According to The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel Studios has officially secured new directors for their revamped “Daredevil” streaming series titled “Daredevil: Born Again.” The shake-up on the project stems from an aim to retool the show during the pause in production over the last couple of months in the wake of both the writers’ and actors’ strikes, as filming had been underway in New York City.
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the duo known for Marvel’s “Moon Knight” and the recent string of episodes of “Loki” in season two have been tasked to complete the series alongside the new showrunner Dario Scardapane (“Jack Ryan”). The latter is an alumni of the Netflix wave of Marvel Television produced series with “The Punisher,” and potentially a welcomed sight as Jon Bernthal is expected to reprise the role of Frank Castle in the MCU show alongside Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio.
While the recent string of episodes of “Loki” isn’t exactly action-packed, there were plenty of fight sequences in “Moon Knight” that should make fans happy the new directors being called in have experience already within the world of MCU streaming shows.
Chris Ord and Matt Corman had been previously acting as “head writers” before their exit from the Marvel series earlier this year as the studio looked toward a new vision and it remains to be seen what the final episode count will be. Originally, “Daredevil: Born Again” was aiming to get 18 episodes completed for this new series.
Kevin Feige had recently indicated in a book focusing on the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s canon that the previous Marvel Television shows like the ones made for Netflix won’t be considered mainstream canon. With that in mind, “Daredevil: Born Again” is expected to do its own thing rather than being a continuation of the previous incarnation but will keep a handful of cast members in their roles and others likely won’t be reprising their roles anytime soon.
We’re bringing back the Marvel Updates and have a few tidbits to share.
DOCTOR STRANGE 2: After a previous denial of his involvement, actor Patrick Stewart was shocked that fans recognized his voice in the latest Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness trailer when he didn’t, essentially confirming his involvement on the film to the YouTube channel Jake’s Takes.
This comes after Ryan Reynolds has downplayed fan rumblings of his appearance as the foul-mouthed mutant Deadpool during a red carpet chat with Variety.
The Doctor Strange sequel hits theaters on May 6th.
ECHO: The upcoming Hawkeye spinoff series starring Alaqua Cox as the dear comic book character is said to be shooting between April and August in the Atlanta area, thanks to a casting call from Central Casting seeking First Nations/Indigenous actors.
SECRET INVASION: Set photos from Secret Invasion posted on Instagram seem to confirm that Don Cheadle’s War Machine is expected to appear ahead of his solo series Armor Wars and that character actor Dermot Mulroney is playing President Ritson on the show.
You can see the two actors together in a newspaper found on the set (sixth image).
LOKI: The second season of Loki has added Moon Knight directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, according to A potential sign that Marvel Studios has been very happy with their work on the latest live-action Disney+ series.
NETFLIX SHOWS: Disney finally confirmed officially that Daredevil, The Punisher, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and The Defenders are coming to Disney+ on March 16th alongside new parental controls allowing for future mature content to be added to the family-friendly streaming service.
ABC’s Agents of SHIELD is also part of the lineup heading to Disney+.
While the main Marvel Cinematic Universe has seen the use of Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson fisk in Hawkeye, it’s unclear if any or all characters will be getting a similar treatment in the near future.
The countdown is on. Marvel's Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders, The Punisher, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. start streaming March 16 on #DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/sfoT61XilS
MOON KNIGHT: At the end of the month we’ll see the debut of Oscar Isaac’s Moon Knight series on Disney+ and some new posters have been revealed online, including one of Isaac as Mr. Knight and the Korean poster looks like the cover of a Moon Knight comic book.
Check out the posters below.
On to updates for Sony’s own cinematic universe.
KRAVEN THE HUNTER: Filming on Sony’s Kraven spinoff is finally coming together as Aaron Taylor is getting some company on the call-sheet with Fred Hechinger (White Lotus) playing Kraven’s shape-shifting half-brother The Chameleon and Oscar-nominated actress Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) is taking on the role of voodoo priestess Calypso.
Kraven, directed by JC Chandor will be released in theaters on January 13, 2023, barring any more slate changes from Sony.
MORBIUS: As Sony is about to release their latest Spider-Man franchise spinoff on April 1st, they’ve revealed a new trailer focusing mainly on the digital special effects of Michael Morbius’ vampire powers, which is a little bit of a mess if I’m honest.
Marvel Studios will release the next event series with Moon Knight on March 30 and a brand new actor has been revealed joining Oscar Isaac (Grant/Spector) and Ethan Hawke (Arthur Harrow). Oscar-winner F. Murray Abraham has been officially announced as the voice of Khonshu, the Egyptian god that gives Marc Spector the powers of the Moon Night.
The casting update comes from a Marvel press kit on the Disney press website.
Abraham is best known for his recent work on shows such as Homeland and Mythic Quest, with his film credits consisting of Scarface, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Star Trek: Insurrection, Mimic, and Amadeus. The Syrian-American actor famously won Best Actor in 1984 for his role of Antonio Salieri in Amadeus.
When Steven Grant, a mild-mannered gift-shop employee, becomes plagued with blackouts and memories of another life, he discovers he has dissociative identity disorder and shares a body with mercenary Marc Spector. As Steven/Marc’s enemies converge upon them, they must navigate their complex identities while thrust into a deadly mystery among the powerful gods of Egypt.
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.
It’s starting to look like Marvel’s Moon Knight series might have a bigger connection to the Avengers than previously expected. Oscar Isaac’s Marc Spector has been a member of the Avengers in the comic books and even had a romance with fellow member Tigra.
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.
How exactly we’ll see the character interact within the MCU beyond the solo has yet to be revealed. Fans had assumed he would be hanging out with more of the darker characters. However, we might see Spector’s Avengers connections explored sooner rather than later.
Over the weekend, a fan/celebrity spotter located in Budapest snapped and posted photos within hours of each other with both Oscar Isaac and Mark Ruffalo. The two photos taken at the Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest in Budapest, Hungary.
The city is where Marvel Studios are currently filming the Moon Knight series and Ruffalo had recently wrapped work on She-Hulk in Atlanta this month. I think the easy assumption here is that Ruffalo might be appearing in the show and sharing the same hotel in Budapest could suggest this, however, not confirmed. But rushing himself out to Budapest after just wrapping on She-Hulk in Atlanta could suggest he’s there for MCU-related reasons.
There were rumblings that WandaVision writer Peter Cameron was working on an unannounced Marvel Studios series, but Cameron himself refuted this on his Twitter account by clarifying that the project has been already announced by Marvel. We’re now hearing that project is actually Moon Knight and Cameron is expected to be contributing/writing on the superhero series alongside Jeremy Slater (Fantastic Four, The Umbrella Academy) and Beau DeMayo (The Witcher, The Originals, The Witcher: Nightmare of The Wolf).
Marvel’s Moon Knight series is still filming and we have some brief updates on the MCU project expected to debut 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.
There were rumblings that WandaVision writer Peter Cameron was working on an unannounced Marvel Studios series, but Cameron himself refuted this on his Twitter account by clarifying that the project has been already announced by Marvel. We’re now hearing that project is actually Moon Knight and Cameron is expected to be contributing/writing on the superhero series alongside Jeremy Slater (Fantastic Four, The Umbrella Academy) and Beau DeMayo (The Witcher, The Originals, The Witcher: Nightmare of The Wolf).
Emily VanCamp‘s Sharon Carter is said to be appearing, although, it’s unknown if it’ll be a simple brief cameo or something more. Carter was revealed in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier as the show’s villainous puppet master, The Power Broker, as she spent a lot of time growing a criminal empire in Madripoor.
Oscar Isaac’s Marc Spector once worked for the C.I.A. and may have a history with Sharon Carter, who left S.H.I.E.L.D. to work with the C.IA. at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
French actor/model/dancer Loic Mabanza is working on the series, however, his role is unknown or how big it will be. You can see below that the French actor has some impressive action chops thanks to his dance background.
Actor, Loic Mabanza, is in Budapest and has been training heavily. He’s posted Instagram stories of him training at the gym Oscar trains at in Brooklyn. He follows May Calamawy, Mad Gene Media, Josh Holland, and stuntwomen, Sara Leal and Estelle Darnault. pic.twitter.com/8ttZqlknpP
Mabanza isn’t the only French actor involved with Moon Knight as Gaspard Ulliel’s (Brotherhood of The Wolf, Hannibal: Rising, A Very Long Engagement) British agency revealed he is playing Midnight Man.
We’re also hearing that May Calamawy is playing a character that will be action-focused, whether that is friend or foe of Marc Spector remains to be seen. It’s still unclear who May and Ethan Hawke (reportedly the villain) are officially playing on the show, but we’ll likely get some sort of announcement from Marvel Studios in the near future.
The directing team consists of Mohamed Diab, Justin Benson, and Aaron Moorhead.
Universal Pictures once attempted to copy the Marvel Cinematic Universe with their horror franchise Dark Universe, that was expected to give the studio a PG-13 cinematic universe centered around their legacy horror characters, The Universal Monsters. When Tom Cruise’s Mummy reboot flopped they pivoted away from a connective group of films and seem to be instead focusing on movie by movie after The Invisible Man.
Marvel Studios is actually in a perfect position to do what Universal struggled to do, making their own horror universe within the MCU with both films and Disney+ series. We’re apparently going to see a huge push on the live-action side with Doctor Strange In The Multiverse, Mahershala Ali’s Blade reboot, Oscar Isaac’s Moon Knight series, and plenty more things that have yet to officially announced.
There are plenty of characters that are assumed to be part of Marvel’s horror universe such as Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange), Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff), Blade (Eric Brooks), Moon Knight (Marc Spector), Brother Voodoo (Jericho Drumm), Werewolf By Night (Jack Russell), Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze), Elsa Bloodstone, Abraham Whistler, Hannibal King, Frank Drake, Quincy Harker, Rachel van Helsing, Vlad Dracula, Baron Blood (John Falsworth), Deacon Frost, Lilith Drake, Lenore DeCade, Mephisto, Son of Satan (Daimon Hellstrom), The Devil’s Daughter (Satana Hellstrom), Mother of Demons (Lilith), Glyph (Nadeen Hassan), Vampire By Night (Nina Prince), Warwolf (Martin Renya), The Living Mummy (N’Kantu), Frankenstien’s Monster, Manphibian, and Man-Thing (Theodore Sallis).
But there could be even more characters mined for Marvel’s horror corner of the MCU.
The animated series What If…? is bringing Marvel Zombies to the MCU and there is a character that could easily make the jump to live-action to represent the zombie faction.
That is Simon William Garth aka Zombie, who had his own run of comic books with Tales of The Zombie. The character that was brought back from the dead using voodoo magic has a direct connection to Doctor Strange pal Brother Voodoo and could easily partner up with the occult hero.
Zombie is also a member of the Legion of Monsters alongside folks such as The Living Zombie, Frankenstein’s Monster, and others. Given the popularity of the zombie sub-genre with The Walking Dead (alongside spinoffs) and Zack Snyder recently returning to the genre with Army of The Dead (will also direct a sequel), it’s a no-brainier for Marvel to give audiences/fans a zombie character.
There seem to be strong indications that we’ll see Marvel move forward with a new Ghost Rider project, however, we don’t know if they’ll simply focus on a single character like Johnny Blaze or cover the multiple incarnations of the character.
There is a new Native American version, Kushala, an Apache woman from the 1800s that is possessed by the Spirit of Vengeance and became the Sorcerer Supreme of her era in attempt to cure herself. She goes by the name Demon Rider.
Adding Kushala could allow Marvel Studios to bring in a more diverse Ghost Rider to the live-action side of things and give us a solid Native American character that could get her own solo projects alongside someone like western hero William Talltrees aka Red Wolf. We’ve also seen Marvel use plenty of new characters lately as they slowly assemble the Young Avengers roster.
Speaking of Native American characters, there is someone that has a connection to Canadian indigenous lore that could make for a threat in the future and that is Wendigo.
The Wendigo is a stark white beast that is the manifestation of a curse for anyone who commits an act of cannibalism in the Canadian North Woods. A darker origin than normal for Marvel and anyone can be given the curse.
First appearing as a Hulk villain, the character has also clashed with Wolverine, X-Men, and Alpha Flight in the comics. Wendigo is sort of a mirror image of Walter Langkowski aka Sasquatch, a mutant member of Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight.
Taj Nital was an Indian (Muslim but designed as Sikh) vampire hunter part of Quincy Harker’s team Dracula Hunters from The Tomb of Dracula comics, who dedicated his life to hunting vampires after his son Adri was turned and he had to kill him.
A friend of Blade, Taj is turned into a vampire by the monstrous Varnae aka Lord of Vampires that tragically had to be slain by Blade.
The Blade reboot will hopefully bring back The Vampire Nation and having vampires/hunters from Asian countries would help establish that their tentacles are international, something teased with the original Blade movie from 1998 showcasing diverse members of The House of Erebus.
It looks like we have official word of one of the villains of Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight series starring Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke.
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.
Hamilton Hodell, the British agency website (spotted on Reddit and highlighted by The Direct/MurphysMultiverse) of French actor Gaspard Ulliel (Brotherhood of The Wolf, Hannibal: Rising, A Very Long Engagement) lists him as part of the cast of Moon Knight, as they mention he’ll be playing Marvel Comics villain Anton Mogart aka Midnight Man.
It’ll be interesting to see what the MCU version of the character will look like as Marvel Studios are known to take liberties when it comes to villain characters. We’re also expecting to see another known French actor land the role of Marc Spector’s pal Jean-Paul Duchamp aka Frenchie.
There have already been some exciting teases of the show’s action sequences with some lovely training sequences with Oscar Isaac kicking some ass. Marvel isn’t messing around as we were able to confirm that they hired No Time To Die stunt coordinator Olivier Schneider, signaling that they might be aiming for some high-quality action.
The directing team consists of Mohamed Diab, Justin Benson, and Aaron Moorhead with Jeremy Slater and Beau DeMayo writing on the show.
Kevin Feige previously told Collider that Moon Knight will be getting 6-episodes and is expected to debut on Disney+ in 2022.
Once upon a time, Marvel Television was being overseen by Jeph Loeb and director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back) was hired to make a mature cartoon series focused on Howard The Duck. However, the project was ultimately trashed leading to Smith to focus on his Netflix cartoon series Masters of The Universe: Revelation.
Marvel Television was re-branded as Marvel TV Studios with Loeb exiting the company because Kevin Feige became Marvel’s chief creative officer giving him complete control over all divisions, including television and animation. The M.O.D.O.K. animated show using stop-motion was the only thing that really survived the mass cancellations of the Marvel television shows to make way for hard-canon stuff heading to Disney+ starting with WandaVision.
Smith revealed on his podcast Fatman Beyond that he asked to use Werewolf By Night (Marvel’s big werewolf character), but his request was denied by Jeph Loeb because Marvel Studios (the film division) had plans for the character. Back then, Marvel Television had to get approval to use certain characters that the film division was going to use.
“In my head, as I started building my season, I was like, ‘Alright, Episode 5, Werewolf By Night.’ The idea of our story was that Howard was trapped here and he was trying to get pages of the Darkhold, which would allow him to go back. There’s Howard as I’m laying it out and then I go into Jeph and told him what I wanted to do, and that’s when they said ‘You can’t use Werewolf By Night,’ and I asked why? They said the movie division was using him.”
Jack Russell aka Werewolf By Night has been seen in animation but there was once a live-action version that many people might not be aware of. He appeared in a deleted scene from Blade Trinity, however, as you can see below the scene was so bad (like the rest of the movie) it was abandoned. It invokes memories of the deleted scene from the original Blade, where director Stephen Norrington played Morbius The Living Vampire as a way to set him up as the villain of the sequel only for that scene to be cut (Sony Pictures owned the rights) and Guillermo del Toro going in another direction with Blade II.
It’ll be interesting to see what project Russell could end up showing up in as things like the Moon Knight series and Blade reboot are helping to introduce the horror corner of Marvel Comics to the Marvel Cinematic universe.
This week saw the start of production on John Wick: Chapter 4, Aquaman & The Lost Kingdom, Black Panther: Wakanda, and Rian Johnson’s sequel to Knives Out. The latter has seen a bunch of set photos trickle-out over the last couple of days and they’ve revealed a brand new casting addition.
Daily Mail has posted a heap of set photos from Greece that confirms that Ethan Hawke has joined the massive cast. His participation in Knives Out 2 is a little odd since he was supposed to have a major role in Marvel’s Moon Knight series, shooting in another country would give the impression that his reported villain role was smaller than we have originally imagined.
The impressive cast of Knives Out 2 already consists of Daniel Craig (No Time To Die), Dave Bautista (Blade Runner 2049, Spectre, Guardians of The Galaxy, Army of The Dead), Edward Norton (Fight Club, The Incredible Hulk, Rounders, Moonrise Kingdom), Janelle Monae (Moonlight, Hidden Figures), Kathryn Hahn (WandaVision), Jessica Henwick (The Matrix 4, Game of Thrones), Kate Hudson (Almost Famous), Madelyn Cline, and Leslie Odom Jr. (Murder On The Orient Express, One Night In Miami).
Craig returns as the comedic Southern detective Benoit Blanc as it seems like a group of Americans are the target of a new murder mystery in Greece, I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if it involves another bunch of rich/entitled characters if the set photos are anything to go by.
When the Knives Out sequels were first announced they made headlines because when Netflix closed a massive deal with Johnson and Craig worth a massive $400 million to secure the next two installments.
KNIVES OUT – The circumstances surrounding the death of crime novelist Harlan Thrombey are mysterious, but there’s one thing that renowned Detective Benoit Blanc knows for sure — everyone in the wildly dysfunctional Thrombey family is a suspect. Now, Blanc must sift through a web of lies and red herrings to uncover the truth.
THE RONIN 