Murphy's Multiverse

Category: News

  • Live-Action ‘One Piece’s Writers Room Opened for Season 2 Again

    Live-Action ‘One Piece’s Writers Room Opened for Season 2 Again

    The WGA strike has come to an end and as such developments on some projects are moving forward again. The Hollywood strikes aren’t over quite yet as actors are still fighting for a fair deal, but there’s hope that those will be finalized soon. For now, the big movement forward is that the writers room for One Piece has opened according to showrunner Matt Owens.

    The writers room is up and running, yes, getting scripts done so that we can get into design work, scheduling and pre-production, all of that kind of stuff.

    Matt Owens

    While discussing where they currently stand, he also highlights that they won’t start any castings or actor-related developments before the SAG strike has come to an end; such as highlighting the hiring of Jamie Lee Curtis as Dr. Kureha as a favorite.

    In the same interview, Owens also highlighted that scripts for the second season aren’t done. Tomorrow Studios producer did reveal that they should already be ready to release the series as soon as possible but with the strike they seemingly only have an outline ready for now.

    We did start our Season 2 writers room for a little bit before the strike. We didn’t get much further than starting to plan out what the season is going to be and got a couple of outlines done. But that’s as far as we got. So there are not actually any scripts for the season that are done. It’s still going to take some time.

    Matt Owens

    Looking at the positives of the current developments, Owens highlights that they can take in all the feedback the series released. They also already had talks with series creator Eiichiro Oda on potentially where they are heading going into the second season.

    And of course, now that the show has come out, there are things to look at and lessons to learn as we move forward. We’ve got some outlines, and we have a really solid plan that we had communication with Oda about. Part of my trip in April was to talk to him about some of the early ideas that we had, talking to him about things that I want to include to just make sure that our ideas are in line with what he thinks.

    Matt Owens

    So, one thing is for sure: development has started in the second season. It’s hard to say if they will manage to start production next year but depending on how far they come in the next few months, we will hopefully get a clear case of One Piece’s second season will be released in 2025 or 2026.

    Source: Deadline

  • ‘One Piece’ Showrunner Shares He Couldn’t Finish the Show Himself Due to WGA Strikes

    ‘One Piece’ Showrunner Shares He Couldn’t Finish the Show Himself Due to WGA Strikes

    Due to studios not paying their writers and actors, the WGA and SAG strike left its scars on many productions that were slowly wrapping up. Yet, some still managed to work their way towards a release, such as the big release of One Piece in August. We didn’t know just how hard the live-action adaptation was affected by the strikes.

    In an interview with Deadline after the WGA deal had finally been made, showrunner Matt Owens was finally able to talk about the show and also offered some insight into how it affected his work on the project. As it turns out, he was not able to truly finish the project but was “very close” to a final version. As such, most of the team had to carry on with the work while Eiichiro Oda was still supervising the project.

    We were very close. I had just gotten to Tokyo to meet with Oda again in April and have conversations with him about where the cuts were, some things that he wanted to see. So we were back in post when the strike hit. We were picture-locked on most things, there was still a lot of visual effects, final music; it was mostly finals. I’d seen stages of the majority of it, which was another heartbreaking thing about it — I didn’t get to finish the show. But luckily, my post-production team, the effects team, they know me, and they know the show. So for having to step away, I still felt like the show was in the best possible hands. And Oda was still involved, even though we were not communicating about the show.

    Matt Owens

    That is a shame but also highlights just how much love from everyone involved was poured into this series, as the lack of an active showrunner could’ve shown its fangs in other ways. The praise to the team working on the show is definitely a good sign of how far they managed to carry on even without Owens actively being able to be involved while supporting fair wages in the industry. Though, he also had some fun getting to see how some things turned out once the final reveal came.

    It was exciting because I had never seen the final final cuts of this show until the rest of the world did, so I did feel like there were some little surprises for me to discover, Oh, that’s how that turned out, that’s f*cking great, things like that.

    Matt Owens

    Here’s hoping that going into the second season, the production will be able to be part of the full journey this time around. That makes the renewal even sweeter, as it gives him the chance to fully be part of the process he started and what he invested five years of his life according to the interview.

    Source: Deadline

  • ‘One Piece’s Matt Owens Open to Exploring a Mihawk Spinoff

    ‘One Piece’s Matt Owens Open to Exploring a Mihawk Spinoff

    With a live-action adaptation of One Piece releasing to strong fanfare and views, we were quite excited that it managed to get a second-season renewal. That wasn’t always a sure thing with Netflix given how it handles most of its big series’ releases. Though, some not only manage to get a renewal but even go one step further with spinoffs planned in advance, such as with The Witcher.

    Well, it seems that while there’s no word on One Piece getting a spinoff, it does seem like showrunner Matt Owens is quite open to expanding the series. While we did assume that they likely will remain true to the source material, there is one idea he’d definitely be open to adapt: a spinoff focused on a young Mihawk and his adventures before the events of this series.

    There are so many stories we have yet to fully dive into. I’d love to do a young Mihawk series. Seeing his rise through the world, interacting with other prominent figures from the past.

    Matt Owens

    It definitely would be a fun adaptation and with Eiichiro Oda heavily involved, they could stick to canon. He has openly stated that he personally would love to explore a Marine spinoff in the past but given his tight schedule remains focused on ensuring the main series manages its way to the final release.

    Source: Reddit

  • ‘One Piece’ Showrunner Shares Why Loguetown Wasn’t Included in Season 1

    ‘One Piece’ Showrunner Shares Why Loguetown Wasn’t Included in Season 1

    There have been many discussions ahead of the release of Season 1 of One Piece. The live-action adaptation was initially set to have ten episodes; something we hinted wouldn’t stay as initially announced by Oda before the pandemic. Still, it was later revealed to only consist of eight episodes, an internal mandate from Netflix, and nothing towards the actual series at the time.

    So, many wondered if we would even get to truly visit all East Blue islands, and once the series was released, we sadly only got a brief glimpse at Loguetown in the first episode. Still, they managed to tie the series’ main themes throughout without the necessity of the town that is named prologue and epilogue. In a Reddit AMA, showrunner Matt Owens confirmed that the reason it wasn’t included was due to the episode reduction.

    Skipped? Never! It wasn’t included in season 1 because our episode number got reduced. And to try to cram it in would not have done service to it or the story it had to share space with. Loguetown is not “cut” we just haven’t gotten there yet!

    Matt Owens

    It’s not too surprising and it is a shame that they didn’t get to keep their initial plans for the episode structure. There are some small elements where one can tell they likely adapted the pacing from that initial pitch but it manages to pull it all together in creative ways. Plus, the tease in the first post-credit sequence hints at a perfect set-up with Loguetown introducing Smoker as a major antagonist going into the new season.

    Source: Reddit

  • ‘One Piece’ Creator Designed Mr 7 for Netflix’s Live-Action Adaption

    ‘One Piece’ Creator Designed Mr 7 for Netflix’s Live-Action Adaption

    It must’ve been a wild journey for showrunner Matt Owens. Starting off as a massive fan of One Piece, he went on to work closely with Eiichiro Oda, the man who created the iconic seafaring adventure, to bring it to live-action. Plus, he got the chance to explore ideas and concepts that were never fully realized in the original series but simply hinted at. One of those is the iconic battle between Mr. 7 and Zoro, which kicks off the character’s introduction in the live-action and sets up a second season.

    In an Instagram post, the showrunner shared that the appearance of Baroque Works was one of the first ideas he pitched Oda as a way to introduce the character of Zoro before we arrive in Shells Town while also adding something that is canon but was never actually shown in the material. He jokingly shares that even Oda had to ask his editor about it and was greeted with a full drawing of the character the next day, which was the first time he got an actual design besides a doodle from his SPS section.

    The design was also carried over into the live-action adaptation and gave us our first glimpse at what is to come beyond the East Blue. It also marked Oda being impressed by his knowledge of the series and its world which was just the first discussion he had with the creator, who even calls “a friend” in the post. There have been many hints that he has grown close with many involved in the production, which will hopefully also mark a stronger bond going into the second season.

    Source: Instagram

  • Matt Shakman Expects ‘Fantastic Four’ to Film Next Spring, Calls It “Unlike Anything at Marvel”

    Matt Shakman Expects ‘Fantastic Four’ to Film Next Spring, Calls It “Unlike Anything at Marvel”

    The WGA and SAG strikes shut down Hollywood for several months and in the absence of genuine news, a deluge of liquified bullshit ran wild. Marvel Studios long-gestating Fantastic Four was the subject of many such rumors, including one that indicated director Matt Shakman had departed the project. It looks as though that rumor–like many of the other rumors that have made the rounds since July–has been dispelled as Shakman provided an encouraging update on the project in an interview with Collider.

    From the sounds of the interview, it seems unlikely that there was ever any chance of Shakman bailing on Fantastic Four. “Absolutely having a great time,” said Shakman when asked how his work on Marvel Studios First Family project was going. “It’s a dream of mine to be able to work on that. I’ve loved those characters since I was little. It’s such an awesome world to be in,” he explained. “The script is awesome, the characters are brilliant. I’m super excited. I’m obviously very happy now that the writers’ strike has resolved in such a good way, and we’re able to reunite with Josh Friedman, our amazing screenwriter. I’m really hoping for a fair and equitable resolution to the actors’ strike soon, too. Keeping our fingers crossed. But we’re going! We’re a snowball heading downhill. It’s awesome. It’s got a lot of momentum. It’s really fun.“

    After updating the post-WGA status of the script, Shakman revealed that the project will be ready to go in front of cameras in 2024, “probably in the spring” at Pinewood Studios in London. The director also explained that the film should be able to make its projected start date because while the WGA and SAG strikes were ongoing, work continued with visual effects and production design crews to build the right mix for the world that the Fantastic Four will inhabit.

    We have been nonstop. Despite the strikes, yes, we’ve been working with the effects and with production design and building our world, and that’s been incredibly exciting. You know, how do you translate those skills into live-action in dynamic ways? Because some things that work beautifully in John Byrne and Jack Kirby are a little tougher when you’re filming them. How do you make sure that things are exciting but also grounded in a scientific thing, which is also part of the Fantastic Four that I love? There’s some stuff I’m super excited about. I can’t say too much, you know?

    Matt Shakman on the world building of his Fantastic Four film

    While Shakman couldn’t give any updates on casting, he was pleased to heap more praise on the new script. “It’s different in so many ways,” Shakman said of Friedman’s rewrite. “I wish I could be specific. I wish I could say more. But we are doing things very differently from a story standpoint, from an approach to the filmmaking standpoint, that really fits the material. I wish I could say more. I would love to, but I can’t. But I think it’s going to be unlike anything you’ve seen before, and certainly unlike anything at Marvel that you’ve seen before.” Given the importance of this project not only to the Multiverse Saga but the continued health of the MCU, setting it apart not only from previous big-screen iterations of the team but other teams already in place is perhaps the most encouraging update fans could have hoped for.

    Fantastic Four should hit theaters in 2025.

    Source: Collider

  • Synopsis, New Characters Revealed for Marvel Studios ‘Ironheart’

    Synopsis, New Characters Revealed for Marvel Studios ‘Ironheart’

    After debuting in 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Dominique Thorne’s Riri Williams is set to take on her own solo adventure in the Disney Plus streaming series Ironheart. While a new listing at the U.S. Copyright Office points to it being quite a while before that series hits the streamer, some new information about the series has come to light.

    Though it’s not set to stream for another 2 years, a new synopsis for Ironheart–along with some additions to the main cast–provides a little more insight into what to expect. The series is described as one “in which charming teenage super genius Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) returns from MIT to her hometown of Chicago in her iron suit and begins to unravel threads that bring danger and adventure to her doorstep.” While it doesn’t give away much, the synopsis does at least place the setting of Ironheart AFTER the events of Wakanda Forever, clearing up a subject about which there had been some debate.

    The filing also fills out the series’ cast a bit more though it’s not quite as revealing as a similar filing that was made for Daredevil: Born Again. Solo: A Star Wars Story’s Alden Ehrenreich is listed as Joe McGillicuddy which is almost certainly an alias or throwaway name as it’s widely believed the actor had been cast as Ezekiel Stane, the son of Jeff Bridges‘ Iron Man villain, Obadiah Stane. Manny Montana (Cousin John) and Shea Couleé (Slug) look to be members of the crew of Anthony Ramos’ Parker Robins with Couleé likely a version of Marvel Comics Ulysses Lugman and Montana a version of John King, the actual cousin of Robbins.

    Anji White looks to be portraying Riri’s mother, Ronnie, while Lyric Ross looks to be taking on the role of Riri’s best friend, Natalie, who was shot and killed in front of Riri when she was 13. The Many Saints of Newark actor Matthew Elam is listed as Xavier Washington, who seems to be an original character and may end up as a love interest for Riri. Interestingly enough, Regan Aliyah, who joined the cast in August of 2022 and was rumored to be set to portray Zelma Stanton, is absent from the cast list.

    Despite their efforts to conceal his identity here, there’s really no mystery to Sacha Baron Cohen’s “mystery man” as it’s been widely reported he will be portraying Mephisto. His presence–and that of the Hood–sets up Ironheart as a unique magic vs. science that should thrill fans when it arrives in 2025.

  • ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Gets a New Synopsis and Interesting Character Additions

    ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Gets a New Synopsis and Interesting Character Additions

    After getting off to a very public start of production in New York City, Daredevil: Born Again moved out of the eye of the public for some time before being shut down in the midst of the WGA strike. With the resolution of that strike and some good vibes being generated around a settlement of the SAG strike, the big wheel is starting to spin again at Marvel Studios and some new information about the anticipated series has come to light.

    Thanks to the discovery of a US Copyright filing, a new synopsis for the Disney Plus streaming show has been made public as well as some incredibly interesting additions to the cast.

    In the filing, Daredevil: Born Again is described as a story that sees “longtime rivals Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) try to leave behind their darker alter-egos to serve the people of New York only to have their pasts catch up to them.” Given all the uncertainty about just how this series ties to Netflix’s Daredevil, it’s eye-catching to see Murdock and Fisk described as “longtime rivals.”

    The synopsis may be the least interesting bit of information found in the filing, however, as it not only confirms quite a few rumored castings but also reveals several actors and characters with major Marvel Comics ties. Confirmed are the castings of Margarita Levieva as Heather Glenn and Nikki M. James as Kristen McDuffie, each of whom was a love interest of Murdock’s in the Marvel Comics. Of major interest is the listing of Michael Gandolfini as a character named Daniel Blade, Arty Froushan as Buck Cashman and Genneya Walton as BB Urich.

    It has been rumored that Gandolfini is playing a young Wilson Fisk in flashbacks and “Daniel Blade” is not an existing Marvel Comics character, so there could be some alias work at play there. While Buck Cashman, a superpowered government special operative, has over 30 appearances as a supporting character in Daredevil comics, the most interesting name of the group is BB Urich. While there’s no BB Urich in the pages of Marvel Comics, it’s possible that Walton could be playing the daughter of Ben Urich, one of Daredevil’s most important supporting characters in the comics who was played by Vondie Curis-Hall in the Netflix Daredevil series. Urich was killed by Kingpin in that series so if Walton were to be playing his daughter, her inclusion may well line up with the idea of Fisk’s past catching up with him.

    Whatever the case, the filing also indicates the show isn’t expected to stream until January 2025 at the earliest which means fans will have a long wait to find out exactly what’s going on in Daredevil: Born Again.

  • Potential Release Dates Emerge for Marvel Studios Delayed Streaming Series

    Potential Release Dates Emerge for Marvel Studios Delayed Streaming Series

    The recently resolved WGA strike and the yet-to-be-resolved SAG strike have taken a toll on Marvel Studios’ streaming plans. Streaming series such as Daredevil: Born Again and Wonder Man were forced to shut production down which began a game of dominoes with the once robust slate of programming. Without a solid idea of when series would resume production, much less complete it, the studio began to reshuffle its plans to make sure consumers would have something to consume in 2024. As a result, Echo, a finished product, was bumped out of November 2023 and into January 2024 and other series’ release dates, such as those for Agatha: Coven of Chaos and Ironheart, faced some serious uncertainty. Now, as the future of production schedules begins to become a bit clearer, some clarity around the release of these projects may have gained some clarity as well.

    According to multiple filings with the US Copyright office, originally found by @ScarletWitchUpd, Marvel Studios has begun to plan out their 2024 and 2025 streaming schedules a little more specifically.

    While these dates must certainly continue to be taken as tentative for the time being, it seems the current plan is to release the first episode of Agatha: Darkhold Diaries on September 29, 2024, the first episode of Daredevil: Born Again in January 2025 and the first episode of Ironheart on September 3, 2025. The late 2025 release date for Ironheart comes as quite a shock considering principal photography on the series wrapped in November 2022 and a good deal of footage was shown off at D23 2022 in Anaheim.

    If these dates should hold–or even be relatively accurate–it also speaks volumes about Marvel Studios plans for series such as Wonder Man and Vision Quest. As it stands, it would seem that neither of those two series would be on the books before 2026. Given the studio once had eight unannounced series (of which Wonder Man and Vision Quest were two) set to stream between the Fall of 2024 and the Summer of 2025 it will interesting to see just how much fat has been trimmed from the slate since Bob Iger returned.

  • Scott Derrickson’s ‘Doctor Strange 2’ Would Have Been a “Genuine Horror Film”

    Scott Derrickson’s ‘Doctor Strange 2’ Would Have Been a “Genuine Horror Film”

    It’s no secret that the Doctor Strange sequel that made its way into theaters in 2022 was miles away from the film that was originally pitched by the director of the first film, Scott Derrickson. When Derrickson and Marvel Studios parted ways, the rumor mill churned out the idea that departure stemmed from the director being told his pitch was “too creepy.” That rumor was squashed by Marvel Studios One Above All, Kevin Feige, and never really made much sense anyway since the studio went on to work with Sam Raimi, who inserted plenty of creepy stuff into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. That doesn’t mean, however, that Derrickson, who has directed horror movies such as The Black Phone, The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister, didn’t have creepy ideas in mind for the sequel.

    In an interview with The Playlist, Derrickson opened up about the reasons he and Marvel Studios chose to part ways and his pitch for the film. “All I can say is that what we said publicly is exactly the truth,” said Derrickson. “We had real creative differences. You know, the movie I wanted to make and how I wanted to make it was different than–it was just increasingly obvious that we were pulling against each other. And that’s how you make a really bad movie, I think. When the producer or the studio and the filmmaker are making different movies, you end up with a monstrosity and, you know, that’s why I had to bounce.”

    As for what the movie Derrickson wanted to make entailed, the director told The Playlist that is was an “extreme departure from the first film” and “a genuine horror film of sorts.” Concept art for Derrickson’s version of the sequel included designs for Nightmare, a Fear Lord who has served as one of Strange’s longest-lasting antagonists in the comics. So what becomes of all those concepts and ideas? As it turns out, Derrickson explains “there’s no bad blood” over his departure, backing up his previous comments about being open to returning to work with the studio. While it seems unlikely his pitch would line up with what Doctor Strange 3 seems to be about, it’s possible it might find life in whatever comes next for the MCU following the Multiverse Saga.

    Source: The Playlist