While we’re still waiting on an official announcement concerning the fate of Deadpool 3 at Marvel Studios, Cabble actor Josh Brolin spoke to cinematographer Roger Deakins on his podcast Team Deakins (spotted by The Playlist) about the differences between working on Deadpool 2 in juxtapose to working with Marvel/The Russo Brothers on Avengers Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
BROLIN: “Deadpool was hard. Even though it was funny, it was harder. That was more of a business transaction, it was more, ‘We need to make this like this,’ which I didn’t feel that way with Avengers.”
“[The Russo Brothers] would constantly go back and reference Scarface or Dog Day Afternoon. Whether or not it was a manipulation, they knew what to throw out there to bring it back into something inspired.”
Josh’s comments here are terribly off-base as the Deadpool sequel underwent specific reshoots because producers/studio felt certain scenes didn’t test well and it’s possible that set had less of a creative environment than with The Russo Brothers.
There have been rumblings of Marvel considering a return for Brolin’s Thanos but that remains only rumor at this point. It’ll be interesting if they do end up moving forward with new Deadpool movies that if they’ll keep Brolin in the Nathan Summers aka Cable role as the only official carry-over from the Fox era is Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson.
Before the merger, the plan at 20th Century was to tackle an X-Force movie from writer/director Drew Goddard before a third solo installment.
Ryan confirmed back in December 2019 that Deadpool 3 was indeed in development at Marvel Studios but we really haven’t a solid update since.
Ever since Marvel Studios got rights to mutants and the X-Men we’ve all be heavily anticipating when that could happen it is starting to feel like we’re getting extremely close to at least an introduction to mutants in the Marvel Cinematic Universe very soon.
Kevin Feige has previously stated that Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff will “truly become the Scarlet Witch” in her solo series WandaVision and the recent trailer has seemingly confirmed certain elements we all assumed would be explored in the show after the cosmic orgainzation S.W.O.R.D. will be introduced which is directly from the pages of the X-Men comics with folks like Dr. Hank McCoy aka Beast among the team.
In the comics, Wanda and her brother Quicksilver are the children of X-Men villain Magneto an origin element that has never been used in the MCU incarnations as the studio had shared use with 20th Century Fox at the time of Avengers: Age of Ultron but weren’t allowed to reference mutants or X-Men. Their powers were explained by HYDRA’s human experiments with Loki’s staff to create metahumans.
Mutants are normally born with a mutant gene that leads to their superpowers.
It’s been assumed for a long time that series would be a version of House of M storyline, where Wanda creates a new reality, this would explain why a very dead Vision can father twins (Speed and Wiccan) and why we don’t see them outside of this suburban neighborhood.
There was seemingly a direct nod to the comic run in the new trailer with a shot of a wine bottle called Maison du Mepris (House of Contempt), which could be seen as House of M nod from certain perspectives.
I’m also thinking the wine bottle is a nod to the 1963 French New Wave film from director Jean-Luc Godard titled Le Mépris aka Contempt.
LE MEPRIS – A philistine in the art film business, Jeremy Prokosch (Jack Palance) is a producer unhappy with the work of his director. Prokosch has hired Fritz Lang (as himself) to direct an adaptation of The Odyssey, but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb at the box office, he brings in a screenwriter (Michel Piccoli) to energize the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife (Brigitte Bardot).
The reference might have a double meaning and indicate a future rift between Wanda/Vision with the “House of Contempt” becoming the one they’re stuck in leading to friction. It’s also worth noting we still don’t have any indication that the series will introduce any mutants and if Monica Rambeau lands her powers in the series we don’t know if she’ll have mutant status.
Then again, Wanda could manifest mutant properties in people across the globe these are comic book stories after all.
There are likely more casting and character surprises on the way.
Kathryn Hahn is rumored to be playing legit witch Agatha Harkness, but Marvel has yet to make this official. If she is indeed playing Harkness as the witch costume would suggest, this could connect the character to large events in the Marvel universe’s past including the sinking of the Kingdom of Atlantis. This event is referred to in the comics as The Great Cataclysm and has direct ties to the Eternals. One version has a Celestial and the Deviants causing it. Another one in the Ultimate Universe suggests that Agatha had something to do with the fate of Atlantis.
I wouldn’t be shocked if S.W.O.R.D. is involved because Mephisto has a part to play with what is going on with Wanda and Vision, a cosmic entity that happens to be Marvel’s version of the devil and could be pulling the strings as he likes to torture various heroes. However, I’m not entirely sure why S.W.O.R.D. is doing there unless they believe that whatever is happen is somehow alien related and it very well could be.
Chloe Zhoa’s Eternals seems like another perfect oppurtunity to give audiences a new version of the mutants via the mutant gene that inserted into humanity via Celesitials, who are a third offshoot of Eternals and Deviants. It is established in the comics Harkness has been on Earth for a long time and was kicking around during The Great Cataclysm, 20,000 years in the past and would have likely had run ins with Eternals and Celesitials given her age/powers in the comics.
Harkness given her age making her either mutant or an eternal herself wouldn’t be shocking. I don’t think it would take much of a leap to connect her to Kit Harington’s Dane Whitman aka Black Knight either given his connection sorcery and witchcraft.
An Atlantis connection via WandaVision or Eternals could help usher in mutants in another way beyond Scarlet Witch’s powers and The Multiverse.
It’s been established that Namor McKenzie aka The Sub-Mariner is the first mutant concerning Marvel’s publication history as he predates the X-Men as one of the very first legacy superheroes with mutant abilities and there was even a run in 2011 titled Namor: The First Mutant. That same year he joined the X-Men during events like Avengers vs X-Men and was recently seen in X-Men Red.
While they made sure to separate his mutant abilities like flying from his Atlantean power-set, there is a chance that Marvel alters that for the MCU version. In the 1960s, Professor Xavier and Magneto tried to recruit him into their various mutant factions and only recently has joined their ranks.
Namor is an extremely important crossover character with connections to the Fantastic Four, The Illuminati, and Agents of Atlas led by Randall Park’s Jimmy Woo with his cousin Namora on the team. He also teamed up with Hulk, Doctor Strange, Valkyrie, and others on the original version of The Defenders.
There had been some teases from director Scott Derrickson on Twitter that Namor could be part of his sequel Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, but that element hinted to may not have survived the development process or the final version that Sam Raimi makes. Then again, Harkness in WandaVision and Eternals both covering Atlantis could help establish Namor beforehand.
Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi is part of the Agents of Atlas which could be another entry point to introduce Atlantis, Namor, and Namora into the MCU. There are already unconfirmed rumors that Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings will include a mutant character.
It’s still pretty damn neat we’re getting the mutants in the Marvel Cinematic Universe even if we have to wait a couple more years before the main X-Men team gets a proper reboot. However, it’s still not cut-and-dry when we’ll start seeing recognizable mutant characters but I’m eager to find out.
Deadline reports that Netflix has secured Halle Berry’s directorial debut Bruised with an eight-figure deal. They state the deal is for under $20 million which is extremely impressive for a festival pick-up and could speak volumes for the quality of the film after Netflix got an early look at it before a work-in-progress is set to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Jackie Justice (Berry) is a disgraced MMA fighter who has failed at the one thing she’s ever been good at – fighting. When 6-year-old Manny, the son she walked out on years ago, returns to her doorstep, Jackie has to conquer her own demons, face one of the fiercest rising stars of the MMA world, and ultimately fight to become the mother the boy deserves. The film is a Rocky-esque story of redemption, of a woman’s grueling MMA training in New Jersey to get into the kind of shape necessary to battle much younger opponents.
Berry is an Oscar-winning actress best known globally for the X-Men films, the James Bond flick Die Another Day, and won her Best Actress Oscar for the drama Monster’s Ball. More recently Halle got a bit of a career boost from her supporting role in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and is now taking a directorial crown as well with Bruised.
It sounds like she has a huge directorial career ahead of her.
Wow, it’s been months since I’ve tackled a box office article, but here we go!
New Mutants had to fight off persistent and incorrect rumors that the film would be simply thrown on the Disney+ streaming service, bypassing a traditional theatrical release. It did magically avoid a streaming dump but hasn’t avoided what looks to be one of the worst PR blunders running up to a major film’s release in recent memory.
First, during the media rounds, writer/director Josh Boone did a piss-poor job defending the white-washing of Roberto aka Sunspot to io9, who is dark-skinned Afro-Brazilian in the comic books. Alice Braga playing another traditionally dark-skinned character with Dr. Cecilia Reyes was another example of the director/studio white-washing these X-Men characters.
New Mutants co-creator Bob McLeod voiced his concern with the white-washing on social media, while also pointing out the film misspelled his name in the credits to “Bob Macleod” and lamented that this was forever cemented in the film.
I was disappointed that Sam isn't tall and gawky, although I do like Charlie Heaton. But mainly I was very disappointed that Roberto isn't short and dark-skinned. Yet another example of Hollywood white-washing. There's just no excuse.
They couldn't even be bothered to check the spelling of my name sometime in the last three years. And that can't be fixed. That will be on the movie forever. I think I'm done with this movie.
Josh Boone and Fox had been mostly concerned about getting Bill Sienkiewicz’s approval for the film having him get involved with the promotion and marketing of the film.
The film also got tagged for Anya Taylor-Joy’s Magik making odd racial remarks towards Native American character Danni Moonstar, played by Blu Hunt.
Take this Vulture report with a grain of salt, but they claim that 20th Century Fox had originally hated the original version of the film so much they had planned on reshooting the entire thing. These expensive reshoot plans were seemingly scrapped after the merger between Disney and 21st Century Fox last year was finalized.
Boone and his co-writer, Knate Lee, were reluctant or outright unwilling to implement such script changes requested by the studio, requiring round after round of rewrites and one intervention-like roundtable read just before filming. Once principal photography was finished, Fox was so displeased with the initial cut the studio discussed throwing the entire movie out to “start over” with a total reshoot.
This could explain why it took so long for the film to get released.
Many outlets flat-out refused to review New Mutants at all citing unsafe environments for employees and that 20th Century Studios didn’t provide reviewers with safe screening options to review their film. This combination didn’t bode well for the film as it’s Rotten Tomatoes critics score currently is at 32% with an audience score of 53%.
The box office returns this weekend aren’t great either. Deadline reports the film’s estimated domestic earnings for the weekend will be around $7 million, which is nothing to get excited about. This makes New Mutants the new reigning champion of the lowest box office opening for an X-Men film surpassing the previous record holder, Dark Phoenix, that earned $32.8 million.
The outlet also points out that only 62% of cinemas are open in the U.S. with capacity restrictions in the range of 25-50%. It begs the question, why are studios even attempting to release expensive films at this point in the pandemic?
For some comparison, Russell Crowe’s low-budget thriller Unhinged made $4 million last weekend and didn’t have anything close to the marketing campaign as New Mutants.
It’s worth no witing that film’s budget is said to be in the realm of $100 million and the estimated $7 million domestic opening weekend is likely going to signal the film might not even be able to cover its budget let alone the marketing costs to turn a profit.
These low box office earnings are a direct result of the pandemic and an industry desperate to get back on its feet, despite being in the middle of a pandemic and going to the theater is still a massive risk to personal health to yourself/loved ones.
Looking at this as “a good start” for the return of movies isn’t a constructive perspective, it’s just making excuses when studios releasing pricey films in this environment are more than likely not going to turn a profit from box office sales alone and seriously puts the theater industry in more peril in the future by not giving studios incentives to keep films in their 2020 release dates.
We’ve already seen Paramount Pictures move the October release date of their G.I. Joe film Snake Eyes to October 22nd, 2021, and I suspect we’ll see more fall films jump to 2021.
I was really rooting for the film but this would certainly cement that Marvel Studios has zero plans to continue this franchise with sequels or connecting it to the great Marvel Cinematic Universe. Letting the Fox era of the X-Men just end might be a good idea as it allows Marvel the creative freedom to do a complete reboot of all these characters eventually.
There has been a small fan campaign online to get New Zealand actor Antony Starr into the mix to play Logan aka Wolverine in the Marvel Studios reboot of the X-Men franchise.
While promoting the second season of Amazon’s The Boys, Antony spoke to Screen Greek where he revealed an interest in playing the berserker mutant if the opportunity knocked after being asked which X-Men character he’d like to play.
STARR: “I would say Wolverine!”
“Big shoes to fill, man. Jackman’s pretty much put his mark on that, hasn’t he? So, I never say never, man – but at the moment, I’m just enjoying what we’re doing here. I mean, to be honest, Wolverine doesn’t wear spandex, which is definitely a negative for me. I do like the feel of tight pants, you know, if they can tighten the jeans up, maybe.”
“We can get some kind of tight leather jeans going on – or maybe a pants suit. I could be tempted – but I’m just happy to be doing what I’m doing, brother, and whatever comes, comes. I appreciate the fans, you know. We’ve got a great bunch of fans and they’re really enthusiastic and passionate, so, I love their ideas and their support. I hope they enjoy Season Two of The Boys and I’m just stoked we get a chance to do Season Three as well.”
The actor currently plays Homelander on the satirical superhero series The Boys, an extremely dark take on the Superman archetype. His co-star and fellow Kiwi, Karl Urban, just happened to play Skurge The Executioner in Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok directed by Taika Watititi.
Season 2 of The Boys drops on September 4th on Amazon Prime Video and they’ve already announced Season 3 is moving forward.
Antony isn’t the role actor being suggested by fans.
There has been relentless effort to have Kingsman actor Taron Egerton considered for the role which the actor has downplayed in various interviews over the last two years.
Taron has a connection to former Wolverine, Hugh Jackman, as they co-starred together in the sports comedy Eddie The Eagle. He called the persistent Wolverine rumors “flattering” while chatting with GQ recently but, yet again, downplayed their validity.
EGERTON: “That anyone thinks I would be good for the part is really flattering. I love Marvel, but it’s just fan stuff. There is no grounding for those rumours.”
Speaking of Hugh, he had voiced his support for Mad Max: Fury Road actor Tom Hardy to take over the role before he eventually was cast as Sony’s Eddie Brock aka Venom.
Last year, X-Men: First Class director Matthew Vaughn revealed to Coming Soon he wanted to cast a younger version of Wolverine with Tom Hardy for a film that would take place between First Class and X-Men: Day of Future Past.
VAUGHN: “That’s one of the reasons I didn’t continue because they didn’t listen to me. My plan was First Class, then the second film was new young Wolverine in the 70s to continue those characters, my version of the X-Men. So you’d really get to know all of them, and my finale was gonna be Days of Future Past. That was gonna be my number three where you bring them all… because what’s bigger than bringing in McKellen and Michael and Stewart and James and bringing them all together?”
“When I finished the Days of Future Past script with it ready to go I looked at it and said, ‘I really think it would be fun to cast Tom Hardy or someone as the young Wolverine and then bring it all together at the end’. Fox read Days of Future Past and went ‘Oh, this is too good! We’re doing it now!’. And I said, ‘Well what do you do next? Trust me you’ve got nowhere to go’. Then they did Apocalypse and it’s like… If you flip that round even it would have been better. Hollywood doesn’t understand pacing. Their executives are driving 100 miles-per-hour looking in the rear-view mirror and not understanding why they crash.”
Hardy is very unlikely to be considered given his current role in the Venom franchise.
Marvel Studios is currently dealing with a backlog of film and television projects after the Coronavirus pandemic paused multiple productions globally, combined with previous hints from Marvel’s Kevin Feige that they’re not in any rush to make a new X-Men film anytime soon.
A Fantastic Four reboot is rumored to be the first former Fox property that they’ll be building a film around. However, neither a director nor a screenwriter has been announced.
In a new interview with Nerdist, writer/director Josh Boone revealed that Warlock was almost going to be in early versions of The New Mutants and they even went as far to look at actors, revealing that comedian Sasha Baron Cohen was eyed for the part.
Josh going on to say that he spoke with Sasha about the role but ultimately 20th Century Fox had him pick between having Demon Bear or Warlock in the film, he ended up picking the former.
He also had plans on using Warlock in the sequel alongside casting Antonio Banderas as Sunspot’s father.
Despite all odds, the film is indeed being released in theaters this month as tickets went on sale today with an expectation it will be released on August 28th.
NEW MUTANTS – Set in an isolated hospital where a group of young mutants is being held for psychiatric monitoring. When strange occurrences begin to take place, both their new mutant abilities and their friendships will be tested as they battle to try and make it out alive.
2020 marks the 20th anniversary of the original X-Men movie and while that film is regarded as one of the best early examples of the comic book genre, it’s third installment X-Men: The Last Stand is considered one of the biggest stinkers in the franchise. While most remember that Rush Hour director Brett Ratner was hired to get the film past the finish line and released on time, Matthew Vaughn had been previously attached to direct and was deep in the casting process before he ultimately jumped ship.
One of the key roles Vaughn filled before the exit was his pal Vinnie Jones in the Cain Marko aka Juggernaut, the pair had previously worked together on Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch.
Jones spoke with Comic Book revealing his massive disappointment throughout the production and how multiple promises were broken concerning his character along with being drastically cut-back from the original version he signed-up for.
Mentioning that he had committed to three films.
JONES: “I loved the role, but hopefully you can put it fucking right here, mate. I basically got mugged off. Matthew Vaughn signed me up, and it was a great role and a great script, and Juggernaut was a great character. I signed up for three of them, and that will show you how serious I was about it. Brett Ratner basically dissolved the character. I was in my fucking trailer half the time. It’s one of the most disappointing jobs I’ve been on as far as, you know, ‘What am I doing here?'”
“It wasn’t the same Juggernaut as I signed on for. They took his storyline away, they’d taken his character away, his dialogue. I had two big meetings with Brett about it, and he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s coming. They’re writing stuff for you as we speak’ and it never fucking happened. Disappointment wise, that was probably one of the biggest. What’s upsetting is some of the fans blame me! It was fucking nothing to do with me! That role, I didn’t sign up for. The Juggernaut you saw was not the Juggernaut I signed on for with Matthew Vaughn, I’ll tell you that now. It upset me.”
Vinnie and Matthew would eventually reunite for Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
Juggernaut would get a second shot on the big screen in Deadpool 2 as a CGI character. It remains to be seen if we’ll see the hulking character return in the Marvel Cinematic Universe given his crassness in the Deadpool universe. The characters are now at Marvel Studios/Disney allowing them to get a hard-reboot outside of Ryan Reynolds’ Wade Wilson.
Vaughn would also circle back to X-Men eventually with X-Men: First Class giving 20th Century Fox the blueprint for their string of prequel films. He’s voiced a desire to get involved with Marvel’s Fantastic Four reboot but nothing has been made official as he’s busy overseeing the Kingsman franchise for 20th Century Studios.
Russo Brothers Tease ‘Secret Wars’ Could Be Bigger Than ‘The Infinity Saga’
The Bro Bible was able to speak with The Russo Brothers about what could coax them to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, such as with another massive event like Secret Wars. Something they have teased in the past they would be interested in tackling while on the press tour for Avengers: Endgame.
JOE RUSSO: “You know, I read that when I was 10 or 11, and it was the scale of getting all of the heroes together. It was one of the first major books to do that — that was really event-storytelling to me at its finest. And what happens when you put all of those personalities together. I also like the idea of villains having to team up with heroes. Anth and I like complicated relationships between heroes and villains, we like villains who believe they’re heroes in their own stories, so it’s all sort of built into this notion of Secret Wars. To execute something on the scale of Infinity War was directly related to the dream of Secret Wars, which is even larger in scale.”
ANTHONY RUSSO: “It would be the biggest movie you could possibly imagine, so that’s what really excites us about the story — the ambition of it is even bigger than the ambition of the Infinity Saga.”
It has yet to be made official that the Russo Brothers are even coming back and Secret Wars isn’t one of the announced projects in development, so it’s hard to say if the pair will get their chance to make it anytime soon. Marvel is already busy trying to finish Phase 4 projects and getting other things ready like their Blade, X-Men, and Fantastic Four reboots.
‘Logan’ Actress Dafne Keen Open To Reprising X-23 In The MCU
When asked by Comic Book if Dafne Keen would like to reprise the role of Laura aka X-23 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Logan actress replied “definitely”.
At one point, James Mangold had been mulling over developing a solo spinoff film focusing on Dafne’s Laura before 20th Century Fox folded into Disney with the merger.
I think the likelihood of Keen returning is extremely slim just like Famke Janssen reprising the Jean Grey role in the MCU as everything points towards Marvel giving the main franchise a hard-reboot. However, there is a shot that Keen could reprise the X-23 role in something more mature like Deadpool 3 or X-Force.
Keen is currently 15 and would be around 19-20 when Marvel is expected to relaunch their version of the X-Men.
Tom Holland Suggests ‘Spider-Man 3’ Could Wrap Filming In February 2021
Actor Tom Holland has begun filming Uncharted in Germany and a quote was making the rounds from a family interview on Patreon (spotted by MCU Direct) where he hoped to have completed production on Spider-Man 3 by February 2021.
However, he may have either misspoke or is potentially going by outdated studio information concerning the film’s production schedule. Considering that Spider-Man 3 is expected to shoot in places like Atlanta, New York City, and Los Angeles it is increasingly unlikely that will happen anytime soon given the state of COVID-19 in the United States alongside Uncharted‘s shoot just starting. that they’ll be able to begin in the fall.
Marvel Studios Still Seeking An Actress To Play ‘Hawkeye’s Kate Bishop Or Will They Land On Hailee Steinfeld?
After recent news from the Hollywood Reporter that Marvel Studios has hired three directors for their upcoming Hawkeye series starring Jeremy Renner, there still seems to be a search to find an actress to play Barton’s protege Kate Bishop.
Oscar-nominee Hailee Steinfeld (Bumblebee, Edge of Seventeen, True Grit) had been previously linked for talks by Variety and this is what The Hollywood Reporter had to say recently in their report about Hailee’s involvement with the Disney+ series.
One of the arcs of the series is Barton’s mentoring of a new generation of archer, Kate Bishop. Hailee Steinfeld was previously in negotiations for the part but it is unclear if her deal has closed. Marvel had no comment.
If Hailee ultimately doesn’t land the role it could be due to her contract with Apple TV+ for the drama series Dickinson.
Comic Book Artist Rob Liefeld Hopeful For A ‘Cable’ Movie
While speaking with Collider, comic book artist Rob Liefeld and co-creator of X-Men characters such as Deadpool and Cable, revealed he’s still very much interested in seeing a Cable movie coming together in the future.
LIEFELD: “Cable should have his own movie series. He can exist independent of Deadpool in a heartbeat. He has for years. If Deadpool’s been in like 330 comics, Cable’s been in about 520. Yes, I’ve counted…. In between Deadpool 2 wrapping and opening, I got really close with Josh. And he was very excited about exploring Cable in the subsequent sequels. The X-Force standalone movie that was, in his own words, Cable-centric.”
Rob has been extremely vocal over the years about Nathan Summers aka Cable being able to handle his own film franchise.
While Marvel Studios is seemingly set to have Ryan Reynolds carry-overs from the Fox films as Wade Wilson aka Deadpool, it remains to be seen if Josh Brolin will reprise the Cable role in future films. Ryan had confirmed back in December that Deadpool 3 is in actively development at Marvel Studios after moving from 20th Century after the merger.
Tom Holland Teases That ‘Uncharted’ Will Begin Shooting Soon In Germany
Fans have been guessing about what Sony Pictures would do about Uncharted and Spider-Man 3 as their productions would now conflict with each other. The obvious thing was that Uncharted would begin shooting first because it was ready to begin in Germany back in March but filming was paused to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Some fans had made giant leaps with theories that Sony would just kill/delay Uncharted (after multiple production woes and hiccups over the years) and push forward with Spider-Man 3 instead. As we’ve been saying for months Uncharted is the priority at the moment and this has been cemented by Tom Holland.
Recent Instagram posts from Tom Holland suggest he’s about to begin shooting Uncharted in Germany very soon after taking a COVID-19 test, getting his hair done to play Nathan Drake and showing off how ripped he got to work with his Uncharted co-star Mark Wahlberg.
This would give the impression that he’ll be too busy over the next couple of months for Spider-Man 3 to begin production in September as previously rumored.
In normal times, Uncharted might have been able to complete it’s production within a range of 3-4 months, however, with the new COVID-19 precautions this would likely extend the filming a couple of months. That’s if people don’t get sick and they have to pause for a couple of weeks.
I think it’s extremely unlikely that Spider-Man 3 either is ready to shoot this September in Atlanta and Sony/Marvel will simply push that production into 2021 then bumping that November 5th, 2021 release to sometime in 2022.
‘Doctor Strange 2’ Still Expected To Shoot Primarily At Longcross Studios
Speaking of Phase Four films that have seen their productions delayed in 2020, I have an update as it looks like Marvel still plans to film Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness at Longcross Studios in Surrey, England. A major filming location I had previously confirmed over at HN Entertainment.
Not anything crazy but, interestingly, they’ve been sticking to that stage space instead of considering other places. Longcross is the same stage facility where the original film shot and director Sam Raimi shot his Wizard of Oz prequel for Disney titled Oz, The Great & Powerful.
It’s a little unclear when they’ll begin shooting since it’s unknown how much set construction or prep has been taking place since the United Kingdom has been in lockdown. We also won’t know if they’ll be able to meet their 2021 release date until Marvel makes it known when they’ll be able to start filming.
I had also reported that they were planning on filming the sequel in New York City and Norway, but it remains to be seen if they’ll be doing any international filming anytime soon.
We shouldn’t be surprised if Doctor Strange 2 like Spider-Man 3 is delayed into 2021. However, Spider-Man 3 is a slightly different case as their lead is shooting another large studio film first.
Then again, we have little idea how much set construction and prep has been underway on either of the MCU sequels during the pandemic.
‘Moonlight’s Janelle Monae Wants To Play Storm In ‘Black Panther 2’
We’ve been all been excited to see who will ultimately play the rebooted version of the X-Men in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and yet another actress has thrown their hand in the ring to play aka Storm.
Moonlight actress and singer Janelle Monae spoke to Empire recently and revealed she’d very much like to play Ororo Munroe aka Storm in the Black Panther sequel. Bringing it up to cast members when they were hanging out in Atlanta.
MONAE: “I definitely have thrown it out there. One of my dreams has always been to play Storm. I don’t know if she comes in Black Panther, but it would be a dream to have her in it. I don’t know where they are with that. A lot of women have played Storm and they’ve done an exceptional job, and I would love to be in that line of artists and get to do Storm justice.”
T’Challa and Ororo in the comics do become romantically involved leading to marriage and it would be an organic way to introduce her into the MCU given that her mother N’Dare (a tribal princess) is from Kenya. Ororo potentially being fellow royalty wouldn’t be a stretch.
We still don’t know where Black Panther 2 is in the development stage other than Ryan Coogler is writing the script. While there have been rumblings of Spider-Man‘s Kraven The Hunter, Namor, and Fantastic Four‘s Doctor Doom appearing in the film nothing has been announced or confirmed.
‘The Mandalorian’s Giancarlo Esposito Says He’s Keen For Marvel Studios Role Next
Janelle isn’t the only actor seemingly gunning for a Marvel role. Veteran film and television actor Giancarlo Esposito (Do The Right Thing, The Mandalorian) briefly mentioned to Entertainment Tonight that he’d like to work with Marvel Studios at some point.
ESPOSITO: “Well there’s been all these rumors about being with Marvel, I want to work with those guys. I put it out there all the time. I haven’t created any of those rumors, but I worked years ago with Louis D’Esposito, who is one of the guys at Marvel, back when he was doing Cotton Club and I was doing Cotton Club, he was the [1st assistant director].”
“What they do is fantastic, and I want to do something enduring with them. I think the Marvel world would be, likely, the next step for me.”
This comes after a year ago there were rumblings the Breaking Bad actor was wanted for a role, however, that was neither announced nor confirmed.
Where he could land role-wise is unknown despite the fan suggestions for Norman Osborn and Magneto. I personally think he’d be excellent as a hero like Norrin Radd aka Silver Surfer since Adam McKay was trying to get a feature film together over at Marvel last year.
Charlize Theron Admits She Has Never Been In Talks With Marvel For Roles
While speaking with Variety, Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron (Atomic Blonde, Mad Max: Fury Road) has revealed that despite rumors over the years she has ultimately never spoken with Marvel Studios about various roles.
THERON: “I swear to God. I’ve never gotten anything. No, I’m not lying to you. But that’s okay. You know what? I am paving my own way. I’m creating my own opportunities. So it’s alright.”
This doesn’t mean Charlize will never meet with Marvel in the future but it sounds like it hasn’t happened up to this point.
Russo Brothers Support Anthony Mackie’s Comments On Lack of Diversity Behind The Scenes At Marvel Studios
After Anthony Mackie pointed out not too long ago that the people behind the scenes of Marvel Studios movies are mostly white and not as diverse as it could be. He is getting some support from directors The Russo Brothers while asked about it by Movie Maker.
JOE RUSSO: “I think we can always all do better at diversity, constantly in this business, and in every facet of every industry — so he’s not wrong at all. I think that we all have to work harder to keep endorsing and supporting diversity on both sides of the camera.”
Marvel Studios Artist Charlie Wen Shares Unofficial ‘Shang-Chi’ Artwork
A brief post made by Marvel Studios concept artist Charlie Wen on his Instagram shows us some interesting but unofficial artwork featuring Simu Liu as Shang-Chi.
The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Lana Condor (X-Men: Apocalypse, Alita: Battle Angel) has landed a lead role in Moonshot, a new romantic comedy feature film set on Mars. The HBO Max project will be produced by Greg Berlanti, who is also involved with the live-action Green Lantern series for the streaming service and is about to make his feature directing debut on the third incarnation of Little Shop of Horrors.
Here is a synopsis for the sci-fi HBO Max movie.
Moonshot is set in a future where Mars is terraformed and colonized by the best humanity has to offer. Two very different college students wind up joining forces and sneak onboard a space shuttle to the red planet in order to be united with their significant others.
Chris Winterbauer will be directing from a script penned by Max Taxe.
Condor, who plays Sophie in the new film, is no stranger to either the science fiction or romantic comedy genre, with the latter she has led the successful Netflix franchise To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before co-starring with Noah Centineo.
It’ll be interesting to see a different version of Mars while we’ve mostly seen takes in previous movies that pitted characters against a barren hostile planet devoid of oxygen.
When they plan to begin production remains to be seen.
THE RONIN 