: “So for Sersi, for instance — and if there was a lead in this ensemble, it is Sersi, it is Gemma Chan — we looked at and read all sorts of women for that part. And ended up really believing that Gemma was best for it. And thankfully, she’s proven that to be the case in the final movie.”
While it was originally announced that Sersi would be the main character of the film in early casting reports, that was when trade outlets were under the impression that Oscar-winner Angelina Jolie was going to be landing that role. Instead, Angelina is playing the equally interesting heroine Thena and Marvel hired Captain Marvel’s Gemma Chan for her second MCU role. This new one is likely going allow her to stick around for much longer than she previously would have and allows the Marvel franchise to add another talented Asian lead.
The rest of the cast includes Kit Harington as Dane Whitman aka Black Knight, Barry Keoghan as Druig, Richard Madden as Ikaris, Angelina Jolie as Thena, Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Kumail Nanjani as Kingo, Salma Hayek as Ajak, Lia McHugh as Sprite, and Don Lee as Gilgamesh.
Sequels to Eternals are extremely likely could see the team go head-to-head with folks like Hercules/The Olympians and Hyperion/Squadron Supreme. I think it all depends if Marvel Studios is able to convince Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao to return for multiple films after co-writing the script and directing the first installment, set to be released on November 5th, 2021. However, Zhao has been tapped by Universal for a new Dracula film and could be one of the projects that could whisk her away from the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a couple of years.
Marvel Studios has made a huge impact with their first two entries in the MCU’s live-action series at Disney+ as both WandaVision and Falcon & Winter Soldier seemed to pull-in an impressive amount of eyeballs. Either leading fans to become delighted with Kathyn Hahn’s wonderfully charismatic Agnes aka Agatha Harkness or in the case of John Walker root against him.
The studio has a steady stream of new shows coming soon with Loki, Ms. Marvel, and Hawkeye on deck for release in 2021. But more are in various stages of development including the series Ironheart that will have Dominique Thorne set in the role of Riri Williams, a child genius that is able to build her own armor suit similar to Tony Stark’s Iron Man.
Variety is reporting that Marvel has hired Chinaka Hodge as the head writer of Ironheart, after previously working as a staff writer on the TNT series Snowpiercer, a prequel to the film that was directed by Parasite’s Bong Joon-ho and based on a French graphic novel (first published in 1982) created by Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette.
The Hollywood Reporter adding that Ironheart will land 6-episodes just like Falcon & Winter Soldier and that the studio hopes to get the writer’s room running by next month.
Thorne’s Riri Williams could very well have a connection to the upcoming series Armor Wars due to the technology involved with building any armor. Armor Wars sees Don Cheadle’s War Machine tracking down stolen Stark-tech that hits the black market, potentially because of Sam Rockwell’s Justin Hammer and the Power Broker. There has been fan speculation that Williams could end up joining a growing roster of the Young Avengers, although, Marvel hasn’t announced those plans officially.
Other shows coming in 2022 and beyond includes She-Hulk, Secret Invasion, Moon Knight, a series from Ryan Coogler connected to Wakanda, and a Hawkeye spinoff focused on the new MCU character Echo.
Marvel Studios has been recently tapping into their obscure roster of heroes with a feature film based on Jack Kirby’s god-like superhero heroes the Eternals on the horizon this fall from Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao and Taiki Waititi’s Thor: Love & Thunder introducing The Olympians via Russell Crowe’s Zeus appearing in the sequel.
Another group of obscure heroes from Marvel Comics that could be ready to the make the jump to the big screen is The Squadron Supreme. The team includes a heap of characters that are a cheeky pastiche of DC Comics’ Justice League such as Hyperion, Nighthawk, Power Princess, Doctor Spectrum, Thundra, Whizzer, Amphibian, Tom Thumb, Golden Archer, Lady Lark, and Arcanna.
A version of Hyperion’s origin in the comic has him being part of the Eternals and could see them join sequels as another sect that may have alternative motivations. Another way to get them into Eternals sequels could have Squadron Supreme retrofitted into The Olympians (cosmic versions of Greek gods from the realm of Olympus), who have a conflict with Eternals that could be explored in future installments. Some of the Squadron Supreme’s power-sets are meant to mimic Greek/Roman gods already, so having them the children of an older generation of Olympians could be a way to explain them without having to give everyone on the team an Earthbound origin.
With director Chloe Zhao’s Oscar wins over the weekend there is a good shot that Marvel Studios will attempt to secure her for at least two more Eternals movies. Having The Olympians and Squadron Supreme part of that franchise could help introduce those characters to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, leading to various spinoff shows and movies.
We could see the Eternals movie attempt to explain things like Atlantis, Olympians, and even the origin of the mutant gene that will eventually give us the X-Men.
The Multiverse could easily be another way to bring them into the MCU as they were originally introduced in the Avengers comics as The Squadron Sinister, a villain group created by The Grandmaster (played by Jeff Goldblum) that was pitted against The Avengers in some game with Kang The Conqueror (played Jonathan Majors) siding with the heroes.
They could also be pulled-out of the Multiverse by Kang or Grandmaster for a giant event like Secret Wars. The Russo Brothers have suggested that Secret Wars would be a project that could bring them back to Marvel and they stated last year it could bigger than The Infinity Saga.
JOE RUSSO: “You know, I read that when I was 10 or 11, and it was the scale of getting all of the heroes together. It was one of the first major books to do that — that was really event-storytelling to me at its finest. And what happens when you put all of those personalities together. I also like the idea of villains having to team up with heroes. Anth and I like complicated relationships between heroes and villains, we like villains who believe they’re heroes in their own stories, so it’s all sort of built into this notion of Secret Wars. To execute something on the scale of Infinity War was directly related to the dream of Secret Wars, which is even larger in scale.”
ANTHONY RUSSO: “It would be the biggest movie you could possibly imagine, so that’s what really excites us about the story — the ambition of it is even bigger than the ambition of the Infinity Saga.”
Loki and What-If…? will be our first true introductions to the Multiverse in 2021 ahead of Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, however, it’s unknown if we’ll see Squadron Supreme will appear in those projects or if they’ll attempt to pull other teams out of the Multiverse such as X-Men. There has been a longtime fan theory that one way Marvel could usher-in mutants is simply bring them in from another Earth in the larger Multiverse, however, as the Loki series seems to establishes that the Time Variance Agency aren’t big fans of people tinkering with timelines. However, Kang seems to be an exception and could get his hands on the Squad to use against the Avengers, potentially in a Secret Wars event.
Another way to go is having them become a cosmic team assembled by multiple alien planets to combat future Thanos-level threats and they could bump into The Guardians of The Galaxy in a fourth film. However, James Gunn has stated he’ll be ending his run on the franchise with Guardians of The Galaxy 3 and the Disney+ Holiday Special, it’s unclear if Marvel Studios will continue the franchise without him.
Plenty of options for Squadron Supreme outside of their own solo project.
This week Russell Crowe announced that he would be playing Zeus in Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love & Thunder this also inadvertently confirmed that Marvel Studios is planning on finally introducing The Olympians to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, their version of the pantheon of Greek gods and demigods.
Like how Marvel tweaked Norse mythology for the comic book version of The Asgardians, the group are cosmic beings that reside in the realm of Olympus (similar to Asgard) and were worshiped by humans.
Their arrival could have an impact on the larger narrative of an upcoming franchise outside of Thor: Love & Thunder.
While we don’t know how The Olympians really feel about The Eternals in the MCU, there was an alliance between Asgard and Olympus against the incoming heroes that will be featured in the upcoming film directed by Oscar nominee Chloe Zhao (Nomadland). A looming conflict between Eternals and Olympians could be perfect fodder for Eternals 2, however, this would depend on if Marvel plans on exploring the tension between the two god-like groups.
I’ll be curious to see what role they play in Thor: Love & Thunder and if they’ll be explained in Eternals.
Interestingly enough, The Olympians made their Marvel debut in Venus issue #1 back in 1948 with the comic focusing on the obscure character of Venus aka Aphrodite Ourania, the goddess of love and beauty. Venus is a founding member of The Agents of Atlas led by Randall Park’s Jimmy Woo and daughter of Russell Crowe’s Zeus, making her the half-sister of both Hercules and Ares.
Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings could be the entry point for The Atlas Empire.
John Aaron aka Ares, the god of war, has been a longtime villain in the Marvel Comics universe first debuting in Thor #129 back in 1966 and even joined the ranks of the Dark Avengers, a group that is rumored to coming eventually to the MCU. He’s paired-up with other Marvel villains over the years such as Norman Osborn and Enchantress. Ares also joined the ranks of The Mighty Avengers and had a role in Secret Invasion, which is getting a series on Disney+ that recently added Olivia Colman and Emilia Clarke to the growing cast.
Likely the most notable Olympian is Hercules, who goes back to the Jack Kirby era making him a prime candidate to finally get a live-action incarnation considering the Eternals was Kirby’s baby. Hercules was a member of The Avengers when Eternals’ Sersi (played by Gemma Chan) and Dane Whitman aka Black Knight (played by Kit Harington) were on the roster. He’s been recently on a lineup of Avengers that echoes where the MCU currently is with members such as Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson aka Captain America, Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster aka Lady, Paul Bettany’s Vision, Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel, and Tom Holland’s Peter Parker aka Spider-Man. Adding Hercules to a new Avengers roster or another superhero team wouldn’t be terribly shocking.
Many fans are assuming that Russell Crowe’s Zeus is likely going to get killed by Christian Bale’s Gorr The God Butcher in Thor: Love & Thunder, but that remains to be seen as he could end up taking the place of Anthony Hopkins’ Odin.
It’s hard to imagine that Marvel wouldn’t attempt to sign-up director Chloe Zhao for the Eternals sequel given that she co-wrote the script and is going to be heavily in-demand if her film Nomadland does well at this weekend’s Academy Awards ceremony, all but assumed given how well it’s been doing at other award shows.
Marvel Studios is reportedly already developing Captain America 4 with writers Malcolm Spellman and Dalan Musson. Spellman is the showrunner of Falcon & The Winter Soldier and Musson is a staff writer on the Disney+ show.
It’s all but confirmed that the series will continue the adventures of Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson as the new Captain America. However, a director hasn’t been named but there is a good shot they’ll ask Kari Skogland after tackling Falcon & Winter Soldier and alongside Spellman being a key part of the show’s success.
Villains aren’t named but there is a good shot that Marvel could end up using The Serpent Society, a group of multiple villains that have been the thorn in the side of Captain America. You might remember that Captain America 3 briefly had the faux title of Captain America: Serpent Society before the Civil War angle was confirmed with the reveal of the late Chadwick Boseman playing T’Challa aka Black Panther in the sequel.
The Serpent Society could end up being an overarching group of baddies for Sam’s era of the franchise potentially alongside other unused Captain America villains that can be mined for future movies led by Anthony Mackie. It’s unclear if Bucky Barnes, Sharon Carter, Baron Zemo, Val, and John Walker will be part of the character lineup for the fourth installment.
I’m slightly curious if The Thunderbolts will have a connection as well.
Taika Waititi is assembling an impressive cast for Marvel’s fourth Thor movie which already sees Natalie Portman as Jane Foster aka Lady Thor, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Christian Bale as Gorr The God Butcher, Tessa Thompson as King Valkyrie of New Asgard, Matt Damon as fake Loki, Melissa McCarthy as fake Hela, Sam Neill as fake Odin, Luke Hemsworth as fake Thor, Jaimie Alexander as Lady Sif, Chris Pratt as Peter Quill aka Star-Lord, Karen Gillan as Nebula, Dave Bautista as Drax The Destroyer, Pom Klementieff as Mantis, Taika as the lovable Korg, and Sean Gunn as Kraglin.
One late-stage addition was Oscar-winner Russell Crowe (Gladiator, The Nice Guys, Man of Steel) landing a secret role in the Marvel flick and the actor has now revealed who he’s playing on the Melbourne show Joy Breakfast with The Murphys. Crowe announced that he is playing the Marvel Comics version of Greek God, Zeus. The father of Marvel superhero Hercules, a character part of The Olympians (a cosmic take on Greek mythology) and future member of The Avengers.
Having Zeus in the mix could allow Hercules to eventually move his way into the MCU alongside the villainous Ares (member of The Dark Avengers). It was bound to happen as they’ve scaled-back the Asgardians after the destruction of Asgard and with the introduction of the Eternals in their own movie, it was only a matter of time before the cosmic version of the Olympians (connected to the Eternals) would make their debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
There is a strong chance that Crowe’s Zeus could be killed-off by Bale’s God Butcher, given the nickname we’ll likely see some gods get dusted before he clashes with Thor and Lady Thor. Russell and Christian previously worked together on the western remake 3:10 To Yuma from James Mangold (The Wolverine, Ford v. Ferrari, Logan), so a reunion might actually be quite fun to watch. What isn’t known is if we’ll see other Olympians appear in Thor: Love & Thunder or somewhere else down the line.
I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if Marvel announced a Hercules: Prince of Power series for Disney+ at some point as the character would certainly warrant his own series similar to Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Moon Knight, and Ironheart giving the superhero a chance to be explored in a episodic format.
It’s kind of neat that we’ll potentially have Black Knight, Sersi, and Hercules all mingling in the MCU in the very near future at the same time, as the trio were part of an incarnation of the Avengers lineup. Suggesting the studio isn’t just building-up towards Young Avengers and The Thunderbolts/Dark Avengers but other splinter teams of the Avengers.
I’m sure fans already have their fan-cast for Herc, but comedian and podcaster Jon Gabrus has been campaigning for a while now to play the superhero. Interestingly enough, Russell’s The Nice Guys co-star Ryan Gosling (former Micky Mouse Club actor) had actually played a different version of the demi-god in Young Hercules, a prequel series to the Sam Raimi-produced series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys from the 1990s.
The sequel was penned by Taika Waititi and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson.
Production is still taking place in Sydney and it’s possible we could be getting more casting surprises in the coming weeks/months.
Thor: Love & Thunder will open in theaters on May 6, 2022.
The Ronin has been able to independently confirm that American actress Paula Newsome will have a role in Marvel’s upcoming Spider-Man installment, Spider-Man: No Way Home. The size of her character’s role in the superhero flick is currently unknown at this time. Audiences will likely know Paula best from the HBO series Barry led by Bill Hader and plays Detective Janice Moss.
UPDATE: It looks like Paula is not only teasing her involvement in the sequel on Twitter but that she could be playing MJ’s mother.
Filming on Spider-Man: No Way Home (The November Project) has been mostly talking place in Atlanta, Georgia with Jon Watts directing before making his jump to helm Marvel’s Fantastic Four reboot.
The returning cast is set to include Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Tony Revolori, Marisa Tomei, Hannibal Buress, Jon Favreau, Angourie Rice, and J.K. Simmons.
Benedict Cumberbatch is appearing as Doctor Strange as Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness has/about to complete principal photography in the United Kingdom. There has been some speculation about how Strange connects to No Way Home and if we’ll potentially see Peter Parker in The Multiverse of Madness.
Spider-Man: Far From Home ended on a massive cliffhanger as J. Jonah Jameson revealed Peter’s secret identity to the world and pushed the narrative that Spider-Man killed Quentin Beck aka Mysterio.
Spider-Man 2 actor Alfred Molina recently confirmed to Variety that he would be playing Doctor Octopus (first reported by GWW) in the MCU flick, but that he would be reprising the Sam Raimi incarnation to boot. However, Jamie Foxx had stated on social media that his version of Electro wouldn’t be blue giving the impression it would be a different incarnation from The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Tom Holland has denied in press interviews that former Spider-Man actors Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield are in the movie, but that hasn’t detoured fans getting excited about seeing multiple generations of Peter Parker in the third MCU installment. The British actor has also stated that Spider-Man 3 fulfills his contract and likely means a new deal will have to be made for him to continue the Spider-Man role.
Sony has given Spider-Man: No Way Home a release date of December 17, 2021.
THE RONIN 