Murphy's Multiverse

Author: Joseph Aberl

  • EXCLUSIVE: Earlier ‘Doctor Strange 2’ Drafts Included 616’s Mordo

    EXCLUSIVE: Earlier ‘Doctor Strange 2’ Drafts Included 616’s Mordo

    Many of the trailers for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness teased the return of Chiwetel Ejiofor‘s Karl Mordo. While we finally got to hear his first name in live-action, the version we meet in the film is actually a member of the Illuminati and the Sorcerer Supreme of 838. 616’s Doctor Strange only mentions the version from his universe and their ongoing rivalry, but he is noticeably absent from the film.

    In an interview with Michael Waldron, our very own Charles Murphy got to chance to ask if there were any plans to include the original version of the character. As it turns, out they had some versions that included his appearance but eventually decided to keep that story open to potentially revisit in the future. He goes on to say that:

    Yeah, there was. And we talked about that history and what had happened. We explored ways that would be interesting to intertwine with this story, but ultimately it felt like that was a story left for another day. He’s out there, what happened between them we don’t know. But I am certain we’ll find out.

    Michael Waldron

    It’s great that they kept it open to further explore their relationship in the future. Even 838’s version of the character survived the encounter, and it would be fun to see him build a similar relationship with Strange only to go through the multiverse to hunt him down. That also leads to two versions of Mordo meeting up in their shared hatred of Strange, especially now that he once again dabbled in something he shouldn’t have and received the third eye as a result. Mordo’s not going to be happy about that one.

  • ‘The Boys’ Spinoff Adds Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sean Patrick Thomas, and Marco Pigossi

    ‘The Boys’ Spinoff Adds Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sean Patrick Thomas, and Marco Pigossi

    The Boys has been a smash hit on Amazon Prime, but it’s still been struggling to get its first live-action spinoff to get going. Diabolical, an animated anthology series, did manage to release but their college-focused series has been facing some challenges. Still, it seems that new showrunners Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters are kicking the project into overdrive as they’ve added three new cast members.

    The spinoff series will focus on a college setting run by the usually corrupted Vought Enterprise. It has now added The Staricase‘s Patrick Schwarzenegger, who will play a character known as Golden Boy. The Tragedy of MacBeth‘s Sean Patrick Thomas joined as Polarity alongside Invisible City‘s Marco Pigossi, who will be Dr. Cardosa.

    The series is promised as a college show mixed with Hunger Games, which makes sense given the raunchy nature of the show it’s spinning out from. The cast has gone through some changes, as rewrites led to some of the characters getting a completely new focus. It’s not uncommon for some productions to go through it, but it seems that the show is finally on track if they’re adding to the cast. We’ll see just how they keep the tone of the original while adding the hormonal nightmare that is college-aged youth to the mix.

    Source: Deadline

  • EXCLUSIVE: Jonathan Hickman’s Run Inspired ‘Doctor Strange 2’s Take on Mr. Fantastic

    EXCLUSIVE: Jonathan Hickman’s Run Inspired ‘Doctor Strange 2’s Take on Mr. Fantastic

    Jonathan Hickman always had a way of reinvigorating stories with some of the most popular Marvel characters. While many will remember his amazing work on the crossover event Secret Wars, he also gave us quite the iconic run focused on the Fantastic Four. It brought a new life to Marvel’s first family and redefined their position within the Marvel universe for many. It seems that may have also been a big inspiration for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness writer Michael Waldron.

    In an exclusive interview with Charles Murphy, the writer talked about the many influences in the film and it turns out that Hickman‘s run with Reed Richards also played a key part in how he approached the Illuminati’s Mr. Fantastic, who was played by John Krasinski.

    Yes and I still have to be deliberately cagey for one more weekend about the specifics about these actors and everything, but it was really trying to draw on that Hickman version of that, of the Illuminati and how they dealt with Incursions. That specific character I love, deeply and was excited to collaborate with that actor on and how to bring him to life.

    Michael Waldron

    He once again highlights that he worked on bringing the character to life with Krasinski, and it’s great to see that the actor was also able to add to the character even if it’s just a brief appearance.. Though taking a strong Hickman direction is a noticeable addition to the character. Given the character’s long history, there are many iterations to choose from but many might point to Hickman‘s run as a modern definite of the character.

    It’s also interesting he made a point to highlight he can’t say much more at this time. So, we’ll see if there’s more information heading our way on Mr. Fantastic and the Fantastic Four in the future. Marvel Studios does have a film planned for the team and outside of Jon Watts dropping out as a director, we don’t know what exactly their plans are just yet.

  • Disney+ Adds 8M Subscribers and Avoids Netflix’s Downward Trend

    Disney+ Adds 8M Subscribers and Avoids Netflix’s Downward Trend

    There has been a lot of worry about the streaming market ever since Netflix faced its first subscriber drop in over ten years. So, everyone was wondering if others in the market would also face a slow down in subscriptions, or even worse, an additional drop. It turns out Disney managed to avoid the trend, as they have added 8M subscribers, beating Wall Street’s estimates.

    The service now stands at a total of 137.7M subscribers with its second-quarter growth. As such, its shares went up by 4.5% which definitely shows some of the hesitations that were out in the market. Hulu has also added 300K subscribers to stand at 45.6M while ESPN+ reached 22.3M with one million additional subscribers. So, there’s a general growth across all streaming services currently owned by the House of Mouse.

    Disney has taken a hit of $1 billion ending its content licensing agreements, but even while they wouldn’t solidify which ones, Netflix is a definite part of it with their Marvel series. Their only real challenge now remains with Disney+ Hotstar being a cheaper offering of the service that increases its subscriber growth but not the profit pulled from it. Spending will continue to grow, but we’ll see how it continues to move forward in the future.

    Source: CNN, THR

  • ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Still on Track to Release This Year

    ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Still on Track to Release This Year

    Another earnings call has arrived from Disney, which tends to mostly give us some small glimpses of how projects are being developed. They tend to not reveal any big news, but it seems that Disney CEO Bob Chapek has made one statement regarding an upcoming Marvel Studios project. He has revealed that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is still on track to hit its November release this year, as shared by Decider’s Alex Zalben on Twitter.

    To be fair, he only states it’s “on pace to come out this year” which could still see a potential delay from its November 11th release date. The reason for some concerns came due to the troubled production earlier this year, as an injury forced them to delay the production. Luckily, Letitia Wright, who was injured during production, was able to return to finish production earlier this year.

    It’s a relief to know that the film is still eyeing to stick to its 2022 release, as who knows if it might also lead to some further delays to projects that are connected, such as Ironheart is currently being worked on. Director Ryan Coogler is also working on that project alongside other Wakanda-focused Disney+ series that haven’t been announced yet. So, if work delays on the next Black Panther entry, it could affect those projects as well.

    Source: Twitter

  • EXCLUSIVE: ‘Doctor Strange 2’s Michael Waldron Teases the Growing Multiversal Threat of MCU’s Phase 4

    EXCLUSIVE: ‘Doctor Strange 2’s Michael Waldron Teases the Growing Multiversal Threat of MCU’s Phase 4

    Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is quite the self-contained story about Strange overcoming his need for control and Wanda accepting to finally let go. Yet, we can’t deny that it also sets up quite a lot of important elements for the franchise moving forward, especially when it comes to the multiverse that is part of the madness.

    The film introduces the concept of Incursions when two realities start colliding with each other and even teases how that ends up looking like when he faces off against a sinister version of himself. Yet, comic readers will quickly realize that the last time we’ve heard about Incursions we were building up to the Secret Wars crossover event. In an interview with our very own Charles Murphy, Multiverse of Madness writer Michael Waldron teases many threats that have been piling on throughout Phase 4.

    And there’s the threat. And it’s out there and now it’s out there. There’s a multiversal threat. In the same way that when the MCU first went cosmic many years ago, there was the teed up threat of Thanos. Now it’s probably a matter of you’re setting up some multiversal threats on the board. Whether it’s Kang, Incursions, whatever. It’ll be interesting to see how all those things come together.

    Phase 4 has been building up not one but multiple big threats that have the multiverse as a common trait. We technically got the Incursions teased in Loki, where we saw a cartoon hinting at an event where multiverses started fighting for dominance. At the core of all these events was Kang the Conqueror, whose Variant we first met in that very Disney+ series. Perhaps Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which will see Jonathan Majors tackle the role and could further set up where

  • Twenty-One Pilots Originally Worked on ‘Top Gun: Maverick’s Soundtrack

    Twenty-One Pilots Originally Worked on ‘Top Gun: Maverick’s Soundtrack

    Here’s a curious surprise, it seems that Twenty-One Pilots was originally meant to work on the soundtrack for Top Gun: Maverick. While many know that Lady Gaga took on that task with her ballad Hold My Hand, we may have gotten a very different soundtrack at an earlier point. The news comes from the Twenty-One Pilots frontman Tyler Joseph, who shared on the radio station KROQ the story, making the claim that it was the film’s main star and producer Tom Cruise who had them kicked off the project after already signing on by Paramount Pictures.

    I was working with the music placement person for the new ‘Top Gun’ on writing a new song for them, and then I believe Tom Cruise came in and just fired everyone. You’ve seen that new ‘Top Gun’ thing that he’s got? The trailer has been out for, like, three years, so there’s been a few overhauls, and I was a part of that, so, they moved on.

    Tyler Joseph

    It’s certainly not unheard of that Cruise has shown his influence over projects, especially a legacy sequel. He also highlighted that he worked on a few scenes to write the original music. So, it’s curious that they got kicked at a later point, highlighting it was around the time he saw the footage.

    It was actually pretty soon after they brought me in to show me parts of the movie and what they were looking for and stuff. Then I got word that there was like a wholesale swap.

    Tyler Joseph

    Lady Gaga took over at that point, but it’s unclear what may have exactly led to that “wholesale swap” as he points out. It’s not great when you start working on a project to suddenly get kicked, but it probably will never be confirmed if it truly was Cruise that got them kicked off the project.

    Source: IndieWire

  • Disney+’s ‘The Spiderwick Chronicles’ Adds ‘She-Hulk’s Director Kat Coiro

    Disney+’s ‘The Spiderwick Chronicles’ Adds ‘She-Hulk’s Director Kat Coiro

    Disney has been busy expanding its live-action repertoire for Disney+, and it seems that they are slowly moving forward with another one of their projects. The adaptation of the fantasy book series The Spiderwick Chronicles has been in development for some time, and it seems that they have now added She-Hulk director Kat Coiro to the mix.

    She will join to direct the first two episodes that will follow the Grace Family, as they move into an ancestral home that starts to unravel a dark mystery on a faerie-filled world existing parallel to theirs. It’s described as a “modern coming-of-age story combined with fantasy adventure.” Coiro will also be on-board as an executive producer for the series. Paramount television Studios and 20th Television are working on the series with Locke & Key‘s Aron Eli Coleite on board as showrunner.

    Coiro made a name for herself working on the rom-com Marry Me which starred Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson. She also worked on the six episodes of the other Disney+ series, She-Hulk where she directed the pilot episode. She’s also worked on Dead to Me, Shameless, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Modern Family to name just a few. So, she’s definitely made a splash in the industry’s TV endeavors.

    Source: Deadline

  • ‘Star Wars’ Prequel Trilogy’s New-Found Love Changed Ewan McGregor’s “Outlook” with the Franchise

    ‘Star Wars’ Prequel Trilogy’s New-Found Love Changed Ewan McGregor’s “Outlook” with the Franchise

    It’s hard to deny that the Star Wars prequel trilogy faced an uphill battle when it releases initially. The pressure of following up on of the most popular franchises of all time that has been largely dormant in theaters is nothing to scoff at. Even with the original creator George Lucas at the helm, it didn’t quite jell with people at the time. Luckily, there have been a new group of fans that look back at these three films quite fondly nowadays and it seems that this new perspective has also sparked something in Ewan McGregor.

    During his promotion for the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+ series, McGregor talked about what it’s like seeing the renewed love for those that grew up from watching it as kids has also changed his own relationship with the series. @DreamedOfMagic took to Twitter to share the following quote by the actor:

    You were a kid when our films came out, so we sort of made them for you… We now meet those people that really love our films, but it’s taken 15 years for us to hear that and it’s so nice…. It’s changed my outlook – my relationship with Star Wars…”

    Ewan McGregor

    While it’s not spoken, the newly found reception for these films may have also been a reason he was open to potentially return. Hayden Christensen also faced a lot of backlash at the time of this portrayal of Anakin Skywalker but is welcomed with open arms by the community. So much so, that he’s now also making a general return in the role with other appearances planned in the near future. With only a few more weeks to go, we’ll see what the future has in store for us with Obi-Wan Kenobi.

    Source: Twitter

  • ‘Ms. Marvel’ Co-Creator on Iman Vellani’s Casting and Adapting Her Story to the MCU Timeline

    ‘Ms. Marvel’ Co-Creator on Iman Vellani’s Casting and Adapting Her Story to the MCU Timeline

    Moon Knight and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness have been dominating the last few weeks, but now it’s time for Marvel to set their eyes on the next release, Ms. Marvel. There’s been some concern with the adaptation, as while the character seems mostly intact from the comics, her abilities have gone through quite the change. The character’s co-creator Sana Amanat talked to Entertainment Weekly to not only talk bout that massive change but also to highlight just how excited they are that Iman Vellani is taking on this role.

    There is so much of Kamala in her because I think Kamala has the same type of view of the world. She looks at the world with eager and hopeful eyes, and I think Iman does that, too. You can’t help but root for her and be drawn to her. There are just so many similarities that it felt like such a natural fit to see her put on the costume for the first time [or] see her go into the Khan house for the first time. It just made sense. There’s no other Kamala than Iman Vellani.

    Sana Amanat

    That’s not all, as she also discussed how they’ve adapted the project to fit the MCU by remaining true to Ms. Marvel’s storyline from the comics.

    The comic was very much a guiding light for us. We needed to make sure that it worked in the MCU, of course, but we wanted to make sure that we had that quirkiness and the stylistic distinction that the comics did so well. We wanted to find our own MCU version of it. So, we’re doing things in this show that we don’t really do anywhere else in the MCU. It’s kind of told through the lens of Kamala’s experience and her wild imagination. I think the brightness and the colors and where we go in the Marvel universe and in Kamala’s universe is really what makes it stand out, tonally and stylistically, from everything else.

    Sana Amanat

    The biggest change will also come in the form of how she looks up to Captain Marvel. Carol Danvers never had the identity of Ms. Marvel in the MCU. So, it’s a very different relationship when she takes on that role while still growing into her hero moving forward.

    I think that is very, very similar to the comics. Obviously, in the Marvel comics, the story was different. [Carol] was Ms. Marvel in the Marvel comics, and she’s been around for much longer. But in this case, what’s unique is Captain Marvel is one of the few really well-known, big-time female Avengers, if you will. She had a pretty significant save in the battle against Thanos, and I think if someone who was young and looking out at the world, and she sees this really powerful, badass woman almost take down Thanos, what does that do to you? How do you internalize that? I think that is a really important story to tell, not only about who your heroes are, but who are your heroes when you’re a young person of color? What does that do to your sense of self?

    Sana Amanat

    It’s great to see that the creators of the character were also heavily involved with the project to ensure that their vision remains intact even in its translation to live-action. She highlights that she was on set and had an active role in bringing the character to life, which just highlights how collaborative the Marvel Studios environment truly is for creators of any kind.

    Source: Entertainment Weekly