A while back it first reported by Murphy’s Multiverse that Disney had listed a new LLC called Solve Everything Productions, that we were able to back-up. The claim made was that it was likely hinting to the studio moving forward with their Fantastic Four reboot before tackling X-Men.
A small update from Charles Murphy further confirms that the Disney-owned LLC is indeed at Marvel Studios. This would mean that they’re going into production on the project which is most likely going to be Fantastic Four given the LLC’s name is connected to the Marvel Comics property.
However, it’s worth noting that Marvel/Disney and trades have yet to announce any screenwriters or directors have joined the project, let alone they are moving forward with a Fantastic Four film or series. All signs are pointing towards a Fantastic Four project will be announced in the near future and could be primarily filming in the United States.
The Fantastic Four has had four live-action films starting with the Roger Corman-produced film from 1994 that was ultimately never released and then 20th Century Fox released two installments from director Tim Story then attempted a reboot from Josh Trank in 2015.
The film rights shifted back to Marvel once Disney finalized their acquisition of 21st Century Fox (included 20th Century Fox). Marvel now has access to Fantastic Four, Doctor Doom, The Brood, The Shi’ar Empire, Alpha Flight, X-Force, New Mutants, X-Men, Deadpool, Wolverine, Silver Surfer, Galactus, Super-Skrulls, and many many more characters to use for their MCU projects.
A one time, writer/director Adam McKay (Ant-Man, Vice, The Big Short) was interested in pitching a Silver Surfer film to Marvel’s chief creative officer Kevin Feige.
After multiple production delays due to the Coronavirus outbreak and deal hiccups between Sony/Marvel, Spider-Man 3 is finally shoot with it’s lead Tom Holland back as Peter Parker!
Tom Holland made the announcement today on his Instagram account posting the first official set photo with himself in the costume wearing a mask, supporting calls for people to embrace mask wearing as new American COVID-19 cases have exploded (hitting 100,000+ daily cases).
HOLLAND: “Wear a mask, I’m wearing two…”
Tom had recently completed filming his Uncharted feature film co-starring Mark Wahlberg before arriving in Atlanta, Georgia to begin production on the untitled Spider-Man sequel others that have been spotted in the area getting ready to shoot include Zendaya and Jacob Batalon.
It’s also expected that Tony Revolori, J.K. Simmons, Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, and Angourie Rice will reprise their roles.
Returning to direct is Jon Watts, who previously helmed Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home. There have been reports that Jamie Foxx will be reprising his role as villain Electro (potentially a new MCU version) along with Benedict Cumberbatch shooting his scenes as Doctor Strange before moving on to Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness at Longcross Studios in Surrey, England.
Marvel Studios has yet to confirm any new additions but more casting announcements via trades are assumed in the coming weeks given that filming has started officially.
The new deal between Sony and Marvel allows for Holland to appear as Spider-Man in one more Disney film before they have return to the table and examine if they want to continue the beneficial relationship, which most likely could be the Doctor Strange sequel given Benedict’s participation in Spider-Man 3.
Marvel’s next big productions are Doctor Strange 2 in the UK and as Shang-Chi has wrapped in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia will see Thor: Love & Thunder move into those stages at Fox Studios Australia.
Both Ant-Man 3 and Captain Marvel 2 were aiming to shoot in England next year but COVID-19 may have delayed that shooting schedule. Director James Gunn is also going be returning for Guardians of The Galaxy 3 once he finishes his work on The Suicide Squad and his Peacemaker series for HBO Max. Black Panther 2 is more of an unknown for the time being after the sudden death of franchise lead Chadwick Boseman due to colon cancer. Everyone involved including the cast seems to be focusing on grieving that loss rather than rushing a sequel.
Sony Pictures has set Spider-Man 3’s release date for December 17th, 2021.
The British government has announced via Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s national address over the weekend that after weeks of dire COVID-19 predictions for the region they’re finally moving back into a second national lockdown starting on November 5th and lifting it on December 2nd (could be extended if necessary).
JOHNSON: “Unless we act, we could see deaths in this country running at several thousand a day”
For comparison, UK COVID-19 cases have topped 1,000,000 including 47,717 deaths while the United States still hasn’t instituted a national lockdown with 9,280,000 million cases and over 231,000 COVID-19 deaths.
While dine-in bars/restaurants (can do takeout), cinemas, and other non-essentially businesses are closing film productions are expected to chug along like nothing is happening. I’m curious how long that will last if more productions publicly deal with new positive cases after both Jurassic World: Dominion and The Batman dealt with their own recently, the latter seeing star Robert Pattinson test positive for COVID-19.
This was later backed-up by Oliver Dowden, the government’s Culture Secretary on Twitter.
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The changes mean people should WFH where possible
But where this is not possible, travel to a place of work will be permitted – e.g. this includes (but not exhaustive) elite sport played behind closed doors, film & tv production, telecoms workers
Things like schools, universities, construction sites and manufacturing businesses will stay open. However, that could change if they don’t see a decrease in numbers which might also lead to stricter measures and might lead to everything non-essentially getting closed including film shoots (filming in a bubble or not).
As previously stated, The Batman and Jurassic World: Dominion are filming in the United Kingdom alongside Fantastic Beasts 3. There is an expectation that the Moon Knight series, Ant-Man 3, Captain Marvel 2, and The Flash are prepping to shoot as well in the new year. Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness was supposed to film at Longcross Studios in Surrey, England, however, trades have suggested that lead actor Benedict Cumberbatch is set to shoot his scenes in Atlanta for Spider-Man 3 before filming starts on the Strange sequel.
A lot can happen in a month and it doesn’t seem they’re going all-in with this new lockdown, which might return to bite them in the ass as did the slow response to rising new cases and delayed second lockdown when the government knew months ago that this was only getting worse in the UK. I’m worried these half-steps just won’t be enough and they’ll essentially announce a more rigorous lockdown in a couple weeks or in December, extending it throughout the holidays.
In a new interview with Empire, The Suicide Squad writer/director spoke about when he agreed to make the DC Comics film before getting a call from Disney’s Alan Horn and Marvel’s Kevin Feige about coming back to make Guardians of The Galaxy 3.
He says that making a Superman project “was a possibility” after revealing that Feige had asked him if his DC project was indeed Superman.
After hearing from Horn, Gunn knew he had to update MCU head honcho Kevin Feige on his next project – who, when told it was a DC movie, asked: “Is it Superman?” Gunn stated that it wasn’t Superman (“That was a possibility,” he tells Empire) and explained that he had chosen The Suicide Squad. Feige’s reaction? “Please, please make a good movie. Just… make a great movie.”
At one time, it was rumored that Warner Bros. approached various filmmakers tackle a sequel to Man of Steel. However, another solo Superman film never materialized. The studio had been reportedly developing a Supergirl film that has seemingly been placed on paused for the foreseeable future.
Despite reports of Warner Bros. trying to get Henry Cavill to cameo as Superman (possibly in The Flash alongside other Justice League co-stars) his return for his own feature film is far from confirmed.
In a new profile from Variety, it’s been revealed that Lovecraft Country composer Laura Karpman has joined Marvel Studios’ upcoming animation series What If…?, which will be airing exclusively on Disney+.
Westworld and The Batman actor Jeffrey Wright will be voicing the cosmic being known as Uatu The Watcher in the series who will give viewers a glimpse into multiple possibilities that feature variations on the heroes and villains we know from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Marvel Studios and Disney has already moved forward with a Season 2 order as confirmed by Kevin Feige, both seasons will each consist of 10-episodes.
While air dates seem to be all over the place at the moment, What If…? might not begin airing Season 1 until 2021 and the official Marvel website still points towards a debut in the summer. However, unlike live-action projects the production of animation can be done remotely during the pandemic and could mean they’re further along than expected.
The animated series is part of a large wave of Marvel Studios originals developed for Disney+ which includes WandaVision, The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, Loki, She-Hulk, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, and an unannounced Nick Fury series.
Deadline is reporting that director Mohamed Diab (Clash) has been selected by Marvel Studios to direct their Moon Knight series which has Oscar Isaac in talks to play Marc Spector.
Moon Knight, aka Marc Spector, 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.
Yesterday, it was revealed that Star Wars and Dune actor Oscar Isaac was in talks with Disney/Marvel to land the role which might suggest that they are taking more of a film star approach with the character. Something slightly different from the other recent Disney+ castings.
Filming is expected to spend a good chunk of time in the United Kingdom but when is a little bit of a question as Isaac is attached to star in an HBO limited series titled Scenes From A Marriage with Jessica Chastain. Marvel Studios also has plenty of new stuff on their plate with the television as She-Hulk, Hawkeye, and Ms. Marvel are expected to begin shooting in Atlanta soon.
We should expect a bunch of casting news coming in the coming weeks and months.
We’ve seen a handful of the new castings for the Disney+ shows such as Canadian actresses Iman Vellani for Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel and Tatiana Maslany for Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk. However, both of those picks felt more in the realm of television castings from Marvel Studios and could be actors they can transform into international stars such as they did with Thor’s Chris Hemsworth and are expected to do with Shang-Chi’s Simu Liu.
If Marvel Studios ultimately hires Oscar Issac for Marc Spector (fingers-crossed he signs on officially) they would be landing one of the more high profile leading actors since the likes of Brie Larson for Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel and the late Chadwick Boseman who played T’Challa aka Black Panther, both known mostly for their film work at the time of being cast in their respective roles. The last big high-profile casting announcement was when Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali was announced for the role of Eric Brooks aka Blade back in July 2019 at San Diego Comic-Con, who happened to have been dabbling in television at the time with Netflix’s Luke Cage and HBO’s True Detective.
We already know that Kevin Feige has confirmed that the Disney+ characters would eventually move into feature films but the Moon Knight casting, to me, suggests Marc Spector is a hot commodity for Marvel Studios and they needed a high-profile actor to play him.
It’s worth noting that Oscar Isaac has been making films regularly for the last 18 years (started in 1996) but has previously only agreed to make three television projects such as the HBO miniseries Show Me A Hero, voice work on the Disney animated series Star Wars: Resistance, and is about to make another HBO limited series titled Scenes From A Marriage co-starring Jessica Chastain. That is only two live-action TV projects that were made for HBO. Agreeing to make a streaming series on Disney+ would be a big deal given his limited television work and the time commitment attached it alongside a Marvel contract.
Oscar is known as an actor internationally thanks to playing Poe Dameron in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and recently taking the role of Duke Leto Atreides in Denis Villeneuve’s first Dune installment, all massive films giving him global exposure that a lot of other Marvel leads didn’t have before landing their franchise gigs.
It’s expected that will Dune release globally before Moon Knight begins to air on Disney+ with their new release date of October 1st, 2021.
Landing someone as popular and busy as Isaac would suggest to me that Moon Knight is likely heading to the feature films very very soon. His high-profile screams film casting rather than Marvel looking to develop new talent in a streaming series before. I wouldn’t be shocked if he showed up in other New York City projects or at the very least in Mahershala Ali’s upcoming Blade reboot, as both anti-heroes are wading in the realm of Marvel’s supernatural and horror corner.
It remains to be seen if he shows up in other movies before getting his own but this totally feels like Oscar was picked because he’s a well-known film actor that can help elevate a lesser-known hero like Moon Knight into the mainstream.
Marvel hired Oscar even before a director/directors have been chosen which could be considered another sign that he’s wanted for things beyond the series sooner rather than later. I’m quite curious if Marvel will end up pursing experienced film directors for the Moon Knight series instead of folks primarily known for television/streaming series. That could be another sign of how committed Marvel would be boosting the profile of this character before moving into the films.
I’ll keep my hopes up that Marvel can convince people like Alex Garland to direct episodes given his experience working with Oscar Isaac on Annihilation and Ex Machina. Garland made the comic book film Dredd in 2012 and recently tackled television with DEVS.
With that all said, I’m excited to see how this project comes together.
Deadline is reporting that Oscar Isaac has landed the Marc Spector role in Marvel Studios’ upcoming Moon Knight series for Disney+ and is currently in negotiations with the studio.
Moon Knight aka Marc Spector, is 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.
The actor happens to be partly Jewish which was apparently a requirement for actors to play Marc Spector.
Oscar is no stranger to Marvel Comics projects as he played X-Men villain En Sabah Nur aka Apocalypse in X-Men: Apocalypse for 20th Century Fox (pre-merger) and briefly voiced Miguel O’Hara aka Spider-Man 2099 in the Oscar-winning animated film Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse.
His other film credits include Dune, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Triple Frontier, Robin Hood, A Most Violent Year, Drive, Ex Machina, Annihilation, The Bourne Legacy, and Operation Finale.
He was also lobbying to play Solid Snake in a Metal Gear Solid movie for Sony Pictures.
Moon Knight is confirmed to spent some time filming in United Kingdom but has yet to land a director/directors when filming will begin is a little unclear but likely won’t begin until sometime in 2021.
If James Gunn has anything to do with it, I don’t think we’ll be seeing Michael Rooker’s Yondu coming back from the dead anytime soon. As the Guardians of The Galaxy franchise writer/director replied to a fan on Twitter that he’s not terribly interested in bringing back Yondu outside of flashbacks as it would ruin the character’s sacrifice.
GUNN: “I get sometimes you can bring back characters in a cool way. But usually, if a character dies, and it’s a meaningful part of the story, the character should stay dead. So unless it’s a flashback, Yondu will stay dead, as far as I’m concerned. Otherwise, it ruins his sacrifice.”
GUNN: “And that’s exactly why, as long as I have the power, Yondu will stay dead. I don’t want to cheapen moments like these.”
With these comments from James, I wouldn’t hold your breath about Yondu’s return for Multiverse projects or randomly coming back from the dead in the next Guardians installment.
Back in April, Michael Rooker shared James’ sentiment on co-star Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast Inside You while being open to playing another Marvel character in the future.
ROOKER: “No way, I’m dead. I’m dead. My character is dead. I would play something else, I wouldn’t mind. I would play something else, but why would I want to play Yondu? Yondu had a wonderful…amazing sendoff that you would ever want in cinematic Marvel history. My god, dude, why do you want to spoil that by bringing the character back now?”
However, while recently promoting his new movie Love & Monsters on Mama’s Geeky, the actor revealed an openness to the idea of a prequel series for Yondu on Disney+.
ROOKER: “I will sign on to anything I’m out of work right now. So, bring it on, baby. I really truly enjoyed playing Yondu it was beautifully written, well drawn out…it was a very well rounded character. Of course.”
You can watch that lovely exchange below.
Gunn is currently working on the post-production of The Suicide Squad (coming August 6th, 2021) and won’t be jumping into Guardians of The Galaxy 3 until he finishes up there.
Production on the Guardians sequel was expected to take place in Atlanta, Georgia under the working title Hot Christmas before Gunn was fired and later rehired after already committed to making The Suicide Squad for Warner Bros. Pictures.
Sadly, Guardians of The Galaxy 3 is without a release date.
There had been plenty of rumors of Marvel Television trying to make a new Blade series for streaming services despite a trade report from 2013 stating that Marvel Studios was developing an in-house script via their writers program. Mahershala Ali was announced as the new Eric Brooks aka Blade at San Diego Comic-Con 2019, however, it was clear that Marvel hadn’t hired a director or screenwriters at that point.
Marvel’s Kevin Feige confirmed that Mahershala approached them specifically about Blade as they really planning on making a film at the time.
While speaking on the podcast The Tight Rope (via The Direct), Ali revealed that he started asking Marvel about Blade coming back to the fall of 2016 after the Season 1 of Luke Cage premiered on Netflix. Adding that Marvel Television had indeed been considering making a Blade series before landing the part and alludes that Blade may remain “darker in tone”.
ALI: “So I did this Marvel show for Netflix called Luke Cage, right? And so in doing that show, the day it premiered I had turned to my agent and I had said ‘what are they doing with Blade?’. Because I kept hearing that they were trying to find a way to remake it and put it back together, and it was exciting for me to get to be in that Marvel space in TV, but for me my goal had always been film. But also being able to participate in television in very specific ways that had real meaning, but my larger goal was to be able to really navigate between film and television, and so I turned to my agent and I said you know, what’re they doing with Blade? And he goes I check on it, and so there was this long process of them speaking about, at least in the television division, really wanted to make it a TV show again, but not necessarily, trying to acquire the rights still, and some thing’s kinda going on, so it took a couple of years.”
“But it was really my participation in Luke Cage that sparked the idea, married with being so inspired by Wesley Snipes’ work, and what he had done, and how much had changed since his iteration of Blade, and how that had really sorta like ushered in this era of like this Marvel and DC sort of like comic book stuff, and so, for me, like I just felt like since they were having conversations about bringing it back into being, I just wanted to be considered for it because I had definitely a connection, at least in my mind to Wesley Snipes going way back to high school when people used to joke and say we looked alike, and all this stuff.”
“Wesley was someone who I recognized, and yet had an impact on my confidence, and in just me sort of just kinda like standing in my own truth and own strength in a certain way, so I always kind of followed his choices, and really was inspired by his work, and so many others, but Wesley in particular, and so I just brought it up as someone who wanted to, I really wanted to take on that role, and tackle that, and also I love that it’s darker, that’s all in terms of tone, he’s a little bit darker than some of the other ones, and so that element was attractive to me.”
There was a brief update from Deadline that Marvel Studios is currently seeking black writers to pen a Blade script but a director has yet to be named. While there had been fan speculation that Blade could be ready for release in late 2022, where it is in the development process would say that was never an option and would be very difficult to begin shooting before 2022 given how many projects Marvel Studios is busy with at the moment.
BLADE – A half-mortal, half-immortal is out to avenge his mother’s death and rid the world of vampires. The modern-day technologically advanced vampires he is going after are in search of his special blood type needed to summon an evil god who plays a key role in their plan to execute the human race.
THE RONIN 