From start to finish, Hawkeye was one of Marvel Studios’s most solid D+ streaming series. The chemistry between co-leads Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld catalyzed a relatively simple plot, creating an undeniably entertaining 6-part series. While a second season of the show was never announced, it always seemed possible and, over the last two years, rumors and reports made it sound as though it was a sure thing…until recently.
I cannot speak to future plans in the tradition of secrecy. Again, the show coming out, you never know how it’s going to be received and it has been amazing to see how warmly people have taken it and enjoyed it. And it’s been great to see Hailee’s character embraced and sort of land so firmly in the MCU. I sincerely look forward to where that character goes next. And yes, I loved walking on the streets of the MCU and would gladly enjoy doing it again.
-Rhys Thomas
Following a recent interview with Jeremy Renner in which the longtime Marvel star revealed that the studio had given him a “low-ball offer” for a second season of Hawkeye, a pair of Hollywood insiders have shared some unfortunate news about the studio’s disingenuous negotiations.
According to both Jeff “The In” Sneider and Puck’s Matt Belloni, Renner’s report of a low-ball offer by Disney was not an exaggeration but rather a negotiating ploy on the part of the company to ultimately pin the cancellation of the series on the star for turning it down.
They asked me to do Season 2, and they offered me half the money. I’m like, ‘Well, it’s going to take me twice the amount of work for half the amount of money, and eight months of my time, essentially, to do it for half the amount. I’m like, ‘I’m sorry? Why? Did you think I’m only half the Jeremy because I got ran over? Maybe that’s why you want to pay me half of what I made on the first season.
-Jeremy Renner
If accurate, it’s a brutal tactic by Disney, especially given Renner’s commitment to his Marvel role, which wasn’t always what he’d hoped. While fans will ultimately forget that the studio was reportedly ready to move forward with a second season, the news serves as a tough reminder that business is business in Hollywood.
Yes, you’ll notice the asterisk on Thunderbolts. That is the official title of Thunderbolts and we won’t talk more about that until after the movie comes out.
-Kevin Feige
Marvel blitzed social media with new posters and videos of members of the cast revealing the movie’s “new title”, including Sebastian Stan walking around Los Angeles covering up Thunderbolts* posters with *The New Avengers ones. The savvy move has already stirred up increased conversation around the film, potentially propelling it to a very solid second weekend at the box office, especially considering the overwhelmingly positive reviews it’s received. Now, the studio has begun to address some of the questions that have popped up due to the move.
Changing the title of a film after release isn’t groundbreaking but changing it four days after release might have been…had they officially changed it. Following the online uproar, Gizmodo and io9 reporter Germain Lussier shared word from his Marvel source that the rebrand is simply a “marketing gimmick” and that thenfilm’s official title remains Thunderbolts*.
*steps up to soapbox*
"The New Avengers isn't the official title! It's just a fun marketing gimmick, which is clearly working. Call the movie whatever you want but officially, it's still and will remain Thunderbolts!"
In an interview with the New York Times, director Jake Schreier explained the logic behind the gimmick. “It felt like, if Val is also trying to pull a switcheroo and sell the New Avengers to the world, we could do that, too,” he said. “Especially given that the asterisk has been on the movie for a year, hopefully it doesn’t feel sweaty — it feels like this was a plan and we built up to it,” he explained, referring to the addition of the symbol which was first revealed in a behind the scenes look at the film shared by star Florence Pugh.
Florence Pugh is here to show you a few things she can't show you.
Schreier added that while Marvel was open to the addition of the asterisk, they always assumed its meaning would leak ahead of the film’s release. “It’s very fun [Marvel was]open to embracing that,’ said Schreie. “It’s so interesting in this world, and Kevin [Feige] talks about it sometimes, where sometimes they wanted things to leak and they don’t. I think we all assumed that it would be a bigger part of the conversation already, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens.” Interestingly, the information did indeed “leak” well ahead of the film’s premier but apparently not loudly enough to catch the attention of the fine security folks at Marvel Studios. Now all that remains to be seen is what impact it has on the film’s box office performance both this week and over the long haul.
Marvel Studios Thunderbolts* and/or *The New Avengers is now in theaters.
Though it’s set in a long time ago in galaxy far, far away, the political and social aspects of Star Wars have always been inspired by our own planet’s history. George Lucas was heavily inspired by World War II while making the original trilogy, modeling the Empire after the Nazi Third Reich. The prequel trilogy showed how the machinations of Sleepy Sheev Palpatine led to the fascist Empire’s entrenchment but the films’ focus on the Force, the Jedi and the Sith meant that, for the most part, evil and heroic things were only done by Sith and Jedi. While Rogue One told the story of ordinary heroes, Season One of Andor introduced ordinary villains, those who represent the military arm of the Empire and are willing to suppress dissent by any means necessary. Spread throughout the galaxy, the Imperial Security Bureau serves as an overt analogy to the Nazi Gestapo, brutally enforcing the Empire’s policies with impunity, until the Ferrix Riot. If Tony Gilroy wanted to make the Empire more detestable, the first twelve episodes of Andor did so by deepening the surface-level analogy created by The Creator.
Until now, Star Wars projects have navigated in the shallows of the Nazi analogy. Andor Season 2 boldly dives into the deepest waters through the Empire’s plans for Ghorman, a planet along the galaxy’s Rimma Trade Route. The first nine episodes of Season 2 bring to live-action one of the most despicable acts the Empire ever perpetrated in Star Wars canon and does so while creating a direct parallel to Nazi genocide and the Holocaust. Led by Ben Mendelsohn‘s Orson Krennic, select members of the Empire meet secretly at The Maltheen Divide and hatch a sinister plan to strip mine Ghorman. Anticipating resistance from a people who have already lost hundreds in a savage act perpetrated by Tarkin, the cabal’s debate over how to move forward reveals the Empire’s disdain for its populace: the people of Ghorman aren’t people at all, only pests in the way of the Empire. Straight from the Nazi playbook, the Empire’s propaganda arm, The Ministry of Enlightenment, sows the seeds of hatred and prejudice of the Ghor, weaponizing galactic opinion and marginalizing them so that the Empire may take what it wants and look like heroes in doing so. The secret meeting, the realization of the plan and the events that unfold in the season’s eighth episode leave the viewer feeling hollowed out and establish the Empire as an evil that extends well beyond its Emperor.
Structurally, the first nine episodes steer Andor to what feels like a fitting conclusion to the plot threads spun in Season 1. Luthen Rael’s Rebellion struggles to organize against the Empire with its disparate factions unable to trust one another, Mon Mothma continues to struggle to navigate an increasingly complex and sheepish polticial landscape in the Senate and Andor continues to question his place in the galaxy and whether or not he’s prepared to lose everything for the greater good. Drowning in dysfunction, the Rebellion simply is not ready to exist; however, the Ghorman Massacre makes it clear that the galaxy cannot wait until it is.
Suddenly the Rebellion is real for you? Some of us live it. I’ve been in this fight since I was six years old! You’re not the only one who lost everything. Some of us just decided to do something about it.
If the first nine episodes bring Andor to a conclusion, the final three, set one year before the Battle of Yavin, serve as a prologue to Rogue One, teeing up the events of the film while truly carving out Cassian’s legacy as THE rogue one. Only in the final pod of episodes can the full weight of what Andor truly is be felt: it is the most important project in the overall mythos of the Star Wars universe. Cassian Andor, a Kenari orphan, emerged as the connective tissue of the Rebellion. And Kleya Marki stands as one of the most important characters in the history of the galaxy far, far away…but are you sure you even know who she is without a Google?
Tony Gilroy unquestionably created something singular and exceptional in Andor. Crafting a project worth watching when its audience already knew how it had to end seemed so impossible that the necessity of the existence of Andor was questioned before it ever hit Disney+. However, Gilroy delivered an epic masterpiece and never relied on Jedi mind tricks and flashy cameos in order to do so. Even as the series entered more well-tread territory, Gilroy’s series never abandoned its characters, allowing them to leave their marks on the vast narrative tapestry of the Star Wars galaxy.
Everything I did, I did for the Rebellion. And every time I walked away from something I wanted to forget, I told myself it was for a cause I believed in. A cause that was worth it. Without that, we’re lost. Everything we’ve done would have been for nothing. I couldn’t face myself if I gave up now.
-Cassian Andor
Having grown up when Star Wars: Episode IV-A New Hope was simply called Star Wars and having watched projects in the order they’ve been released might lessen some of the dramatic tension of a project like Andor; however, Star Wars is forever and as first timers work their way through projects in chronological order without the benefit of knowing what comes next, they will be captivated by Andor. Captivated by its thematic resonance, its ambition in building the unseen corners of the Rebellion and the Empire and its wire-to-wire intensity. They’ll be sure they’ve never seen anything quite like it…and neither have you.
In the lead up to its release, Marvel Studios is working hard to make sure audiences don’t think Thunderbolts* is just another typical MCU joint. The film’s star–and one of Marvel’s greatest talents–Florence Pugh told Empire the film, helmed by Jake Schreier, “ended up becoming this quite badass indie, A24-feeling assassin movie with Marvel superheroes.” And Schreier claims to have drawn inspiration for the film from Toy Story 3 which is simply the last film you’d expect to hear inspired a film full of sort-kinda bad guys.
Once upon a time, the film was more or less a sequel to Black Widow and early word around Hollywood was that it wasn’t pretty; however, it may be the first theatrical project under Bob Iger‘s second regime to be saved by pumping the brakes and making sure a high quality version was ready to go. Early response to the film’s teasers and market has been positive but there has been one concerning fan theory that has made the rounds.
Based on what’s been seen so far, fans are convinced that Taskmaster, played once again Olga Kurylenko, will bite the dust early on. And a new look at the film via Letterboxed has done nothing to disprove that theory.
Exclusive new look at @MarvelStudios' THUNDERBOLTS* starring Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus 👀
The new teaser, which is really quite wonder, lists off the members of the team, including The Winter Soldier who technically doesn’t exist anymore, without listing Taskmaster.
Whether or not Tasky’s absence is just clever exploitation of a popular fan theory or if the character truly doesn’t make it out alive, the new teaser will only drive more buzz around Thunderbolts*.
In late 2020, Marvel Studios announced that James Rhodes was set to lead his own series in Armor Wars. As of July 2021, presumptive Star Don Cheadle felt as though production on the project was imminent; however, 3.5 years later, not only has Armor Wars not begun filming, it doesn’t sound like it will anytime soon….if at all.
We probably will start filming sometime next year and are just kind of cracking the story right now, deciding what’s that journey gonna look like, what’s Rhodey’s…the iteration of this going to be.
-Dont Cheadle, July 2021
In an interview with Marvel Studios Parliament member Nate Moore, Collider asked about the status of Armor Wars and was given a clear, if not frustrating answer.
“As Marvel continues to go through this phase, we want to make sure whatever we’re making is awesome. So that means we had to slow down some things that were on the front burner,” said Moore. “It doesn’t mean we’ll never make it,” Moore said of Armor Wars, “but it does mean we just have to be a little bit more considered so that every time out, audiences are guaranteed quality.”
How bad could this possibly go? First announced as Spider-Man: Freshman Year during 2021’s Disney + Day, Marvel Animation’s Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man made a hard pivot away from telling the origin story of the MCU’s Peter Parker. Setting the series elsewhere in the Multiverse allowed showrunner Jeff Trammell to tell a story “adjacent to the main continuity” without being constrained by that continuity. The result is an alt-universe take on Spider-Man that will surprise you far more than you might imagine and that you are destined to love.
There’s a reason why we changed the title to Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. It’s about the neighborhood. It’s an ensemble show. Every character is well-defined and has amazing arcs, from Peter and Nico to Lonnie and Pearl.
-Brad Winderbaum
Spider-Man is easy to get right. And make no mistake, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man gets Spider-Man as right as can be imagined. Beyond the THWIPS and quips, the animated series puts the full range of Spidey’s powers on display in ways that have never been brought to bear in animation or live-action. For all the preemptive pishposh about the series’ style, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man delivers a level of web-slinging, wallcrawling action that no Spidey project to date has so much as dared to approach. For every complaint about the still characters in a scene, the animators answer with moments that fans from across all mediums will find themselves rewinding.
It does have a lot of DNA that is very similar to the MCU depiction of the Tom Holland Spider-Man, but it really also draws all the way back to Steve Ditko.
-Brad Winderbaum
Far more difficult than summarizing Spidey is pinning down Peter Parker. The true measure of success for any Spider-Man project should be establishing and reinforcing to the audience who the man behind the Spidey mask is…and who he continues to choose to be against all odds. From beginning to end, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man works incredibly well. It does so not only because it allows Peter time to mature but also because it’s clear that Aunty May has provided him room to grow. The slice-of-life approach to Peter’s story, beginning with the origin of how he became Spidey and following through well until the end of the series, makes this one of Marvel Entertainment’s most successful efforts to date.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is an animated series that follows Peter Parker on his way to becoming a hero, with a journey unlike we’ve ever seen and a style that celebrates the character’s early comic book roots.
-Official Synopsis, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
If the series does have a weak point, it is that everybody is somebody. In a world where someone who can attend school may end up being someone and in a series meant to be exactly what it is, there is no room for error. On an overwhelmingly positive note, however, while Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is Year One for Spidey and Year Zero for Lonnie Lincoln, so, so many of Spidey’s supporting characters are given incredible life. Sure, you’ll hear deserved praise for Colman Domingo‘s Norman Osborn, but everyone’s performance from Hugh Dancy‘s Otto Octavius to Charlie Cox‘s Daredevil to the spectacular surprises meant to surprise the audience add up to something none of us have seen quite yet.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man debuts on Disney Plus at 3:00 AM on January 29th.
Lucasfilm’s plan to bring Star Wars back into theaters with The Mandalorian and Grogu has come under fire recently. Following reports that Star Wars: The Clone Wars bounty hunter, Embo, would play a key role in getting the action underway, Star Wars fans did what Star Wars fans do best: rage. Setting aside the fact that Din Djarin’s bounty hunting career is what allowed him to cross paths with Grogu, it’s obvious that there’s more to the 2026 film than the Din/Embo arc as the project stands to be pivotal in Dave Filoni‘s New Republic era of stories.
Indeed, the Shadow Council, the Imperial deep state first seen in Season 3 of The Mandalorian, will have a presence in The Mandalorian and Grogu as will the New Republic, which will certainly be bracing for war once Thrawn’s return from exile on Peridea is discovered. And while the New Republic leadership has been largely faceless outside of a few brief appearances by Chancellor Mon Mothma, Senator Xiono and a few nameless fill ins, a new report indicates that The Mandalorian and Grogu will introduce a high-ranking New Republic military official.
According to Jeff “The In” Sneider, Sigourney Weaver is set to portray a new character, New Republic Colonel Bishop, in The Mandalorian and Grogu.
Fans of the Alien franchise will immediately catch the reference to it in Weaver’s new character’s name. Bishop is the synthetic Science Officer who accompanied Weaver’s Ripley and the USCMC to LV-426 in 1986’s Aliens.
Though Sneider didn’t share further details on Bishop’s role in The Mandalorian and Grogu, Bespin Bulletin added that the character has “little screen time” in the project. Weaver seems like too big of a star to fill such a small role. Should she survive, perhaps Bishop will appear in future New Republic-set projects as a key player in the war against Thrawn and the Shadow Council.
The Mandalorian and Grogu will hit theaters on May 22, 2026.
2025 is primed to be a monster year for Marvel. Marvel Studios will roll outCaptain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts* and The Fantastic Four: First Steps; likewise, Marvel Television will roll out a trio of projects: Daredevil Born Again, Ironheart and Wonder Man; finally, Marvel Animation will have its biggest year yet with Your Friendly Neighborhood, Eyes of Wakanda and Marvel Zombies set to stream. For a studio looking to cut back on content, 9 new projects in 12 months seems incongruous with its stated intent.
With six of those nine projects releasing on Disney Plus, fans will have plenty to keep them occupied at home while they wait to head back to theaters. However, Disney+ is not Marvel + and it has been in Disney’s best interest to give each project from its major production studios its own air to breathe. And so, as hyped as MCU fans are for Daredevil: Born Again, Star Wars fans are equally excited for Season 2 of Andor. And since many of those fans overlap, the best way to put up big numbers is to make sure the series compete with one another as little as possible. And in order to make that happen, Marvel Animation’s first 2025 project will roll out on an unprecedented release schedule.
According to multiple outlets, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man will follow its two episode debut on January 29th with consecutive three-episode drops on February 5th and 12th before wrapping up on February 19th with the final two episodes.
Marvel Animation's 'YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN' Release Schedule on Disney+:
You’re going to see some familiar faces — and if you’re a fan of Chameleon, you’re going to see a few of his faces. You’re also going to see Scorpion, as well as a few characters who may seem new, like Speed Demon or Butane. We have a huge rogues gallery to play with, and so we’re looking forward to putting some of them in the forefront.
Coincidentally, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man will complete its run on the same day that Pixar, another of Disney’s major production houses, debuts Win or Lose, the studio’s first-ever original streaming series. In order to make that work, while also not sharing space with Daredevil: Born Again, episodes of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man will be released according to Marvel Studios’ most unique schedule to date. While a two-episode premier has become the expected norm, the studio has always followed that up with a “one-episode-per-week” pace. Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, originally developed as a canonical adventure, looks to be the canary in the coal mine for Marvel as they look to fit several highly-anticipated projects into D+’s 2025 schedule.
Arguably one of the most complete Star Wars streaming series to have hit Disney Plus, Ahsoka ultimately seemed positioned as the fulcrum of the New Republic Era. The events of the finale, which saw both Thrawn and Ezra Bridger escape exile on Peridea and return home, will certainly be pivotal in whatever happens next in the Mandoverse. However, with Ahsoka, Sabine, Shin and Baylan Skoll left behind in Peridea, it was also clear that Dave Filoni had big plans to explore the nature of the Force through a further exploration of The Ones.
Those plans were thrown into disorder when Ray Stevenson, who so brilliantly portrayed the enigmatic Skoll, passed away suddenly and tragically in May, 2023. It was unclear how Stevenson’s death would impact Filoni’s plans for Season 2 of Ahsoka but now, we have our answer.
As first reported by Jeff “The In” Sneider and then by the Hollywood trades, Rory McCann, who memorably portrayed the brutal Hound on Game of Thrones, has been cast as Baylan Skoll.
Production on Season 2 of Ahsoka is slated to kick off at Loncross Studios in the UK in April. While McCann‘s casting is the first news to drop in connection with the new season of the series, it certainly won’t be the last. Despite the likelihood that the rest of the main cast of Season 1 will return, it’s likely that Filoni will have sprinkled in a handful of other characters from Star Wars Rebels in order to continue their stories.
After years of circling the role, Jason Momoa has finally stepped into the biker boots of the interstellar Czarnian bounty hunter, Lobo. Momoa broke the news himself via Instagram by posting a quote from a 2023 interview with Fandango in which he stated that if he was ever called and asked to play the character, he would. He then commented on his own post, simply stating, “They called.”
Shortly after Momoa’s Instagram reveal, Hollywood trades reported that the star would first appear in the all-new DCU in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow which is scheduled to hit theaters on June 26, 2026. The news was then “confirmed” by DC Studios’ co-CEO James Gunn, who posted a picture of the character across various social media platforms. With principal photography on that project slated to begin shortly after the new year, the coordinated release and confirmation of Momoa’s casting may indicate his role in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow may be larger than a cameo and that the studio expects he’ll be seen on set.
Even as he waxed hopeful that he’d continue as Aquaman in the new DCU, Momoa never shied away from sharing his desire to play Lobo. First appearing in 1983’s Omega Men #3, Lobo, the self-described Ultimate Bastich rose to fame with a very metal redesign as a hyper-violent, spacebike-riding mass murderer. While his role in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is unclear, the two characters do have a shared history in DC Comics. Unlikely to be a true villain in the film, Lobo will almost certainly be introduced as a thorn in the side of Kara Zor-El with the possibility that he’ll eventually help the hero in some self-serving way.
The casting of Momoa as Lobo works incredibly well both in that the actor loves the character and in that he won’t have to act at all. Though there’s been no comment on future appearances by the character, it would seem likely that future appearances, perhaps including a Lobo-centric project, are likely.
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