We were all quite excited when we got the second trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder, as it offered our first clear look at Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher. We even got a good look at Russell Crowe as the Greek god Zeus, who had some fun by flicking off Thor’s disguise. He ended up overdoing it, as it lead to Chris Hemsworth‘s God of Thunder standing without his clothes on. It seems that this joke has become quite the hit with fans, as ComicBook.com noticed that it this part is the trailer’s most replayed moment.
via ComicBook.com
It’s definitely no surprise that this moment may have caught everyone’s glimpse, as Hemsworth went all out with his training for his return as the Thunderer. Even earlier set photos including him showed off just how trained he got, as his arms seemed like they doubled in size since the last time we saw him on screen.
Taika Waititi might also just be a marketing genius, as Hemsworth‘s special training isn’t the only thing that people are talking about. Natalie Portman not only returned to play Jane Foster but also went all out with her training, as many noticed just how ready she was to take on the role of Mighty Thor. Perhaps they are also hiding just how chipped Korg’s rocks have gotten since the last time we saw him growing moss while playing video games on a comfy couch.
If you haven’t yet had a chance to watch the final episode of the first part of Stranger Things Season 4, only continue at your own risk.
The end of Stranger Things’ latest season, which is only the first part of two, gave us the reveal of the real identity behind the overarching big bad, Vecna. In a creative twin flashback sequence, we meet One, the originator of the experiments that led to the creation of Eleven. Jamie Campbell Bower‘s character explains his history as not only the one that started the program but also as Henry Creel, the son of the man that was convicted for the murder of his children long ago. Two-story arcs came together to give us the reveal of how exactly he became this creature of the Upside-Down.
In an interview, the actor talked about how he created a “mind map” on how he would bring this mysterious character together. He was given “two sides” when he auditioned after being approached from the show them being from 1996’s Primal Fear and Hellraiser.
Christopher Lee was on there as Dracula. I had Pinhead, obviously, on there. I had Freddy Krueger on there. I had the more recent version of Dracula. I had some characters from, god, some of the wild ’80s vampire movies. Voldemort was on there as well. And a lot of fire.
Jamie Campbell Bower
He goes on to highlight how he knew nothing about the character for about a month before the Duffer Brothers revealed that he was Stranger Things‘ latest villain.
I knew very, very little, but somehow managed to piece enough together to be able to formulate the reality of who this person was. So call it fate, luck, intelligence, stupidity – god knows how it happened, but it happened.
Jamie Campbell Bower
He also talked about how he got into the suit at 3 AM and started work at 10 AM for up to twelve hours. It would take him another hour to get out of the suit, but he did say it forced him to push his performance as after some time it wasn’t easy.
On a more practical level, rather than an emotional level, I found that I had to give more. The suit moves with the face quite well, but it’s not as pliable. You’ve got a few centimeters or a centimeter or two between your actual skin and what’s able to be seen, so the idea of the eyebrows particularly, you have to make sure that I was really sort of giving it in the facial expression and not what I would maybe give facially if I was just not in a suit. But I think what was great was that underneath it all is the intention of this real hatred and this real resentment, and that was coming through.
Jamie Campbell Bower
The suit was definitely worth the time as its Freddy Krueger-esque design added a whole new level to the danger that he represented. The Duffer Brothers took the practical route to have actors react to it and it seems that he even ended up terrifying Grace Van Dien, who played Chrissie. Millie Bobby Brown even cried when she saw it. So, it sounds like they definitely got the effect they wanted.
As the calendar rolls over into Summer, production on another round of Marvel Studios projects will shortly be underway. Among those projects is the Disney Plus streaming series Ironheart, which was first announced by Marvel Studios One-Above-All, Kevin Feige, during 2020’s Disney Investor Day presentation. Dominique Thorne will lead the project as Riri Williams, a genius inventor who will make her MCU debut this November in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
Aside from Thorne, however, little news about the cast of Ironheart has made its way outside of Marvel Studios despite production set to kick off in June. In the Heights star Anthony Ramos has joined the series in an unannounced role, as have Harper Anthony and Lyric Ross. Rumors have circulated that Ramos might by portraying the villain of the project, Parker Robbins, better known in the comics as the Hood, and it’s known that Marvel Studios was looking to cast the son or daughter of Jeff Bridges‘ Obidiah Stane, the villain of 2008’s Iron Man. But as is almost always the case, Marvel Studios has stayed mum on any official announcements about the cast.
And while fans debate if Ramos is the Hood and wonder who will be cast as “Ezekiel Stane” (while Obidiah had a son in the comics, the studio is open to casting a woman in the comedic role), there is certainty around the creatives behind the project. Marvel Studios brought in Sam Bailey and Angela Barnes to helm the project as co-directors, with ChinakaHodge, Sev Ohanian, Zoie Nagelhout and Zinzi Coogler working as the team of executive producers. As it turns out, one actress who recently revealed she is prepping for a secret role happens to follownearly the entire creative team on Instagram.
GLOW and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. actress Shakira Barrera has recently connected with Bailey, Barnes, Hodge, Nagelhout and Ohanian (we were unable to find Zinzi Coogler on IG) and, just 6 days ago, posted the video seen below to her IG story.
In the video, she thanks her fitness coach for helping her prepare for an “amazing role” that the actress can’t share, but promises will be “worth it.” Given the mounting evidence, it’s reasonable to suggest that Barrera could have joined Ironheart in yet another unannounced role. And while it might not be announced, the comics might provide a reasonable suggestion as to whom she might be playing, should we begin by entertaining that Ramos is playing Parker Robbins.
Part of what makes Robbins such a fascinating and despicable villain in the comics is that his descent into villainy and dark magic cost him his family: his wife, Sara, and their daughter, Breanne. Robbins was always a poor husband, cheating on Sara whenever he could, but when he began trifling with magic, Robbins began to see Dormammu in everyone, including his daughter. After finding Parker shaking their daughter, Sara left Parker behind.
Should Ramos be playing Robbins, casting Sara alongside him would go a long way for making fans of the MCU develop the same dislike for this version as they have for the character from the comics. The logistics work out, with Barrera currently prepping for a secret role (and no roles are more secretive than Marvel’s) and she and Ramos are very close in age (he’s 30 and she’s 32).
Should you take this one to the bank? Absolutely not. While it seems pretty safe to conclude that Barrera has been cast in Ironheart, who she’s playing can only be taken as purely speculative, given that it’s based on a connections to a character who is only rumored to appear in the series in the first place. So while her casting might be confirmed sooner rather than later, it might be a year or so before we find out who she’s portraying in the series. As always, we’ll check back in then.
When Lucasfilm announced the future of Star Wars at an Investor’s Day event in late 2020, it included an exciting new Disney+ series that has yet to come to fruition. Lando is a show focused on everyone’s favorite scoundrel and it was revealed to be in the works by the creator of Dear White People, Justin Simien. The series was set to bring back Donald Glover in the titular role, which he took over from the iconic Billy Dee Williams in 2018’s cult-favorite film Solo: A Star Wars Story. However, since that initial reveal, almost nothing has been revealed about the project, causing many fans to fear it’s been put on indefinite hold.
During Star Wars Celebration over the weekend, CinemaBlend was able to speak with Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy and get an update on the long-awaited series. After being asked about Lando, she explained that Glover‘s busy schedule is the main culprit in the show’s extended production process:
You need to ask Donald. He’s the one that holds all the cards here. But there’s no movement. I will say that honestly. But it’s not for lack of trying. It’s just that he’s a very busy guy… He’s got another series, and I think one other thing, and then he’ll come our way. So patiently waiting.
Kathleen Kennedy
While it’s great to hear the project hasn’t been outright canceled, it is a little disappointing to know it’s still so far off from being a reality. Glover is currently finishing up the final season of his hit FX series Atlanta, and will then jump into work on Amazon’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith reboot. Over a year ago, during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the former Community star gave more or less the same update as Kennedy when asked about his future with Star Wars:
No, yeah, I have a lot of things. I like to blossom and then go away. Right now is the start of another one of those. I have like a ton of stuff I’ve been working on, but I just want it all to come out at the same time, so I feel like that’s what’s important.
Donald Glover
There are currently no plot details on Lando and no release window. It’s also unknown whether or not Billy Dee Williams will reprise his role as an older Lando Calrissian, or when the show takes place in the Star Wars timeline.
It looks like word-of-mouth is definitely pushing Tom Cruise‘s Top Gun Maverick to new heights. Not only did its Sunday remain surprisingly strong, but the film is now at an impressive $156M. As such, it’ll now beat Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End to take the crown of Memorial Day weekend’s biggest opening. There is a chance that it could still go higher and potentially reach $160M but either way it has definitely taken the crown this weekend.
The old-school blockbuster has been a revelation for many that were looking for a pause in superhero fare. While one could argue that the way these jet pilots fly isn’t quite human either, Top Gun Maverick definitely connected with audiences over the weekend. For those wondering if this is the end of superhero cinema, it’s more a sign that we’ll see a bigger balance moving forward if studios learn the right lessons from this film’s success.
Tom Cruise is a very unique kind of actor, who has a strong hand over his projects. The film’s success may also bode well for next year’s Mission Impossible film, which smartly released an early trailer alongside this film. The strong success of EverythingEverywhere All At Once has also re-established a new position for small and medium-sized projects within the market. A good balance of both crowd-pleasing blockbusters like genre-specific fairs alongside unique offerings for various age groups joined by smaller productions offering creative alternatives could not only revive a full blockbuster post-pandemic but push its development further.
The live-action One Piece series’ production has been going strong. While we did get a surprising amount of set photos leaked, which is mostly due to just how massive the production is with actual ships being used for the various pirates, we still know very little about the crew and their looks. With only a few more days to go for a first tease during Geeked Week, it seems that McKinley Belcher, who has been cast as Arlong, has officially joined the production.
The actor took to his Instagram account to share a set photo of his chair with his name on it. Sadly, he also isn’t giving us a glimpse at his make-up as the iconic villain from the East Blue, but it’s fun to see the tradition of the chair shot return. It was used by the cast early on when everyone started finding their way to production.
With him officially joining production it means that they are likely filming the iconic Arlong Park currently. Perhaps we get some photos from the cast sharing a look at them hanging out together, which was something we saw early on. We are quite excited to see how they translate the Fishmen to live-action and how close they may stick to his original design. With a budget that could rival a Marvel film, there’s a lot of potentials for this series to establish itself as the platform’s next major release. Perhaps Geeked Week may give us a first look at his design alongside with the Straw Hats in their costume.
When Obi-Wan Kenobi debuted on Friday, it introduced the world to one of the franchise’s most ruthless villains yet. Moses Ingram’s Reva Sevander, better known to the Empire and Inquisitorious as the Third Sister, was shown to be unabashedly vile in her hunt for hidden Jedi. The character managed to remove an appendage, threaten a family, and impale her own boss in just two episodes of shared screen time. Frankly, it was a pretty impressive introductory showing for Reva, in what is potentially just the tip of a rather violent iceberg. Based on the premiere, it would seem the Third Sister is set to play a major role for the remainder of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s run. Despite this, her future in Star Wars as a whole is still very much in question.
The latest Disney+ series takes place a full decade after the events of Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, planting it firmly in the middle of the galaxy’s “Dark Times” era, exploring the relationship between runaway Jedi and their Imperial hunters. It’s an incredibly intriguing basis for a story, but it’s not the first Star Wars show to tackle the topic. Star Wars Rebels, an animated series that ran for four seasons on Disney XD, was the first project to shed some light on the Inquisitors and their lust for democratic demise. The cult-favorite series takes place years after the events of Kenobi, and several members of the Inquisitorious make appearances over the course of its story. Familiar scowling faces like the Grand Inquisitor and Fifth Brother pop up repeatedly, but Reva is never anywhere to be seen.
Of course, there are plenty of viable reasons for her absence. Maybe the Third Sister is simply on a different mission than her companions at the time of the Ghost crew’s rise to prominence, or perhaps her actions against the Grand Inquisitor don’t go over well with the higher powers of the fearsome Empire. At first glance, it would seem fans don’t have any real clues as to Reva’s long-term future. Yet, with a little further inspection,a reasonable explanation may have already been presented…but nobody caught it.
On the same day that Kenobi premiered, a series of character posters were released to help promote Ewan McGregor’s big return. Each installment in the poster series features one of the show’s major players looking intently at the viewer, with their left eye replaced by a Tatooine sun and one of two characters – Obi-Wan, or his former apprentice, Darth Vader. Examining the group of posters as a whole reveals that the protagonists, or “good guys”, have Vader in their eyes, while the villains are shown to be focused on Kenobi. It gives the impression that the characters are looking toward their respective enemies. Curiously, Reva is the only character who doesn’t fit this pattern. Although she has thus far appeared pretty villainous, her character poster has her eyeing down Vader in the same manner as Obi-Wan and Kumail Nanjiani’s surprisingly warm-hearted con man.
It’s made clear in the series that Reva has a desire to prove herself to the Emperor’s right-hand man, so it’s possible the poster is just an indicator that Vader is the real apple of her eye. However, it’s also entirely plausible that Reva won’t stay on the Dark Side of the Force for all six of Kenobi’s episodes. Redemptive arcs are fundamental to the fabric of Star Wars, and tend to happen more often than one might think. The franchise has seen worse villains, including the aforementioned Vader, come back to the side of the Light before. There’s still plenty that’s not known about Reva’s backstory, which was teased as being somewhat tragic, and it wouldn’t be all that shocking to learn she was once a happier individual than she is now. If that’s true, then the long history of Star Wars would imply that good may still be inside of her.
Kenobi began with a sequence in which a group of younglings attempted to escape the Jedi Temple during Order 66. Maybe Reva was there, a Jedi herself, and has doubled down on the pain of the Dark Side to escape the pain of her own past. If her attack against the Grand Inquisitor were to get her booted from the Inquisitorious or put on notice by Vader himself, she could potentially be forced to ally with Obi-Wan in another attempt to survive. From there, who knows what interacting with a former Jedi Master could lead her to remember about herself. Either way, the placement of Vader on Reva’s poster is an interesting choice and one that feels awfully deliberate in comparison to everything else.
Star Wars Celebration has come and gone and the event was…eventful! With so many announcements pouring out, it would have been easy to miss news about even your favorite project. To counter that, here’s a daily recap of everything Murphy’s Multiverse deemed fit to print.
The Bob’s Burgers Movie is set to hit theaters on May 27th. In production for nearly four years, it will be the first film adaptation of series that has run over a decade. As a result, it may be hard to place the film clearly within the show’s extensive and complicated timeline. Thankfully, franchise creator Loren Bouchard doesn’t seem to think it matters much when the movie’s story takes place in regards to the animated series. In fact, after being asked about it at a recent press conference, he explained that it’s been left vague almost purposefully:
I like this question because it’s, you know, it’s not any kind of linear timeline that we can understand using our own lives. I mean, this is sort of a circular space where this family seems to be going through this, sort of roughly, a year over and over again with different permutations.
Loren Bouchard
He continued to elaborate on the nature of cyclical storytelling and it’s apparent lack of continuity, including the way the show’s writers and animators are allowed to play with some elements of time but not others:
And then some things, we’ve pulled through. So you can’t call it continuity, really. And certainly not for somebody who’s watching early seasons and late seasons, you know, in the privacy of their own home streaming. And for them, it must be doubly weird. Louise is on her green mean, you know, mean green machine one episode, and then she’s riding a bike in the next episode. And so that’s not continuity exactly, but we have made a deal with the fans, I think, that as long as it feels right, that as long as there’s this sort of, it’s not narrative growth over time, but it’s kind of this layers that build up.
Loren Bouchard
The director concluded his anecdote by stating any installment of Bob’s Burgers, including the film, could take place at any time in the life of the Belcher family:
It is depth. And so for the movie, yeah. I mean, it’s got to fit in there. And we are just, you know, now starting to think about these episodes that are gonna air after the movie, and they’re gonna air in the shadow of this event. But of course, they also kinda happen before. I mean, in a way, the movie happened before the first episode, so this is a weird game to play. But it’s fun.
Loren Bouchard
A separate question during the conference asked if recent episodes of the series had any references to the film’s events, which received an answer revealing that a giant crack had been forming slowly in front of the Belcher’s restaurant that would eventually become the giant sinkhole present in the movie. So, if any fans out there aren’t happy with Bouchard‘s take on the Bob’s Burgers timeline, then perhaps they could use this as their own measure of continuity.
We’ve long waited for an update on if we can expect a future for the Star Wars Visions series. The first left quite a mark with viewers, as the blending of the classic George Lucas franchise with anime just seemed like a recipe for success. We haven’t gotten a confirmation for a future season, but it has finally been confirmed during the exclusive Visions panel at Star Wars Celebration with a new updated logo all in red. There’s no word however if this might mean we’ll get a bit more from the Sith in the next volume.
Yet, they have announced that it won’t just be focused on anime this time around but include animation from across the world. So, we might expect a lot more diversity in the stories being told and how they may be explored. It’s an exciting future development to see them diversify.
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