NS: Disney Investor Day - MCU Phase 5 and stuff

[icon_uk]

Yesterday was Disney Investor Day and so a LOT of media news came out



Ms Marvel

Watch on YouTube

What If..?

Watch on YouTube

Peggy Carter as a supersoldier we knew about, but T'Challa's new role is an interesting one.


WandaVision

Watch on YouTube

The Falcon and Winter Soldier

Watch on YouTube

Loki

Watch on YouTube

Further info released about other movies/series cribbed, because I'm lazy, from funnypages

DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS

America Chavez confirmed for DSMOM played by Xochitl Gomez

Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Rachel McAdams to return in their respective roles

The movie will connect to Spider-Man 3

CAPTAIN MARVEL 2

Brie Larson returns as Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel 2, directed by Nia DaCosta. Joining the cast are recently announced Ms. Marvel, Iman Vellani, and Monica Rambeau. Nov. 11, 2022

SECRET INVASION

Samuel L Jackson is back as Nick Fury and Ben Mendelsohn from Captain Marvel returns as the Skrull Talos in MarvelStudios’ Original Series Secret Invasion. Coming to DisneyPlus

IRONHEART

Coming soon to DisneyPlus, Dominique Thorne is genius inventor Riri Williams in Ironheart, an Original Series about the creator of the most advanced suit of armor since Iron Man

HAWKEYE

Original Avenger Jeremy Renner returns to star as Hawkeye, teaming up with well-known archer from Marvel comics, Kate Bishop played by the amazing Hailee Steinfeld

Additional cast include Vera Farmiga, Fra Free and newcomer Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez with episodes directed by Rhys Thomas and directing duo Bert and Bertie.

ARMOR WARS

Don Cheadle returns as James Rhodes aka War Machine in Armor Wars, an Original Series coming to DisneyPlus. A classic Marvel story about Tony Stark’s worst fear coming true: what happens when his tech falls into the wrong hands?

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY HOLIDAY SPECIAL

The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. James Gunn is back to write and direct. The Original Special is coming to DisneyPlus in 2022, will film alongside GOTG3

I AM GROOT

Everyone’s favorite little tree, Baby Groot, will star in a series of shorts on Disney+ featuring several new and unusual characters. I Am Groot, an Original Series from Marvel Studios, is coming to DisneyPlus

THOR LOVE AND THUNDER

Christian Bale will join the cast of Thor: Love and Thunder as the villain Gorr the God Butcher. In theaters May 6, 2022

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA

Peyton Reed is back to direct the third Ant-Man film, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, and Michelle Pfeiffer all return. Cassie Lang has been recast as Kathryn Newton and Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror

FANTASTIC FOUR

Jon Watts (director of Spider-Man Homecoming and Far From Home) will direct the new feature film for Marvel’s First Family, Fantastic Four

BLACK PANTHER II

BLACK PANTHER II - July 8, 2022. T'Challa will not be recast. Story to continue with focus on the other characters from the first film

SHE-HULK

She-Hulk arrives to the MCU! Tatiana Maslany will portray Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk and Tim Roth returns as the Abomination and Hulk himself, Mark Ruffalo, will appear in the series. Directed by Kat Coiro and Anu Valia

Feige says “Since Jennifer Walters is a lawyer who specializes specifically in superhero oriented legal cases, you never know what Marvel characters are going to pop up episode to episode” (Daredevil cameo?)

BLACK WIDOW

Emphasized a theatrical release on May 7th, 2021

Comments

[donnblake]

Loki is DB Cooper?

[dcbanacek]

Does explain why he was never found aside from the bills Heimdal missed with the Bifrost.

[themajesticmoose]

I can't believe Loki produced, directed and starred in The Room

[dan_ingram]

I was kinda expected it, but I'm disappointed they aren't recasting T'Challa. Boseman was amazing, and his death was tragic, but I don't feel like T'Challa's story is done

[icon_uk]

It would be a brave actor to step into Boseman's role.

[dan_ingram]

No doubt about that, but it still could be, should be done, IMO

[mindsweeper]

I agree not to recast for BP2 as I think it's too soon and Wakanda has a lot of characters and stories to carry the film.

However, I hope they do recast after that to continue T'Challa's story. The character is too important and iconic not to keep prominent in film.

[icon_uk]

It'd be a but tricky to sideline him for a whole movie named after the character on only the second entry though, without going into the "Oh, you just missed him he was here a moment ago and that's him flying away in a Quinjet for... some reasons or other"

[themajesticmoose]

I think they feel it would be in poor taste to re-cast him so soon after his passing and I agree with that personally

[jlbarnett]

honestly I think they needed to recast all the major roles. James Bond it.

I had little interest in Phase 3 of the MCU because I could tell by the end of Phase 2 that it was going to feature a lot of tear down to get the heroes to a low point for the big finale. But as a comics fans the things they changed up to write out some characters killed it for me for good

[scorntx]

There's just no way to win with that one, though.

(I can get why, but it also seems unfair to say that no-one anywhere could replace Boseman.
But anyone who did would be screwed to be endlessly compared to him. Damned if y' do...)

[lizard_of_aus]

These shows were, naturally, put in production long before his passing.

[icon_uk]

But Marvel had to be aware of his medical condition since he was diagnosed in 2016, and insurance companies alone would have insisted on full disclosure.

[locuatico]

Has been clarified when Disney learnt of Boseman's condition?
Some reports suggest they learned about it some time after Black Panther, which is the reason why there were rumours about Shuri taking over. but those might have been corrected since.

I do feel some of these projects were given the greenlight during the tumultous timeline between the diagnosis and Disney's execs learning about it.

[chalicother]

But Marvel had to be aware of his medical condition since he was diagnosed in 2016, and insurance companies alone would have insisted on full disclosure.

I don't know. The way it was put about...it seems nobody really knew. I don't think they knew.

[scorntx]

Interested about the Armor Wars announcement. Nice for War Machine to finally, finally get a day in the limelight.
(I mean, y'know, a movie would've been great but...)

Less interested in the idea of adapting Secret Invasion.
But hey, more Nick Fury.

Not so keen on the idea of adapting Vote Loki either.
...
... look, maybe I just want an adaptation of Agent of Asgard. Is that really so wrong?

Kind of intrigued by She-Hulk having Ruffalo in it.
(It'd be nice for MCU Banner to get some actual backstory, jus' saying.)


Still living in mortal terror of hearing / seeing "and introducing Emma Thompson as Agatha Harkness" somewhere.

[thanekos]

Christian Bale will join the cast of Thor: Love and Thunder as the villain Gorr the God Butcher.

Fair, but also " Why not Dario Agger? "

(He's corporate evil, so you get the relevancy, and we'd all be like " Oh my god, Patrick Bateman's a minotaur. ")

[locuatico]

If portman remains Thor by the end, I could see wanting to save Agger for a sequel.
Gorr feels more like the "we need Thor Back!" villain.

[themajesticmoose]

If they don't find some way to get Hip to be Square in the soundtrack to this film then what even are they doing

[lordultimus]

This is something of a longshot, but I wonder if there's any chance, however small, that Black Panther could return in animated form if What If is well received. People are usually more forgiving of a "recast" when that happens for whatever reason.

[locuatico]

Sometimes some characters are retired when the VA dies. Simpsons kinda has this policy.

If I were to guess why it is often more permissable to replace the voice, though (Aside from some people arguing VA is not "real" acting) Animation is far more of a joint project than Live Action. the voice is only one part of bringing the character to life, while animators do the rest.

Likewise, I think most people do understand VA is a different craft than acting or that an animated show is a different project. so in their eyes an animated BP project would probably be separated enough from Boseman's performance that is acceptable.

[icon_uk]

I think in the case of the Simpson's that's as much down to the good fortune of it being secondary characters whose VA's have died across a surprisingly long period of time.

[themajesticmoose]

Maybe with them introducing the idea of a multiverse in Doc Strange they could introduce a new T'challa that way by saying he's from another earth?

[shakalooloo]

Fantastic Four! Yes!

[themajesticmoose]

Reed Richards is elastic!

Sue can fade from sight!

Johnny is the Human Torch

THE THING JUST LOVES TO FIGHT

[iamrman]

I wasn't too fussed about What If...? but then I saw the footage of Peggy Carter as Captain America. It gave me... feelings.

[tripodeca113]

I see Disney isn't going to learn moderation, and is going to milk this cash-cow, until it's udders start to bleed.

I'll believe the other projects when I see a trailer. Remember the Inhumans film? Benioff and Weiss' Star Wars film?

I've heard quite a few negative things about Scarlet Witch and Visions relationship in the film, so it seems odd to make a show based around it. Or are they assuming they were more popular, than they actually were?

[silverhammerman]

It's just... a lot of content. I've made it pretty clear that I'm kind of over the MCU as a whole, but I'm not yet so stuck up that I'm completely disinterested. It's just a lot. It's a glut of content that is going to really, really test whether the long predicted superhero fatigue will ever happen in a meaningful way. I don't really think it will, since Disney has enough cultural momentum and power that it can cram whatever it wants into the eyeballs of viewers until they, Stockholm-like, begin to care.

One thing that does strike me about all of these is how much they're drawing on the comics of five to eight years ago for characters and concepts: Gorr, America Chavez, the Vote Loki iconography, Ironheart, the two Hawkeyes. It's cool that they're drawing on recent and inclusive stuff, but it does little to assuage the feeling that the comics are seen as a testing bed for the movies, though admittedly it's a subjective distinction between that and them being source material. It also really smacks of them bringing in a new generation of young, Mouseketeer-style young stars who have been carefully groomed and vetted by Disney, to replace the expensive and unmanageable older stalwarts.

Some more specific thoughts about individual announcements:
I'm embarassed how long it took me to realize that "WandaVision" is a pun on "SpectraVision", and it's not just an artless mashing together of the main character's names, but is both a reference to TV, and probably Wanda's perception of the world.
Doctor Strange 2 and its potential links with Spider-Man 3 don't excite me. Not only am I something of a salty hater towards the MCU Spidey movies, but linking movies even more closely than the now incredibly continuity-heavy MCU already does strikes me as inaccessible and unpleasant.
Secret Invasion sounds... interesting, given that Captain Marvel explicitly set the Skrulls up as marginalized refugees and doing a straight take on the comic book Secret Invasion would therefore be problematic to say the least.
It'll be cool to see Don Cheadles' Rhodey take centre-stage in Armor Wars, but hopefully this is the last we see of Tony Stark's incredibly long shadow in the MCU.
Fantastic Four from Jon Watts, whose approach to Spider-Man I've really disliked, doesn't have me excited. That said, I just hope they don't screw up too royally and 1) let Doctor Doom be as cool as he can be, and 2) please don't racebend The Thing and forget that he's Jewish in the process.
Black Panther 2 is in maybe the most difficult spot, culturally, that a comic book movie has ever been in, and I really don't envy anyone involved. I don't think it would be at all inappropriate to delay the movie longer than 2022 and to let everyone involved heal. For my money I think that if they're doing a legacy approach to the character something with Casper Cole would be interesting and play with the symbolism of the character to real world communities, and allow them to tastefully move away from Boseman's shadow. If they force Letita Wright to throw on her dead friend and colleague's costume it might seem kind of fucked up on multiple levels.

[lordultimus]

"I don't really think it will, since Disney has enough cultural momentum and power that it can cram whatever it wants into the eyeballs of viewers until they, Stockholm-like, begin to care."

You're entitled to feel about this however you want, of course, and you're free to ignore all of these, but I can't help this feels a little disingenuous? If this was true, the Star Wars sequels would not have been as controversial as they were, not to mention the various times Disney has tried to force a franchise only for it to fail (John Carter, anyone?).

[silverhammerman]

Ha, I am definitely being a little disingenuous for the sake of humour.

That said, I am somewhat resigned and that's why I mentioned momentum: With regards to Star Wars, even though it does seem that the sequel trilogy has been largely agreed on as Not Very Good, that hasn't slowed Disney down. They're pushing out all of this content, and they'll polish whatever scraps of ideas and characterization they (or rather, Dave Filoni, working feverishly into the night and drawing elaborate diagrams around his OCs) might salvage from the blighted earth of the sequels, and people are going to watch because of lingering affection or because they just grew up with the sequels and in 10 years people are going to say the sequels were "good, actually" just like they do the prequels.

And sure no one cared when they tried to sell John Carter, but when they rolled out Guardians of the Galaxy (which was a C-list comic that mainstream audiences had never heard of) people bought into it because it was part of the MCU and they already cared about the MCU. The grand experiment, and I would expect the goal, of much of the latter day MCU stuff is going to be seeing if they can get people to care about Ms. Marvel or She-Hulk or Moon Knight via that same process. And if that fails, hey, they just got the X-Men back and I'm sure we're all gagging to see Wolverine nod meaningfully at, I dunno, Black Widow.

This slate, and more broadly, the emergence of Disney+ in its full form is going to test that. Maybe people will love this stuff, maybe they'll be sick of it, especially with Endgame and the forced hiatus of the past year serving as off ramps.

[super_fly]

The prospect of them having Letitia Wright doing anything might be becoming vanishingly small these days.

[silverhammerman]

Hey, they're giving an Ahsoka show to Rosario Dawson even after she was accused of beating up a trans person, and prominent transphobe Gina Carano's Cara Dune is probably going to keep showing up on The Mandalorian and maybe even one of those spinoffs, so Wright getting in hot water for sharing some stupid anti-vaccination posts might not be the end of the road. Certainly possible though.

[stubbleupdate]

It all depends on who complains about it.

Gunn was canned because people on the right complained about his jokes.

I don't see the same groups rushing to condemn Carano, Dawson and Wright.

If anything, action taken against them by Disney will disingenuously be heralded as racist by the culture war right, for the same reason that Brie Larson's Captain Marvel was (taking a film away from a black character)