Despite a dubious tabloid casting and production rumor that is making the rounds recently, Deadline’s Justin Kroll states on Twitter that the studio doesn’t even have a Fantastic Four script as Marvel Studios is only just starting to meet with screenwriters for the reboot from director Jon Watts (currently shooting Spider-Man 3 in Atlanta).
All I’m gonna say is this, Marvel just started meeting with writers on FANTASTIC FOUR, there is no script and it will be awhile before this film starts shooting
The film was only just announced to the public in December and the film’s director, Jon Watts, is still busy shooting Spider-Man 3. A rather large production that will still need to be edited and care given to the post-production process to be ready for it’s December 17th release date. With some basic logic/understanding on how movies are made the idea Fantastic Four is shooting anytime soon seems extremely ridiculous to present as sourced information, and with that busted the casting tidbit seems just as phony. You’d think fans and sites would have more common sense before spreading an obvious bunk rumor from notably unreliable tabloids.
I’m just as excited as everyone else to see what Marvel Studios and Jon Watts do with the Fantastic Four franchise but we’ll just have to be patient for real news on the project.
Watts will also deserve a bit of a breather after making a massive film like Spider-Man 3 during the pandemic Stateside and likely wouldn’t be interested in rushing into a second massive production without a little time to rest alongside the normal 5-6 months of prep needed for these MCU films.
A while back it was revealed that director Olivia Wilde was hired by Sony Pictures to develop a new Marvel film, which was reportedly going to be a Spider-Woman film. This could mean that Marvel and Sony could be working together again as the main version of the character is a S.W.O.R.D. Agent and originates outside of the Spider-Man comics, clearly allowed to be used by Marvel.
We still haven’t got clarity officially from Sony if it will indeed be Spider-Woman or if Marvel will be involved like with their Spider-Man movies. If they were working on it this would mean it would be automatically part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe while stuff like Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and Kraven The Hunter are seemingly in Sony’s own spinoff universe. Morbius’ trailer hinting a direct connection with Spider-Man: Homecoming as it featured Michael Keaton’s Vulture.
There has been a growing call to have Star Wars alumni Daisy Ridley in the role of Jessica Drew aka Spider-Woman. Her co-star Oscar Isaac recently joined the MCU nabbing the Marc Spector role for the upcoming Disney+ series Moon Knight.
Sariah Wilson has now spoke with Ridley and dished about that conversations on Twitter when the subject of the fancasting for Marvel heroine Spider-Woman came-up. She didn’t seem to know about it but seemed game while curious if it was part of the MCU or some off-shoot.
What so many of you have been waiting for: I asked Daisy Ridley I'd she'd heard the Spider-Woman rumors. She said no and asked what they were. I explained it to her and she said, "OMG, I would love to play Spider-Woman. But is it more of like an extended Spiderverse thing?"
This is hardly evidence that any real talks have actually happened or are currently taking place, but Wilson seemed to finally put Spider-Woman on Daisy’s radar after outcry from her fans to take the superhero role.
I’m still waiting on Sony Pictures to release more details on the Olivia Wilde film.
WARNING HEAVY SPOILERS FOR WANDAVISION IN THIS ARTICLE
Despite multiple calls for fans ease back on the huge character cameos, fans still believed this episode was going to be an entry point for folks like Reed Richards, Hank McCoy, or even Magneto. That has been dashed as those cameos didn’t happen and Wanda doubled-down on Evan Peters version of Pietro not being real. Sorry, Fox era X-Men fans the show won’t be carrying over the Singerverse to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
One of the earlier character rumors has turned out to be spot-on.
We’ve known for a while that Agnes was possibly going to be revealed as Agatha Harkness, however, we don’t know what the character’s intentions are. Which I have to assume will be touched-upon in the next episode given that she’s outed herself to Wanda. The twins also vanish as they were used by Agatha to lure Wanda into her basement.
They panned over to a book that may or may not be the MCU version of The Darkhold, which could cause a lot of trouble if used incorrectly or for the wrong reasons. As it has deep connections to the horror side of the Marvel Comics universe but with anything shown to us in this show looks can be deceiving. It’s a McGuffin that could be the next Infinity Gauntlet, equally as dangerous too.
Monica Rambeau also seemingly got her powers from entering the Hex, but we’ll see if those hold as things keep changing moment-to-moment in the Westview bubble. The mid-credit scene she discovers the basement and bumps into whoever Peters is actually playing.
Deadline was the first to break the news that Marvel Studios has hired actress Zawe Ashton to play an undisclosed villain in Captain Marvel 2.
Candyman’s Nia DaCosta is directing a cast that consists of Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Ms. Marvel’s Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan, and WandaVsion’s Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau.
Given that Secret Invasion is said to be a crossover event series on Disney+, there is a good shot that Ashton is playing a Skrull, possibly Queen Veranke. When the Fantastic Four rights reverted back to Marvel they also got full control of the Skrulls, ability to use various characters such as the Super-Skrull and their ability to mimic/copy the power-sets of superheroes. A female version of Super-Skrull could be nifty as well, even though that character is primarily known as a Fantastic Four baddie.
However, there are plenty of other cosmic villains Ashton could end up playing.
Moonstone could be another option as well.
Secret Invasion might help established the events that will be later explored in Captain Marvel 2 as both productions are expected to take place in the United Kingdom later this year. Captain Marvel introduced the Skrulls as the enemies of the Kree Empire, only to reveal they were refugees seeking a new home and we might end up villainous incarnations surface which could become a big problem for Earth.
This a good chance that we could see Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Randall Park, and Kat Dennings take roles in the sequel as well given the likelihood S.W.O.R.D. will have a large part to play and depending on how their respective Disney+ series end.
Captain Marvel 2 currently has a release date of November 11th, 2022 and could suggest a production start in summer/fall.
WARNING! ARTICLE CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR WANDAVISION EPISODES 1-6
Last week’s episode revealing that Evan Peters is playing Wanda’s dead brother Pietro Maximoff got people thinking that Marvel Studios was about to bring the mutants into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and potentially the Fox era franchise actors as well.
However, this week might have nixed that right off-the-bat.
We get a glimpse of Pietro as a corpse suggesting that like Vision he’s dead too.
There is a point where “Pietro” explains he was “shot in the street like a chump” before showing up at their door and this was revisited when dead Pietro appeared later on in the episode with three bullet wounds in his chest. It doesn’t seem like Peters is going to be sticking around as fans imagined or usher-in Fox version of X-Men to the MCU and possibly is just a reanimated corpse that will eventually disappear.
An excellent red herring if that was their aim.
There is also the potential reveal that Agnes is really just another person being controlled by Wanda as her interactions with Vision gives the impression she’s just another hostage and not the mastermind. This was sort of amplified when Wanda herself started increasing the volume of the Westview bubble which turned the S.W.O.R.D. base into a circus.
While the intentions of S.W.O.R.D. towards Vision is wonky at best as they are revealed to be tracking his movements (is he some weapon of mass destruction?). It is starting to look like Wanda is the one controlling the bubble here, unless someone is manipulating her either by the townspeople or without her knowledge.
One thing that Pietro points out is the children that came out of nowhere in Westview seemingly just for the Halloween episode as we’ve mostly only have been shown adults in the town. I’m slightly curious if they are constructs like the twins or something else.
I guess we’ll have to wait for more shoes to drop in the next couple of episodes.
WARNING SPOILERS FOR WANDAVISION AHEAD FROM EPISODES 1-5
There seems to be an assumption from those watching this week’s episode of WandaVision that Marvel Studios has ushered-in the Fox era of the X-Men franchise, despite the fact the studio has multiple times used the word reboot when talking about their plans for the X-Men moving forward. It’s worth noting among a bunch of iffy things about the cameo, Wanda and Darcy don’t seem to recognize the Evan Peters version of Pietro standing in the doorway.
Here are some things to think about as most viewers have taken the cameo as a literal introduction/recast and now believe that Evan Peters is taking over the Pietro/Quicksilver role from now on which seems a little shortsighted given how the show has previously manipulated the audience from the start. Taking the surprise at face value instead of stopping to think of the multitude of reasons why Peters playing Pietro from now on is extremely unlikely and potentially more of distraction or red herring if anything else.
Dr. Darcy Lewis makes it clear that whoever Evan Peters is playing in the show, that this person at the door is not her brother (previously played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Lewis shockingly states “they recast Pietro?.” This is somewhat reinforced by Wanda seemingly not recognizing the person at the door, something you can tell by the puzzled look on her face as it finally sinks in this is supposed to be her brother. We’ve seen actors recast in the MCU before but Darcy makes a point that isn’t Pietro,
Wanda’s father is reaffirmed to be the very dead Oleg Maximoff by Agent Jimmy Woo and not Magneto also using footage from Avengers: Age of Ulron. This could crush speculation that the Fox version of Magneto will either have a family connection or even appear on the show at all. If they wanted to establish the previous X-Men universe within the MCU that ship has long sailed after the merger as they originally announced Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool was the only character they were keeping.
Agnes is shocked to learn Wanda can bring things back to life using her abilities as she mentions her brother to the twins (in front of Agnes) and conveniently later in the episode Wanda’s “brother” is brought back to life. We never see how that happened exactly or where he even came from.
When Vision and Wanda get into a scuffle about what is going on in the bubble the doorbell rings, something she says she didn’t do and if she didn’t bring that version of Pietro back, who did?
Despite Wanda having “control” of everything in the bubble, she could stop their dog Sparky from dying or use her powers on the twins when they wouldn’t stop crying or aging. If she is 100% in control of everything and everyone you’d think she could have done something there.
Nothing can be trusted in the Westview bubble. Many things are distorted and they’re not all as they seem, making it less likely that Pietro is really Pietro. Mostly everyone within Westview is given a new name and persona. There is a good chance that Evan Peters is simply playing someone that was trapped in the town and given the role of Pietro as a way to torture or distract Wanda.
There have been teases via concept art that Wonder Man aka Simon Williams will be part of the show, an actor/superhero. There is a chance that Evan Peters was selected by whoever within the bubble to be recast in the Pietro role because he is Simon and picked because of acting experience as a way to be more convincing to Wanda and Vision as others have dropped character in various scenes. Agnes mentions doing another take in the episode and Wanda materializes a dog collar without her noticing.
Peters’ Pietro could be just a figment of her imagination and will disappear alongside the bubble.
Pietro might be Mephisto or another villain simply manipulating Wanda while pretending to be her dead brother.
Could both the twins and Pietro be manifested by someone else in Westview such as Anges or another mystery character?
Hiring Evan Peters, the former Quicksilver, is a great way to confuse audiences and help keep everyone guessing about what is really going on. If they had hired someone else for this part it likely wouldn’t have had the same impact. It seems like the entire point of the show is to keep fans on their toes and create their own theories. It certainly feels like the concept of the Disney+ series is to mimic water-cooler television.
I think we’ll know more in the next couple of episodes and I would not be shocked if ultimately we don’t see Peters in this role for very long revealing himself to be something else entirely.
A full room of concept art in a new WandaVision featurette might have revealed a special cameo. A piece of artwork featuring fellow Avenger Wonder Man has been spotted which could mean the character may end up in the Marvel Studios series that has already started airing on Disney+. You can see the Marvel superhero with the “W” on his chest in the top left corner in the image below.
You might not remember but Simon Williams aka Wonder Man had once been set to appear in Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.2 and played by Nathan Fillion, there were multiple faux movie posters made up with him as Williams. The cameo was ultimately cut from the film and it remains to be seen if the actor would be asked to reprise the role again if he’s truly in WandaVision.
WandaVision debuts on January 15th on Disney+ and Deadline is curious if the Phase 4 series will be teasing future things to come including Marvel’s X-Men franchise reboot, given that Wanda has direct connections to the mutants as her father happens to be Magneto. The response from Marvel’s Kevin Feige is extremely vague which might be a bit disappointing for people expecting from clarity.
DEADLINE: We know with Monica Rambeau in WandaVision, her character connects into Captain Marvel 2, and that the series connects to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Is WandaVision a ramp to the revival of X-Men you’re planning?
FEIGE: “In hindsight, in five years if when we’re talking about everything that’s happened, everything can be a ramp to everything, specifically though, yes, Monica in Captain Marvel 2 and specifically to Wanda teaming up with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.”
We’ll have to wait and see if the show drops hints to mutants as that could also be the case with Eternals.
There are small tidbits from the X-Men comic book universe joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe with S.W.O.R.D. in WandaVision and the fictional island nation of Madripoor is expected to make it’s live-action debut in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier.
Concerning upcoming projects based on the former 20th Century Fox properties we learned last year The Fantastic Four reboot has Spider-Man trilogy director Jon Watts attached and Deadpool 3 recently landed screenwriters The Molyneux Sisters (Bob’s Burgers) pushing forward that film’s development.
Vice director Adam McKay talked about potentially pitch a Silver Surfer movie to the studio and Noah Hawley had been developing as solo Doctor Doom project before the merger that seemed to interest Feige.
How and when we’ll see mutants and the main team of X-Men is still an unanswered question.
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.
Marvel Studios had a rather large presentation at last week’s Disney Investor Day event and Kevin Feige had a lot of information to share in such a short period. Below is a rundown of most of the new information and adjusted release dates.
What seemed like the biggest announcement made during the massive amount of information was that director Jon Watts has been selected by the studio to reboot The Fantastic Four for them. Watts having worked with Marvel Studios to reboot the Spider-Man franchise with Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and the untitled Spider-Man 3 (currently filming in Atlanta as The November Project).
When Fantastic Four will begin shooting is unknown as Jon will be busy with Spider-Man 3 until it’s release in 12 months and they failed to mention any screenwriters. This will mark the first Marvel film for Watts that won’t have Sony Pictures’ involvement and might suggest that he won’t be coming back for Spider-Man 4.
Fandom has collectively chosen to campaign for John Krasinski and Emily Blunt to play the roles of Mister Fantastic and The Invisible Woman, however, there hasn’t been any concrete casting news concerning the project as it only just got confirmed.
Feige had telegraphed back at San Diego Comic-Con 2019 that Fantastic Four was the priority former Fox property they were aiming to reboot ahead of the X-Men. There is a possibility that Dr. Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm could appear in other films first.
One of the more frustrating things concerning Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings is that they kept most of the cast unofficial for the entirety of the shoot but they’ve now announced a good chunk of the cast, while not all of them. The cast so far includes actors Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, Tony Leung as Wenwu aka The Mandarian, Awkwafina as Katy, Meng’er Zhang as Xialing, Michelle Yeoh as Jiang Nan, Ronny Chieng as Jon Jon, Fala Chen as Jiang Li, and Florian Munteanu as villain William Young aka Razor Fist.
Shang-Chi along with Black Widow are still set to be released in theaters, not on Disney+, with the Destin Daniel Cretton martial arts action film set for July 9, 2021.
Director Sam Raimi has started filming Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness is officially shooting and will not only connect to WandaVision but also Jon Watts’ Spider-Man 3. While Kevin didn’t confirm it, there is a good chance that Tom Holland‘s Peter Parker and other characters carrying over to the Doctor Strange sequel.
However, he did confirm that that Xochitl Gomez will be playing America Chavez aka Miss America. The young newcomer joins Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, and Chiwetel Ejiofor as villain Baron Mordo.
It’s release date is set for March 25, 2022.
We finally know Christian Bale‘s character in Thor: Love & Thunder as he’ll play the film’s villain Gorr The God Butcher. A role we assume will be done with motion-capture given the design of his comic book counterpart.
Deadline recently reported that Jaimie Alexander will reprise the role of Lady Sif.
The rest of the cast consists of Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Chris Pratt as Star-Lord, and director Taika Waititi will return to the role of Korg.
Filming begins next month in Australia and it’s release date has been moved once more to May 6, 2022.
Captain Marvel 2 director Nia DaCosta was finally confirmed alongside the return of Brie Larson as Carol Danvers. New additions to the franchise are Ms. Marvel‘s Iman Vellani co-starring as Kamala Khan and WandaVision actress Teyonah Parris as the adult version of Monica Rambeau aka Spectrum.
There is a good chance that it will connect to Secret Invasion as it will also shoot in the United Kingdom.
The film’s date was bumped to November 11th, 2021.
Marvel revealed the title for Ant-Man 3 will be Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. Peyton Reed will be back as director with Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lily, Michael Douglas, and Michelle Pfeiffer returning as part of the main cast. The title suggesting the film will be entering the Quantum Realm or have strange things come out it.
The big announcement concerning the film is that Kathryn Newton (Freaky) has been recast as Cassie Lang aka Stature with rising-star Jonathan Majors (Lovecraft Country) confirmed as villain Kang The Conqueror. It remains to be seen if the third installment will help introduce The Fantastic Four before their own solo film from Jon Watts given Kang’s connection to the former 20th Century Fox heroes.
A release date wasn’t mentioned but is expected something in 2022.
James Gunn is officially back for Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3 with them aiming for a 2023 release date. They’re also developing a holiday special and Groot shorts for Disney+.
Kevin Feige didn’t give much in the way of details for Black Panther 2 but revealed they would not be recasting Chadwick Boseman‘s role of T’Challa. He stopped short from explaining what they are doing with the sequel and reaffirmed that writer/director Ryan Coogler is still working on the film.
While we suspect potential delays on the project, they announced the film is coming July 8th, 2022. The spot was previously held by Captain Marvel 2.
Marvel also announced another round of Disney+ shows.
The Nick Fury series was confirmed to be an adaption of Secret Invasion, which involved a bunch of humanity revealed as being replaced with Skrulls. In the comics, it was revealed that a bunch of Avengers were uncovered to be Skrulls too. As assumed, Samuel L. Jackson will reprise the Fury role with Ben Mendelsohn back as Skrull leader Talos.
The Fox portion of the Skrull rights via Fantastic Four are now in the hands of Marvel and could allow for Super-Skrulls to come into play becoming a big threat as they mimic superpowers of various Marvel Comics heroes.
It had been reported that Kyle Bradstreet would be developing the show.
There are signs the series will shoot in the United Kingdom around the same time as Captain Marvel 2, which could suggest a direct connection via S.W.O.R.D. and the Skrulls.
Olivia Wilde is reportedly directing a Spider-Woman film for Sony Pictures. It’s worth mentioning that Jessica Drew is an Agent of S.W.O.R.D. and is one of the characters in the comics revealed to be a Skrull (Veranke The Skrull Queen). Marvel’s participation on that film while assumed hasn’t been made official.
Don Cheadle will lead his own Disney+ series as War Machine titled Armor Wars.
If the series takes cues from the comic book series we could see the return of Sam Rockwell‘s Justin Hammer, another fan-favorite that is still kicking around in the MCU.
We could also see the addition of unused Iron Man villains such as the Crimson Dynamo, Titanium Man, and others.
An Ironheart series will star Dominique Thorne as whiz-kid Riri Williams, who creates her own advance armor. I wouldn’t be shocked if there happens to be a crossover with Armor Wars.
They revealed new trailers for their upcoming slate of Disney+ series including WandaVision (coming January 15,2021), The Falcon & The Winter Soldier (coming March 19, 2021), Loki (coming May 2021), and their animated series What If…? (coming summer 2021). The trailers give us the first look at X-Men location Madripoor in Falcon and the scale of the Loki series with teases of his return to Asgard.
Additional information concerning the upcoming shows includes that Ms. Marvel and Hawkeye will indeed be aiming for a 2021, something The Ronin reported on earlier this month. Kevin Feige providing an sizzle footage for the former which is impressive given it only recently started shooting in Atlanta.
With She-Hulk, Kevin confirmed that the cast will include Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer Walters aka She-Hulk, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk, and the return of Tim Roth‘s Abomination. The latter addition could help support previous chatter that we might see William Hurt‘s Thunder Bolt Ross and Liv Tyler‘s Betty Ross in the series as well bring most of The Incredible Hulk cast back.
I’m sure there are more things to be announced in the future as they hinted to upcoming news concerning Mahershala Ali‘s Blade. Although, I’m sure fans were a little upset they left-out Ryan Reynolds‘ Deadpool 3 or an update on the X-Men reboot. There is now overwhelming evidence that The Young Avengers are coming at some point given that most have been cast already.
THE RONIN 