Much was made about the extensive additional photography on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. While most people understood it was part of the process, others concocted elaborate fictions about how the extra work on the film spelt doom for the sequel. Over time, however, more and more evidence has surfaced to indicate that the extra time on the film was necessary to accommodate actors who couldn’t work in the UK during the original production time. With the additional work nearing an end, as first reported by Aaron Couch earlier this week, new details about it have surfaced.
According to THR’s Heat Vision newsletter, part of the reason for the reshoots, which wrap up this week, was to include new characters to the film. Inspired by the interactions of multiversal characters and Variants in Loki and Spider-Man: No Way Home, the creative team behind the Strange sequel took the opportunity to lean heavily into the multiverse angle and include “more cameos and character introductions.”
Given how much the opening up of the MCU multiverse changes the game, there’s no telling what prior iterations of characters might show up. It would seem the Fox X-Men (maybe even Deadpool) and Fantastic Four films, Marvel Studios animated series What If…?, Netflix’s Defenders-verse series and Sony’s Spider-Man films would be ripe for the picking, along with pretty much any and every Marvel property ever put to screen, animated or live-action. True believers, it’s a great time to be alive.
There are many voice actors out there that have made quite the name for themselves within the industry. Among them is Tara Strong, who may be one of the most popular voice actresses working today, with roles in series like Teen Titans, Ben 10, and Powerpuff Girls, she’s become an iconic and instantly recognizable voice. She recently made her MCU debut in Loki, one of Marvel Studios’ first ventures into Disney+. The voice actress took on the role of Miss Minutes, the official mascot of the Time Variance Authority. We recently had the chance to talk with Strong, and just had to ask about a possible return as Minutes in the upcoming second season of Loki.
Oh, I hope so. You know, Kate Herron, who directed it, said she would like to do like a feature based on her [Miss Minutes] on Twitter, and im like: “Oh, I’m in for that!”. I haven’t been notified yet but I certainly hope so and the fans seem to have embraced her and fallen in love with her. So, I feel pretty good about that and I would definitely come back and reprise that role if asked.
Tara Strong
It would certainly be a welcome surprise to see Strong return in the second season of Loki, and with what seems to be an entirely new TVA, it seems likely Miss Minutes is a definite return. For those looking to see a bit more of Tara Strong’s work, the first and second seasons of Crossing Swords are currently streaming on Hulu.
Disney+ has seen quite extensive growth since it was released last year across the world. Just recently, it celebrated its long history with Disney+ Day that offered some insight into what the future has in store. Now, the company Whip Media has offered a bit more insight into how exactly the growth of the app may have been strongly pushed through the addition of Marvel Studios’ original series. While The Mandalorian laid the groundwork for its success, their data hints that the Marvel Studios additions that started with January’s WandaVision, are a reason why people subscribe to the service.
Keep in mind, this isn’t official data provided by Marvel Studios or Disney. It is a statistical analysis based on a survey of US TV Time apps, where interviewees were at least 13 years of age. The server showcased that only 10% were not interested in the latest show, Hawkeye while 66% were “definitely” going to check it out. Generally, it looks like 63.5% have subscribed to the service in the first place due to the Marvel Studios offerings.
It’s an impressive showcase of just how popular the Marvel Studios series are. Keep in mind, this also doesn’t include the film releases like Black Widow and Shang-Chi, which may also add a boost due to early access to Marvel Studios films. When asked if they see value in other offerings outside of Marvel on the platform, 73.9% believed there is enough on Disney+ to keep them using the platform.
So, while Marvel Studios’ offering might be the reason people are subscribing, they do stick around for the other offerings on the service. In November, we saw that the service was facing some troubles in its growth during the last quarter with only 2.1M new subscribers. It was far removed from their initially expected 10M. It was also when releases slow down for Marvel Studios and their other offerings due to the pandemic pushing back quite a few releases. The only offering was What If…? that had the least people complete the viewing according to Whip Media’s survey.
Statistically speaking, it’s certainly a showcase that Marvel Studios might continue to be a priority for the service moving forward. To be fair though, we’ve only had two new series releases under the Star Wars umbrella, The Mandalorian‘s first two seasons and The Bad Batch. So, we might see a stronger push once Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, and the various spin-offs, which kick off with The Book of Boba Fett next month, start releasing on the service. Plus, Marvel Studios has quite a big year planned for 2022 and we’ll see if their new ventures like She-Hulk or Moon Knight might even draw in a new audience.
Marvel Studios’ Loki introduced plenty of new characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The most popular, however, was easily the addition of Tara Strong‘s Miss Minutes. As a character created specifically for the television series, fans were uncertain what to expect from the cartoon clock. However, by the season’s end, she quickly became a fan favorite.
During a recent appearance at Fan Expo Canada, Strong briefly talked about her role as Miss Minutes and how she didn’t know what she was auditioning for in the beginning. It wasn’t until she was on a Zoom call with director Kate Herron and the Marvel Cinematic Universe team that she had an idea as to what she was auditioning for. “I actually didn’t know what I was auditioning for when I first read for Loki,” she said. “So I recorded one a little more like Siri, and then one a little bit less like that, and the one with the accent. And I didn’t even know exactly what it was until I was on the Zoom with Kate Herron and the rest of the MCU team.”
Despite her excitement over the role, Strong admitted she didn’t think Miss Minutes would become as big of a deal as she has among fans. “I didn’t know was gonna be that big, and I honestly think it’s my favorite Marvel TV series ever,” she stated. “Like, here’s this animated character, we don’t know her backstory, she’s jumping into a very beloved universe, and people were like ‘oh my God, we love her!’ right away. So I’m so happy and it’s like this gift that keeps on giving that I didn’t know I ordered.”
As to whether or not she’ll be returning for Season 2 of Loki? Strong is not willing to answer that just yet. “I actually can’t tell you, cause then I’d have to prune you!”
The first season of Marvel Studios’ Loki is streaming now on Disney+.
The God of Mischief joined Loki co-stars Sophie DiMartino and Jonathan Majors in London this past weekend at MCM Comic Con and gave just enough information about the second season of the series to make it interesting.
While summarizing the events of Season 1 of the Disney Plus streaming series, Hiddleston indicated that Season 2 would “start from there”, after referencing the frantic final moments of the first season that saw Loki rush to explain things to Mobius and B-15 only to find they had no memories of any of the recent events that should have taken down the TVA.
Okay so look, we can’t say anything unfortunately, but at the end of episode six, season one, Loki comes back to TVA. He’s quite traumatised, he’s quite emotional, and he tries to explain what happens to Mobius, and Mobius doesn’t recognise him. And then he turns to look at the statue of the timekeepers, but it’s not a statue of the timekeepers, it’s a statue of someone else… And I guess we’ll start from there. I’m so sorry to disappoint you!
The cliffhanger left fans with a sense of urgency and frustration and with The-One-Above-All, Kevin Feige, indicating production on the second season isn’t beginning anytime soon as they continue to search for a replacement for director Kate Herron, fans are going to have to wait for quite some time before we find out what’s next for Loki and Mobius.
The multiverse is an unwieldy storytelling device with potential positive and negative impacts. For example, meeting alternate variations of favorite characters has the potential to undermine earlier stories. However, it could also potentially provide emotional flourish to stories that haven’t been possible previously. Some fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s consistency are concerned about how the multiverse could fray the cohesion of the MCU. The multiversal elements of Loki and What If…? have shown us hints of how the multiverse stories we might be seeing in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness can be kept tight and concise.
Loki’s head writer Michael Waldron and director Kate Herron have both spoken in multipleinterviews about the themes of their series. Loki spends much of the season up against the bureaucratic order of the TVA. He also finds himself grappling with his identity in the face of Loki variants from alternative universes. Order versus chaos. Self versus selves. The structure of these debates brought up in the show also show another theme Waldron and Herron have spoken about, in the gray space between villainy and heroism. It’s clear that these themes are present even without confirmation from interviews because of how tightly woven into the narrative action they are.
On the surface, an anthology show like What If…? shouldn’t necessarily have a narrative or thematic coherence between episodes. Yet we have seen enough to know we are getting a conclusion to some of the previous episodes in the finale. In this context, should there be a thematic reverberation between the heroes of each episode? It’s not easy to point one out. Loki’s themes are much tighter as almost every scene has a thematic resonance. An anthology show doesn’t need coherent themes but where there is a continuing story, What If…? is perhaps missing something thematic to bring the season together.
So perhaps if Spider-Man: No Way Home can use the multiverse to weave themes tightly, it can produce an impactful story regardless of multiversal incursions. Much of the trailer is connected to Spidey’s identity as Peter Parker. The public release of that information and Peter’s going to Doctor Strange to have it erased from public consciousness. It’s clear that they “tampered with the stability of [the] space-time” continuum when performing the spell. The full impact remains to be seen but it is easy to see how themes of identity, responsibility, and fate can be tied to this spell gone wrong and possible multiversal variants. It remains to be seen how tightly woven those themes might be into the story.
So can we spot the themes for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as clearly and easily? Given Wanda Maximoff was last seen studying The Darkhold, also known as The Book of the Damned, it stands that she might face some corrupting forces. To some extent, this is a theme that can be extended from Doctor Strange as Kaecilius became corrupted by Dormammu. Corruption, alongside the fraying of the multiverse which Strange admits he knows “frighteningly little” in the No Way Home trailer, can also point in the direction of balance as a theme. How will Strange weigh up the dilemmas of the incursive multiverse? In a meta-sense, if the film can get that thematic balance right, then the rumoured cameos won’t seem as uncoordinated as some fans fear they might be.
Parenthood and family are themes that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania could manifest. With Kathryn Newton taking on the role as Cassie Lang it seems as though she might play more of a role with the heroes, with Scott, Hope, Janet, and Hank having to figure out parental decisions related to that. It’s not immediately obvious how Jonathan Majors’ Kang will connect to that, though being a citizen of the future, it’s possible an ancestor of his might be involved in the story. How they will connect the multiversal elements to the existing Ant-Man themes will be the test for how tight of a story we’ll be getting.
Beyond the second seasons of Loki and What If…? there are no major clues about what other Marvel Studios projects the multiverse incur upon. It will be interesting to see whether Loki can keep up its thematic resonance during its sophomore season. Similarly What If…? could either fully embrace the anthology format or increase the thematic and narrative continuity between the episodes. The multiverse certainly won’t be vanishing so other characters like Doctor Strange, Wanda Maximoff, and Ant-Man might still have to contend with it. Wherever it does emerge though, using the multiverse concisely and closely connected to the themes of the project seems like it will be a successful approach.
With over two dozen projects comprising the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s sometimes easy to lose track of the order through which audiences should experience them. It is, of course, something pretty fluid as personal preferences might have some skipping a couple of projects in favor of their favorite ones. All in all, there are two general viewing orders that contain the entirety of the MCU. A Release Order, which respects the order in which projects were made available through the years, and a Chronological Order, which takes into account when each project’s plot takes place.
Personally speaking, the Release Order should be followed when watching all MCU projects for the first time, with the Chronological Order being something to use on rewatches. This is mostly due to the fact that major plot points would be spoiled if not watching the entirety of the franchise as it was released, similar to the way audiences watching Star Wars for the first time would be spoiled The Empire Strikes Back‘s major plot twist by having previously watched the prequel trilogy.
CHARACTER VIEWING ORDERS
When it comes to following specific characters, we got together individual viewing orders with their appearances through the years. These can be as a central character to the plot or as blink-and-you-miss type cameos, many on mid or post-credit scenes. Keep in mind this is a work in progress, as new characters will keep being added.
So, it’s not too uncommon for franchises to take a new direction under the supervision of a new director. Thor: Ragnarok proved that very point. There hasn’t been any information on it and we were left wondering when we might expect the second season. Luckily, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige offered an update on the series in an interview with Collider. In it, he stated that:
It is underway. We’re developing it as we speak. The hope is that much of the same team will return. Kate is going on to bigger and better things, so the director search will begin shortly.
Kevin Feige
The CEO did point out he wasn’t trying to be evasive, as they can’t currently pinpoint when it might enter production. He hints that they are “not sure exactly where it falls between next year and the year after.” It’s a strong hint that the second season might not enter production until 2023, as highlighted by Collider, and it’s hard to say if the series will release in that same year.
The ending teased the arrival of Kang the Conqueror, who will appear in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. So, it might act as a continuation to that series, as Loki tries to find his place in this new version of the Time Variance Authority. Once Marvel Studios announces the new director we might have a better idea of when production might start.
It seems that we can add Loki‘s Michael Waldron to the list of people hinting at the multiverse storyline. In an interview with The Playlist Podcast, he confirmed that he actively communicated with No Way Home writers Chris McKenna and Eric Summers. In the podcast, he states the following:
Your producing teams are constantly communicating with those producing teams to make sure that you’re not screwing each other up. I had the benefit on Spider-Man: No Way Home, Chris McKenna and Eric Summers wrote that, I was their writer’s PA on Season 5 of Community, so I can call McKenna and get bullied by him whenever I want, but also say ‘Hey, what the hell are you guys doing? Let me make sure I’m not ruining it.’ So there’s communication to the extent that the creative teams themselves, the filmmakers, the writers, whoever, can become friendly, it certainly benefits the projects.
Of course, the multiverse would be the connective tissue they would discuss. Loki‘s final episode unleashed the multiverse, with every possible branch coming into existence. With all the rumors surrounding No Way Home, it makes sense they’ll try to keep it consistent. Plus, Waldron is the writer of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which will probably build upon the Spider-Man threequel. The collaborative approach makes a lot of sense to keep the world’s rules in line, especially if the multiverse becomes a bigger element moving forward in the current Phase of the MCU.
In the final episode of Loki, we watched as the Sacred Timeline expanded into madness. It branched off into every possible direction. This new pathway of infinite universe sets the stage for Marvel Studios’s What If. It’ll be our interlude into the multiverse ahead of Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness. With multiple different projects tackling this unknown territory, it could become difficult to keep things in line between the many creatives involved. In an interview with Charles Murphy, head writer A.C. Bradley discussed how they coordinated with other projects like Lokiand Doctor Strange.
When it comes to coordinating between Marvel projects, it’s not as much as you actually think. Weirdly enough because we’re animation and animation is a medium of patience, we started production- I started writing on the show back in the fall, late fall, of 2018, so my job was basically to keep the rules loose, so that the Loki team could if they needed to create anything with the TVA, I hadn’t already set any rules on papers. So, that was kind of easy and fun, it let me run wild, I didn’t have to worry about the TVA and pruning timelines, and I didn’t have to worry so much about Doctor Strange 2. This was just so as much fun in all the weird and wild places that we can go in the multiverse.
Hearing that the team didn’t feel any restrictions with the multiverse and how they could tell their stories is great and should make for some interesting outcomes. Their concept is also loose enough for them not to be too dependent, as they mainly explore different versions o the multiverse based on stories we’ve witnessed in the past years. It also helps that their early work on the project gives others the chance to work from where they left off, as noted with how they left it vague to ensure Loki’s TVA concept wouldn’t get affected.
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