Murphy's Multiverse

Author: Nathan Miller

  • New ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Posters Offer Closer Look New Green Goblin Design.

    New ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Posters Offer Closer Look New Green Goblin Design.

    With Spider-Man: No Way Home’s marketing now starting to kick into gear, we’re beginning to see more marketing material for the threequel. The Twitter accounts of GSC Cinemas in Malaysia and Sony Pictures Japan shared three new official posters for the upcoming. The two posters coming from Malaysia feature Spidey and Doctor Strange prominently alongside the many multiversal elements.

    The Japanese poster, however, includes a rather curious new detail, as while Doc Ock’s arms are also feature as they have done in other posters, one element has changed. Green Goblin is hovering in the background on his Goblin Glider. Yet, if you take a closer look it’s a version we briefly were teased about in the latest trailer, where he has left his iconic mask behind. The Japanese poster uses the multiversal elements sublimely to create a seeming Mirror Dimension border with Electro at its core. We even get a tease of the Lizard’s shadow.

    https://twitter.com/sonypicseiga/status/1463764443209207814?s=21

    The focus on much of the marketing so far has been clearly suggesting the multiversal origins of these villains. It is revealed “they all die fighting Spider-Man” in their universes, as highlighted in the trailer. This presents a scenario where he will likely feel responsible for these villains’ deaths if they get sent back to their own universes. Attempting to save these villains is a very Peter Parker thing to do. With tickets set to go on sale soon, it’s exciting to think about how close we are getting to the film’s release and being able to see it for ourselves! 

    Sources: Twitter, Twitter

  • Scarlett Johansson Working On A Top-Secret Project With Marvel Studios

    Scarlett Johansson Working On A Top-Secret Project With Marvel Studios

    It has looked fairly certain that Scarlett Johansson wouldn’t be working with Marvel Studios again anytime soon. Her version of Natasha Romanoff met her end in Avengers: Endgame and Black Widow recently released on Disney+. There are also others to continue the stories of the Widows and the Red Room. Variants of Natasha were introduced in What If…? and Yelena Belova suggested she would free the rest of the Widows across the world. So it comes as a surprise that Johansson is working on a top-secret Marvel Studios project already. 

    An awards ceremony seems the least likely place to hear of a new Marvel Studios project. The 35th American Cinematheque Award where Scarlett Johansson’s contribution and engagement in the industry was where this news was revealed. During a speech, Kevin Feige honored “Marvel Studios’ first and longest-running female hero.” He also praised Johansson’s producer skills saying she was the “first time an actor had also worked as a producer.” Towards the end of his remarks Feige revealed a bit of fun secret we can speculate on:

    “We already are working with Scarlett on non-Black Widow-related top-secret Marvel Studios project.”

    Kevin Feige

    So what is the project Marvel Studios and Scarlett Johansson are already working on? Feige noted it wasn’t a Black Widow-related project, though he could be referring in shorthand to Johansson’s Romanoff specifically. Deadline has reported Johansson will have a producing role on the upcoming project. Having produced Black Widow, it could be related to any of the characters in that film including Red Guardian, Melina Vostokoff, or Taskmaster. Maybe it could also be a Thunderbolts project involving Yelena Belova. It could potentially be an A-Force project, with Natasha almost certain not to be involved if that project went ahead. It’s exciting to think about the possibilities, given the small amount of information we have! 

    Sources: YouTube, Deadline

  • Marion Dayre Reveals ‘Echo’ Writers’ Room

    Marion Dayre Reveals ‘Echo’ Writers’ Room

    In March, it was revealed Marvel Studios was developing an Echo series as a spinoff from Hawkeye. The news was officially confirmed by Marvel Studios and Disney+ on Friday as part of Disney+ Day. While details remain sparse on the series, we have since learned a bit more regarding the behind-the-scenes of Echo.

    We previously reported on social media clues suggesting Bobby Wilson and Rebecca Roanhorse were part of the Echo writers’ room. Marion Dayre yesterday confirmed that she was the Lead Writer on the show, and has now revealed the writers’ room. Native American and Deaf representation in the room matches the intersectionality of both its lead actor Alaqua Cox and title character Maya Lopez. Writers in the group have worked on Netflix’s Daredevil and The Punisher, as well as shows such as Supernatural, This Close, Reservation Dogs and Stranger Things.

    The group features two Deaf writers in Shoshannah Stern, who also starred in Supernatural, and Josh Feldman, who with Stern co-created and wrote the Sundance show This Close. This suggests the Deaf element of Echo’s identity will be explored further beyond Hawkeye. Of the other accounts tagged in Dayre’s post, many of the writers are Native American. Bobby Wilson has worked as a writer on Rutherford Falls and Reservation Dogs, the first two TV shows with Native American showrunners. Rebecca Roanhorse is a science fiction author and is currently writing an Echo comic series for Marvel in Phoenix Song: Echo. Alongside Kaitlyn Jeffers, Steven Paul Judd and Jason Gavin it will be great to see more about Echo’s Native American background on the show. Ken Kristensen wrote on The Punisher, Dara Resnik has written episodes of Pushing Daisies and Daredevil, and Jessica Mecklenburg has written on Stranger Things. The mix of drama and comedy within this group suggests that Echo will be emotionally impactful and entertaining. 

    It’s exciting that Deaf and Native American voices have helped craft Maya’s story in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. To have a Deaf, Native American amputee as the lead actor in Alaqua Cox is a particularly innovative and thrilling choice that will hopefully push the industry forward. Marvel Studios must have known they had a star on their hands with the Echo’s LLC being incorporated a month before Hawkeye started filming. With Echo officially announced and scheduled to film in early 2022, we should begin to learn more about the series in the upcoming months perhaps. 

    Sources: Instagram, Instagram

  • ‘X-Men ‘97’ Producer Teases An Emotional Impact In New Show

    ‘X-Men ‘97’ Producer Teases An Emotional Impact In New Show

    X-Men ‘97 is Marvel Studios’ first X-Men production. As a continuation of the ‘90s animated series that many adults grew up with as kids, the show has an in-built fan base. The announcement along with creative collaborators and returning cast means there will be more opportunities to talk about the project with the public. Brad Winderbaum, Head of Streaming, Television, and Animation at Marvel Studios appeared on Marvel’s podcast This Week in Marvel to talk about some of their animation announcements. 

    Winderbaum suggested that the original animated series has been a “touchstone” for many filmmakers Marvel Studios had conversations with over the years. He also talked about how head writer Beau DeMayo pitched the show, teasing an emotional shift at the end of the ‘90s and an important event that seemingly frames the new series: 

    He pitched us a show that didn’t just honor the original series, but also brought it into the modern world and talked not only about the 90s, but about the emotional shift that happened at the beginning of the new millennium, and how the show is actually going to explore that and see how the characters change, you know, after a very impactful event. And he talked about the soap opera of it all and was really compelling to us, but also the true emotional stakes to these characters.

    Brad Winderbaum

    All of that seems like an intriguing set of circumstances with which to evolve the original series.  We’ll have to wait quite a while longer to see it play out as the show is set to release on Disney+ in 2023. As animation takes quite a while, it can perhaps be expected the show is already reasonably far into production so we might start to hear more from the creators soon! 

    Sources: Marvel

  • DISNEY+ DAY: ‘She-Hulk’s Zeb Wells To Write Animated ‘Marvel Zombies’

    DISNEY+ DAY: ‘She-Hulk’s Zeb Wells To Write Animated ‘Marvel Zombies’

    It’s time to find out a little more about the Marvel Zombies animated series just announced at Disney Plus Day 2021. The announcement was followed with a bit more detail on Marvel.com about the creative team working on the streaming series. It seems, fresh off his roles in the writers’ room for She-Hulk, that Hellions comic writer Zeb Wells will not only write the show initially but also be an executive producer alongside What If…? director Bryan Andrews. The Marvel Zombies are somewhat of a breakout from appearing in Ultimate Fantastic Four to a short run of their own in the Ultimate line before appearing in various comic sequels and most recently the What If…? episode. Marvel Studios’ approach to having creative talent be amongst the team on one project before leading another seems to have born fruit again! With the Marvel Zombies featuring flesh-eating versions of our famous heroes, it’s sure to blend well with Wells’ morbid humor!  

    Sources: Marvel

  • Jonathan Majors Talks About How He Was Convinced To Join The Marvel Cinematic Universe

    Jonathan Majors Talks About How He Was Convinced To Join The Marvel Cinematic Universe

    Actor Jonathan Majors is currently filming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania where he’ll be playing a different version of Kang that he played in Loki. In the Loki finale, He Who Remains suggests his variant, Kang The Conqueror, is worse than him. Majors has hinted he will be playing the variants differently, but he wasn’t entirely certain Marvel would like what he wanted to do at first.

    Speaking to The Ringer, Majors has spoken about the weight of that responsibility both in relation to the MCU’s popularity and as a Black actor entering into that kind of space: 

    “I had watched the films. Love Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, killed it [but] I was like, ‘I don’t think you want me. I don’t think you want what I’m going to do. Like, I don’t think you want that.’ That was my hesitation. I was like, ‘You got the right Black guy?’” 

    Jonathan Majors

    Speaking specifically about how he was convinced to take the role, Majors mentions how another actor convinced him to do so. While on set filming The Harder They Fall, his co-star and fellow MCU alum Idris Elba urged him to step up to the responsibility of the role and how it could help bring other actors through behind him:

    “We were talking about work and the legacy of Black actors and all that stuff. And he said, ‘You can do that.’ What Dwayne Johnson has done to the game, what Idris Elba has done to the game, what Will Smith did to the game. This idea that the Black men can enter into a highly commercial world. [It’s all part of] stretching it and stretching it and making more room for the fellow behind them. [Elba tells me] ‘It’s on you now.’”

    Jonathan Majors

    It’s exciting to hear about Majors’ excitement for the Marvel role. It’s also fascinating to hear about his understanding of the responsibility in taking on such a role. He won rave reviews for his part in Loki so it will be thrilling to see not only the next take on the variants of Kang but also his growth in importance as an actor for the industry. 

    Sources: The Ringer

  • Disney+ Day To Feature Scheduled Content

    Disney+ Day To Feature Scheduled Content

    The excitement around Disney+ Day has been growing since Disney announced it would be an event to celebrate their iconic brands. Fans of Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars have been excited about the event as a chance to see the future of the storyworlds they love. With Disney+ Day approaching this Friday, there has been a lot of fan discussion about whether there would be a live presentation like Investor Day 2020 or not. 

    The two year anniversary of the launch of the service will also feature its expansion into Asia-Pacific markets which has had some people thinking they might launch content with friendly schedules to those timezones. It’s now become clear that there won’t be a featured live presentation, but there will be a schedule of content uploads throughout the day instead. 

    Disney+ Day Kicks Off Global Celebration With Week-Long, Company-Wide Promotions

    Disney has confirmed via press release that fans can follow along on the Disney+ social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for first looks, trailers, exclusive clips and appearances from stars and creators from Friday November 12th at 6:00am PT / 2:00pm GMT.  Subscribers will also be the first to see exclusive on-platform specials from Pixar Studios at 8:00am PT / 4:00pm GMT and Marvel Studios at 8:45am PT / 4:45pm GMT. In addition to this, Disney have also confirmed that new subscribers will have a 75% discount for this month with the cost being $1.99, opening up the platform for fans who want to see this on-platform content. 

    It will be exciting to see what new things we might learn about the future of the storyworlds we love this Friday. With so much in production it will be exciting to see new characters and worlds. Here’s hoping we get some new announcements of as yet unannounced productions to incite more speculation. What are you hoping to see on Disney+ Day this Friday? 

    Sources: Disney

  • ‘Eternals’ Writers Reveals How Marvel Studios’ Visual Department Brought their Drafts to Life

    ‘Eternals’ Writers Reveals How Marvel Studios’ Visual Department Brought their Drafts to Life

    Eternals’ release is finally here. The trailers for the film suggest it will reveal some secrets of human history. Similarly, people who worked on the film are now allowed to reveal some parts of the process of how the film came together. In this instance Eternals writers, Kaz and Ryan Firpo have spoken about how the Marvel Studios Visual Development team helped them in their writing process for the film. 

    Speaking to Deadline’s Hero Nation Podcast, Kaz Firpo, described one of Marvel Studios’ writing rooms. The description giving plays on the many memes of the studio’s secrecy, as only certain members of the crew had access to and didn’t even include windows to make sure nothing leaks.

    Eternals was written in the Black Widow conference room. It has no windows there’s a door with a lock and only six people have access like Kevin Feige, Nate Moore, Chloe and then like the writers, you know, like we’re the ones that go into that room. It’s a private secret, hermetically sealed chamber.

    Kaz Firpo

    Beyond this, he describes a writing-artistic collaborative process with Ryan Meinerding, VP and Creative Director of Visual Development at Marvel Studios, and how it influenced their work by bringing their pitches and ideas to life.

    You walk into your room and the walls are covered. It’s incredible, Ryan Meinerding, I do have to shout him out the Head of Visual Development at Marvel. He’s reading pages [of the drafts] and going ‘ooh, this is cool’ and then literally drawing the ideas that we’re having on a weekly basis. So you’ll come in and they’ll just be like a new artwork on the wall from something we’re just talking about a few days ago, so that’s it that really just inspires you to keep going and digging even deeper, they’re iterating.

    Kaz Firpo

    Having potential moments from a draft drawn up into key art soon after it’s been discussed sounds like a fantastic way to further inspire writers. The collaboration is indicative of the innovative processes they have set up at Marvel Studios across their different departments and collaborators. It’s exciting to think as the studio keeps pushing forward the narratives of the cinematic universe, that they’re also continuing to experiment with working processes to better help their creative teams. 

    Sources: Deadline

  • Will Poulter Hints at Adam Warlock’s Golden Skin in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’

    Will Poulter Hints at Adam Warlock’s Golden Skin in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’

    Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 is set to begin principal photography. The cast and crew of James Gunn’s space outlaws are currently making their last preparations for productions. With Will Poulter having recently joined the cast as Adam Warlock, there are lots of questions about how he is going to be involved beyond emerging from the cocoon we saw in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 post-credit scene.  Poulter was on The Jonathan Ross Show promoting his upcoming Hulu miniseries Dopesick, where host and Marvel fan, Jonathan Ross, was on hand to field a variety of questions about Poulter’s MCU character. 

    The actor was typically evasive as most are as part of their MCU contracts, he jokingly stated that that he is “feared for the safety of his family” because he’s “sworn to secrecy.” After confirming Marvel Studios and James Gunn won’t change the character’s name, Ross was giving him the grilling any Marvel fan would, particularly about whether Warlock will be the gold color of The Sovereign. The actor points out the gold sofa he is sitting on, stating “this is a lovely sofa is what I’ll say” perhaps indicating he will in fact have his traditional gold comic-book appearance. The actor also hinted that he is in the process of buffing up for the project.

    Adam Warlock | Character Close Up | Marvel Comic Reading Lists

    Whether Warlock remains the superweapon against the Guardians that The Sovereign intends him to be or switches sides as he does in the comics, remains an open question. Also with a few years that have passed between the end of the second film and where we’ll catch up with the Guardians, it is curious to wonder whether we might see Warlock in The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. Wherever we see Adam Warlock turn up it will be interesting to see what route his story takes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

    Source: YouTube

  • Writers Revealed for First Three Episodes of ‘Hawkeye’

    Writers Revealed for First Three Episodes of ‘Hawkeye’

    Hawkeye premieres with 2 episodes on Disney+ in little over 3 weeks. Up until now, most of what we have seen from the show has been the Christmas Holiday atmosphere it is leaning into. It’s quite clear from the trailers that Clint Barton’s past as Ronin will drag him along with Kate Bishop into a conflict with the Tracksuit Mafia just before Christmas. As we get closer to the release date there will be more details updated and released about the technical aspects of the show. The Writer’s Guild of America West has updated their site to show the credited writers for the first three episodes. 

    Episode 1 has been written by series Head Writer Jonathan Igla. He is most well known for his 2010 to 2015 run on Mad Men from Season 4 to Season 7. He also worked on Sorry for Your Loss, a bereavement-focused drama series executive produced by and starring Elizabeth Olsen. Writing Episode 2 is the newest name to be revealed from the Hawkeye writers’ room. Like Igla, Elisa Climent’s credits seem to be a mix of drama and comedy with the aforementioned Sorry For Your Loss, and a dark comedy about a female con artist called Imposters. Finally, for Episode Three, the duo Katrina Mathewson and Tanner Bean who previously announced their involvement on Twitter in March 2020 and who similarly have drama and comedy credits including a previous holiday film Christmas Ever After.

    With the glimpses of Rogers the Musical and the seriousness of Clint trying to get back to his family before Christmas it seems like Hawkeye tread the balance between comedy and drama as the the writers’ previous credits seem to indicate. As for how the series itself plays out, we’ll have to wait and see as it premieres towards the end of this month and concludes close to Christmas. 

    Source: WGAW via Twitter