We’ve all been wondering what exactly happened to Spider-Man: No Way Home. Early on, it seemed like the film was heading in a very specific direction, but it seemingly took a different route at one point in development. Our very own Charles Murphy shared some tidbits he heard on the project, such as Joel Kinnaman being considered for a role that might’ve ended up being Kraven the Hunter. Suddenly, the multiverse opened up and we got a very different film and some doubt was cast on the original vision.
Luckily, Tom Holland confirmed that the Kraven storyline was their original plan for No Way Home. While he doesn’t give away any exact information, in the hopes that they might revisit the concept in a sequel, it does feel like a relief to finally get a confirmation on what the vision was for this film. Yet, the interesting aspect was that this version was their Plan B, as “things weren’t working out” at the time. His full quote states that:
For a long time, there was going to be a Kraven movie that was going to be the third movie because things weren’t working out and all sorts of different stuff. Jon pitched me this Kraven movie, which actually was really cool. I don’t want to talk about it in case that movie ends up happening down the line, but it was fun.
Tom Holland
There was even a time that the Spider-Slayers would’ve had a role of some kind in one version of the film’s draft. It’s not uncommon for things to change, and it seems that the many contractual goals they’ve set were able to come together to bring us the multiversal film we’re getting next week. So, we’ll see if he might still get a chance to face off against Kraven in a sequel, as Kraven’s Last Hunt would make for an amazing film.
With classic villains returning in Spider-Man: No Way Home, it seemed like the perfect time to revisit the cinematic outings of our favorite webhead. So, it only seems fitting to kick off with the film that started it all, 2002’s Spider-Man. Sam Raimi, at the time mostly known for his work in horror, took on the responsibility of adapting one of Marvel Comics’ most popular characters. It was no small feat, but the franchise is still fondly remembered to this day. Tobey Maguire takes on the role of Peter Parker, as he’s ready to face off against his most iconic villain, Willem Dafoe as the Green Goblin. Does the film still hold up after all this time?
It’s always weird looking back at films you adored as a kid. I wasn’t a big comic reader at the time, but Raimi‘s film was most certainly the push that would make me the Marvel fan I am today. As an adult, you look at these films with nostalgic glasses but also learn new insights you may have missed as a kid but also have a harder time with some elements. Sadly, it seems the romance between Kirsten Dunst‘s MJ and Peter just hasn’t aged as well for me as I thought it did. While it’s a perfect set-up for Peter to learn not to be selfish, and the ending highlights that very fact, it just takes away from the film a bit with her short-lived romance with Harry.
Now, that doesn’t take away from the film in any way, it just is an element that doesn’t work as well as it used to for me. However, as an element in the story, it is hard to imagine it without. His love for her pushes Peter throughout the story and even builds some distrust with James Franco’s Harry Osborn. I will say, the fact they play out their friendship early on, only for him to date the girl he knows his “best friend” is in love with was a curious choice. It does add some tension to the story, but it adds a naivité to our hero. It’s punctuated by his actions later own as this is a Peter Parker who sees the good in others, which becomes especially essential in the sequel.
Speaking of good, it’s incredible to see how well these effects have held up over the years. Yes, there are some moments where it sticks out, but the work here is incredible nonetheless. The scene as he swings MJ to safety with the puppet and hair blowing the wrong way is something you never truly realize until someone points it out, which highlights just how immersed you truly are in the film. Green Goblin’s glider effects have weight to them, but the pumpkin bomb turning people into skeletons was quite a bit over-the-top. Still, it fits right into Raimi’s wheelhouse.
As I mention the director, you can see a lot of his work influenced this film. The creeping camera shots and generally how everything moves to stand out among films of the time. Hell, it even rivals recent releases on how creatively it uses the camera to convey the gravitas of Spider-Man’s actions. While I believe he perfected it in the sequel, there are some truly memorable shots sprinkled throughout that make the film stand the test of time. Even as we have gotten a bit tired of seeing heroes’ origin stories nowadays, this was a spectacle and the film manages to breathe that life into it.
The highlight of this story lies in how it’s not just an origin story for our hero, but also its main antagonist. We spend a lot of time with Norman throughout the story and mean Norman. While Green Goblin is well played, Raimi understood that it’s the “man” behind the mask and his loss of self. He’s the reflection of our hero, as he’s technically what would happen if Parker never got the Uncle Ben speech. It’s what makes the “my father” speech at the end hit so incredibly well. Not only does it build upon the tragedy that Peter faced early on, but also highlights just how opposed these two characters are.
The film still stands strong among the many that have followed since and there’s a reason it set the stage for modern heroics alongside Blade and 1989’s Batman. While still a bit cheesy, it does lean into the “comic book” aspect of its adaptation and doesn’t shy away from it. What truly cements this film as a cinematic classic lies in its heart, the parallels of Norman and Peter build the story throughout, while also highlighting the performances given by Dafoe and Maguire. There’s a reason they are remembered so fondly in these roles to this very day, and it’s exciting to think their story, especially Norman’s, didn’t end all those years ago.
Last week’s episode of Hawkeye gave us two new characters in the MCU; Maya Lopez and Kazi Kazimierczak. Both key players in this Christmas crime tale, the episode explores the two lieutenants’ relationship, dating back to their childhood days up until the present, where Kazi serves as Maya’s interpreter in the Tracksuit Mafia. The episode has left fans wondering about a potential romance between the two characters.
We sat down with Kazi himself, Fra Fee, for a couple of minutes and asked about the character’s relationship with Maya Lopez.
It’s interesting what we’ve actually seen so far: Kazi is acting as Maya’s interpreter but then there’s quite a bit of friction. But yes, you’re right. They are loyal to each other and have known each other for a long time. Whether that is something romantic or more in line with a brotherly and sisterly companionship is something I will allow you guys to watch yourselves. I know what I was thinking with what I wanted Kazi to feel but it would be unfair to reveal that [laughs].
Should there be a romance between them, this week’s episode certainly puts that in jeopardy as Clint makes clear the pitfalls of Maya’s quest for vengeance. Now, with an actual Black Widow in the mix of things, things will only get harder for Maya and ergo, Kazi. The final two episodes will be an amazing watch as the show reaches its climax. Let’s hope Kazi finds a way to survive whatever ordeal awaits the characters at the end.
It would seem that production on Marvel Studios’ animated X-Men’97 revival series is already well underway. Lenore Zann, the voice actress known for bringing Rogue to life in the original seasons of X-Men: The Animated Series, has revealed she’s already started work on her dialogue for the first three episodes of the new show. The news would indicate that X-Men ’97 is not only done being written but is already a good chunk of the way into the recording stage. It also double confirms that Zann will return to her iconic role, re-joining a cast that is mostly comprised of her fellow X-Men alumni, after earlier reports stated that most of the surviving Animated Series line-up would be back for more mutant mayhem.
Outside of playing Rogue in numerous Marvel projects, Zann is best known for her vocal work on animated series like Rescue Heroes, Animal Mechanicals, and the short-lived Avengers: United They Stand. She has also spent time as a politician in her home country of Canada, serving as a Member of Parliament for the riding of Cumberland-Colchester in the House of Commons of Canada.
It was recently reported that the Marvel Studios’ third size-changing adventure, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, might feature classic Marvel villain M.O.D.O.K. as one of its major threats. Now, we may know who will play the big-headed menace on the big screen. Early reports indicated that Marvel was interested in comedy legend Jim Carrey for the role, but a new rumor suggests that former Yellowjacket actor Corey Stoll may make his grand return to the MCU as the character instead. If true, it would mean that fans would most likely be getting a very different interpretation of M.O.D.O.K. than they’re accustomed to seeing.
Traditionally, M.O.D.O.K. is portrayed as an A.I.M. scientist named George Tarleton. Upon creating the Cosmic Cube, the head thinkers at A.I.M. use it to turn Tarleton into M.O.D.O.C., a Mental Organism Designed Only for Computing. However, a malevolent Tarleton quickly takes control of the organization and switches “Computing” to “Killing”. This version of the antagonist is the one seen in countless video games and animated series, including the recent M.O.D.O.K. show on Hulu where the character is voiced by Patton Oswalt.
The last we saw of Stoll was at the end of 2015’s Ant-Man, where his character Darren Cross was being sucked into the Quantum Realm limb-by-limb. If the West Side Story actor is playing the same character, it’s very possible that this ugly process is part of what turns him into the oddly sized monstrosity that is M.O.D.O.K. Long-term exposure to the Quantum Realm could also have played a role in his descent to madness. The multiversal shenanigans of Marvel’s Phase 4 might make it possible Stoll is playing a variant of Cross from another timeline. After all, we were shown a giant Yellowjacket helmet in the timeless void of this year’s Loki series. Ultimately, the options for how the character is re-introduced into the MCU are endless, and we’ll have to wait and see how Quantumania plays out before we know anything for sure.
Clint Barton’s a man of secrets. Always has been. Dating back to when he surprised his Avenger friends with the knowledge that he had a wife, kids and a beautiful farm tucked away in Missouri. He would continue on with the secrency to his time as Ronin, Barton has played things close to the vest and openly trusted very few people. Avengers: Age of Ultron did, however, establish, that he had a very open relationship with his wife, Laura.
The first few episodes of Hawkeye have peeled back the curtain even more on their relationship, showing that not only does Laura support Clint’s avenging, she also seems to know quite a bit about it. She’s been supportive of Clint staying in New York to clean up the mess that unfolded when Kate Bishop put on the Ronin suit, but more than that, she seemed to have quite a bit of information about Clint’s past with the Tracksuit Mafia and, possibly, the fact that her husband was Ronin. Today’s episode erased any doubt that Laura knew Clint was Ronin and replaced that doubt with speculation that there might be more to her than meets the eye.
Episode 4, “Partners, Am I Right?”, provided enough evidence to support a reasonable claim that Laura Barton is more than just a supportive spouse. Not only does Laura confirm that she knew about Clint’s time as Ronin (silly suit), she also demonstrates the ability to fluently speak a second language to hide things from her children and does some research on Sloan Ltd. that leads to uncovering its a shell corporation (seems like it took more than a Google search to determine that bit of info). Again, enough evidence to support a reasonable claim that Laura is more than just a supportive spouse and maybe, just maybe, a trained spy herself.
And if, in fact, it turns out that Laura Barton is a trained spy who also happens to be married to Clint Barton, it would be no stretch to make the case that Laura might be “Laura” and actually be Barbara Morse, better known to comic book fans as one-time Avenger, West Coast Avenger, and Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Mockingbird. In the comics, she was a doctor who trained as a spy by S.H.I.E.L.D. and was given the codename Agent 19 (let’s keep an eye out for Agent 19 Easter eggs over the next two episodes. In fact, we should probably go back and look at the last four episodes to make sure we didn’t miss any). Along the way, she met Clint Barton and the two embarked on a rocky relationship that saw them marry, get divorced, get back together, be killed by Mephisto, be impersonated by a Skrull, and then show up in Matt Fraction and David Aja’s Hawkeye, the series on which the Hawkeye show is largely based. And there was that time she faked her death to protect her family…
As told in issue 2 of the 2010 series Hawkeye and Mockingbird, after falling into a coma, Morse had Nick Fury fake records of her death and make access to her files “Eyes Alpha”, otherwise known as “nobody can see them.” Morse stayed undercover for 8 years until a threat from her and Hawkeye’s shared past drew her out.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s pretty close to what’s happening in Hawkeye. We know absolutely nothing about how Laura and Clint met, nothing at least that couldn’t have been fabricated by Fury when he helped find them their home in Missouri. The skillset Laura has demonstrated so far is congruent with that of Mockingbird in the comics. She is married to Clint, as Mockingbird once was. It’s not too hard to imagine that while an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., she worked undercover (in the comics she worked with Ted Sallis on his project to recreate the Super Soldier Serum, a project that turned him into Man-Thing), met Clint, and had Fury delete all knowledge of her from the S.H.I.E.L.D. database. Again, there is certainly enough evidence to support a reasonable claim that Laura Barton could be a trained spy herself, and could have been, at one point, a SHIELD agent that went by the name Barbara “Bobbi” Morse, aka Mockingbird.
While it’s fun to speculate, this is a classic 50/50 scenario: either Laura was Mockingbird or she was not. It would certainly be a wonderful way for Marvel Studios to bring the character, who was portrayed on ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. by Adrianne Palicki, into the Sacred Timeline and give national treasure Linda Cardellini a larger role. Jeremy Renner has teased that he’d love to see his character transition to a leadership role on the West Coast Avengers. Perhaps the events of Hawkeye (Maya Lopez was looking into Barton’s family, so it’s possible her connection to Kingpin and Kate’s mother’s spy…er, security company, could shake something loose about Laura), will make it possible for Laura to reclaim her prior identity as Mockingbird and partner with her husband leading the West Coast Avengers and mentoring the next generation of MCU heroes. Crazy theory? Time (maybe the time on a Rolex) will tell…
Perhaps one of the most notable voice actresses working in the industry today is Tara Strong, who is best known for her work as Raven, Harley Quinn, Batgirl, Ben 10, and even Bubbles from the Power Puff Girls. But with all of her roles, she’s rarely taken on one as raunchy as Coral, the ruthless pirate sister of our protagonist, Patrick the squire.
Ahead of the release of Season 2, we recently spoke to Strong about her character’s return in the upcoming second season of Crossing Swords. One question we couldn’t help but ask Strong washow she brings the swashbuckling maiden, Coral, to life.
Well, whenever you’re doing a different character its a completely different headspace, because you are coming at these characters from an actors perspective, so you have to put yourself in their bodies, in their universe. So, the process is pretty similar but the spaces are all unique to their world and certainly Coral is part of a world that is much more irreverent and adult then most of the other shows that I do. So, to get to be in a studio and swear and talk about highly sexualized experiences is unique to anything else that I’m doing right now, but its a lot of fun.
Tara Strong
Following up on that previous question, we asked if there were any previous roles from her ever-expanding roster of voicework that she pulled from to bring Coral to life. Unsurprisingly, Strong noted that each character is its own creation, so she tries to approach them as their own entities, rather than drawing on her previous work.
That’s a good question, I don’t think so. I don’t know that its a past character. You know, whenever there’s a new audition or new character they’ll give the actor a drawing of the character, a small character description, sides from the show, and maybe a show bible to let you know who they’re talking to in the world that they exist in. Then I create that character based on the information I’m given and what I think production would most like that character to sound like, so she’s really her own entity that only exists in this world.
Tara Strong
Fans of both Strong and Crossing Swords can catch more of Coral when Season 2 hits Hulu this Friday.
Hulu and Peacock have been busy working on the next major project for DreamWorks Animation. The much-beloved How toTrain Your Dragon series is getting a new sequel that’ll switch things up in an interesting way. No longer are we exploring the times of the Vikings, but will not set out 1,300 years into the future, when dragons are now nothing more than legends. The first trailer has dropped for the series alongside a synopsis of what we can expect from the newest entry titled Dreamworks Dragons: The Nine Realms.
Set 1,300 years after the events of How To Train Your Dragon, dragons are now just a legend to the modern world. When a geological anomaly opens up an immense, miles-deep fissure in the Earth’s surface, scientists from all over the world gather at a new research facility to study the mysterious phenomenon. Soon a group of misfit kids, brought to the site by their parents, uncover the truth about dragons and where they’ve been hiding — a secret they must keep to themselves to protect what they’ve discovered.
The concept of going into the future is a promising one, but it’s shame we won’t revisit some of our beloved characters. Yet, the trailer does hint at one of Toothless’ offspring still living in the modern age and will be joined by a new group of dragons that become friends with these kids. The series will continue the CG-animation style from the original and bring a new adventure to life later this month.
The series will premiere December 23rd and includes Voltron: Legendary Defenders‘ Jeremy Shada, 10 Things I Hate About You‘s Julia Stiles, Marcus Scribner of Black-ish fame, Aimee Garcia from Lucifer, Fuller House‘s Ashley Liao, Lauren Tom from The Joy Luck Club, as well as The Good Place‘s D’arcy Carden, One Day at a Time’sJustina MachadO, and Keston John, who some might recognize from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.
Possibly one of the strongest aspects of Crossing Swords is its ensemble cast and its distinctly different and colorful roster of characters. Each character seems so well cast with certain actors in the series unrecognizable in their roles, specifically Luke Evans in the role of King Merriman. Merriman is the greedy, sleazy, and corrupt leader of the kingdom who is so grotesquely full of himself.
Perfect casting like this is no easy feat and Evans as Merriman is stellar, one of the best parts of the series. In our interview with the creators, John Harvatine IV and Tom Root, they shared just how they knew the actor was perfect for the role.
“Seth will remember this, but the reason I knew I wanted Luke on this show in any capacity, we wrote a sketch for ‘Robot Chicken’ where the Creature from the Black Lagoon performs a Van Halen number ‘Hot for Teacher.’ I can barely remember why it makes any sense at all, but if you remember that video, the video is so iconic from our generation and it was so funny to us, the idea of The Creature from The Black Lagoon in the David Lee Roth role, but essentially Luke gave life to that creature and put his entire soul into that singing and made it a great sketch and we were like “Luke Evans did that?!, this ridiculous, stupid sketch?” we gotta work with this guy more”
Tom Root
Those who’ve seen Crossing Swords will know just how into the role Evans gets. Merriman, and his wife, are crude characters with no care about anyone other than themselves. Evans seems to enjoy the role, getting lost in this ridiculous character so much so that fans hardly know it’s him. And Season 2 of Crossing Swords takes things even further for both Merriman and the rest of these absurd characters.
The second season of Crossing Swords, hits Hulu on Dec. 10.
The animated film Diary of a Wimpy Kid debuted on Disney Plus last week and fans of the book have noticed it wasn’t exactly a beat-for-beat adaptation of the original novel, nor an animated remake of the 2007 film. According to author Jeff Kinney, who also wrote and served as an executive producer on the new, animated film, that was intentional. Kinney used the animated retelling as way to beef up the emotional impact of the story, as he explained to our Arlyn Murphy.
We’re really trying to tell an emotional story. Like my first book is just a bunch of jokes, really, with a thin story and this is a more meaty story where you really come to care for Greg and Rowley.
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