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  • Review: ‘Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’

    Review: ‘Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man’

    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.

  • Marvel Studios Reportedly Making Room for a Highly-anticipated Hero in ‘Avengers: Doomsday’

    Marvel Studios Reportedly Making Room for a Highly-anticipated Hero in ‘Avengers: Doomsday’

    Despite a rough couple of years, heading into Year 16 it’s safe to say that Marvel Studios still has plenty left in the tank. Even after an uneven Phase 5, the Multiverse Saga promises to introduce The Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom, characters whose presence in the MCU was once nothing but a pipe dream. According to Kevin Feige, Avengers: Secret Wars will open the door to the X-Men, finally bringing the mutant heroes to the MCU after being mismanaged by Fox. And those headliners are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what fans have to look forward in 2027 and beyond.

    Marvel’s greatest Cosmic hero, Richard Rider, will finally make his long-awaited debut in the as-yet-undated D+ streaming series, Nova; a new generation of young heroes will come together to form the Champions; and a group of young mages and mystics from across all dimensions are rumored to set foot in Strange Academy. As bumpy as the ride through the Multiverse Saga has been, there’s plenty to look forward to once it comes to an end; however, it’s not quite there yet…and a new report indicates that one long-awaited character has some major work to do before it’s all said and done.

    It seems as though Marvel Studios has finally found the right vehicle to introduce the Spirit of Vengeance into the MCU. According to social media scooper @ApocHorseman, a Ghost Rider will play a “major role” in 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday.

    Word of the potential appearance comes months after Marvel TV boss Brad Winderbaum addressed the persistent rumors surrounding the character’s absence from the MCU. Though the new report from @ApocHorseman does not reveal which Ghost Rider from the pages of Marvel Comics will appear in Avengers: Doomsday, Winderbaum may have given it away, saying “I would wanna do the Danny Ketch era of Ghost Rider.”

    While it’s unclear and a little confusing as to what role a Spirit of Vengeance might have in Avengers: Doomsday, it’s likely fans will concern themselves very little if one shows up…especially if the studio manages to land Ryan Gosling in the role.

  • New Rumor Suggests Casting Is Underway for Two Key Members of Marvel Studios’ All-New X-Men

    New Rumor Suggests Casting Is Underway for Two Key Members of Marvel Studios’ All-New X-Men

    As the sixth anniversary of Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox approaches, Marvel Studios has done very little with the treasure trove of live-action rights that fell to them in the merger. While Deadpool & Wolverine was a box office success for the company and Hugh Jackman‘s return as the best their is at what he does was a wonderful treat, it’s safe to say that Wade Wilson was well down the list of characters MCU fans were anticipating to appear.

    That’s all about to change, of course, as Marvel’s First Family, The Fantastic Four, will make their MCU debut this summer. And then, there’ the X-Men. Though mutants have been sparsely sprinkled into several projects over the past few years, fans are craving an all-new take on Marvel’s Children of the Atom and things are indeed gathering some Juggernaut-ish momentum on that front.

    Last spring, Michael Lesslie was tasked with scripting Marvel Studios’ first X-Men film. While Kevin Feige has yet to publicly reveal too much about the film, he has made it clear that even though “some X-Men players that you might recognize” will appear before the end of the Multiverse Saga, the mutant heroes won’t take center stage until after 2027’s Avengers: Secret Wars.

    Right after that, the whole story of Secret Wars really leads us into a new age of mutants and of the X-Men.

    Kevin Feige

    However, an infinite multiverse allows for infinite storytelling possibilities, including the introduction of a few major muties before they move into the spotlight. Rumors have made the rounds that Lesslie’s script focuses on an X-team that closely resembles the roster of heroes from Marvel Animation’s very popular and successful X-Men ’97. As expected, original X-Man Jean Grey would be among those characters and recent reports indicated that Marvel is already looking at actresses to fill that role. Now, a new rumor from a trusted Marvel insider claims that Marvel is also looking to fill the role of another X-Men ’97 star in addition to one of Feige’s favorite characters.

    According to Daniel Richtman, Marvel Studios has begun the process of casting for the roles of Remy LeBeau and Kitty Pryde.

    The news is consistent with an earlier report from Richtman in which he claimed Gambit and Shadowcat were the leads in an early draft of Lesslie’s script. The news that the studio is looking for a new actor to portray Gambit will certainly be disappointing to fans of Channing Tatum‘s version of the character seen in Deadpool & Wolverine; however, there’s always hope that Tatum will be one of those recognizeable X-Men players teased by Feige.

    Since it’s still in the scripting stages, Marvel Studios’ X-Men reboot hasn’t been placed on Disney’s release calendar; however, with a trio of films set for 2028, it’s beginning to look increasingly likely that the X-Men will indeed make it into the MCU within a decade of the Fox merger.

  • Upcoming Marvel Studios Series Already Greenlit for Record Run

    Upcoming Marvel Studios Series Already Greenlit for Record Run

    After 17 years with the company, it would be right to say that Marvel Studios Head of Streaming, Television and Animation, Brad Winderbaum, has seen it all. After working as an assistant to Louis D’Esposito on 2008’s Iron Man, Winderbaum climbed company ladder and is now one of the most influential voices working behind the scenes at Marvel. Given the scope of that influence, when Winderbaum feels strongly about the direction of a project, it’s good news for that project.

    In the case of Marvel Animation’s upcoming streaming series, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, which debuts on January 29th, Winderbaum‘s positivity about the project seems to have it poised to make a record-breaking run on Disney Plus.

    Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Hudson Thames) in Marvel Animation’s YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Animation. © 2024 MARVEL. All Rights Reserved.

    What Jeff is building brick by brick in this show is starting to pay off. You feel it in season 1. You grow connected to these characters so when everything starts to lock into place and starts to pay off by the end of the season, I feel it in my soul. It just gets deeper and deeper in subsequent seasons.

    -Brad Winderbaum
    In an interview with The Movie Podcast, Winderbaum not only confirmed that the previously announced second season of the series is already deep into development but also that a third season has already been given the go-ahead.

    “We’re greenlit for season three so in a couple of weeks, I’m going to hear [Jeff Trammell ‘s] pitch for the third season of this show,” said Winderbaum.

    Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Hudson Thames) in Marvel Animation’s YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Animation. © 2024 MARVEL. All Rights Reserved.

    With that, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man joins Marvel Animation’s What If…? and X-Men ’97 as the only Marvel Studios’ streaming series to find life beyond a second season. Like X-Men ’97, the first season Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man consists of 10 episodes which means, should subsequent seasons also receive 10-episode orders, it looks to be on track to be the first streaming series to run for at least 30 episodes, especially with development on X-Men ’97 slowing down.

    Early reactions to the new animated series have been overwhelmingly positive and Winderbaum seems to share that enthusiasm. “I’ve fallen so head over heels in love with these characters,” he said before updating the progress being made on Season 2. “By the way, I’ve now read all the scripts for season 2. We’re halfway through the animatics.” Though the animation process is a long one, Winderbaum‘s comments could point to a second season streaming on Disney Plus at some point in 2026.

    Source: The Movie Podcast

  • DC Studios’ Reportedly Preparing to Film “Insane” Sci-fi Series

    DC Studios’ Reportedly Preparing to Film “Insane” Sci-fi Series

    Even as James Gunn and Peter Safran set out to build the DCU, the DC Studios’ co-chairs have made it clear that creatives will have freedom to tell stories through different mediums, genres and aesthetics. And so while Gunn’s Superman looks to be a bright, pulpy take on the Man of Steel, it takes place in the same continuity as Mike Flannigan‘s body horror flick, Clayface, and James Mangold‘s Swamp Thing, described as a “simple gothic horror movie.”

    The idea is, of course, in line with the long publishing history of DC Comics and should have a similar impact at DC Studios in that it will allow for original ideas to evolve into (hopefully) great superhero stories. One of the earliest test cases for the premise may well be Lanterns, a streaming series that continues to sound a lot like an HBO prestige series. And if one cast member is to be believed, fans may not quite be ready for what DC Studios is about to do with Hal Jordan and John Stewart’s “terrestrial-based investigation story.”

    John Stewart and Hal Jordan are two of DC’s most compelling characters, and Lanterns brings them to life in an original detective story that is a foundational part of the unified DCU…

    -James Gunn
    In an interview with Collider, Poorna Jagannathan, who was cast in a supporting role in Lanterns, described it as “the best sci-fi script I’ve ever read.”

    “This is the first script that I’ve read that I understand why there’s an NDA,” explained Jagannathan. “Everything is so insane. It is the best writing that I have ever read.” Created by Ozark writer Chris Mundy, DC Comics ace Tom King and TV legend Damon Lindelof, Lanterns will focus on two of the corps‘ most well-known members, John Stewart and Hal Jordan who will be working as “supercops on Precinct Earth.”

    “I don’t know anything about sci-fi, and I don’t care, actually,” continued Jagannathan. “But this script makes sci-fi seem like my world. It makes it so accessible to me. I understand everything about this world even though I don’t understand this world.”

    The series, with an impressive cast led by Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre, had already begun to generate some buzz online and Jagannathan’s comments won’t do anything to temper expectations. With cameras set to roll this week, it may only be a matter of time before DC Studios gives fans a first look at Lanterns which is expected to stream in mid-2026.

    Source: Collider

  • Lucasfilm’s Daisy Ridley-Led ‘New Jedi Order’ Moving Ahead with New Writer

    Lucasfilm’s Daisy Ridley-Led ‘New Jedi Order’ Moving Ahead with New Writer

    One of three films announced to be in development during Star Wars Celebration 2023, the Daisy Ridley-led New Jedi Order era film was once expected to launch the theatrical return of the Star Wars franchise. Set 15 years after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, the project, directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, has struggled to come together, however. Originally developed by Damon Lindelof, the film began to lose steam almost immediately after it was announced as the Lost creator, and his co-writer, Justin Britt-Gibson, bailed. Steven Knight quickly  boarded the project and just as quickly left, forcing Lucasfilm to pull the film from its 2026 release calendar.

    Undeterred and determined to get Ridley, who it views as its “most valuable cinematic asset”, back on the big screen, Lucasfilm has renewed work on New Jedi Order. According to THR, The Bourne Ultimatum and The Banker scribe George Nolfi is the latest writer to take a crack at the script.

    New Jedi Order will reportedly see Ridley’s Rey seek to build…a new Jedi order. Over the course of the Skywalker sequel trilogy, Rey not only unlocked her abilities but tapped into the Force in incredible and previously unseen ways. Though details about the new film have always been hard to come by and it’s unclear if Nolfi will be starting from scratch, it seems logical to assume that a decade and a half after defeating the First Order, Rey would be the most powerful Jedi ever seen in a project set in tht galaxy far, far away.

    With director Shawn Levy‘s Untitled Star Wars film believed to be starting production this year and eyeing a December 17, 2027 now, New Jedi Order remains unscheduled for the time being as Lucasfilm has no further dates set aside for Star Wars films.

    Source: THR

  • DC Studios Casts Ulrich Thomsen as Classic Legion of Doom Villain

    DC Studios Casts Ulrich Thomsen as Classic Legion of Doom Villain

    First introduced in ABC’s Challenge of the Superfriends in 1978, the Legion of Doom has since appeared across multiple mediums and become a staple of supervillainy for DC. Originally assembled by Lex Luthor, the Legion consisted of 13 baddies from the rogues galleries of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash and Green Lantern.

    Over the years, different iterations of the team have added and subtracted members and grown the roster beyond the original 13. In any case, the group represents a sinister and serious threat to heroes of the DC Universe. And while it may be years down the road, there’s some chance that the all-new DCU might bring the characters together on the big screen for the first time.

    With Nicholas Hoult already on board as Lex Luthor in Superman, a second key member of the Legion of Doom is now confirmed to be on the way as well. According to a trade report, Banshee and The Blacklist star Ulrich Thomsen has joined Lanterns as Sinestro.

    In Lanterns, it seems Thomsen will be playing the charactsr as “a former Green Lantern who turned rogue and is described as ruthless yet undeniably charming. Sinestro’s manipulative nature drives his enduring obsession with his former mentee, Hal Jordan.” Traditionally, Sinestro has been Jordan’s mentor, making the DCU’s take a fresh one that could provide some unique narrative opportunities.

    Said to play “a really big role leading us into the main story” of DC Studios’ Chapter One: Gods and Monsters, Lanterns was created by what DC Studios’ co-chair James Gunn described as “a crack team of writers” that consists of Tom King, Chris Mundy and Damon Lindelof and was ordered straight to series by HBO in 2024.

    John Stewart and Hal Jordan are two of DC’s most compelling characters, and Lanterns brings them to life in an original detective story that is a foundational part of the unified DCU we’re launching next summer with Superman.

    -James Gunn and Peter Safran

    Lanterns will revolve around Green Lantern Corps members Hal Jordan and John Stewart finding an “ancient horror on Earth.” Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre were cast as Jordan and Stewart, respectively. Word is that Jordan will be a grizzled vet–which makes Chandler a great choice–and that Stewart, played by the up-and-coming Pierre, will be a new member of the Corps working with him as “supercops on Precinct Earth.” Nathan Fillion‘s Guy Gardner, who will debut in Superman, is also reportedly set to play a role in the series.

    We have a few other Lanterns peppered in there but this is really a terrestrial based TV show which is almost like True Detective with a couple of Green Lanterns who are space cops watching over Precinct Earth in it they discover a terrifying mystery that ties into our largest story of the DCU.

    -James Gunn

    Lanterns will begin production this year and is expected to release in mid-2026 on Max.

    Source: Deadline

  • Marvel Studios Quietly Shuffles Its Decision-Making Deck

    Marvel Studios Quietly Shuffles Its Decision-Making Deck

    In the early days of Marvel Studios, Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter assembled a group of individuals he called the Creative Committee. Composed of Marvel Comics writer Brian Michael Bendis, Marvel Comics publisher Dan Buckley, Marvel Entertainment President Alan Fine and Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, the Creative Committee provided feedback on each project as it developed.

    Following a series of events that left him frustrated by the Creative Committee, Feige nearly left Marvel before a deal was struck with Disney CEO Bob Iger in 2015 that allowed for significant restructuring. As a result, Feige reported directly to Disney chair Alan Horn, pruning Perlmutter and his creative committee out of the film branch of Marvel Entertainment.

    Beginning with 2017’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Marvel Studios began producing films without the influence of Perlmutter ‘s creative committee; however, before long, Feige began assembling his own team to help guide projects behind the scenes. First acknowledged in the credits of Black Panther, a collection of Marvel Studios’ long timers known as the Marvel Studios Parliament have been quietly helping to craft each MCU project.

    Feige’s original roster was made up of Stephen Broussard, Eric Hauserman Carroll, Jonathan Schwartz, Trinh Tran and Brad Winderbaum, all of whom worked their way up the ladder and served as producers on several Marvel Studios projects. Nate Moore, who co-produced Captain America: The Winter Soldier before producing Captain America: Civil War and Black Panther, joined the team for Avengers: Endgame.

    Since 2018, a member of the Parliament has served as a producer or executive producer on each project; however, it’s a collaborative effort that gets the ball rolling.”There definitely is a camaraderie for a lot of us who have been around for a long time just throwing ideas back and forth,” said Schwartz, who was an executive producer on cosmic corner projects such as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and The Marvels while also producing Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

    “It’s great when you have people who have been through the process, and who you trust, and whose creative taste you trust, and everyone’s taste is different, and that’s part of what’s really useful about it,” Schwartz told us in 2021. “Not all of us see movies the same way, so we’re all able to bring something a little bit different.”

    It’s not really a genre thing or a speciality thing. We all sort of go off together and talk about who wants to do what and what’s coming up, and we all kind of end up working on stuff we’re excited about. I just like martial arts movies and Shang-Chi felt like the right character to bring a martial arts movie to life, and so that was that I put my hand up and said I wanted to do Shang-Chi. That’s more or less the way it tends to happen, there’s a character we all want to do, or there’s a character one of us one of us wants to do, and we just talk about it and divide it up and things generally work out where people get to work on things they’re excited about.

    -Jonathan Schwartz

    In a 2022 interview with CinemaBlend, Moore explained that while the primary focus of the Parliament was to act as a “brain trust”, the team did also work as a cohesive continuity police, helping bring together info from Marvel Studios andarbel Television to avoid confusion. “I would say that’s certainly not just our responsibility,” said Moore of monitoring continuity, “because we have colleagues across both the movies and the shows who aren’t technically in Parliament, but who are incredibly instrumental in making sure the continuity maintains itself and that our different properties don’t step on each other.“

    Parliament is essentially those of us who’ve been with the company for longer than we want to admit who sort of help each other with ideas across all the properties, regardless of whether it’s my movie or Jonathan [Schwartz]’s movie or Stephen [Broussard] ‘s movie. And so yeah, it’s nothing more than that. We kind of came up with the name as a lark and it kind of stuck, and now I’m forced to answer questions from my friends, like, ‘What’s Parliament?’ I’m like, ‘Oh boy.’ It really is just kind of a brain trust to help elevate the movies when we can.

    -Nate Moore

    For five years, the Parliament stayed intact and worked to shepherd 25ish projects through the pre and post-production processes. Following Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Carroll, who co-produced Spider-Man: Homecoming before working as an executive producer on Spider-Man: Far From Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, was no longer credited as a member of the team.

    Beginning with 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine, Marvel Studios longtime Head of Visual Development, Ryan Meinerding, filled the seat vacated by Carroll. In December 2024, Feige revealed that Moore was leaving Marvel Studios to pursue a new career trajectory. While it’s unclear what Moore’s last project as a member of Parliament might be, he will be working with the studio again in the future as a producer on the as-yet-undated Black Panther 3.

    With Moore’s scheduled departure, it’s unclear if Feige will once again look to add to the team’s roster. As it stands, original members Broussard, Schwartz, Tran and Winderbaum, who also oversees Marvel Television and Marvel Animation, join Meinerding as the current iteration of the “brain trust” as the studio looks not only to continue to rebound from a rough couple of years but also bring the Multiverse Saga to a satisfying conclusion while also preparing to launch whatever comes next.

    Disney did not respond to our request for comments on Meinerding’s addition to the Parliament.

    Source: Cinemablend

  • First Look at Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El Released as Principal Photography Gets Underway on DC Studios ‘Supergirl’

    First Look at Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El Released as Principal Photography Gets Underway on DC Studios ‘Supergirl’

    After screen testing along with Meg Donnelly and Emilia Jones, Milly Alcock was chosen as the DCU’s Supergirl in late January 2024. Nearly one year later, DC Studios’ co-chair James Gunn has provided fans with a sneak peek of Alcock‘s Kara Zor-El as production has gotten underway on Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.

    Thrilled to see cameras roll at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden on Supergirl, with Craig Gillespie at the helm and the phenomenal Milly Alcock as our Kara Zor-El. Craig brings an incredible sensibility to this story, and Milly is every inch the unique #Supergirl envisioned by Tom King, Bilquis Evely & Ana Nogueira.

    -James Gunn

    Though Alcock‘s Supergirl will first appear in 2025’s Superman, this is the first time any image of the actress in character has been shared from set. Set in a bar, perhaps somewhere in the galaxy as seen in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #2, the photo shows Kara in casual wear rather than her costume. It also shows the same crest of the House of El featured in Gunn’s Superman.

    Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #2

    Based on Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s DC Comic series of the same name, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow will see Kara travel the galaxy and ultimately do battle against the villainous Krem of the Yellow Hills, played by Matthias Schoenaerts.

    In our story, we have Superman who was sent to Earth and raised by incredibly loving parents. Kara was on Krypton. She was on a piece of Krypton that drifted away from the planet and she lived there for the first fourteen years of her life in a horrible situation where she watched everyone around her die. So, she’s a much harsher and more fucked up Supergirl than you’ve been used to thus far.

    -James Gunn

    Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow will hit theaters on June 26, 2026.

    Source: Twitter

  • By the Vishanti! Benedict Cumberbatch Updates the Status of the Doctor Strange Threequel

    By the Vishanti! Benedict Cumberbatch Updates the Status of the Doctor Strange Threequel

    Despite only making one live-action appearance in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Benedict Cumberbatch‘s Stephen Strange has remained a central character in the Multiverse Saga. While it remains to be seen how Marvel Studios ties the events of three seasons of Marvel Animation’s canonical animated series, What If…?, into the larger MCU narrative, one Stephen Strange Variant played an integral role from beginning to end.

    Despite all that–and being a key player in both Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame–it’s hard to believe that there isn’t much, much more the studio could do with the character. His film appearances have neither truly scratched the surface of the weirdness of the character’s comic book counterpart nor taken advantage of his shared history with characters such as the Hulk, Namor or Clea, who was at least introduced in the last film. Even more surprising is the news that despite the character seemingly being a perfect fit as a primary foil for Doctor Doom, Strange will not appear in 2026’s Avengers: Doomsday.

    So what does the future hold for Strange? Cumberbatch promises the character will play a big role in Avengers: Secret Wars but surely the studio has more in store for a major Marvel Comics’ character played by one of Marvel Studios’ biggest starts…and it seems that they do. On the heels of a report that the powers that be have decided to move forward with a third installment in the Doctor Strange franchise, Cumberbatch addressed the potential threequel in an interview with Variety.

    Though the star was careful not to give anything away, it’s clear things are moving forward with the project.

    “They are very open to discussing where we go next,” said Cumberbatch, who will clearly have input on the direction of the project and its creative team.

    Who do you want to write and direct the next one? What part of the comic lore do you want to explore so that Strange can keep evolving? He’s a very rich character to play. He’s a complex, contradictory, troubled human who’s got these extraordinary abilities, so there’s potent stuff to mess about with.

    -Benedict Cumberbatch

    At this point, it’s unclear if Doctor Strange 3 fits into the Multiverse Saga or if the studio sees the project as one that can help it launch its post-Multiverse plans. While it seems as though the build up to Avengers: Secret Wars might benefit from additional narrative runway–and that Strange’s importance to the overall story would dictate continuing his story before that film would be helpful–that would require moving the film again, something the studio may be unwilling to do. So, for now, whatever “potent stuff” Cumberbatch believes is in store for the character remains the stuff of speculation.

    Source: Variety