Tag: X-Men

Posted on in Features

Marvel Studios Should Consider ‘Loki’ Director Kate Herron For Their Reboot Of The ‘X-Men’ Franchise

When the Walt Disney Company acquired 21st Century Fox, the rights to Marvel Comics projects such as Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Silver Surfer returned to Marvel. We know that Jon Watts (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Cop Car) is attached to direct their Fantastic Four reboot, Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool 3 is officially in the works with The Molyneux (Bob’s Burgers) handling the script, and writer/director Adam McKay (The Big Short, Vice, Ant-Man, Don’t Look Up) has been publicly interested in tackling a solo Silver Surfer movie.

What seems to be something that won’t be anytime soon is their X-Men reboot, which likely won’t get a release date before 2025, as hinted to by Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige. How they’re going about with Fantastic Four could suggest that Marvel Studios may end up looking at their existing director lineup to handle the X-Men reboot.

A director that is quickly becoming a strong standout is Loki’s Kate Herron, as the series has a strong cinematic feeling and look despite being a Disney+ series. It also echos what Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are doing with The Mandalorian slightly more than the two previous Marvel/Disney+ shows.

I bring up Kate Herron because she recently revealed in an interview with Trey Mangum that her first introduction to Marvel was the X-Men cartoon series that originally aired domestically on Fox in the 1990s.

“Basically, my first introduction to Marvel was that I loved the X-Men cartoons growing up, I was obsessed with it. I remember trying to turn my dolls into Storm…but I’d always play X-Men with my toys. I think loved it because they were outsiders and I connected with that, I was really drawn into that story,” Kate Herron said.

Having a director with that sort of connection with X-Men would be the complete opposite of Bryan Singer, who was notoriously ignorant of the source material (altering characters at whim) and according to Hugh Jackman, actively banned the comics from the set. Herron has proven she has a visually striking eye and the ability to have the scope needed for a project as big as X-Men, also being able to juggle a good amount of characters as each episode of Loki adds more players into the mix.

It wouldn’t hurt to have someone that might champion the Jim Lee era costumes that were highlighted in the Fox Kids cartoon. Going that route with the character designs would also help separate itself from the Fox films and allow Marvel Studios have their own stamp on the live-action X-Men.

I also think one key element of the X-Men franchise is the high-volume of female characters on the roster, something that wasn’t always handled properly with Fox’s era of the franchise as Bryan Singer/writers/producers took liberties with characters like Rogue and Storm. Those characters alongside Psylocke didn’t get proper adaptations with the previous incarnations. Herron’s Loki series has a strong/diverse female presence and those characters have been given a little more depth, there is hope that she could give a bigger stage to female members of the team.

While some fans will likely be keen to see The Russo Brothers return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for X-Men, they’ve been clear that what they actually want to tackle is Wolverine and Secret Wars. If they were to oversee the Secret Wars event, the X-Men would likely be involved and scratch that Wolverine itch.

I could see Kate Herron fitting nicely as the architect or godmother of the new era of the X-Men and fans like myself may feel more comfortable with the franchise in her hands after seeing her impressive work on Loki.

Posted on in Film News

Kevin Feige Suggests Marvel Could Explore Other Characters’ Past Similar To Their Prequel ‘Black Widow’

With Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow covering the events between the end of Captain America: Civil War and the start of Avengers: Infinity War. Not to mention, her Russian roots that are at the center of the new film. There has been some curiosity from fans if Marvel Studios would attempt to explore more prequel projects or do deep dives into the past of certain superheroes.

Well, while speaking during Black Widow’s virtual press conference (via The Direct), Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige was asked just that

“Well, certainly this film and this story is a particular case for Natasha, but the notion of exploring the past, present, and future of the MCU is certainly in the cards for all of our characters. This particular story, this particular cast, is very personal, very specific, to Natasha,” Kevin Feige said during a virtual press conference.

It’s not really a ringing endorsement or even giving us any insight to where they could be going next, but it does sounds like they’re keeping the door open and won’t end that notion with Black Widow’s release on July 9.

There are a couple of examples that come to mind such as the events between Steve Rogers meeting up with Peggy Carter in the late 1940s and when Old Man Steve gives Sam Wilson the shield. It’s a possibility that Marvel could explore a 1950s or 1960s incarnation of S.H.I.E.L.D. with Rogers leading his other well-established comic book superhero team, The Invaders.

It’s also hard to ignore that X-Men’s Wolverine (barely ages if at all) could certainly have his origin told in prequel projects set during World War II or the Cold War with the Soviet Union, finally giving fans a more authentic version of the Weapon X Program and his extensive military service as the studio plans to reboot the franchise alongside Fantastic Four.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

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.

SOURCE: THE DIRECT

Posted on in Film News

‘M.O.D.O.K.’s Sam Richardson Would Love A Shot At Playing Beast In Marvel’s ‘X-Men’ Reboot

Marvel Studios since landing the Fantastic Four and X-Men rights back from 20th Century Studios after their merger with The Walt Disney Company has led to some interesting fan-casting suggestions. The biggest call from the online community it is to have real-life married couple John Kransinski and Emily Blunt play the new versions of Dr. Reed Richards aka Mister Fantastic and Sue Storm aka The Invisible Woman in a reboot of the Fantastic Four from director Jon Watts (Spider-Man: No Way Home). Sadly, we don’t always get what we want and months after John downplayed his chances on his YouTube show Some Good News, Blunt also poured cold water on the idea as well on The Howard Stern Show.

Sometimes fan-castings are just simple fun that can be taken a little too seriously by fans and can lead to a neverending attempt by outlets to get actors to repeat quotes about playing superheroes over and over. In other cases, actors simply bring up superhero characters they want to play organically in interviews.

Variety caught up with comedic actor Sam Richardson, who briefly mentions his desire to play Dr. Hank McCoy aka Beast from X-Men, comparing the mutant superhero to his character Richard Splett on the Emmy-winning HBO political comedy series Veep led by Julia Louise-Dreyfus. You might be aware that Julia recently joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier as Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine (possible friend or foe), which has been teased as a reoccurring role in the massive expansive universe.

Now that Sam Richardson has had a taste of action work in Amazon’s upcoming “Tomorrow War” with Chris Pratt, he wants some more. He’d love a shot at playing the X-Men’s Beast. “I think Beast is like a big blue-haired Richard Splett,” he told me at the Big Screen Is Back event, referring to the character he played on “Veep.”

Richardson is likely best-known for his roles on Veep, Spy, and The Office. He most recently worked on Marvel’s new Hulu animated show M.O.D.O.K. as Gary, Amazon’s big alien invasion flick The Tomorrow War that is led by Star-Lord actor Chris Pratt, and has a big role in the upcoming genre flick Werewolves Within. That latter project sees Sam starring alongside Milana Vayntrub, who played Marvel’s Squirrel Girl in the live-action New Warriors series that never got picked-up

Speaking of Juila’s Val, Marvel Studios has been casting a lot of comedic actors for various MCU roles (big and small) over the last couple of years, making Richardson’s Beast request not entirely unobtainable. Some examples include Parks & Rec actor Chris Pratt as Star-Lord, ageless funny man Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, Fresh Off The Boat’s Randall Park playing FBI Agent/Agents of Atlas leader Jimmy Woo, Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness, Silicon Valley’s Kumail Nanjiani is a main cast member of the Eternals, Kim’s Convenience star Simu Liu is playing their newest superhero Shang-Chi, comedians Awkwafina and Ronny Chieng play supporting roles in Shang-Chi, Owen Wilson as Mobius M. Mobius in the Loki series, Community’s Donald Glover was the The Prowler in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Melissa McCarthy plays a fake version of Hela in Thor: Love & Thunder, and most recently Oscar-winner Olivia Colman (Hot Fuzz, Peep Show) taking a mysterious role in Secret Invasion.

Beast is an interesting suggestion given that the MCU incarnation of Hank could have a lot of crossover potential as he started out as a member of the X-Men, only to bounce for the Avengers, and then joined S.W.O.R.D. the cosmic version of S.H.I.E.L.D. that was introduced in WandaVision. S.W.O.R.D. will likely have a huge role in upcoming projects like The Marvels and the Disney+ series Secret Invasion.

During Fox’s era of the X-Men franchise, Beast was played by Kesley Grammer and Nicholas Hoult.

As it stands, Marvel hasn’t officially assigned writers or a director for their X-Men reboot and would give the impression they haven’t thought about casting the mutant heroes.

SOURCE: VARIETY

Posted on in Film News

RUMOR: Marvel Studios Creating Even More Production Companies For Unannounced Projects

Marvel Studios dominated the news on Monday after giving new release dates for Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3 and Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania alongside the first footage from Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao’s Eternals. But even more productions are on the horizon beyond 2023.

It’s starting to look like there is another wave of Marvel Studios production companies being established at Disney that we recently came across. While I can’t 100% confirm this list is all Marvel-related at the moment (hence a rumor), I’m leaning heavily towards the majority being for upcoming MCU projects and for some that haven’t been officially announced by Kevin Feige. 

  • BAD EGG PRODUCTIONS LLC 
  • ON YOUR MARK PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • BATTLE ANYONE PRODUCTIONS LLC 
  • ACID POP PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • NATURAL HISTORY PRODUCTIONS LLC 

We know things like Fantastic Four, Deadpool 3, and X-Men are coming in the not too distant future. The last one Natural History sticks out to me as possibly one for X-Men, but that’s simply my own personal speculation. It’s possible that Marvel is aiming to make another lineup announcement over the summer or in the fall.

Other Marvel LLCs previously discovered and commented on by the sleuths over at Murphy’s Multiverse include the following companies below. 

  • BLUEBERRY WAFFLES PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • STANDOFFISH PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • CHANGEUP PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • LOG JAM PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • FREQUENT PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • GRASS-FED PRODUCTIONS LLC
  • SOLVE EVERYTHING PRODUCTIONS LLC
Posted on in Features

Emilia Clarke Almost Played ‘Iron Man 3’ Villain & Sharon Carter Before Ultimately Joining Marvel’s ‘Secret Invasion’

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.

Posted on in Features

The Legacy of Wolverine & Who Marvel Should Cast As The Iconic Mutant

After the merger between Disney and 21st Century, the film and television rights to live-action X-Men projects reverted back to Marvel. This has led to the announcement of Jon Watts directing a reboot of The Fantastic Four, another group of characters that came home to Marvel in the wake of the merger. Marvel Studios doesn’t seem to be in any rush to introduce mutants into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but the biggest task they’ll have is recasting the Wolverine role.

Getting the X-Men and Wolverine on the big screen took a bit longer than you might imagine. Apparently, development goes back to 1984 as Wolverine co-creator Roy Thomas (Conan The Barbarian, Conan The Destroyer, Red Sonja) and Punisher co-creator Gerry Conway (Fire & Ice, Conan The Destroyer) wrote an X-Men film for Orion Pictures before the studio had financial issues.

Another incarnation had James Cameron producing a version with Near Dark director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker) and a script titled Wolverine & The X-Men was penned by Gary Goldman (Total Recall, Big Trouble In Little China, Navy Seals) around 1991 for Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment and Carolco Prictures. When Carolco went bankrupt the project was essentially dead.

In 1994, producer Lauren Shuler Donner got her hands on the X-Men rights and brought it to 20th Century Fox hiring screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven, The Wolfman, 8mm, Sleepy Hollow, Fight Club, Event Horizon, The Game) to work on a script, he was also assigned to write a Silver Surfer movie for the studio that never saw the light of day. After multiple tweaks to the X-Men script from various writers (some uncredited like Christopher McQuarrie and Ed Solomon), David Hayter would eventually get the screenwriting credit. It was eventually shot in 1999-2000 in Toronto/Hamilton/Burlington, Ontario, Canada by director Bryan Singer (attached since 1996) and released in 2000 earning an impressive $296.3 million globally on a budget of $75 million.

The Hugh Jackman era was certainly a bumpy road as the Australian actor was a last minute replacement for the Wolverine role as Scottish actor Dougray Scott had a scheduling conflict as he was busy shooting John Woo’s Mission: Impossible II. During the Cameron/Bigelow incarnation, Bob Hoskins had been considered. Much later on actors such as Russell Crowe, Viggo Mortensen, and Keanu Reeves had been in the mix for Wolverine.

The commercial success of the first X-Men movie is often cited by many as the turning point for Marvel projects being appealing to wide-range of audiences. Alongside Blade, proved to Marvel that people were willing to go see popcorn films featuring their characters which at the time had been considered a niche audience as a multitude of comic book movies had failed to make money in the 1990’s. Many studios tried to chase the box office returns achieved by Tim Burton’s Batman movies only to lose a lot of money in the process.

Due to Wolverine’s popularity he ended up landing his own film trilogy at 20th Century Fox starting with the forgettable mess, X-Men Origins: Wolverine that was plagued with studio brass,Tom Rothman, meddling with production and threatening to fire director Gavin Hood. A workprint of the film had been leaked online ahead of the officially release with incomplete visual effects and wasn’t much better than the theatrical version, as it clearly had half-cooked effects and godawful digital claws. The horrible effects only highlighted how bland the film was.

Luckily, The Wolverine was helmed by James Mangold (replacing Darren Aronofsky) and became one of the better films of the X-Men franchise and led to a stellar final bow for Hugh Jackman in the sequel Logan. Hugh would announce his retirement as Wolverine following the success of Logan, even turning down multiple pleas from Ryan Reynolds to make a Wolverine vs Deadpool movie.

Marvel Studios is now in the perfect position to reboot the X-Men and remove all the silly timeline issues along with the character deviations that started with Singer’s first installment giving us faithful versions of the mutants. The only mutant project they’re currently working on is the R-rated Deadpool 3 starring Ryan Reynolds as they recently hired Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Loeglin to write it.

The Falcon & The Winter Soldier has introduced Logan’s stomping-ground Madripoor and I hope we’ll see the location in future X-Men projects. I’d love to see Marvel give Wolverine a faithful origin covering his adventures during WWII/Cold War, confrontations with Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, connections to the Canadian mutant team Alpha Flight or in the Weapon X Program as Marvel Studios would likely be able to explore this stuff in a Disney+ series as not to distract from the main X-Men team.

We’re still waiting on Marvel to announce the creative team working on their X-Men reboot.

Hiring the next Wolverine is gong to be a pivotal moment for Marvel Studios because Hugh Jackman has been the face of Logan for over 20 years and to some fans their entire lives. It’s sort of tough coming up with the “perfect list” of casting hopefuls to play the MCU’s Wolverine because those are big shoes to fill. However, I came up with a group that might skew a little older but I felt had the well-rounded careers that could be solid enough to be in consideration along with being names that I assume Marvel would want to target. Given that Moon Knight’s Oscar Isaac is in his forties it wouldn’t be that hard to imagine older/seasoned contenders for Wolverine.

HENRY CAVILL (AGE 37): Mission: Impossible – Fallout, The Witcher, Man of Steel, The Count of Monte Cristo, Stardust, Immortals, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Enola Holmes, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Justice League.

CHRIS PINE (AGE 40): Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek Beyond, Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman 1984, Hell or High Water, Outlaw King, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Unstoppable, Smokin’ Aces, This Means War, and The Finest Hours.

TOM HARDY (AGE 43): Band of Brothers, RocknRolla, Black Hawk Down, Locke, Taboo, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Peaky Blinders, Dunkirk, Legend, The Revenant, The Drop, Lawless, Warrior, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Bronson, Marie Antoinette, Star Trek: Nemesis, and Layer Cake.

CILLIAN MURPHY (AGE 44): 28 Days Later, Inception, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Peaky Blinders, Red Eye, Sunshine, Dunkirk, Free Fire, TRON: Legacy, Cold Mountain, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, and A Quiet Place II.

Posted on in Film News

‘Deadpool 3’: Zazie Beetz Hopeful She’ll Reprise Domino & Wants A Solo Movie – “I Would Love To Revive The Role”

After some really bad information circulating last year that Marvel/Disney wouldn’t be making Deadpool 3 (at all) or keep it’s R-rating, it was announced that Marvel Studios had indeed hired sibling screenwriters Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin  tasked to pen a script. They are also dead-set on keeping the third installment for mature audiences, which was something both Marvel and Disney brass has been stating publicly for years.

There has been some hints the film would be continuation of the franchise but it’s still unknown if anyone outside of Ryan Reynolds will be reprising their roles such as Josh Brolin’s Cable or Zazie Beetz’s Domino are currently in limbo concerning the sequel. The three actors had been expected to team-up again for an X-Force movie that was going to be written and directed by Drew Goddard. Of course, these plans were being put together well before the merger with Disney killed a bulk of the Marvel projects in development at Fox such as Gambit, X-23 aka Laura, and the Doctor Doom film.

Zazie Beetz was recently promoting her upcoming Amazon animated series Invincible (also extremely mature) when asked by Collider about her status on Deadpool 3 and if she has spoken to Marvel Studios/Disney about reprising the Domino role. She hasn’t talked to anyone about Domino but is interested in returning and even mentioned a desire to make a Domino movie.

BEETZ: “No, I haven’t [heard about Domino’s return]. I would love to revive the role. That was always in the world of what was potentially going to happen. I haven’t had any specific conversations around it. But I’m interested. Not only would I love to revive the role, I would love to figure out a way to make a Domino movie or something like that. We’ll see what happens, but I haven’t had any personal conversations.”

While a solo Domino movie might be a hard sell given how busy the Marvel feature film schedule tends to be, I could totally see the mutant character getting her own series either on Disney+ or Star (their new mature arm on Disney+) to help expand the Deadpool/X-Men universe.

We don’t really know the direction or plot of the third film outside of the brief comment on Twitter from Ryan suggesting they originally wanted to make a road trip film with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine. However, at that point Hugh had retired the X-Men character after Logan and would explain why their focus pivoted to X-Force after the release of Deadpool 2. It’s possible they’ve scrapped all that stuff and are doing something completely different as they’ve replaced former screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick.

Deadpool 3 doesn’t have release or production dates as a director has yet to be chosen, but there is a really good chance depending on Ryan’s busy schedule that Marvel Studios could begin shooting the sequel sometime in 2022 for a release in 2023-2024.

SOURCE: COLLIDER

Posted on in Film News

Marvel’s ‘X-Men’ Reboot Being Developed Under The Title ‘The Mutants’?

A new tidbit from The Illuminerdi suggests that Marvel Studios is going to be calling their X-Men reboot The Mutants. Something that had long been suspected because of the high-volume of female characters in the franchise and some calls that the studio somewhat ditch the “X-Men” name for the new big screen incarnation.

The Illuminerdi has learned of a Marvel Studios-led project produced by Marvel CCO Kevin Feige entitled, The Mutants. It’s currently being developed as a feature film and is intended to be a reboot of the X-Men franchise.

There has been speculation since the merger that Disney the studio could go with a gender neutral name for the franchise and seems fitting since most audiences know exactly what a mutant is along with the term’s association with the X-Men.

While the site is known for posting correct information it’s just a rumor for the moment as Disney hasn’t officially announced anything concerning their X-Men reboot. Names of writers or a director involved with the project weren’t mentioned, so its unclear what stage of development The Mutants actually is at this time.

Fantastic Four is expected to be the studio’s first big reboot of the former Fox franchises as they announced Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts would be tackling that next for them. Given the announcement back in December, we have to assume that Fantastic Four would be the first to go into production unless Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool 3 (doesn’t have a director officially) jumps the line.

SOURCE: THE ILLUMINERDI

Posted on in Film News

Kevin Feige Sounds Open To More R-Rated Marvel Projects Beyond ‘Deadpool 3’ If They Deserve It

During the TCA (via Deadline), Marvel’s Kevin Feige talked a little about Deadpool 3 and the reasoning behind keeping an R-rating that was previously established with the first two films. He seems to allude that they’re not rushing out to make a whole bunch of mature projects but if that something deserves it they’ll have discussions.

FEIGE: “I think we target everything we’re doing for kids and adults, so I think your question is more adult or R-rated. Other than Deadpool, which has already established itself as a certain genre and a certain rating, that we already said we would not mess with when we started working on Deadpool — which we have — other than that, we haven’t encountered a story or a storyline or a character’s journey that a PG-13, or the tone, or the ratings we’ve been using up to this point has prevented us. We haven’t been held back by. If we ever are, than certainly there can be a discussion that can be had now that there’s other outlets like Star. But that just hasn’t been the case. We’ve told all the stories that we wanted to with the tonality and the rating we have now.”

I think Star certainly opens the door for mature series in the future but I don’t think we’ll see PG-13 characters make the jump to R out of the blue.

However, the way Kevin Feige talks about audiences having expectations about future Deadpool movies being mature feels like that point of view could be applied to the Blade franchise too. It was recently announced that the Blade reboot, titled Blade, The Vampire Hunter, nabbed a screenwriter Stacy Osei-Kuffour (Hunters, Watchmen), but it hasn’t been officially confirmed if they’ll be aiming for a PG-13 or R-rating.

I think it’s worth considering that all three Blade movies are mature (Feige was a producer on Blade: Trinity) and given that Eric Brooks essentially murderers blood drinking vampires an R-rating just might be needed due the nature of the Vampire Nation and the violence the franchise is know for, not unlike the Deadpool films.

Blade really should be essentially an action-horror version of John Wick, but watering down the violence or horror stuff for a PG-13 rating feels like a really bad idea on Marvel’s part. I love the Blade franchise but the films aren’t exactly character driven and while Marvel Studios will likely add that element taking away things we expect seems wrong.

A scene like the blood rave just couldn’t happen in a PG-13 film because of how the MPAA punishes movies for their use of blood. Marvel Studios movies certainly have their fair share of violence but nothing that compares to Blade.

We’ve seen PG-13 and R versions of both Wolverine and Punisher, but traditionally we know as Blade as a mature anti-hero just like Wade Wilson.

SOURCE: DEADLINE

Posted on in Television News

‘WandaVision’: Kevin Feige Admits Adding Evan Peters As Quicksilver Is “Just Another Way That Certain People Were Messing Around With Wanda”

SPOILERS FOR WANDAVISION AHEAD

The appearance of Evan Peters as Pietro Maximoff aka Quicksilver in WandaVision confused Wanda and fans which seemingly was the point according to Marvel’s Kevin Feige. He mentioned today at TCA (via GameSpot) that placing Peters in the series was part of “certain people” messing with Wanda.

FEIGE: “That’s one of the fun things about developing these things are blue skying it in a room. It’s my favorite part of the process. It’s always the very very beginning, when we’re figuring out what something could be and at the very very end, when we’re finally we’re finding it and then putting it out into the world. So there were all all sorts of discussions, but I believe it, we ended up going with what you saw relatively relatively early on in the development process. And just another way that certain people were messing around with Wanda.”

From this statement from Feige about adding the actor, we can now assume that the choice to add Peters wasn’t a way for Marvel Studios to reinsert his version of Quicksilver or bring the Singerverse to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A theory that has been pushed by fans since the actor’s addition to the series and his subsequent reveal as Pietro.

Showrunner Jac Schaeffer previously mentioned that they really had to convince Kevin about adding Evan on the show.

We’ll likely get more answers with the final two episodes.

SOURCE: GAMESPOT & FANDOM