Author: Shashwat

  • Rumor: Paul Mescal Offered Major Role In Marvel Studios’ ‘Fantastic Four’

    Rumor: Paul Mescal Offered Major Role In Marvel Studios’ ‘Fantastic Four’

    We are closer than ever to the casting reveals for Marvel Studios’ Fantastic Four, according to multiple insiders. The project was first announced by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige during 2019’s San Diego Comic-Con and has been stuck in development ever since. The initially-attached director Jon Watts left the project, and Matt Shackman filled in for him. Jeff Kaplan and Ian Springer’s screenplay for the movie is now being rewritten by Josh Friedman.

    According to industry scooper Daniel Richtman, Paul Mescal was offered the role of Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch for Marvel Studios’ Fantastic Four. It is currently unknown if Mescal turned down the role or accepted it.

    Paul Mescal

    Another name widely rumored for Johnny Storm is ElvisAustin Butler. Last year, Jeff Sneider reported on The Hot Mic that Butler was running for a major role in Fantastic Four and that the actor’s agents were “putting him up for Human Torch.”

    The film is directed by Matt Shakman, while Josh Friedman pens the script. It will commence production in early 2024. No cast members of the movie have been officially announced yet. The movie releases in theaters on February 14, 2025.

    Source: Twitter

  • New Marvel Studios’ ‘Legends’ Episodes to Release in April

    New Marvel Studios’ ‘Legends’ Episodes to Release in April

    Marvel Studios: Legends was first announced in late 2020, ahead of the release of WandaVision on Disney+. The series was meant to act as a recap for first-time viewers and kicked off with episodes highlighting Wanda Maximoff and Vision. Episodes of the series were released all throughout Phase 4, highlighting notable events of the Infinity Saga and moments that defined who our beloved characters were.

    Earlier this year, Season 2 of Legends was announced with the onset of Phase 5, starting with episodes featuring characters from the Ant-Man franchise. The next episodes coming to this series have now been confirmed, bringing the episode count to 9.

    In an official “Next On Disney+ | April 2023” video by Disney+, it was confirmed that episodes 4-9 of Legends will release on April 28, one week before Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 hits theaters. Although the titles of the episodes haven’t been officially confirmed, the episodes will likely focus on Star-Lord, Rocket, Groot, Gamora, and Drax, the founding members of the Guardians.

    Legends

    The Guardians were previously featured in Legends episodes for The Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special.

    As of now, the following episodes of Marvel Studios: Legends are available to stream on Disney+:

    • “Wanda Maximoff”
    • “Vision”
    • “Falcon”
    • “The Winter Soldier”
    • “Zemo”
    • “Sharon Carter”
    • “Loki”
    • “The Tesseract”
    • “Black Widow”
    • “Peggy Carter”
    • “The Avengers Initiative”
    • “The Ravagers”
    • “The Ten Rings”
    • “Hawkeye”
    • “Doctor Strange”
    • “Wong”
    • “Scarlet Witch”
    • “Thor”
    • “Jane Foster”
    • “Valkryie”
    • “Bruce Banner”
    • “King T’Challa”
    • “Princess Shuri”
    • “The Dora Milaje”
    • “Mantis”
    • “Drax”

    Source: Disney+

  • Production Schedule For ‘Captain America 4’ Revealed

    Production Schedule For ‘Captain America 4’ Revealed

    First officially announced at 2022’s San Diego Comic Con, Captain America: New World Order will be one of the non-multiversal projects of the Multiverse Saga, exploring the political situation of the MCU and the state of Sam Wilson, especially now that Secretary Ross is President Ross, putting the two at an awkward position. The movie features Anthony Mackie, Tim Blake Nelson, Shira Haas, Danny Ramirez, Xosha Roquemore, and Carl Lumbly. After quite a long wait, we finally have a precise production schedule for the movie.

    According to Midgard Times, Captain America: New World Order begins principal photography on March 27, 2023 and is expected to wrap production after 116 days on July 21, 2023. Filming will take place at Trilith Studios in Atlanta, and the production will take place under Changeup Productions LLC. The production will take place parallel to Agatha: Coven Of Chaos, Daredevil: Born Again, Wonder Man, Deadpool 3, Blade, and Thunderbolts.

    This falls in line with executive producer Nate Moore’s statement to Deadline a week ago, in which he revealed that filming would commence in “three weeks.” You can read more on that here. The March production start date was also previously confirmed by Anthony Mackie in an interview with Yahoo Entertainment, in which he revealed that the upcoming Captain America installment will start filming in “March.”

    We start in about two months? March… Yea—two months, we’ll be—what month is this? We start in about a month, my bad. It’s not January. We start in about a month. We’re just kicking it off, and everybody’s getting squared away and ready to go.

    Anthony Mackie

    Marvel Studios’ Captain America: New World Order is set to release on May 3, 2024.

    Source: Midgard Times | Deadline | Yahoo

  • Peyton Reed Addresses the Absence of a Fan Favorite Character in ‘Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania’

    Peyton Reed Addresses the Absence of a Fan Favorite Character in ‘Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania’

    Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania broadens the horizons of the Ant-Man franchise and continues to expand on the Multiverse, now featuring the time-travelling Kang the Conqueror. The movie received mixed reactions from reviewers after the review embargo ended on Tuesday, widely criticising the screenplay but praising Jonathan Majors‘ performance as Kang. It currently stands at a critics score of 51% on Rotten Tomatoes.

    The movie left out some prominent fan-favorite secondary characters, such as Michael Peña’s Luis, Dave, and David Dastmalchian’s Kurt Goreshter. Although Dastmalchain managed to return to the movie’s cast as Veb, as well as composing a song for the movie’s soundtrack titled “Holes”, Luis was a no-show.

    In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Quantumania director Peyton Reed was asked if earlier versions of the movie during the development process ever featured Michael Peña’s Luis.

    Peyton responded to it by saying that “no versions of [the] movie” ever featured Luis. He went on to explain that fitting the Lang, Pym, and Van Dyne families, Kang, MODOK, Krylar, the freedom fighters, and including Luis and co. wouldn’t give them enough space to breathe and grow.

    There were no versions of this movie [with Luis]. There are a lot of characters in the movie. We obviously have our Lang, van Dyne and Pym family, but then we also introduced Kang, MODOK and all of our Freedom Fighter characters. So we had to make decisions early on about what stories we could tell and what stories we couldn’t tell.

    Peyton Reed

    He admitted that Luis, Kurt, and Dave were “really, really, fun” in the previous Ant-Man installments, but because the movie sends the Ant-Fam to the Quantum Realm pretty early on, it “didn’t make sense” to include Luis and the gang in the movie.

    I love those characters. They were really, really fun and part of the Lang family, but as we got further and further into [development] and knew we wanted to bring the family into the Quantum Realm pretty early in the movie, it just didn’t make sense [to include Luis and co.].

    Peyton Reed

    Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania releases exclusively in theaters on February 17, 2023. Read our review of the film here.

    Source: The Hollywood Reporter

  • ‘Wakanda Forever’ Among 22 Disney Projects Nominated for the 95th Academy Awards

    ‘Wakanda Forever’ Among 22 Disney Projects Nominated for the 95th Academy Awards

    Nominees for the 95th Oscars have been announced at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater located in Beverly Hills, California. The nomination ceremony was hosted by Riz Ahmed and Allison Williams, and consisted of 23 different categories, including best picture, best actor and actress in lead and supporting roles, best original and adapted screenplay, and much more.

    The announcement was streamed live on the Academy’s official webpages (Oscars.com) and social media handles, as well as aired on ABC’s Good Morning America. You can take a look at every single nomination at the 2023 Oscars, in over 23 different categories below.

    Best Costume Design

    • “Babylon”  
    • “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
    • “Elvis”
    • “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
    • “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris”

    Best Actress in a Supporting Role

    • Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) 
    • Hong Chau (“The Whale”) 
    • Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) 
    • Jamie Lee Curtis (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) 
    • Stephanie Hsu (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) 

    Best Actor in a Supporting Role

    • Brendan Gleeson (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) 
    • Brian Tyree Henry (“Causeway”) 
    • Judd Hirsch (“The Fabelmans”)
    • Barry Keoghan (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) 
    • Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) 

    Best Animated Feature Film 

    • “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”
    • “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” 
    • “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”
    • “The Sea Beast”
    • “Turning Red”

    Best Makeup and Hairstyling 

    • “All Quiet on the Western Front” 
    • “The Batman”
    • “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
    • “Elvis” 
    • “The Whale” 

    Best Original Score 

    • “All Quiet on the Western Front”  
    • “Babylon”  
    • “The Banshees of Inisherin”
    • “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
    • “The Fabelmans”  

    Best Live Action Short

    • “An Irish Goodbye”
    • “Ivalu”
    • “Le Pupille”
    • “Night Ride”
    • “The Red Suitcase”

    Best Animated Short Film

    • “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse”
    • “The Flying Sailor” 
    • “Ice Merchants” 
    • “My Year of Dicks” 
    • “An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It” 

    Best Sound

    • “All Quiet on the Western Front”
    • “Avatar: The Way of Water”
    • “The Batman”
    • “Elvis”
    • “Top Gun: Maverick”

    Best Adapted Screenplay

    • “All Quiet on the Western Front”
    • “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”
    • “Living”
    • “Top Gun: Maverick”
    • “Women Talking”

    Best Original Screenplay

    • “The Banshees of Inisherin”
    • “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
    • “The Fabelmans”
    • “Tár”
    • “Triangle of Sadness”
    • “An Irish Goodbye”

    Best Cinematography 

    • “All Quiet on the Western Front”
    • “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths”
    • “Elvis”
    • “Empire of Light”
    • “Tár”

    Best Documentary Feature Film 

    • “All That Breathes”  
    • “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”
    • “Fire of Love”
    • “A House Made of Splinters”
    • “Navalny”

    Best Film Editing

    • “The Banshees of Inisherin”
    • “Elvis”
    • “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
    • “Tár”
    • “Top Gun: Maverick”

    Best Documentary Short Film 

    • “The Elephant Whisperers”
    • “Haulout”
    • “How Do You Measure a Year?”
    • “The Martha Mitchell Effect”
    • “Stranger at the Gate”

    Best International Feature Film 

    • “All Quiet on the Western Front” (Germany) 
    • “Argentina, 1985” (Argentina) 
    • “Close” (Belgium)
    • “EO” (Poland) 
    • “The Quiet Girl” (Ireland) 

    Best Visual Effects

    • “All Quiet on the Western Front”
    • “Avatar: The Way of Water”
    • “The Batman”
    • “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”  
    • “Top Gun: Maverick”

    Best Original Song 

    • “Applause” from “Tell It Like a Woman”
    • “Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick”   
    • “Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”   
    • “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR”   
    • “This Is a Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once” 

    Best Production Design 

    • “All Quiet on the Western Front”
    • “Avatar: The Way of Water”
    • “Babylon”
    • “Elvis”
    • “The Fabelmans”

    Best Lead Actor

    • Austin Butler (“Elvis”) 
    • Colin Farrell (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) 
    • Brendan Fraser (“The Whale”) 
    • Paul Mescal (“Aftersun”) 
    • Bill Nighy (“Living”) 

    Best Lead Actress

    • Cate Blanchett (“Tár”) 
    • Ana de Armas (“Blonde”) 
    • Andrea Riseborough (“To Leslie”)
    • Michelle Williams (“The Fabelmans”) 
    • Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) 

    Best Director 

    • Martin McDonagh (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) 
    • Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) 
    • Steven Spielberg (“The Fabelmans”) 
    • Todd Field (“Tár”) 
    • Ruben Östlund (“Triangle of Sadness”) 

    Best Picture

    • “All Quiet on the Western Front” (Netflix) 
    • “Avatar: The Way of Water” (20th Century Studios) 
    • “The Banshees of Inisherin” (Searchlight Pictures) 
    • “Elvis” (Warner Bros.) 
    • “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24) 
    • “The Fabelmans” (Universal Pictures) 
    • “Tár” (Focus Features) 
    • “Top Gun: Maverick” (Paramount Pictures) 
    • “Triangle of Sadness” (Neon) 
    • “Women Talking” (MGM/United Artists Releasing) 

     Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All At Once leads the awards with a total of 11 nominations. In second place, Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin are tied with 9 nominations each.
    Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis stands at a close third place, with 8 nominations.

    The final winners for the 2023 Oscars will be announced on Sunday, March 12, at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood. Television host/comedian Jimmy Kimmel is set to return as the host, after previously hosting the ceremony back-to-back in 2017 and 2018.

  • Marvel Studios President Teases Kang’s Motivations In ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’

    Marvel Studios President Teases Kang’s Motivations In ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’

    Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania continues to ramp up its marketing campaign with new stills from the movie. Not jus that, they are also giving the fans a few more hints at the plotlines of the film. Speaking with Empire Magazine, Kevin Feige teased Kang the Conqueror’s role in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, and revealed more about his goal in the movie. He alludes to the fact that Kang is seemingly stranded with a device that could do so much more.

    He has a ship and a device that would allow him to go anywhere, and any when he wants if he can get it online. If only he had access to genius scientists with Pym Particles.

    Kevin Feige

    While we don’t know what his ship looks like, the “device” here seemingly refers to the Time Chair, a device of much significance in the comics. We know from the trailer played during last year’s San Diego Comic-Con that Kang made a “deal” with Scott Lang and that he was holding his family hostage until Ant-Man completed his part of the deal.

    While Kang’s objectives have been teased multiple times, all of which have pointed toward the cliché multiverse-domination goal, this quote makes him look less like Thanos and more like a guy who just needs the right people at the right time. This definitely makes Cassie Lang’s mistake with the device she created seem less of an accident and more of a perfect flaw, which Kang was just waiting for.

    Source: Empire Magazine

  • Kumail Nanjiani Addresses Status of ‘Eternals’ Sequel

    Kumail Nanjiani Addresses Status of ‘Eternals’ Sequel

    Marvel Studios’ Eternals went through 7000 years’ worth of MCU history and explored the mysterious beings’ journey on the planet. It further elaborated on the origin of the Celestials and ended with the Eternals preventing the emergence of Tiamut. However, their plan didn’t go exactly as they thought it would. After the emergence was sabotaged, Arishem the judge abducted the earthly Eternals, to evaluate their memories in order to judge humankind on Earth.

    While the consequences of the emergence weren’t explored much, rumors suggest the upcoming Thunderbolts movie and Captain America: New World Order could end up retconning the corpse as Genosha, a mutant nation. An Eternals sequel hasn’t been confirmed to be in development, so these may be the only tie-ins to that film for quite some time and a new statement by Kumail Nanjiani, who portrayed Kingo in Eternals, backs up that premise.

    In an interview with Total Film, Nanjiani was asked if he had any plans to reprise the role of Kingo. He replied that he didn’t “know if they [had] plans”, and that he would “love to come back.”

    Yeah! I mean, listen, I have plans today. I don’t know if they have plans. I would love to come back. But I’m sort of waiting to hear when or if that’s going to happen. I’m hoping I get to do more. I had a great time playing that character. It’d be a shame if he’s a sort of one and done. But, you know, the decision’s not mine to make.

    Kumail Nanjiani

    This isn’t long after Ma Dong-seok‘s (who portrays Gilgamesh) management agency listed Eternals 2 among other upcoming projects featuring the actor. We know from MCU executive Nate Moore that Harry Styles wasn’t cast as Starfox/Eros “for a tag”, and there are “more stories to be told” with his character. With more and more information surfacing on the sequel with each passing day, it’s safe to say Eternals 2 will be happening in the near future.

    Source: Total Film

  • New Looks At ‘Quantumania’, ‘Across The Spider-Verse’ and More Released

    New Looks At ‘Quantumania’, ‘Across The Spider-Verse’ and More Released

    Marvel Studios’ release slate for 2023 is absolutely packed from February to December, with a project planned for almost every month. Meanwhile, Sony’s Marvel Universe also continues to thrive with Kraven The Hunter and Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse set to release later this year.

    Alongside its release schedule, Marvel Studios’ marketing campaign is on a wild streak, with new promotional material coming out nearly every day. Continuing this trend, new stills from both Sony and Marvel Studios’ upcoming films have been released as part of USA Today’s exclusive sneak peek at 2023 in film.

    Marvel
    An official still from ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3’. JESSICA MIGLIO/MARVEL STUDIOS

    In this still, members of the Guardians seem to be having a discussion at a cafeteria of sorts. The description for this still reads:

    Drax (Dave Bautista, from left), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) are on a new adventure to protect the universe in the concluding chapter to James Gunn’s Marvel cosmic trilogy.

    An official still from ‘Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania’. JAY MAIDMENT

    The next still shows the Van Dyne family approaching a location in the Quantum Realm, possibly Kang’s homeworld. The description elaborates on this further:

    Hank Pym (Michael Douglas, from left), Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) explore the mysteries of the Quantum Realm in the Marvel superhero film.

    An official still from ‘Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse’. JESSICA MIGLIO/MARVEL STUDIOS

    In the very same place where Rio Morales gave Miles the inspirational “mom talk” in the official trailer for the movie, we see Miles introducing Gwen to his parents. The scene will likely take place right during the start of the movie, as we can see Gwen wearing the same sweater from the official trailer for the movie.

    Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore, left) reunites with Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) and introduces her to his parents (Luna Lauren Velez and Brian Tyree Henry) in the animated superhero sequel.

    Source: USA Today

  • ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Won’t Release on Disney+ in January After All

    ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’ Won’t Release on Disney+ in January After All

    James Cameron‘s Avatar: The Way Of Water continues to dominate the box office over the holiday weekend, but that doesn’t mean other films aren’t holding on as well. Disney’s other massive release of the year, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, has still been going strong as it now stands at $820M worldwide. Many worried that heading to Disney+ too early could drag its box office down, but it seems that it’s being given quite a lot of time to breathe.

    After several weeks of listing the movie as “Coming Soon to Disney+”, the platform has finally updated the page, which is now listed as “Coming to Disney+ February 1, 2023.” Not too long ago, Disney+’s support team apparently confirmed the movie to be released on January 20th on the streaming service, which now has been seemingly debunked. It’s unclear if they may have pushed back the release date, or perhaps the Support Team jumped the gun on sharing the information.

    Wakanda Forever
    Black Panther: Wakanda Forever on Disney+.

    The time duration between the end of the theatrical window and the Disney+ release has varied quite a lot, from Black Widow‘s 0 days (with Disney+ premier access) to Shang Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings‘ 81 days. Most recent projects have commonly released around the 45-day mark, which has led to some fear of its influence on a film’s box office performance. Luckily, it seems Disney is moving away from exactly that.

    February 1st also marks the start of Black History Month in the United States and Canada, which might be part of the decision as to why this date was chosen. Just like all the other MCU movies streaming on Disney+, this will be available to watch in IMAX enhanced, which allows viewers to have an immersive experience and enjoy the beauty of Wakanda and Talokan in the comfort of their homes.

    Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is now playing in theaters.

    Source: Disney+

  • New ‘Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Merch Reveals an Unannounced ‘Super Mario Galaxy’ Character

    New ‘Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Merch Reveals an Unannounced ‘Super Mario Galaxy’ Character

    The upcoming Super Mario Bros. Movie will be the first animated film based on the iconic Nintendo franchise of the same name. The official trailer amassed nearly 15M views with our first look at Donkey Kon, a Mario Kart reference, and so much more. While Chris Pratt as Mario received mixed reactions, the general sentiment was overwhelmingly positive.

    The promotional campaign for The Super Mario Bros. Movie is finally starting to pick up the pace with some merchandise already being spotted for the film. Twitter user @nintendomerch shared a new image of eight plastic Mario collectibles which will be available with McDonald’s’ Happy Meal. The account also mentioned that the McDonald’s promotional campaign for the movie would begin on December 27, 2022, and would last until January 23, 2023. The toys included Mario, Princess Peach, Luigi, Toad, Bowser, Donkey Kong, and one character that has yet to have been confirmed for the movie.

    As you can see in the image above, it seems the film might include a Luma. So far, the character hasn’t been featured in any of the movie’s promotional images or videos. In case you’re unfamiliar with Lumas, they are star-shaped creatures that are prominently featured in 2007’s Super Mario Galaxy. Although the Luma in the image above is blue in color, Mario’s usual companions in the Galaxy series are yellow. If the Lumas do appear in the movie, it wouldn’t be surprising for Rosalina, their adoptive mother, to also an appearance in the film. Speculation will definitely go wild moving forward.

    Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie releases in theaters on April 7, 2023.

    Source: Twitter, ComicBook.com