After Film London mentioning that production has begun this month on Marvel’s Secret Invasion series, it looks like the big project has nabbed a film industry veteran to handle the show’s extensive visual effects.
The Ronin has learned that visual effects supervisor John Moffatt has joined the series. Moffatt is best known for strictly film work with some impressive credits such as Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows 1-2, Wonder Woman 1984, Life, The Brothers Grimsby, and Snow White & The Huntsman.
The impressive cast consists of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Ben Mendelsohn as Skrull Leader Talos, Oscar-winner Olivia Colman (The Favourite, Hot Fuzz, The Crown), four-time Emmy nominee Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones, Solo: A Star Wars Story), Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night In Miami, Peaky Blinders) said to be playing a villain, and most recent addition to the Marvel series is character actor Christopher McDonald (Hacks, Happy Gilmore).
This would again suggest that Secret Invasion might be a bit bigger than previous Disney+ shows.
Secret Invasion is a big event in Marvel Comics, where it’s revealed that Skrulls have quietly replaced various leaders and even superheroes in a bid to invade Earth. As with other MCU adaptations, it’s assumed that the studio will have its own take on the source material for the live-action incarnation.
It’ll be interesting to see if they’ll indeed reveal that beloved characters were Skrulls the entire time or during the events of Infinity War/Endgame, which may or may not ruffle feathers depending on who they pick for that.
Kyle Bradstreet (Mr. Robot) is the MCU show’s head writer with directors Thomas Bezhucha (Let Him Go) and Ali Selim (The Looming Tower) shooting episodes.
Samuel L. Jackson has already confirmed on Instagram that he’s shot scenes for Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels (currently in production at Longcross Studios), which further illustrates the expected cross-pollination between the casts given their similar shooting schedules and proximity as both are filming in the London area.
Secret Invasion is aiming to be ready for release on Disney+ sometime in 2022.
With The Marvels’ production in full swing at Longcross Studios in Surrey, England and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever shooting in Atlanta, the next big project is about to kick-off soon with Secret Invasion. The big Skrull-centric series that will bring back Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury and Ben Mendelsohn’s Talos together since Captain Marvel and the button scene in Spider-Man: Far From Home.
There is a neat crew tidbit we can now share.
The Ronin can confirm that production designer Frank Walsh is working on Marvel’s big event crossover series.
Walsh has recently worked on shows such as Season 1 of Carnival Row, Season 2 of Lost In Space, and episodes of the comic book Netflix series Jupiter’s Legacy. As an art director, he’s worked on projects such as High-Rise, Inception, Game of Thrones, The Mummy, Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, and the infamous Luc Besson-produced sci-fi film Lockout (film was sued for plagiarism by John Carpenter).
We previously confirmed the show’s director of photography will be French-Canadian cinematographer SylvaineDufaux (Solo: A Star Wars Story, Future Man) and revealed that the series was expected to shoot sequences in Scotland with production gearing up to begin this month in the United Kingdom.
You can check out some of Dufaux’s work here which includes reshoots for Solo: A Star Wars Story.
The crossover event’s impressive cast also consists of Oscar-winner Olivia Colman (The Favourite, Hot Fuzz, The Crown), four-time Emmy nominee Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones, Solo: A Star Wars Story), Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night In Miami, Peaky Blinders) said to be playing a villain, and most recent addition to the Marvel series is character actor Christopher McDonald (Hacks, Happy Gilmore).
There is an expectation due to the proximity to the filming of Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels and overlapping production schedules, we should see some cross-pollination between the two casts. Samuel L. Jackson has already confirmed on social media that he’s shot Nick Fury scenes for The Marvels.
The show’s head writer is Kyle Bradstreet with directors Thomas Bezhucha (Let Him Go) and Ali Selim (The Looming Tower) shooting episodes.
Secret Invasion is expected to release on Disney+ sometime in 2022.
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.
Marvel Studios is pumping out a multitude of Disney+ shows with a heap of new ones that are likely going to be announced before the end of the year. Next on the docket to go into production is Marvel’s big Skrull event, Secret Invasion, and we have a tiny production update to share.
The Ronin is hearing that with production expected to begin this month (under the working title Jambalaya) it won’t be just filming in the London area as a portion may spend time in Scotland.
However, where in Scotland hasn’t been revealed or for how long.
This wouldn’t be the first Marvel Studios has shot projects there. Scotland was previously used for the box office juggernauts Avengers: Infinity War with scenes filmed in Edinburgh and St. Abbs doubling for Norway in Avengers: Endgame.
We first revealed back in June that French-Canadian cinematographer Sylvaine Dufaux (Future Man) has been added to Secret Invasion’s production team. Dufaux also did various camera/director of photography work on films such as Solo: A Star Wars Story, Source Code, The Fountain, Destin Daniel Cretton’s The Glass Castle, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, John Wick: Chapter 2, and The United States vs. Billie Holiday.
The crossover event’s impressive cast already consists of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Ben Mendelsohn as Skrull leader Talos, Oscar-winner Olivia Colman (The Favourite, Hot Fuzz, The Crown), four-time Emmy nominee Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones, Solo: A Star Wars Story), Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night In Miami, Peaky Blinders) said to be playing a villain, and most recent addition to the Marvel series is character actor Christopher McDonald (Hacks, Happy Gilmore).
There is some expectation that the series will have a connection to The Marvels and might end up have cross-pollination between the two projects’ casts, but this has yet to be confirmed.
Secret Invasion alongside Moon Knight and She-Hulk are aiming for a release on Disney+ in 2022.
Captain Marvel was a huge hit for Marvel Studios as the film, like Black Panther, crossed a billion dollars at the global box office and they’re already moving forward with a sequel that was recently re-titled as The Marvels. The new title seems to reflect the group of three different generations of Captain Marvel incarnations with a cast that consists of Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau, newcomer Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel, and Zawe Ashton is reportedly playing the film’s villain.
Confirming that she is in London getting ready to shoot The Marvels, director Nia DaCosta spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the Captain Marvel sequel and how Marvel Studios is giving her more freedom than she’s had on her last two projects.
“It’s a lot less traumatizing to work on for sure [laughs]. But this movie also deals with specific, personal, sometimes sad things. But no, it’s been nice to work in a different world for sure. It’s amazing. [It’s] more [freedom] than I’ve had on anything. It’s great because we’re all just comic-book nerds who want to make a great comic-book movie,” DaCosta tells Entertainment Weekly.
There is a proximity to the Skrull event series Secret Invasion, which is also shooting close to Longcross and likely means the cast members on both shoots could crossover. It’s also assumed that Iman Vellani’s Ms. Marvel series will also plant seeds for The Marvels too.
Disney has given the sequel a release date of November 11, 2022.
The Ronin has exclusively confirmed that the working title for Marvel’s Skrull event crossover series, Secret Invasion, will be Jambalaya. This is simply the production title the studio will use during the filming of the show in the United Kingdom, which is said to go in front of cameras sometime in the fall.
In the comics, Secret Invasion focuses on the reveal that multiple people in power and even superheroes have been replaced with an alien race with the ability to shape-shift, called the Skrulls. They were first introduced in Captain Marvel as peaceful cosmic refugees and covered for Nick Fury and Maria Hill while they were seemingly off-world having a space station built (for S.W.O.R.D.?), as seen at the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home.
The versions of the Skrulls we’ve previously seen don’t have Super-Skrull abilities, because that had been tied to the Fantastic Four film rights. With the rights back at Marvel Studios, it means that the Skrulls can now mimic the superpowers of various heroes and villains in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, making them even more dangerous opponents than before.
While the show is being billed as a crossover event they haven’t officially announced if cast members from the Captain Marvel sequel, The Marvels, will have duel roles on the Disney+ series, but it’s sort of expected given that S.W.O.R.D. is likely a key element in both projects. It also doesn’t hurt that Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels is confirmed to be filming primarily at Longcross Studios in Surrey, England, making the possibility of cast cross-pollination very good.
Secret Invasion’s impressive cast already consists of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Ben Mendelsohn as Skrull leader Talos, Oscar-winner Olivia Colman (The Favourite, Hot Fuzz, The Crown), four-time Emmy nominee Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones, Solo: A Star Wars Story), Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night In Miami, Peaky Blinders) said to be playing a villain, and most recent addition to the Marvel series is character actor Christopher McDonald (Hacks, Happy Gilmore).
Other recent working titles for Marvel feature film projects include the following.
BLACK WIDOW = BLUE BAYOU
ETERNALS = SACK LUNCH
SHANG-CHI & THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS = STEAMBOAT
DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS = STELLAR VORTEX
SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME = THE NOVEMBER PROJECT
THOR: LOVE & THUNDER = THE BIG SALAD
CAPTAIN MARVEL 2 = GOAT RODEO
BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER = SUMMER BREAK
ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA = DUST BUNNY
Given that production is taking place later in the year, we shouldn’t expect to see Secret Invasion begin airing on Disney+ until late 2022 or early 2023.
Marvel Studios is hyping-up Secret Invasion as their big crossover event series, which says a lot considering that while WandaVision and The Falcon & The Winter Soldier seemingly helped to set up future film projects there wasn’t much of a event/crossover status they felt sort of self-contained in their own pockets of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Secret Invasion’s premise is that the shape-shifting Skrulls have been infiltrating all positions of power across the globe, even replacing various members of the Avengers over the years since they arrived on Earth back in the 1990s. However, the aliens were introduced in Captain Marvel as refugees and in Spider-Man: Far From Home were essentially covering for Nick Fury/Maria Hill as they’re seemingly off-world as the Skrulls are building a space station for the humans.
Another casting addition to Secret Invasion has been revealed by Deadline, as American character actor Christopher McDonald has landed an undisclosed role in the Marvel series that they claim is newly created and could crossover other projects including film. He most recently worked on the HBO Max series Hacks and might be best known as Shooter McGavin in the Adam Sandler golf comedy Happy Gilmore.
This wouldn’t be all that shocking as Secret Invasion and the Captain Marvel sequel The Marvels are expected to shoot around the same time in the United Kingdom, having cast members appear in both projects isn’t hard to imagine at this point given Marvel is calling the series a “crossover event.”
McDonald joins an impressive and growing cast that already consists of Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Ben Mendelsohn as Skrull leader Talos, Oscar-winner Olivia Colman (The Favourite, Hot Fuzz, The Crown), four-time Emmy nominee Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones, Solo: A Star Wars Story), and Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night In Miami, Peaky Blinders) said to be playing a villain.
The United Kingdom is becoming a new hub for Marvel Studios projects and the latest one on the horizon is their Secret Invasion series that will see the Skrull invasion of Earth, but unlikely will be a direct adaptation of the comic book incarnation. Marvel is assembling a very solid cast for the show that will be led by Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury and Ben Mendelsohn’s Talos with new additions such as Oscar-winner Olivia Colman (The Favourite, Hot Fuzz, The Crown), four-time Emmy nominee Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones, Solo: A Star Wars Story), and Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night In Miami, Peaky Blinders) said to be playing a villain.
Another actor seemingly has joined the Marvel Studios event as Deadline reports that Irish actor Killian Scott is in talks for unknown role in the Disney+ series. Scott’s credits include Dublin Murders, Damnation, Ripper Street, Calvary, and ’71.
There is an expectation that the show will have a direct connection to Nia DaCosta’s Captain Marvel 2, giving the impression that actresses Brie Larson (plays Carol Danvers), Teyonah Parris (plays Monica Rambeau), and Iman Vellani (plays Kamala Khan) appearing in Secret Invasion alongside other established MCU actors.
We are still waiting on announcements concerning a director as the series is being written by Kyle Bradstreet.
Secret Invasion is said to begin filming this fall and will likely debut on Disney+ sometime in late 2022.
Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige remarked a while back that their event series Secret Invasion would have more characters than Avengers: Endgame, which is an extremely bold claim to make even for the Marvel spokesperson. While we’re still waiting for confirmation on what Avengers or new heroes will be appearing in Secret Invasion, we got two high-profile additions to the cast this week.
Oscar-winner Olivia Colman (The Crown, Hot Fuzz, The Father, The Favorite, Peep Show) and four-time Emmy nominee Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Terminator Genisys) are more or less names you’d expect to be cast for a Marvel Studios feature film, not a Disney+ show. This could suggest that the roles may end up having a larger impact on the MCU and could carrying over to the films as well.
The stand-out here is obviously Emilia Clarke as she had been tapped for an unnamed role in Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 possibly when the script had a main female villain. Screenwriter Drew Pearce confirmed that Clarke had a major role in the film before there were script changes which director Shane Black further explained to Uproxx back in 2016 that is was Marvel corporate that squashed (by the remarks sounds like Ike Perlmutter) their attempt to have a female villain in Iron Man 3. The role according to Black was essentially going to be a female version of Guy Pearce’s Killian.
BLACK: “All I’ll say is this, on the record: There was an early draft of Iron Man 3 where we had an inkling of a problem. Which is that we had a female character who was the villain in the draft. We had finished the script and we were given a no-holds-barred memo saying that cannot stand and we’ve changed our minds because, after consulting, we’ve decided that toy won’t sell as well if it’s a female.”
“In the earlier draft, the woman was essentially Killian – and they didn’t want a female Killian, they wanted a male Killian. I liked the idea, like Remington Steele, you think it’s the man but at the end, the woman has been running the whole show.”
Connecting the two bits of information, Clarke was likely being tapped to play this female main villain before the changes were made. This alteration to the script was potentially why the villain hierarchy was a huge mess in Iron Man 3 and why a lot of people weren’t thrilled about the Killian/Mandarin twists, because it sounds like they were mandated changes from outside of the studio.
That wasn’t her only brush with an MCU casting as Emilia was a hopeful in 2012 to play the Sharon Carter role in the Russo Brothers’ Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The part eventually went to Emily VanCamp, who at the time was best known for her ABC series Revenge and wasn’t on many people’s radar at the time. Carter sadly didn’t have a massive impact in Captain America: Civil War and the character is only now getting some neat stuff to do in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier.
So, Marvel has been trying to find her a role for ages and unlikely would be courted to play some one-off if she had been eyed for both villain and heroic roles in the past.
Secret Invasion is going to likely feature multitude of film characters as there could be a direct tie-in with Nia DaCosta’s Captain Marvel 2 given their production (both shooting in the United Kingdom) and release proximity. It’s already been confirmed that Captain Marvel 2 will feature Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Iman Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel, and Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau. We still don’t know who Zawe Ashton is playing the sequel outside of a villain and if she is a Skrull.
There is a small chance that Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther 2 could have connections to Secret Invasion given that Skrulls have attempted to invade Wakanda only to have their asses handed to them and would likely need to infiltrate them given their advanced technology/access to vibranium. Skrulls kidnapping T’Challa could be a good excuse for Marvel to have another character in the Black Panther mantle without the need to recast or use a CGI double in the sequel.
Once S.W.O.R.D. was introduced in WandaVision it opened the door for a wave of characters connected to the cosmic agency and it’s expected to play a large role in both Captain Marvel 2 and Secret Invasion. The two big female S.W.O.R.D. agents that could be perfect for Clarke are Abigail Brand (a mutant) and Jessica Drew aka Spider-Woman.
Having Abigail Brand in Secret Invasion could be the first move by Marvel Studios to slowly introduce mutants and X-Men into the MCU, as their X-Men reboot is still in early stages and despite continued rumblings of a Wolverine series they really haven’t announced anything official concerning mutants.
While the name Spider-Woman is owned by Sony, Jessica Drew debuted outside of the Spider-Man comic books making her fair game to be used by Marvel Studios. Sony Pictures is reportedly making a Spider-Woman movie with director Olivia Wilde (Booksmart, Don’t Worry Darling), however, it hasn’t been confirmed if Jessica Drew will lead that project or if Marvel Studios will produce it like they have with Jon Watts’ Spider-Man trilogy.
While the MCU’s version of Secret Invasion is going to have to be different from the comics to make it less predictable, Jessica Drew is revealed to be Skrull Queen Veranke. An interesting way to go could be that Clarke plays Brand or Drew with Olivia Colman playing real version of Queen Veranke in make-up. It’s still unclear if they’ll be friends or foes in the Disney+ show as Kingsley Ben-Adir is the only cast member specifically mentioned as playing a villain.
Secret Invasion will begin shooting this fall in the United Kingdom and assumed to debut on Disney+ in late 2022.
As the finale of The Falcon & The Winter Soldier will hit Disney+ on Friday, another big Marvel Studios series event is assembling it’s cast with Secret Invasion. A new casting update from The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Oscar-winner and current nominee, Olivia Colman, is now in talks with Marvel for an undisclosed role in Secret Invasion.
The British actress would join Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Ben Mendelsohn as Skrull Leader Talos, and fellow Brit Kingsley Ben-Adir reportedly taking a villain role in the Disney+ series.
Colman has had a bit oddball career as she had been primarily known as a comedic actress in things like Peep Show and Edgar Wright’s Hot Fuzz when she took a dramatic pivot with projects such as Broadchurch, The Crown, and Tyrannosaur. Olivia eventually won Best Actress for her permanence in the dramatic comedy The Favourite from director Yorgos Lanthimos starring alongside Marvel alumni Rachel Weisz (Black Widow) and Emma Stone (The Amazing Spider-Man 1-2). She recently landed a Best Supporting Actress nomination for the film The Father, which she co-stars with Thor franchise actor Anthony Hopkins.
Considering her high-profile and previously playing two historical queens, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to assume Colman might end up playing one of the royal members of the Skrulls.
Olivia might not be the only actor currently nominated for this weekend’s Academy Awards ceremony that is being courted by Marvel Studios for upcoming projects.
Secret Invasion is an event from Marvel Comics that sees a bunch of established characters being revealed as Skrulls, not humans. However, in Captain Marvel we learned that Talos and his group were not antagonists but actually refugees looking for a new place to call home. We last saw Nick Fury in the button scene for Spider-Man: Far From Home on some space station that the Skrulls were building, which could have a direct tie-in to both S.W.O.R.D. and Nia DaCosta’s Captain Marvel 2.
I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if Skrulls have a part to play in Black Panther 2 given how Wakanda is invaded by Skrulls and have their asses handed to them in the comics. There is also a huge connection to space with The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda and their vibranium (from a space rock) technology could be appealing to an evil sect of Skrulls looking to defeat/replace Earth’s superheroes.
THR also confirms previous production info that Secret Invasion will indeed shoot in the United Kingdom and that filming on the Disney+ series could begin as early as this fall.
THE RONIN 