As Black Adam prepares to be a hopeful kickstart for DC’s cinematic universe, star actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has teased a potential return from DC’s cinematic past. In an interview as part of the press tour for Black Adam, Johnson alluded to Superman returning to the fold and facing off with the character of Black Adam. When discussing the desire to make the film and its world appeal to already-existing fans, this is what the actor had to say about his character in relation to Superman.
We will create Black Adam for him to be the most powerful and unstoppable force on this planet. The most powerful and unstoppable force in the universe has been on the sidelines for too long.
Dwayne Johnson
With rumors beginning to circulate more and more about Henry Cavill’s return as Superman, this quote does feel like one of the most overt allusions that there’s fire to the smoke. Cavill was last seen as the Man of Steel in 2021’s Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and before that just being the original cut of the film. As it’s long been teased that The Flash coming next year will serve as a soft reboot point for DC Extended Universe, many were curious where Cavill’s portrayal stood in terms of the future. If Superman is indeed being planned to face off with Black Adam as rumored, that should clear up where Henry Cavill stands in terms of the new direction of DC’s film franchise.
Black Adam is set to release exclusively in theaters on October 21.
If there is any role that’s been highly debated in Star Wars rumor mill, it’s that of Admiral Thrawn. After a long bout of silence, it seems that a new rumor has been starting to make the rounds hinting at who could’ve potentially nabbed the role. Surprisingly, it might be someone quite familiar to long-time fans of the character. If online rumblings are to be believed, Lars Mikkelsen, who voiced the character in Rebels, might once again take on the role of the Star Wars villain.
The notion of Mikkelsen reprising this role is perfect in many ways. Having voiced the character in the animated side of the universe will help maintain a level of continuity going into the live-action projects. Plus, having a returning actor move to Disney+ will appease the hardcore fans that are seeing a vast majority of other characters from Rebels get recast. Some of these castings include Natasha Liu Bordizzo playing Sabine Wren and Eman Esfandi being cast to play Ezra Bridger. We also can’t forget that Lars Mikkelsen is quit the respected and established actor, who’ll definitely ease the transition into a live-action take on the character.
Ahsoka began its production in Los Angeles back in May of this year and might wrap filming by the end of next month. With that, the highly anticipated series is eyeing a 2023 release on Disney+ and is the second The Mandalorian spinoff to hit the streaming service.
Another young rising star in Hollywood has confirmed to have met to potentially join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While on press tour for her upcoming role in Amazon Prime’s The Peripheral, Chloë Grace Moretz has confirmed that she’s had talks with Marvel Studios to discuss a potential role in a project. Not just that, the young actress brought up a desire to play a role more on the darker side of morality.
Yeah, we’ve talked a little bit about it. I mean, I think for me, I would be really interested in playing a villain in Marvel or DC, and jumping into more of the darker side of the role. I love a superhero. I think that’d be really fun, too, but I think it’s just all about finding the one that really matches what you’re wanting to get across, and the scope of the character. I think it’d be really fun if it was the right role and the right project.
Chloë Grace Moretz
While it hasn’t been confirmed which role she may have met for, there are two options based on relatively recent Marvel Studios newcomers. Firstly, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that Moretz met to potentially play Yelena Belova in Black Widow before they signed on Florence Pugh. She’s in the same age range as Pugh and it’s the type of role that could light the interest in playing a more morally grey figure. And potentially more likely, Moretz could have met to discuss playing the aged-up version of Cassie Lang in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. It’s certainly a role that fits her general archetypes and she’d have met the drawing power Marvel was seemingly looking for when they ended up casting Kathryn Newton.
Ultimately, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to see Mortez have an interest in a superhero project. They are massively financially beneficial for actors and are the types of roles that have ascended performers into true “A-List” status in Hollywood. Though with her having already met with the studio, Chloë Grace Moretz should be put on the radar of having a possible future with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The moment a large swath of Marvel fans had been waiting for finally arrived last week: Frog-Man made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut. In addition, the penultimate episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law saw Charlie Cox return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as both halves of Matthew Murdock and Daredevil. The episode has thus far been met with overall rave reviews for Daredevil’s appearance and how much he fits in the world of She-Hulk. And this is certainly a concept that was prevalent as far back as the writer’s room for the series as confirmed by Jessica Gao.
It just made so much sense that he would be on this show because both he and Jen are lawyers by day, Super Heroes outside of the office, even though Jen is doing it reluctantly. What better character to kind of show how this struggle she’s having is possible?
Jessica Gao
This episode especially did a strong job of creating a strong dynamic between the two characters in each of the different settings they intertwine. A large portion of credit belongs to the episode’s writer Cody Ziglar for successfully translating Matthew Murdock, the spirit of the Netflix adaptation of the character, and the aesthetic of Mark Waid’s comic run. And the notion of comic accuracy was taken into account according to Gao.
When we first heard that we could use Daredevil and we started trying to break this episode, during that first conversation, at one point, Cody (Ziglar) pulled a Daredevil comic out of his backpack. It was somehow already opened to the page he was talking about and was waving it around and pointing at the panels that he was referring to. So this episode was written by somebody with a lot of Daredevil love.
Jessica Gao
Charlie Cox is confirmed to be returning in Daredevil: Born Again in the Spring of 2024 (with reports that production will begin in New York City early next year). The eight-episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is now streaming on Disney+ with the finale scheduled to release on October 13.
The re-release of Avatar in the buildup to the highly anticipated James Cameron-directed sequel has been a large financial success for Disney and 20th Century Studios. The past weekend alone has brought in nearly $4 million from 51 different international markets. This moves the total earned to $23.3 million across North America and $71.9 million globally. Overall, this should be a promising sign that Avatar: The Way of Water can become another major needle-mover at the box office. It also has the best chance to beat out the current 2022 earnings record-holder in Top Gun: Maverick.
The success of the Avatar is good news for Disney in relation to the unmitigated flop that has been David O. Russell’s Amsterdam. Despite the star-studded cast led by Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington, the film has bombed internationally only earning $3.5 million in 30 international markets. And the domestic release has barely been any better in raking in only $6.5 million in North America’s opening weekend.
The biggest winners at the box office currently have been in the romantic comedy and horror genres. Ticket to Paradise, starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, has met a respectable $60 million in international box office earnings. The movie continues the trend of romantic comedies mildly returning to prominence at theaters (i.e. The Lost City and Marry Me), though that is in relation to how much the genre has recently been in dire straits theatrically and is assumedly more boosted from the massive A-list talent starring in them.
Meanwhile, Paramount Pictures’ Smile has been the largest winner at the box office having earned $17.5 million globally, which is up 19% from its premiere. This totals the global earnings to approximately $90 million, which is a massive boon with the $17 million budget. Overall, it’s continued the trend of Paramount being far and away the biggest winner in the theatrical film industry in 2022.
It has been confirmed that Ezra Miller has returned last week to the Warner Bros. Studio lot to film some pickup shots for 2023’s The Flash. This news comes after a long saga of various troubling reports involving the actor and their actions that ranged from perplexing to potentially severely dangerous to others. Miller had a meeting in August with Warner Bros. representatives, which is said to have been productive in terms of the future of the film’s ability to release.
They have issued apologies for their actions and have begun treatment for “complex mental health issues” after rumors began to circulate that this might lead to the outright cancellation of The Flash. The Andy Muschietti-directed film is set to adapt the Flashpoint comic storyline with Barry Allen’s multiversal traverses leaving rippling consequences across the DC Universe. One key element of this involves the return of Michael Keaton as Batman from his film franchise of the late 1980s and early 1990s alongside Ben Affleck’s reprisal of Bruce Wayne from the current universe.
It has been one of Hollywood’s worst-kept secrets that this film is set to serve as a partial reset point for DC’s cinematic landscape. This is something that many have argued is certainly necessary with the remnants of the Snyderverse preventing a new identity to be formed in a meaningful way. According to various sources, it has been said that The Flash may be exactly what DC needs based on how well the film has been performing with test audiences.
As of now, The Flash still intends to release despite the swirling controversies around it. The film is currently scheduled to release theatrically on June 23, 2023.
With the official announcement that Michael Waldron will be writing Avengers: Secret Wars, a large swath of reactions has been formed. Fans have questions as to what this will mean for what has the potential to be Marvel Studios’ most ambitious projects. With his previous experiences working on the first season of Loki and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Waldron feels primed to take this next step in telling the story of the Multiverse Saga. By dissecting Michael Waldron’s previous works in the Marvel Cinematic Univers, one might be able to Inuit how they can inform the directions audiences should expect from Avengers: Secret Wars.
Centralized Focus
Arguably the most distinct aspect of Michael Waldron’s writing for Loki and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is creating a centralized focus on the main characters and their arcs. Despite the expansive stakes and scope of the multiverse that surrounds them, the main characters are never lost within the script. One of the many praises sung about Loki was the amount of character building for the titular protagonist. As the story moved to numerous vastly different locales and settings, Loki and his interpersonal dynamics with the likes of Mobius and Sylvie remained at the forefront.
When it comes to Multiverse of Madness, both Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch had complete arcs that were logical for where they had been prior to the film. For Strange, the narrative was crafted of him being able to not be in the driver’s seat and trusting others, such as America Chavez, to ultimately save the day. Wanda’s arc was the continuation of her themes of teetering between morally just and unjust while dealing with the grief seen in WandaVision (or at least the themes that were present for most of the series).
Writing an Avengers film, the centralized focus will of course need to expand to fit whatever the team roster will be for Secret Wars. This is certainly doable for Waldron if he follows the general style that Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely used when writing Infinity War and Endgame. After managing to do so in the back two-thirds of the Captain America trilogy, the duo also adeptly managed to keep the focus on individual characters in the foreground of universe-shifting events in their films. Theoretically having at least a year to write Avengers: Secret Wars with the same studio behind the duology wrapping up the Infinity Saga, there shouldn’t be much doubt Michael Waldron can do the same as his predecessors.
Expansive Multiversal Background
While the foci for his two previous Marvel Cinematic Universe projects were micro-level of character studies, it shouldn’t be ignored that Michael Waldron has indeed helped create an expansive multiverse for Marvel Studios. That universe feels primed to be much further extrapolated in Avengers: Secret Wars (among other multiverse-based projects). A misunderstanding seems to have been propagated that the events of Loki and Multiverse of Madness are incongruous with the rules of the multiverse; however, there aren’t any tangible instances of the two projects contradicting themselves. If anything, the partially disparate nature of the series and film feels intentional in creating the understanding of how vast the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse is.
Waldron’s writing on Loki was focused on building the framework and the primary core of Marvel’s multiverse. Usage of the Time Variance Authority helped to introduce the general concepts and histories of the multiverse that, at points, seemed intentional to allude to the upcoming Secret Wars event. Meanwhile, the Doctor Strange sequel moved towards providing viewpoints of distinct alternate universes and how they’ve been dealing with the maddening multiverse. The threat of Incursions being introduced continues Waldron’s trend of planting seeds for one of the next two major “Avenger-level” events. There’s likely to be a combination of these writing themes in Avengers: Secret Wars. Interpersonal conflicts between the different universe fragments mixed with the chaos of quite literally everything breaking around them.
Deep Marvel Lore
Michael Waldron has also shown a penchant for including deep-cut references out of Marvel historical lore, from both on-screen and comic versions. Two distinct examples from both of Waldron’s writing credits best symbolize how he could very well implement these references. The Void in Loki is home to a vast array of references that add to the background atmosphere for casual viewers while being enjoyable treats for the more hardcore superfan (ie. Qeng Tower, the Living Tribunal, and the infamous Thanos-Copter). Though in the foreground of The Void, audiences meet characters such as Kid and Classic Loki, both of which resonate with both casual and hardcore fans at the same time. This is something that may be critical for the writing of Secret Wars to succeed. In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Earth-838-specifically The Illuminati-represent what to potentially expect for the second-to-next Avengers film. First and foremost, the writing of the alternate New York City and secret council quickly created the concept of a lived-in world that has a history some audience members will want to learn all about (namely, the alternate version of Infinity War including The Illuminati and various teams yet to form in the main Marvel Cinematic Universe). In addition, Waldron balances both a reverence for the alternate legacy characters involved, especially Patrick Stewart’s Professor X reprisal, while also being willing to aggressively mess with the status quo to highlight the fragility of multiversal conflict. Expect Avengers: Secret Wars to combine and expand on these different types of lore establishments for a potential Battleworld.
Inspiration From Classic Media
While his knowledge base for Marvel history has shown to be expansively deep, Waldron certainly has found additional inspiration from various classic pieces of media. For Loki, many have found the narrative and aesthetic similarities to stalwarts of science fiction such as Brazil, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Doctor Who. Meanwhile, with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Waldron’s script provides Sam Raimi the semi-Lovecraftian basis for the director to create a film visually akin to his work on the Evil Dead franchise (while being accessible as a PG-13 Marvel Cinematic Universe entry). While the argument can be made that these elements are more so from the directors of said projects, filmmaking is inherently a collaborative process and it’d be errant to believe that Waldron didn’t also have a hand in establishing the visual identities of these properties. And that type of perspective can be even more beneficial for helping whoever directs the sixth Avengers film to create their vision.
When it comes to Avengers: Secret Wars, it certainly will be interesting to see where inspiration may be drawn for this type of story. Based on Jonathan Hickman-written 2015 version, and even the more basic 1984 story, there are numerous cinematic and literary epics that could be used to inspire Marvel Studios’ Secret Wars.
Conclusions
All in all, the hiring of Michael Waldron as the writer for Avengers: Secret Wars seems to indicate a massively high concept and fast-paced ride of a film. Much like the process for Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely on Marvel films, Waldron has been writing projects with elevated stakes and scope for Marvel Studios’ central saga. If the positive momentum and seed planted from season one of Loki and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness can be followed through upon, the script of Avengers: Secret Wars has real potential to successfully culminate Phases Four through Six in a majorly impactful fashion.
After going through a long development process, the revival of the hit sitcom Frasier has officially received a series order from Paramount+. This news comes after the initial announcement of the sequel series all the way back in February of 2021. As well, word of a revival of Frasier has been in Hollywood circles dating back to the summer of 2018. Beyond it serving as the return of Kelsey Grammer to his beloved and iconic role of Dr. Frasier Crane, not much is currently known about what the revival will consist of.
The series is being written by Chris Harris (How I Met Your Mother) and Joe Cristalli (Life in Pieces). It is being produced by CBS Studios and Kelsey Grammer’s production company Grammnet Productions.
Frasier began as a spinoff to the classic sitcom Cheers, in which Grammer reprised his role that initially was a foil to the love story of Sam Malone and Diane Chambers. Frasier followed the titular character following his move from Boston to Seattle and his new career as a radio psychiatrist and dealing with reuniting with his turbulent family. Airing on NBC between 1993 and 2004, Frasier became a massive success in the television landscape. In its 11-season run, the original series and its cast earned a then-record 37 Primetime Emmy Awards (only to recently be broken by HBO’s Game of Thrones).
The new sequel series for Frasier will certainly have a lot to live up to in relation to the previous television homes of Dr. Frasier Crane. And for the young Paramount+ streamer, it is certainly hoping this can become the stalwart smash hit it is in the business for.
A new massive success story for Netflix is Dahmer: Monster – The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. In its second week on the streaming service, it has been viewed a total of 299.84 million hours. This follows the 196.2 million hours viewed in the debut week for the limited series. This puts Dahmer: Monster only behind Stranger Things 4 as the second most watched English-language series in a week. For reference, the two separate batches of Stranger Things 4 episodes released were initially viewed for 301 million and 335 million hours, respectively.
Based on the momentum the series currently has, it’s not out of the realm of possibility for Dahmer: Monster to be viewed more than the likes of Lucifer and Bridgerton and end up being a top five all-time viewed series for the streaming stalwart. It has already surpassed the ninth place ranking based on its statistics and has passed the likes of Ozark and 13 Reasons Why. All in all, Dahmer: Monster has the potential to join Stranger Things and Squid Games as one of the largest success stories for Netflix.
The series was created by Ryan Murphy, best known for his work on American Horror Story and American Crime Story, alongside Ian Brennan. It stars Evan Peters as the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and follows a dramatized account of ten separate murders conducted by him and how the ineptitude of police establishments allowed Dahmer to get away with them for so long.
Andor is currently in the midst of its first season on Disney+, however, fans of the franchise are already eagerly looking ahead to the show’s second season. While production on Season 2 isn’t slated to begin until November, thanks to a recent interview with the folks over at Collider, we might have a better idea of what’s to come when Season 2 hits in 2024.
Adria Arjona, who plays Bix Caleen in Andor, talked about her future involvement in the series, as well as the collaborative process with showrunner Tony Gilroy. As she explains, he is open to conversations about the show and the characters and has already updated her on Bix’s storyline going forward.
He [Tony Gilroy] was very open to conversations and is constantly telling me what is, what her journey is going to be like and, ‘Oh, I changed this a little bit’. He really kept me in the loop even before the scripts were done and the second he had a script out, we’d [the cast] would all get it first. Even now with the second part [of the series] he’s already told me what’s going to happen and that’s not the usual. He just really wants you to get into that mindset and start preparing your gears to sort of embark on this new journey and he wants you to think on your own as Bix so I can sort of have my own ideas and opinions.
Adria Arjona
Going off of her quote here, it can be gleaned that Caleen is fairly guaranteed to be surviving the events of the first season. This comes as Gilory has teased that the body count for Andor will be high with a tangible risk of any notable characters (besides of course the titular one) being killed off. As it currently stands, Bix is dealing with the death of her romantic partner Timm after a showdown between Cassian Andor and the Preox-Morlana Authority. With a total of 12 episodes for both Season 1 and Season 2, it remains to be seen where Caleen’s story goes from here.
Andor is currently airing on Disney+ with the fifth episode set to release on Wednesday, October 5.
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