…Moving on to the Marvel Cinematic Universe now and this week has brought confirmation that the two Avengers: Infinity War movies are getting new titles, with Marvel announcing that the first will be going by Avengers: Infinity War, and the second is currently being referred to as Untitled Avengers (until they can think of something else, obviously). The news isn’t too surprising given that the Russo brothers had previously said they were two very different movies, but of course it does raise several questions – not least, will the entire Thanos storyline be wrapped up in a single movie? It’s probably going to be a while before we get any answers…
…Kevin Feige has been discussing Marvel’s “five year plan”, and revealed that they have a pretty firm idea of where the MCU is heading post-Phase Three: “We always look at a horizon line that’s usually about five years off. Sometimes, even that is sort of a pipe dream, sometimes it even goes beyond that. That’s usually what we’re looking at. Right now, we know through and have announced through 2019. We have ideas and pretty firm of where we’re going in 2020. 2021, which still sounds like the crazy, far fetched future to me, but 2021 is still in flux through 2025.” Be sure to read the rest of Feig’s comments here…
…During Comic-Con, Marvel decided to give us the answer to the mystery about Star-Lord’s parentage, revealing that Kurt Russell’s Ego, the Living Planet is actually Peter Quill’s father. The reveal was certainly a surprise, and it seems that some fans have expressed their anger towards director James Gunn for unveiling the big Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 “spoiler”, prompting the filmmaker to take to Facebook to defend his case and explain why it isn’t actually a spoiler after all; meanwhile, the director also shared an image of the Ravagers, who are said to play an important – and pretty major – role in the sequel…
…Marvel also screened a “mockumentary” for Thor: Ragnarok at Comic-Con, which featured Chris Hemsworth’s God of Thunder living in New Zealand with a roommate, while continuing his investigation into Thanos and the Infinity Stones. So far, the footage hasn’t been released (and will presumably be kept back as a Comic-Con exclusive… until it appears on the Blu-ray), but director Taika Waititi has given us a glimpse by posting an image of Thor’s research on ‘The Purple Man in the Floating Chair’; take a look here…
…Some new set photos from Spider-Man: Homecoming have landed online this week giving us another look at Tom Holland’s web-slinger [see here], while Kevin Feige has suggested that the Spider-Man movies could follow a similar pattern to the Harry Potter franchise: “[Homecoming] is sophomore year, is the next one junior year? Is the next one senior year? Is there a summer break between each of those? I don’t know what, but it was sort of how do we do a journey for Peter not dissimilar for what the students of Hogwarts would go through each of their years, which was one of the early ideas we had for the movies. The first step was reintroduce a new Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Civil War and have people leave the theater saying, ‘I love that Spider-Man. I wanna see more of him’. I think that’s happened. The next step is making a great Spider-Man: Homecoming and a great film that showcases Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and makes everybody fall in love with him all over again…”
…It looks like we can add another name of the cast list for Marvel’s Doctor Strange, with the Comic-Con poster revealing that Benjamin Bratt has a role in the November release…
…Illustrator Andy Park released the above concept art from Captain America: Civil War showing Hawkeye and Ant-Man recreating the classic Avengers #223 comic book cover, while Marvel also gave us a sneak peek at the Blu-ray special features by debuting a new featurette which focusses on Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther…
…Having made a completely clean break from Marvel following Avengers: Age of Ultron, Joss Whedon has suggested this week that the lure of a Black Widow movie could tempt him back to the MCU: “I think that character really is very interesting and very earthbound, so it’s the kind of action that I got to do less of with somebody like Thor or The Vision. When you get into your Superman territory it’s harder to maintain the gritty action that the Russo brothers do so brilliantly and she’s got that kind of thing and [you can] really do a spy thriller. Like really do a good, paranoid, ‘John le Carré on crack’ sort of thing. That would be really fun. Scarlett Johansson is just delightful. She works really hard but she just spends most of her time cracking me up, so it would be a fun shoot…”
…Shifting to the small screen and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has secured a new recurring cast member for its fourth season in Lilli Birdsell (Geek Charming), who has signed on to portray Lucy, “a beautiful woman with a haunting quality. She has a very violent streak in her inner self, because of things that have happened.” Meanwhile, Jeph Loeb and S.H.I.E.L.D. executive producers Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon have been discussing the upcoming debut of Ghost Rider, and why they opted for Robbie Reyes as opposed to Johnny Blaze or Danny Ketch; you can read their comments here…
…Agent Carter fans hoping that Netflix might save the Hayley Atwell-headlined series will be disappointed by comments from Ted Sarandos, chief content office of the streaming service: “We’re looking for truly original brands to own and in that Marvel space we already have [original comic book shows] – so that was mostly why [we passed]. They also have some output deal complexities. So when you pick it up, being able to pick it up globally is difficult even after it’s canceled. Some of those output partners still had it on the air, so they would argue its covered by their output [deals]. Unfortunately, it was a business decision more than a creative one…”
…Netflix do of course have plenty of Marvel shows on their slate, and this week has brought us the first three episode titles from September’s Luke Cage [see here], a report that Daredevil season two, Jessica Jones season two and The Punisher will air in 2018 after The Defenders [see here], and rumours that Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle could appear alongside the rest of the Netflix heroes in The Defenders team-up miniseries [see here]…
…And finally, it looks like we’re getting a “reboot-sequel” to Joe Johnston’s 1991 cult classic The Rocketeer, with news this week that Walt Disney Studios has hired screenwriters Max Winkler and Matt Spicer to pen a script for The Rocketeers. The new film will be headlined by a black female character, and is “set six years after the original Rocketeer and after Cliff Secord has vanished while fighting the Nazis, an unlikely new hero emerges: a young African-American female pilot, who takes up the mantle of Rocketeer in an attempt to stop an ambitious and corrupt rocket scientist from stealing jet-pack technology in what could prove to be a turning point in the Cold War…”
Gary Collinson is a writer and lecturer from the North East of England. He is the editor-in-chief of FlickeringMyth.com and the author of Holy Franchise, Batman! Bringing the Caped Crusader to the Screen.
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