Murphy's Multiverse

Author: Charles Murphy

  • Murphy’s Team-Up Volume 26: Our SDCC Favorites

    Murphy’s Team-Up Volume 26: Our SDCC Favorites

    Anthony Canton III

    As far as Comic Con’s announcements go, the easiest thing to say would be Avengers: Secret Wars. The truth is Kevin Feige’s plan on display for us to see is the kicker. This universe is expanding and we’ve all been wondering how it will continue to do so. As a fan, it was gratifying to see all of the projects lined up. There’s definitely fun in trying to figure out where the MCU is going on its own but to see it laid out is awesome.

    It gives us all something to look forward to. If you want your street heroes and miss Daredevil…you got him back. Did you want to see how Sam Wilson’s journey will continue? We now have a title and a date. From team-ups to solo projects what we got was a reminder that the talk about the MCU was silly. Going forward, the expectation will be to see how tv gets better structurally. Otherwise, the road to what’s coming is here and we can actually enjoy the now of the MCU again. See you soon Kang.

    Torbjorn Frazier

    After having the pleasure to attend this year’s San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) festivities, it remains an arduous task to find just one top revelation from the weekend. While part of me wants to think outside of the box (I want to give special mention to Star Trek’s Hall H panel and them laying out a strong framework for their future on Paramount Plus), I can’t help but acknowledge that Marvel Studios were the runaway winners of the weekend.

    With that in mind, I will focus on the triad of major revelations that were exclusive to the audience at Hall H. Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, Secret Invasion, and Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 all showcased first-look trailers for their respective projects. And the three Marvel Studios projects all left extremely strong first impressions that should all have fans excited for the start of 2023. Quantumania’s trailer highlighted how this film will certainly be the highest stakes of the Ant-Man franchise through the introduction of a Jonathan Majors Kang the Conqueror variant, but still keeping the comedic tone from the original core ensemble and the addition of Bill Murray. Meanwhile, Secret Invasion seemingly will provide the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) with its first paranoia thriller since Captain America: The Winter Soldier (and I’d argue the series will lean much more into the genre than the film if the trailer is any indication). And to top it off, Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3’s trailer was the largest revelation from the panel. James Gunn very much has established this film will mark the conclusion of his run on the Guardians;   franchise, and he is pulling all the stops to make this ending as epic as possible in terms of both plot and cinematic scope. There are many distinct talking points coming away from it, but the largest certainly is the highly emotional arc in store for Rocket Raccoon and his origins at the hands of the High Evolutionary.

    If there’s ultimately a singular major revelation from SDCC, it’s that fans could be in store for a highly exciting beginning to MCU’s Phase Five in 2023.

    Dalbin Osorio

    My favorite reveal, hands down, was the announcement of the next Avengers films: Secret Wars and Kang Dynasty. My guy AC called out the fickle fans who sit online all day consistently complaining about Marvel and the “no direction” post-Endgame, but anyone paying a modicum of attention to Loki could tell a) who the big bad of this saga was and b) what they were building towards. You don’t populate the world with heroes and then just leave them as such, and Kevin Feige pulling the curtain back on the conclusion of the now-aptly named Multiverse Saga confirmed what we knew. The big bad is Kang, and we are headed towards the only story that can both top Endgame and simultaneously reset the universe to a point where it makes sense that mutants other than Kamala Khan exist and that the Avengers do have to pay for their machinations of time. You see, just because He Who Remains’ TVA was ok with them messing with time doesn’t mean that all the other Kang variants and their TVAs (should they have them) will be. Kang’s line to Ant-Man (you’re an Avenger? Have I killed you before) is the first salvo in the war to come ahead. A secret war, if you will, and seeing that confirmed was pretty damn exciting.

    MTF III

    daredevil disney plus

    My favorite reveal from Marvel’s SDCC panel was the official announcement of Daredevil: Born Again. Although Charlie Cox’s return to the role in the MCU was no secret (shoutout to #SavedDaredevil), the extent of Daredevil’s role in future Marvel projects was still held close to the vest. And even after confirmation of appearances in Echo and She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, the official announcement of his Disney Plus series was universally well-received. But no one could have predicted that the series would get 18(!) episodes to tell its story.

    I recently advocated for longer seasons of the Marvel Disney Plus series, because the six-episode season structure wasn’t adequately serving them, so tripling that output assuages all of those concerns. Daredevil: Born Again is 5 episodes longer than what fans were used to getting from Netflix, which should provide its narrative with more than enough time to breathe so that the show can service multiple character subplots, conclude several arcs, and overall, do the necessary world-building to truly establish the MCU’s Street Level.

    Will we see any of the former Defenders pop up? Will we get a split season of 9 and 9 with a break in between? Will the “canon” questions be definitively answered? So many questions were raised by the announcement of Daredevil: Born Again, and I can’t wait to discover all the answers.

    Hunter Radesi

    Not sure if this is a surprise to anybody, but my favorite reveals from San Diego Comic-Con were probably Spider-Man: Freshman Year and Daredevil: Born Again. These are two of my all-time favorite characters, and to see both of their names pop up in Hall H, headlining projects, was a dream come true. I’ve been craving a solid new animated Spider-Man project for years, and it looks like Jeff Trammell is getting ready to deliver. Learning Freshman Year is going to be a full-blown variant series, as opposed to a mini-MCU prequel, was so exciting. I haven’t been satisfied with a Spidey show since The Spectacular Spider-Man, but this one looks to have everything I could want from a web-head adaptation. Diverse supporting characters, classic bad guys, a unique animation style, and a passionate creative team working behind the scenes. As for Born Again, that one doesn’t take much explaining. Who wouldn’t be pumped about another season, a full 18 episodes, of Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio doing their thing? My eyes will be on Disney+ for the next couple years.

  • ‘Andor’ Gets New Release Date, Three-Episode Premiere

    ‘Andor’ Gets New Release Date, Three-Episode Premiere

    Audiences will have to wait a little longer to see Star Wars next live-action Disney Plus series, Andor. Along with a new trailer and poster for the streaming series, came the information that the premiere date has moved to September 21st.

    Originally set to debut with 2 episodes on August 31st, Andor will now stream the first 3 episodes on the new date.

    Andor serves not only as a prequel to Rogue One but as story of the beginning of the rebellion against the Empire. As such, the new trailer showed the return on some familiar characters whose stories were told in animated series such as Clone Wars and Rebels, in addition to others who have been seen across multiple live-action and animated projects. Diego Luna returns as Cassian Andor and is joined by an expansive ensemble cast including Stellan Skarsgård, Forest Whitaker, and Adria Arjona.

  • Marvel Studios Director Takes Himself Out of the Running to Helm ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’

    Marvel Studios Director Takes Himself Out of the Running to Helm ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’

    Kevin Feige delighted and confused Marvel Studios’ fans with the announcement that Avengers: Secret Wars is targeting a November 2025 theatrical release. Though the project had been teased as early as June of 2021 in Season One of Loki, the debate about whether or not something on the scale of Secret Wars could be put together in less than a decade raged on amongst fans.

    That debate hasn’t ended with the announcement of the film, but some attention has been diverted to who might be directing Avengers: Secret Wars. When it was announced that Destin Daniel Cretton signed on to helm Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, which will debut just six months before Avengers: Secret Wars, it was also revealed that Cretton was not on board for Secret Wars. It’s hardly uncommon for a Marvel Studios’ film that’s over 3 years away to be without a director, but for one of this magnitude, it’s become a talking point and most of the discussion seems to center on directors who have worked with Marvel Studios in the past.

    One such director, Scott Derrickson, who directed 2016’s Doctor Strange and served as an executive producer on Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness, has been mentioned as a possible candidate, but according to Derrickson, it’s not in the cards. When asked if there were any possibility of him landing the gig, Derrickson promptly replied with a GIF that provided a firm “NO” as an answer.

    https://twitter.com/scottderrickson/status/1552688255795171329

    If Derrickson is truly out of the running, the pool of candidates who have worked with Marvel Studios in the past is still pretty deep. While Feige has said the Russo brothers aren’t on board for the project, it had the “they aren’t on board YET” feel. Other candidates could include Ryan Coogler, Sam Raimi, Peyton Reed, Nia DaCosta and Jon Favreau, who while he’s been busy with Star Wars, could return for a project the size of Avengers: Secret Wars. And there’s no reason to close the door to directors who haven’t worked with the studio before, as a big project like this could attract the interest of some big names in the industry. Whoever they land, Marvel Studios could have an announcement as early as this September at their D23 presentation in Anaheim.

  • Kevin Feige on Marvel Studios’ New Outlook on Avengers Films

    Kevin Feige on Marvel Studios’ New Outlook on Avengers Films

    For the first decade of its existence, Marvel Studios rolled out an Avengers film every three years or so to signal the end of a Phase. Fans were treated to The Avengers in 2012, Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015 and then double-dipped with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame in 2018 and 2019. Endgame, of course, was the final film in what’s now known as The Infinity Saga, a long-form narrative told over the course of 23 films.

    Three years removed from the release of Endgame, Marvel Studios’ next phase is off and running and, in less than two years, has seen the release of more than half of what the studio did in the first eleven years. Thanks to the addition of in-universe streaming series on Disney Plus, Phase 4 is already 13 projects deep with two more coming in 2022 (She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) and 26 more scheduled from 2023 through 2025. As it stands, when Daredevil: Born Again releases on Disney Plus in the Spring of 2024, Marvel Studios’ post-Infinity Saga output will surpass what the studio released in its first 10 years, with 25 total projects released in just over 3 years (2021-24). None of those projects, however, will have been Avengers projects.

    At SDCC ’22, Marvel Studios head cheese Kevin Feige revealed the studio’s upcoming slate, which includes two upcoming Avengers films. With both of those films slated to hit theaters in 2025, fans are staring down a six-year stretch in between Avengers films, double what they’ve been accustomed to. Feige explained why the studio has broken free from the pattern they once set for themselves:

    The truth is, when we were doing Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3, there were less projects over more years. They were smaller projects and individual character stories, and it felt appropriate at that point, that after every two or three years that it took for a phase, we would do an ‘Avengers’ film. As [Phase] 4, 5 and 6 were coming together, there are more projects in less years – because of all the amazing stuff we’re now allowed to do on Disney+, and getting characters from Fox, Fantastic Four and Deadpool — that it felt like, certainly after ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame,’ that we thought ‘Avengers’ movies aren’t cappers. So many of our movies now — ‘Multiverse of Madness’ and what you’re about to see in [‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’], all are big team-up films introducing big parts of the mythology… ‘Avengers’ films really should be the capper to a saga.

    Kevin Feige

    Feige left a lot to unpack there, but the key points are that the increase in the number of productions, the ability to tell stories on Disney Plus, the addition of new properties via the Fox merger and the fact that the studio can use the already existing wealth of characters in team-up style films all helped the studio rethink what an Avengers film might need to be. Part of the allure of an Avengers film is seeing multiple heroes working together and that’s something that the studio can do in nearly every project they roll out these days, given that they have dozens of already established characters at their disposal. And so, at the end of the day, what it really means is that the Avengers films will feel like even bigger events than they did before with the ability for them to all include something on the scale of the final battle in Avengers: Endgame. For fans of Marvel Studios, that’s a prospect worth waiting to see on the screen.

    Source: Variety

  • Kevin Feige on the High-Bar Marvel Studios Has Set for ‘Fantastic Four’

    Kevin Feige on the High-Bar Marvel Studios Has Set for ‘Fantastic Four’

    Three years after being announced at SDCC ’19, Marvel Studios Fantastic Four finally has a release date. During SDCC ’22’s Hall H presentation, Marvel Studios One-Above-All, Kevin Feige, revealed to fans that the first ever MCU-set Fantastic Four film will hit theaters in November of 2024.

    While a release date has been carved out, much about the film remains up in the air. Without a director, after Jon Watts exited the project, and no writer announced as yet, Fantastic Four seems, for the moment at least, pretty directionless. Rumors have swirled that Feige has shown interest in some of Hollywood’s biggest names, including Steven Spielberg, to helm the film but SDCC came and went without a hint of a director…or a cast. It’s not all bad news, however, as Feige explains to THR, it’s because he and the top brass of Marvel Studios are taking great care in developing the project and separating it from Fox’s prior attempts to bring the First Family of Marvel Comics to the screen.

    A lot of people know this origin story. A lot of people know the basics. How do we take that and bring something that they’ve never seen before? We’ve set a very high bar for ourselves with bringing that to the screen.

    Kevin Feige

    Unpacking Feige’s quote (and the implications from the original article), it’s clear that the plan is NOT to retell the origin story of the team again. Marvel Studios took the same approach when introducing Spider-Man into the MCU, choosing to sprinkle in jsut enough info about how Peter Parker became Spidey via dialogue as opposed to spending an act or two of a film on it. Does this mean that the Fantastic Four might, as Spidey did before them, enter the MCU in another film? Rumors and speculation have identified Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania as a potential entry point for the team, but without casting decisions for the team having been made, the clock is ticking on that as the Ant-Man threequel hits theaters in February.

    Whatever the plan, it’s encouraging to know that Feige understands the gravity of this film and that Marvel Studios MUST take great care to set it apart from Fox’s less-than-successful films. As of now, all eyes are on D23, September 9-11th in Anaheim, as a potential time and place for Feige to trot out a director and cast. With less than two months to go until the event, fans are holding out hope that Feige can solve everything.

    Source: THR

  • Marvel Studios Sets Eight New Theatrical Dates for Phases 6 & 7

    Marvel Studios Sets Eight New Theatrical Dates for Phases 6 & 7

    Marvel Studios laid out an impressive road map during their Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, giving fans a comprehensive look at what’s now officially known as the Multiverse Saga. The Multiverse Saga will consist of three phases and is set to wrap up with Avengers: Secret Wars in November of 2025.

    While Marvel Studios One-Above-All, Kevin Feige, gave the beginning and end points of the Saga, he also left plenty of blanks to fill in over the next couple of years including what look to be 3 projects in the Fall and Winter of 2024 and 5 more over the course of 2025. While it wasn’t made entirely clear during the panel, it seems that all 8 of those projects are destined for Disney Plus. With Agatha: Coven of Chaos beginning in 2023 and ending in 2024, Daredevil: Born Again is currently the only D+ series on the slate for 2024. Adding in the other dates would bring the 2024 D+ tally to 4.5, which is in line with what the studio is doing in 2023. Moving to 5 series in 2025 wouldn’t be too much of a leap, at that point.

    Adding to the likelihood that all 8 unannounced projects might head to Disney + was some news that got lost in the excitement: Marvel Studios 2025 and 2026 theatrical dates.

    In addition to dating Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars, Marvel Studios has dated two other untitled Phase 6 films in February and July of 2025.

    • February 14, 2025: Untitled Marvel Studios Film
    • May 2, 2025: Avengers: The Kang Dynasty
    • July 25, 2025: Untitled Marvel Studios Film
    • November 7, 2025: Avengers: Secret Wars

    And with Phase 6 and the Multiverse Saga coming to a conclusion in 2025, the studio has already turned their attention to the beginning of Phase 7 with 4 untitled films set for 2026.

    • February 13, 2026: Untitled Marvel Studios Film
    • May 1, 2026: Untitled Marvel Studios Film
    • July 24, 2026: Untitled Marvel Studios Film
    • November 6, 2026: Untitled Marvel Studios Film

    With the Fantastic Four set to arrive just in time for Avengers: Secret Wars and Marvel Studios yet to reveal any long-term plans for mutants in the MCU, it seems like Phase 7 could belong, at least in part, to the studio’s plans for them.


  • SDCC: Marvel Studios ‘Fantastic Four’ Gets a Phase 6 Release Date

    SDCC: Marvel Studios ‘Fantastic Four’ Gets a Phase 6 Release Date

    In 2019, Kevin Feige blew up SDCC with the announcement that Marvel Studios was set to unleash their own Fantastic Four film after acquiring the property in the merger with Fox. Jon Watts was brought on board to direct the film but recently left the project. While there’s no new director on board, the film does now have a release date.

    While on stage at Hall H, Feige announced that Fantastic Four would be part of Marvel Studios Phase 6 slate and get a November 8, 2024 release date.

    Updating…

  • SDCC: Marvel Studios Reveals Its Next Two Avengers Films

    SDCC: Marvel Studios Reveals Its Next Two Avengers Films

    As part of Marvel Studios’ Hall H presentation at SDCC ’22, One-Above-All Kevin Feige revealed the titles of the studio’s next two Avengers films. As part of Marvel Studios Phase 6 slate, fans will be treated to Avengers: Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars.

    Following the Infinity Saga, Marvel Studios began easing into what is now known as the Multiverse Saga. Throughout the last two years, projects such as Loki, What If…?, Spider–Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness have introduced the concept of the multiverse to MCU fans and, after months of uncertainty about where the overarching story is headed, Feige has made it very clear. Integral to the two titles is Jonathan Majors‘ Kang, who was first introduced as a Variant referred to as He Who Remains in the finale of Loki. Set to appear next in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, Majors, in the guise of multiple Variants, will serve as the MCU’s next big bad, ala Thanos.

  • SDCC: Marvel Studios Agatha Harkness Project Retitled

    SDCC: Marvel Studios Agatha Harkness Project Retitled

    Kathryn Hahn stole the show in 2021’s WandaVision. Following Marvel Studios’ first streaming project, a spinoff focusing on Hahn’s character, Agatha Harkness, was announced. At SDCC ’22, the spinoff was given a new name and a tentative release date.

    Agatha: Coven of Chaos, which begins production in early 2023, is tentatively set to stream on Disney Plus in the Fall of 2023.

    Updating…

  • SDCC: Marvel Studios ‘Blade’ Gets Official Phase 5 Release

    SDCC: Marvel Studios ‘Blade’ Gets Official Phase 5 Release

    Three years after Kevin Feige announced the project, Marvel Studios’ Blade reboot has gotten a release date. Now officially a part of Phase 5, Blade, led by Mahershala Ali, is set for a November 3, 2023 release.

    Updating…