The pairing of Nick Fury and Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel was an interesting one, as we got a glimpse of an early and fun incarnation of Fury before he became super stoic. We sadly didn’t get to see a reunion of those two characters in Avengers: Endgame, but there are good signs we’ll be seeing that in upcoming projects that will feature them.
Earlier this week, Brie Larson teased to SiriusXM Stars that she’s already shooting Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels, talking up the massive sets (hinting to off-world locations) and comparing them to her own Disneyland.
Now, Samuel L. Jackson is posting set photos of him getting ready to play Nick Fury from the makeup trailer. Interestingly enough, he’s wearing a t-shirt with his Captain Marvel cosmic beeper and his hand turning to dust after being snapped by Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War.
Could this be a tease to Nick Fury and Danvers finally getting that reunion in either The Marvels or Secret Invasion?
UPDATE: Yesterday, I posted on Twitter that Secret Invasion might not begin shooting until next month and today Jackson has confirmed he’s indeed working on The Marvels.
#SecretInvasion filming schedule has supposedly been bumped to September-February…which would mean that Samuel L. Jackson's IG post is likely from the set of #TheMarvels as Brie Larson said on Monday they had already started shooting.
The two productions are both shooting in direct proximity of each other in the London area and we’ve been mentioning cross-pollination of those two casts for months now. This seems just like another tease towards S.W.O.R.D. becoming a connective thread between the two projects, possibly alongside the Skrulls element.
We last saw the real version of Fury on some space base being constructed off-world by the Skrulls as Skrull leader Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) was pretending to be Fury in Spider-Man: Far From Home. At the end of WandaVision, Monica Rambeau (lead character of The Marvels) was approached by a Skrull to seemingly bring her to this base (The Peak?).
It’s still unconfirmed who cast members such as Zawe Ashton, Olivia Colman, Emilia Clarke, Kingsley Ben-Adir, and others will be playing in the MCU projects. However, Marvel Studios could reveal their characters at some lineup presentation before the end of the year.
Both The Marvels and Secret Invasion are expected to debut respectively in late 2022.
In the early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the studio was trying to make sure they were landing actors on the cheap and to sweeten the pot Ike Perlmutter assumed that giving actors contracts consisting of six to nine film commitments would off-set the low pay (Chris Hemsworth earned only $150K for Thor) they would get on the first round of feature films (television and streaming wasn’t even considered back then).
One of the biggest Marvel deals made was when Samuel L. Jackson signed on to play Nick Fury in at least nine films. Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige has revealed to The Hollywood Reporter during an interview to promote Black Widow that they’re moving away from those extensive deals from the Phase One era.
“That got a lot of attention way back when, with I think [Scarlett Johansson, and Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans] and Sam Jackson. It varies now. It varies, project to project, cast to cast. Really, what we want are people that come in, are excited to be in the universe, are excited at the opportunity to do more things, as opposed to being locked into contractual obligations,” the studio head told The Hollywood Reporter.
Interestingly enough, Jackson and Hemsworth are working on new projects as Johansson is expected to end her MCU run with Black Widow after reportedly earning an impressive $15 million ($5 million more than she got for leading Ghost In Shell) for the solo outing releasing on Friday.
BLACK WIDOW –In Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger. Directed by Cate Shortland and produced by Kevin Feige, the movie stars Scarlett Johansson reprising her role as Natasha Romanoff. Florence Pugh stars as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian, and Rachel Weisz as Melina Vostokoff.
We knew that a Nick Fury series was on the way from Marvel Studios and it was confirmed during the Disney Investor Day event as Secret Invasion starring Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn returning as Skrull leader Talos.
The Secret Invasion is a story in Marvel Comics that reveals various characters had replaced with the alien baddies Skrulls leading to a huge clash between superpowered Skrulls mimicking the powers of many Marvel heroes and villains. This element had been directly connected to the Fantastic Four rights via the Super-Skrull, but with those rights finally returning to Marvel it allows them to use those other Skrull abilities beyond shapeshifting.
In the comics, it’s a massive event on the level of Avengers: Endgame but the series seemingly won’t be on that scale according to Kevin Feige while speaking with Comic Book to promote WandaVision‘s debut on Disney+ later this month. Revealing that fans shouldn’t expect the volume of characters in the show as the comic since they’ll be focusing on Sam and Ben’s characters.
FEIGE: “Well, there were more characters in the Secret Invasion comic series than there were in Endgame so, no. It’s not that but it very much is a showcase for Sam Jackson and Ben Mendelson and tapping into the paranoia elements of the Secret Invasion comic series that was great with the twists and turns that that took. So, that’s certainly our focus more than, ‘Can we cram in more characters than Endgame? like publishing?'”
Expectations certainly need to be tempered a bit considering that the Marvel series will have more limitations with more targeted casting than the films because the time commitment to a series is likely a lot more of an ask than with a feature film with a runtime of two-plus hours.
S.W.O.R.D. is all but assumed to be involved in the series and will be introduced in WandaVision.
The series is expected to shoot around the same time as Nia DaCosta’s Captain Marvel 2 in the United Kingdom, so there is a good shot that there could be some crossover with those characters rather than others that might be harder to connect. We’ll be excited to hear if the project will indeed have a direct crossover with Olivia Wilde‘s Spider-Woman film given that Jessica Drew has a role to play in Secret Invasion.
Stay tuned for more information on the Skrull event in the coming months.
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.
Yesterday, the Walt Disney Company announced a new initiative to get more content going for its streaming services such as Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu from its sports, television, and film divisions. The new division will be called The Media & Entertainment Distribution group led by Kareem Daniel.
It sounds like they’ll be dedicating a lot more resources and money than they have previously as means to compete with competitors like Netflix and Amazon. However, this announcement says nothing about them throwing their 2021 theatrical slate on Disney+ and never mention a thing about ending theatrical releases altogether only pushing to place more content on their streaming services.
We will get more details on these plans on December 10th.
During an interview with CNBC, Disney’s new CEO Bob Chapek was quick to point out that they aren’t looking to stop the theatrical experience and would be announcing further details.
Also, specifically downplayed COVID-19’s role in the decision.
CHAPEK: “I would not characterize it as a response to Covid. I would say Covid accelerated the rate at which we made this transition, but this transition was going to happen anyway. Because essentially what we want to do is separate out folks who make our wonderful content based on tremendous franchises from the decision making in terms of prioritization is on how it gets commercialized into the marketplace. And what we want to do is leave it to a group of folks you can really see objectively across all of the constituents we have and various considerations we’ve got and make the optimal decision for the company as opposed to having it predetermined that a movie is destined to theaters or that a TV show is destined for ABC. So what we really want to do is provide some level of objectivity and really make it a decision that benefits the overall company and its shareholders.”
When pressed on Disney’s commitment to the theatrical model Bob said the following that gives the impression they’re not giving up on the theatrical model just yet.
CHAPEK: “We’ve benefited from a tremendous relationship with theatrical exhibition for many many many years as dynamics change in the marketplace though we want to make sure that we are giving consumers who want to go to theaters to experience everything that a theatrical release can give them, we want to continue to give them that option but at the same time there are a lot of consumers that want to experience a movie in the safety, comfort, and convenience of their own home for whatever reasons they do.”
To me, it sounds like either they are going to pursue a shorter theatrical window or a mixed model of day-and-date which obviously the theater industry wouldn’t be terribly pleased about on either front.
Here is the official press release from the Walt Disney Company website that gets a little more into the weeds about what all this means.
In light of the tremendous success achieved to date in the Company’s direct-to-consumer business and to further accelerate its DTC strategy, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) today announced a strategic reorganization of its media and entertainment businesses. Under the new structure, Disney’s world-class creative engines will focus on developing and producing original content for the Company’s streaming services, as well as for legacy platforms, while distribution and commercialization activities will be centralized into a single, global Media and Entertainment Distribution organization. The new Media and Entertainment Distribution group will be responsible for all monetization of content—both distribution and ad sales—and will oversee operations of the Company’s streaming services. It will also have sole P&L accountability for Disney’s media and entertainment businesses.
The creation of content will be managed in three distinct groups—Studios, General Entertainment, and Sports—headed by current leaders Alan F. Horn and Alan Bergman, Peter Rice, and James Pitaro. The Media and Entertainment Distribution group will be headed by Kareem Daniel, formerly President, Consumer Products, Games and Publishing. All five leaders will report directly to Bob Chapek, Chief Executive Officer, The Walt Disney Company. Disney Parks, Experiences and Products will continue to operate under its existing structure, led by Josh D’Amaro, Chairman, Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, who continues to report to Mr. Chapek. Rebecca Campbell will serve as Chairman, International Operations and Direct-to-Consumer. Bob Iger, in his role as Executive Chairman, will continue to direct the Company’s creative endeavors.
“Given the incredible success of Disney+ and our plans to accelerate our direct-to-consumer business, we are strategically positioning our Company to more effectively support our growth strategy and increase shareholder value,” Mr. Chapek said. “Managing content creation distinct from distribution will allow us to be more effective and nimble in making the content consumers want most, delivered in the way they prefer to consume it. Our creative teams will concentrate on what they do best—making world-class, franchise-based content—while our newly centralized global distribution team will focus on delivering and monetizing that content in the most optimal way across all platforms, including Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ and the coming Star international streaming service.”
Under the new structure, the Company’s three content groups will be responsible and accountable for producing and delivering content for theatrical, linear and streaming, with the primary focus being the Company’s streaming services:
STUDIOS: Messrs. Horn and Bergman will serve as Chairmen, Studios Content, which will focus on creating branded theatrical and episodic content based on the Company’s powerhouse franchises for theatrical exhibition, Disney+ and the Company’s other streaming services. The group will include the content engines of The Walt Disney Studios, including Disney live action and Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures.
GENERAL ENTERTAINMENT: Mr. Rice will serve as Chairman, General Entertainment Content, which will focus on creating general entertainment episodic and original long-form content for the Company’s streaming platforms and its cable and broadcast networks. The group will include the content engines of 20th Television, ABC Signature and Touchstone Television; ABC News; Disney Channels; Freeform; FX; and National Geographic.
SPORTS: Mr. Pitaro will serve as Chairman, ESPN and Sports Content, which will focus on ESPN’s live sports programming, as well as sports news and original and non-scripted sports-related content, for the cable channels, ESPN+, and ABC.
The Media and Entertainment Distribution group, led by Mr. Daniel, will be responsible for the P&L management and all distribution, operations, sales, advertising, data and technology functions worldwide for all of the Company’s content engines, and it will also manage operations of the Company’s streaming services and domestic television networks. The group will work in close collaboration with the content creation teams on programming and marketing.
It’ll be interesting to see if Disney+ will start mining IP from the 20th Century Studios side of things soon as Disney+ series and limited series focused on properties like Avatar and Planet of The Apes could be extremely successful. In the press release they suggest that they could end up making episodic projects based on 20th Century properties.
A live-action Flash Gordon series stands out as a property that Disney really could do justice with on Disney+ and be a counter of sorts to their Star Wars shows as it could be way more swashbuckling than the Lucasfilm property that was inspired by it. Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok, Thor: Love & Thunder, Jojo Rabbit) is attached to direct an animated Flash Gordon film and at one time 20th Century was developing a live-action feature as well from directors Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class, Stardust, Layer Cake) and Julius Avery (Overlord) involved at different points.
I wouldn’t even put it past Disney to reboot John Carter eventually given the Volume/StageCraft would allow them to make a series more cost effective that world like Flash Gordon is different enough from Star Wars it would be worth pursuing.
Of course, this could mean a major influx of more shows from Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar universes but might also see Hulu getting a bump of adult content as well with franchises like Alien (Noah Hawley pitched an Alien series to FX) and Predator just collecting dust while they could be helpful to get more eyeballs on Hulu. HBO Max had recently crowed about Ridley Scott’s sci-fi series Raised By Wolves being the most popular original on their service when announcing they were moving forward with a Season 2 order.
Matthew Vaughn has also been talking up the idea of a Kingsman spinoff series that could fit nicely at Hulu.
Disney certainly has a massive gap in the adult market and places like Canada don’t have access to Hulu and that really needs to change if they want to compete with Netflix/Amazon on an international level as those services offer content to both kids and adults alike. Cornering the kid market just won’t be enough for Disney if they want to grow their streaming presence.
I guess we’ll have to wait for December 10th to get more concrete answers about what all this actually means for content that is already in the can or is about to begin filming.
Samuel L. Jackson will return to the Nick Fury role for an unnamed Marvel Studios series for Disney+ according to a report from Variety. Kyle Bradstreet will write and executive produce. His television credits include Mr. Robot, Berlin Station, and Cooper.
The exact plot details of the show are being kept under wraps, but multiple sources say Jackson is attached to star with Kyle Bradstreet attached to write and executive produce. Like all the other Marvel shows at Disney Plus, Marvel Studios will produce.
Variety stops short from saying what the new series which most likely is the rumored S.W.O.R.D. series. The last time we saw Nick Fury was on a space station being built by Skrulls in outer space and we’ll see S.W.O.R.D. introduced later this year in WandaVision with what looks like Monica Rambeau is an Agent of S.W.O.R.D.
S.W.O.R.D. could become the Phase 4 replacement of S.H.I.E.L.D. given that future threats in the MCU are most likely going to be coming from beyond the stars and the Multiverse. With Skrulls on Earth and established there is also the possibility that a version of the Secret Invasion could also be explored.
I’m sure fans will be hopeful that if this turns out to be a S.W.O.R.D. series that characters such as Abigail Brand will be involved and with Cobie Smulder’s television series Stumptown being cancelled I wouldn’t be shocked if Maria Hill is eventually attached.
Captain Marvel 2 has director Nia DaCosta attached and there is an expectation that S.W.O.R.D. will have large presence for Earthbound scenes in that sequel allowing for Fury, Monica Rambeau, and even possibly Ms Marvel aka Kamala Khan to get involved.
It looks like another Phase 4 film has landed a director!
Deadline is reporting that Marvel has chosen a new director for Captain Marvel 2 instead of bringing back Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, who directed the first installment. According to the new report they’ve hired Nia DaCosta the director of Little Woods and the upcoming Candyman film for MGM Studios that is produced by Jordan Peele.
This news has yet to be confirmed by Marvel Studios or Disney.
Brie Larson is returning as Carol Danvers and it’s a little unknown when cameras will begin rolling.
Considering the current release date of the film is July 8th, 2022, starting production next spring/summer would make sense, however, it’s unknown if the backlog of projects at Marvel Studios due to COVID-19 will have an impact on that.
Feature films like Thor: Love & Thunder, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, Spider-Man 3, and Ant-Man 3 are most likely going to shoot in 2021 alongside various new Disney+ shows. There is a small chance that stuff like Black Panther 2 and Captain Marvel 2 might see their shoots pushed to 2022 with rescheduled release dates sometime in 2023.
Details on the upcoming project are scarce but with WandaVision‘s Megan McDonnell having been tapped to write the sequel this would suggest that it could have a huge connection to S.W.O.R.D. (S.H.I.E.L.D.’s intergalactic counterpart) and an adult Monica Rambeau played by Teyonah Parris, both being introduced in the Disney+ series.
We most likely will see the return of Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, who last we saw was busy on vacation as a group of Skrulls were building a space station. That station would most likely end up being The Peak or another base of operations for S.W.O.R.D. considering that humans aren’t likely able to building something like that as quickly as Skrulls.
It remains to be seen if Ms. Marvel‘s Kamala Khan will also join the project but there is a good shot the teenager might have a role to play in Captain Marvel 2.
There have been unconfirmed internet rumors of the sequel tackling the Secret Invasion storyline from the comics. That might just be a little too ambitious given the scale of that story and the volume of heroes/actors needed to be involved for that to come together.
THE RONIN 