Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan had a solid four-season run for Amazon Prime before coming to an end in 2023. As a modernized adaptation of Clancy’s series of novels, the streaming show combined good writing, decent action and wonderful casting, including some names that may not have been familiar to audiences before viewing.
While series lead John Krasinski was certainly a household name, Jack Ryan gave Hollywood vets like Michael Kelly and Wendell Pierce strong supporting roles that allowed them to shine. Kelly parlayed his success into a role in a comic book property, landing a gig in HBO’s The Penguin as Falcon family underboss Johnny Viti. Now, it looks as though it’s Pierce’s turn to enter the world of superheroes.
As revealed in an official project profile for Marvel Studios Thunderbolts*, Pierce has joined the film’s ensemble cast in an undisclosed role.
With Deadpool & Wolverine now available digitally after a record-breaking theatrical run, some fans are catching the buddy comedy for the first time from the comfort of their home theater. Though Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman are the film’s stars and the ones out to save the day, they get plenty of help from a surprising group of heroes.
Despite being made by Marvel Studios and containing a scene set in the MCU’s Sacred Timeline, most of Deadpool & Wolverine takes place on Earth-10005, multiple other Earths across the Multiverse or in The Void at the End of Time. While there’s plenty of fun had as Wade hops from Earth to Earth in search of the right Wolverine for the job, it’s in The Void where the film really flexes its creativity, bringing in a ragtag team of washed up heroes known as The Resistance. The Resistance generated a lot of buzz during the film’s theatrical run and is likely to do so again as the project’s second life begins. So, who are the characters who make up The Resistance and why are they there? Let’s take a look!
The Members of The Resistance
Johnny Storm/The Human Torch
Played by: Chris Evans
References: Fantastic Four (2005) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)
The first member of The Resistance met by Wade and Logan, Johnny Storm also meets a horrible fate at the freaky hands of Cassandra Nova. The film cleverly exploited Evans‘ return, baiting the audience into believing they might be seeing the triumphant return of Captain America. While that didn’t turn out to be the case, Evans gave Johnny a proper sendoff which includes a profanity-laced tirade for the ages.
Thank you to Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman and Shawn Levy for letting me be a part of such an incredible movie! They’re three of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. Special thank you to Ryan for making it all happen. Playing Johnny again was a dream come true and he’ll always have a special place in my heart.
Chris Evans
Elektra Natchios
Played by: Jennifer Garner
References: Daredevil (2003) and Elektra (2005)
After debuting as the character along Ben Affleck‘s Matt Murdock/Daredevil in 2003 and leading an Elektra film in 2005, Jennifer Garner suited back up as the assassin almost 20 years later and didn’t miss a beat.
I didn’t know that Elektra and I needed an ending, but Shawn and Ryan did. They are gifted in many ways, but seeing and elevating people around them is at the top of the list.
Jennifer Garner
Eric Brooks/Blade
Played by: Wesley Snipes
References: Blade (1998), Blade II (2002) and Blade: Trinity (2004)
A decade before the MCU kicked off with Iron Man, Wesley Snipes brought Blade the Vampire Hunter to the big screen, lending legitimacy to superhero properties and changing the pop culture landscape forever. Despite Reynolds and Snipes having a fairly well-known feud with one another while filming Blade: Trinity, Reynolds reached out and the two found a way to not only bring Blade back but give him the proper send-off he never got.
Well, if you can make it happen. Sure. I’ll come and do it. I did not think it was possible. I didn’t think he would be able to pull it off. I didn’t think that Marvel was into it. Disney was into it.
Wesley Snipes
Remy LeBeau/Gambit
Played by: Channing Tatum
Reference: None
Though a version of Gambit appeared in the absolutely awful X-Men Origins: Wolverine, there’s little more to the story of this particular version portrayed by Channing Tatum. When Disney and Fox merged in 2019, Tatum’s long-developing Gambit film went by the wayside as the Fox X-Men franchise was euthanized. Tatum’s passion for the character came through in Deadpool & Wolverine, leading for fans to call for his return as the Cajun down the road.
I thought I had lost Gambit forever.
-Channing Tatum
Laura/X-23
Played by: Dafne Keen
Reference: Logan (2017)
Dafne Keen first starred as X-23, a clone of Wolverine, in 2017’s Logan and instantly became a fan favorite. While her return to the character was rumored months ahead of the film’s premiere, Keen kept the secret from almost everyone. Unlike the other members of The Resistance, Laura eventually ended up on Earth-10005, seemingly promising more in store for the character in the MCU.
Shawn [Levy] told me this lovely story about him reading this scene where Deadpool was telling Wolverine about X–23, and thinking, ‘Maybe we should just have X-23.’ She’s a big emotional motor for Wolverine, and Wolverine is her entire emotional motor.
Dafne Keen
Deadpool & Wolverine is now available for purchase on digital platforms.
Very few, if any, comic book superheroes boast a rogues’ gallery that rivals the one accumulated by Batman over the years. While the mainstays like Joker, Riddler, Penguin and Catwoman have found their way into many of the different versions of Batman’s theatrical and television stories over the years, the Caped Crusader has another dozen or so villains who are arguably more formidable than many other heroes’ archenemies.
As Matt Reeves‘ Batman Epic Crime Saga unfolds, it’s clear that his grounded Gotham will continue to focus on the aforementioned baddies as well as the city’s organized crime families. Meanwhile, DC Studios’ co-chairs James Gunn and Peter Safran are charting a separate course for their vision of Batman who will play within the DCU sandbox that is still very much under construction. As part of the first public reveal of the plans for the DCU, the co-chairs shared the news that they were developing The Brave and The Bold as a vehicle to introduce not only Batman but also an as-yet undisclosed number of members of the Batfamily. Now, even as that project continues to be developed, a new report indicates the studio will utilize a pair of Batman’s deadliest rogues in another project.
According to THR’s Borys Kit, DC Studios has hired Captain America: Brave New World rewrite scribe Matthew Orton to develop a script that features Batman baddies Bane and Deathstroke.
Both villains have appeared in prior Batman films with Tom Hardy bringing Bane to life in The Dark Knight Rises and Joe Manganiello portraying Slade Wilson in the DCEU. A follow-up report by Deadline indicated that the nature of Orton’s project is not clear and that the film may not feature Bane and Deathstroke as the central characters of the piece but rather as part of a larger ensemble. As such it remains unclear what the project is but numerous online personalities are already laying down hints that Orton may be writing a Secret Six film for DC Studios.
Lanterns will be the first HBO original series created under the DC Studios banner that will be part of the shared narrative of the all-new, all-different DCU. Described by DC Studios’ co-chair Peter Safran as a “terrestrial-based investigation story” in the vein of HBO’s True Detective, the series will be focused on Green Lantern Corps members Hal Jordan and John Stewart who “find this ancient horror on Earth, and these guys are supercops on “Precinct Earth” which will play “a really big role leading us into the main story” of the studio’s initial shared narrative.
According to Kit’s report, either Rebel Ridge breakout star Aaron Pierre or Stephan James (Beacon 23 and Selma) is expected to land the role. Additionally, Kit’s sources believe that the casting could be finalized quickly with a decision being made before the end of September.
John Stewart and Hal Jordan are two of DC’s most compelling characters, and Lanterns brings them to life in an original detective story that is a foundational part of the unified DCU we’re launching next summer with Superman.
–James Gunn and Peter Safran on HBO’s Lanterns
Gunn and Safran’s DCU will debut this December with the animated streaming series Creature Commandos but, according to Gunn, kicks off in earnest when Superman hits theaters on July 11, 2025. Fellow Green Lantern Corps member Guy Gardner, played by Nathan Fillion, will appear in Superman, setting the stage for the introduction of Jordan and Stewart when Lanterns hits HBO, presumably in 2026.
DC Studios has found one half of its buddy space cop duo, having recently landed Kyle Chandler to fill the role of Hal Jordan in the HBO series, Lanterns. With Chandler on board for the “I’m too old for this shit” part of the team, the studio has now turned its attention to landing a star for the role of John Stewart ahead of an expected January 2025 start of principal photography.
Part of the process of finding an actor for the co-starring role will likely involve readthroughs that will help test for chemistry between Chandler and the potential Stewarts. And while DC Studios almost certainly cast a wide net in its search for the former Marine turned Lantern, a new rumor claims that its narrowed down the choices to an impressive short list of talent.
According to social media scooper MyTimeToShineHello, Damson Idris (FX’s Snowfall) and Aaron Pierre (Rebel Ridge) sit atop the studio’s wishlist for Stewart while Ted Lasso star Toheeb Jimoh, Sope Dirisu and Kelvin Harrison Jr., who played Martin Luther King in Genius fill out its presumptive top five.
Once attached to star alongside Mahershala Ali in Marvel Studios’ woebegone Blade, Pierre recently turned heads with a breakout role in Netflix’s Rebel Ridge. Ironically enough, Pierre delivered a star-making performance as a former Marine in Rebel Ridge and now may be staring at stepping right into those shoes again as Stewart.
With the writing team of Chris McKenna and Eric Sommers back for a fourth go-around and Destin Daniel Cretton on board to direct, the creative team for Sony and Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man 4 looks to be in good shape. With the studios hoping to get principal photography underway in the first half of 2025 to get the film ready for 2026, the next step is assembling talent around star Tom Holland. While the supporting cast of the first MCU-set Spider-Man trilogy had several key members play large roles in each film, Spider-Man: No Way Home remade Peter’s status quo, leaving room for potential new friends and enemies.
The spell cast by Doctor Strange at the behest of Peter Parker in the final act of the Spidey threequel was intended to make everyone forget they knew the man behind the mask of the Wall-Crawler. And as revealed before the film wrapped, the spell was a success. Happy Hogan, MJ and Ned all interacted with Peter with no recognition of their friend. With his friends safe from enemies who would otherwise exploit them to get at Peter and Aunt May having been killed by The Green Goblin, Peter is set up for a brand new day…which may just include a new love interest!
According to social media scooper MyTimeToShineHello, as Spider-Man 4 heads for a May 2025 start of production, the project is searching for a new female lead.
While the scooper didn’t provide any follow-up details, it hasn’t stopped fans from speculating that the character may well be one that’s been both slated to rumored to appear in Spidey movies in the past: Felicia Hardy, aka Black Cat.
A cat burglar with a bit of a vengeful streak, Hardy has engaged in an on-again, off-again romantic relationship with Peter. The plot for Spider-Man 4 has yet to be revealed though rumors about the film involving either a street-level civil war or a crossover battle with Sony’s Eddie Brock/Venom, played by Tom Hardy. In either case, it’s not clear what role Black Cat would play but then again, neither plot is confirmed nor is it clear that she is the new female lead. With the studios moving quickly toward production, however, it wouldn’t be too surprising if more information about the project was revealed soon.
Though Lucasfilm chose not to renew their most recent Star Wars streaming series, The Acolyte, the studio’s Disney Plus projects have certainly been an overall success. Andor remains the crown jewel of the bunch but live-action projects such as The Mandalorian and Ahsoka have also been generally well received as have animated series like The Bad Batch and Tales. Under new Chief Creative Officer Dave Filoni‘s watch, Lucasfilm has not hesitated to bring animated characters to live action or to cross over into Legends continuity or pull from other canon media to borrow characters or ideas to help flesh out their D+ series and it sounds as though the studio is planning to do it again.
According to trusted insider Daniel RPK, Lucasfilm is preparing to use Jedi Cal Kestis in an upcoming Disney Plus series. A survivor of Order 66, Kestis first appeared in the video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and then again in its sequel, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
I’ve seen a lot of chatter online about that. It could be really interesting. It’s not something that’s front and center right at the moment, but what’s interesting in the company that we do is that everybody across all these different lines of business, we all talk to one another. That often doesn’t happen in situations like this, but because so many of the people at Lucasfilm, are used to working together, we’re very transparent about what the storytelling is that’s going on — whether it’s in the streaming space or the movie space, or books, animation games, whatever it is. Eventually, it’ll be some kind of immersive entertainment.
-Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy on the possibility of Cal Kestis appearing in a live-action Star Wars project, EW, April 2023
Due to the popularity of the gaming franchise, Kestis is an incredibly well-loved character and one that fans have hoped would appear in a live-action project for quite some time now. The buzz around fans’ hopes grew so loud that it reached the ears of Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, who during Star Wars Celebration 2023 teased the possibility saying “There are many things we talk about just in terms of how we use technology with ILM inside the company. So this constant cross-pollination of ideas to determine just exactly what stories move into the movie space, what stories move into the TV space — you never know, because the creative process is very similar in all of those different spaces. And so you don’t have a crystal ball. You see what works, and then if it does, you draw from that.“
Though it sounds as though the plan is for a live-action debut for the character, no mention of a particular project was made. Kestis is a human character whose canon adventures in the video games occur around 9 BBY. While it’s not clearly defined, Kestis would be in his early to mid-40s in the New Republic era that is currently unfolding on Disney Plus. Whether it is relevant or not, actor Cameron Monaghan, who portrayed Kestis in the games, is 31 years old, making it entirely reasonable that he might appear in something like Skeleton Crew or Season 2 of Ahsoka, which Filoni is currently writing.
Despite being the lead character of a Disney Plus series, Agatha Harkness is no hero. Kathryn Hahn‘s wicked witch with over 300 years of dirty deeds to her credit. Flashbacks in WandaVision revealed that in the 1690s, Agatha broke the rules of her coven by practicing dark magic. Accused and put on trial by the coven’s leader, her mother, Evanora, Agatha revealed the extent of her abilities by absorbing the powers of all the other witches and killing them all, including her mother. She done a bad, bad thing…but unfortunately, as revealed in the third episode of Agatha All Along, “Through Many Miles of Tricks and Trials”, she was just getting started.
Episode 3 pits Agatha and her coven of chaos against the first of their many trials as they walk the Witches’ Road and, according to series’ creator Jac Schaeffer‘s grand design, lays bare each witch’s worst nightmare. While the house by the sea is technically where Jennifer Kale’s trial as a potions witch is held, a little is revealed about each member of the coven after they drink the wine poisoned with Alewife’s Revenge and begin to hallucinate. Working to locate the ingredients for an antidote for the poison, everyone who drank the wine is forced to relive her worst nightmare and for Agatha it’s a shocking revelation that lays bare the depths of her depravity and lust for power…and one that likely explains not only why the rest of the witches don’t trust her but also why Rio is rip roaring angry with her and wants her dead.
Dating back to WandaVision, there have been plenty of teases–both subtle and not-so-subtle–about Agatha’s comic book son, Nicholas Scratch. From the bunny she called Senor Scratchy to the child having an empty room in the house her spellbound persona Detective Agnes O’Connor inhabits, Agatha’s son has made quite an impression by NOT being there. And now we know why. As shared with Teen by Jennifer Kale and confirmed by Agatha’s hallucination, Agatha traded her son to Mephisto in order to acquire the Darkhold. Kale’s story alludes to the possibility that Teen may well be Scratch but we all know that’s just more misdirection but it does help make clear why Agatha has been so protective of the character: even she’s not sure how her own son might look. At this point, Agatha seems pretty irredeemable and there’s really no longer any reason to wonder why Rio–obviously a former lover of Agatha’s–wants her dead. It would seem Scratch wasn’t Agatha’s son but the son of both Agatha and Rio.
With these shows, so often there is something that is at once a joke and a wink and a nod, and actually has something legitimate underneath it. As we all know, Mephisto is a character who’s very wrapped into Agatha’s storyline. I mean, people have to watch, but we’re always playing with the audience in that way.
-Jac Schaeffer on Mephisto’s role in Agatha All Along, EW, September 25, 2024
While theorists who’ve been claiming for the past three years that Mephisto will show up in every MCU project can finally thump their chests at the name drop, the search for Scratch continues. In the comics, Scratch went on to father the members of the Salem’s Seven. That spooky group of shape-shifting freaks showed up in Episode 2 but don’t expect them to be Agatha’s grandkids in the MCU. Once Mephisto has his claws in someone, it’s typically for good but who knows exactly what becomes of a baby raised by a Class Two demon? Maybe we’ll find out at the end of the Witches’ Road.
After staying quiet on their plans beyond 2025, Marvel Studios has quite clearly been working hard behind the scenes on getting its 2026 slate put together. Once the studio made the decision to pivot to Doctor Doom as the new centerpiece of the Multiverse Saga in Avengers: Doomsday, other pieces started to become easier to put into place. And so while projects such as Blade, Armor Wars and a Shang-Chi sequel face uncertain futures, other projects have started to gather some momentum.
According to Production List, production on Spider-Man 4 is currently slated to begin in January 2025.
Paired with additional news from Production List that Avengers: Doomsday is slated for an April start of principal photography, it looks as though Holland will have a three-month window to film his scenes for Spider-Man 4 before jumping into work on the fifth Avengers film. That timeline is indeed consistent with the filming windows for the three previous MCU-set Spidey films, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home.
As encouraging as things sound, Production List is NOT a trade and neither Marvel nor Sony have provided any official updates on Spider-Man 4. So as compelling as it is to believe a growing collection of circumstantial evidence, don’t mark anything on your calendars just yet.
As Deadpool & Wolverine, Marvel Studios first R-rated movie, continues its record breaking theatrical run that has seen it become one of the ten highest grossing MCU films to date, attention has begun to turn to home release. With only Inside Out2 pulling in more money for Disney this past year, fans had begun to wonder if Deadpool & Wolverine would follow the same digital release schedule as the Pixar sequel which would have made it available for purchase on September 17th. However, with the Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman buddy comedy still pulling in decent returns overseas, fans will have to hold out just a little longer before seeing Jackman’s abs in the comfort of their own homes.
Revealed via Disney’s social media platforms today, Deadpool & Wolverine will be available to rent/own in various digital platforms such as Fandango, Apple TV and Amazon Prime beginning on October 1st.
Be the first to watch #DeadpoolAndWolverine from the comfort of your living r-hugh-m.
Following a three week digital-only window, physical copies of the film will be available on October 22nd. As of now, no date has been revealed for the movie’s debut on Disney Plus.
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