Tag: Loki

‘LOKI’ Changes Release Date, Will Stream on Wednesdays

Wednesdays are the new Fridays. That was the message from actor Tom Hiddleston in a new video released by Marvel, which confirms Loki‘s premiere date has been moved up to June 9th. The two-day adjustment will coincide with a new plan by Marvel Studios to drop new episodes of the six-part series on Wednesdays, instead of the traditional Friday schedule Disney+ has used for all of it’s original series. No true reason was given for the change-up, other than Loki’s characteristic insistence on being different from everyone else. It’s possible the move was made to separate the show from all of Disney’s other projects. Marvel most likely has a strong enough fanbase for the company to be confident in a mid-week release schedule not effecting viewership in a significant way.

Loki is set to follow the time-warping adventures of the Loki audiences met in Avengers: Endgame. The show will pick up after the anti-hero escapes with the Tesseract, and is captured by the Time Variance Authority. From there, Loki will be forced to fix the timeline he broke with Owen Wilson‘s Mobius M. Mobius by his side. Loki‘s story is expected to connect with the other multiversal projects being developed by Marvel Studios at the moment, though it’s still unknown how the plot will lead to this. The project was created by Rick and Morty‘s Michael Waldron, with episodes helmed by director Kate Herron. The ensemble cast also includes Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who may or may not be playing a major role in the MCU.

May 5, 2021
Theorizing MARVEL STUDIOS’ Interconnected Storylines

It’s been a little over three months since Marvel Studios properly kicked off its Phase 4. Both WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier are now behind us, two shows that gave us but a glimpse of what is in store in the coming years in terms of the interconnectivity between the different IPs that make up the MCU. This is something Kevin Feige himself made extremely clear this past December, during the Disney Investor Day 2020:

The Cinematic Universe weaves storylines of heroes and villains across twenty-three feature films to date, and with Disney+ we’re able to extend this way of storytelling to a new format, creating series that are connected to our theatrical releases making the MCU more immersive than ever.

As for WandaVision, it managed to bring together characters from properties that seemed somewhat foreign to its titular characters (bringing them in from Thor, Captain Marvel, and Ant-Man). The Falcon and The Winter Soldier did almost the exact opposite. It grabbed most of its main characters from the same feature (Captain America: Civil War) and continued their arcs in a way that seems to hint at them diverging into several other (new) IPs. The common ground between both approaches seems quite simple: when the story asks for it, characters will come and go from whatever property that needs them to. With this in mind, and with the number of projects Marvel Studios has already announced, it’s hard to not try and envision some of the paths the stories these characters might take us on.

The existing connective tissue between properties is stronger with some than with others, even though Marvel Studios will always end up surprising us one way or another. But most of the more realistic theorizing (if there even is such a thing), taking into account the information that has already come out regarding casts, plots, and so on, seems to hint at a clear/not clear separation between what are the military-powered, skill-driven heroes and the more mystic and cosmic side of the MCU. So being, we’ll now focus on the first of these two groups.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier seems to be at the heart of the stories we might end up exploring on this side of the spectrum. With Karli Morgenthau being one of the few main characters to have (apparently) died, all the others are now ready to move on, each doing their own thing. With Sam Wilson as Captain America, he seems like a given to star in the upcoming fourth installment of the Captain America series. As for Bucky Barnes, with a Nomad series apparently in development, Barnes seems like a perfect fit. As for James “War Machine” Rhodes, he might now become the direct link to Iron Man’s legacy Riri Williams comes into contact with in Ironheart, before both move into Armor Wars, where they could be met by Sharon Carter in her newfound MCU role. Black Widow will introduce us to Yelena Belova who can seamlessly move on to Hawkeye (even if just to attend a memorial service), where Echo will be show up before staring in her own show.

Shifting our attention to the other side of the diagram, we find several connections between shows that have already been confirmed. Monica Rambeau will be back in the franchise where she was first introduced, where she will be met by Kamala Khan who will have already been introduced in the Ms. Marvel series. Both might be met in The Marvels by Talos, who will also have a role to play in the upcoming Secret Invasion alongside Nick Fury. As to Wanda Maximoff, now the Scarlet Witch, she is certain to continue her story in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness which may become the epicenter of every upcoming property dealing with the Multiverse. Loki and Spider-Man: Far From Home seem like projects that are likely to have strong connections to the second Doctor Strange feature for obvious plot reasons, at the same time as they connect through other storylines to yet another set of properties. With the information coming out of Loki that Gugu Mbatha-Raw will be playing Judge Renslayer (meaning that almost certainly that makes her Ravonna Renslayer) it becomes highly likely that Kang will make an appearance, ahead of his already highlighted presence in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, played by the brilliant Jonathan Majors.

These stories alone are certain to keep Marvel gaining momentum for years to come, but what seems to be the endgame here? Establishing new properties where characters from all over manage to meet for the first time, bringing together story threads from all sides of the MCU, certainly seems like a possibility. Projects that haven’t been announced as that might somewhat spoil the plots leading up to them. It should be no coincidence that a number of upcoming projects will seamlessly allow for the introduction of Young Avengers members, much like WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier managed to do with Tommy and Billy Maximoff, and Eli Bradley, respectively. Kate Bishop is already confirmed to be debuting in Hawkeye, and the rest of the team will probably soon follow, with Teddy perhaps being introduced in Secret Invasion, America Chavez in Doctor Strange 2, and Cassie Lang returning, as Stature, in Quantumania. Therefore, a Young Avengers series/movie should definitively be in the works bringing together their individual storylines. Another team being put together, even though a much different one, should be the focus of the Thunderbolts. With Baron Zemo and Abomination brought back, Taskmaster (the mantle) surviving Black Widow, and with Ghost still alive after Ant-Man and the Wasp, there is no reason for it not to be in the cards. Another feature that could serve as a continuation to John Walker’s story, maybe even bringing Yelena into the mix, and perhaps managing to dig up an Osborn to lead them, is The Dark Avengers. Marvel Studios knows that they can’t top the Avengers team they built up until Avengers: Endgame, so this focus on alternate teams, some of dubious character, would certainly be welcomed as a great change of pace.

There are a few projects that have already been announced that played no part in this theory. For all I know they might end up becoming the most crucial chapters of the MCU going forward. The Fantastic Four, due to their relevance, or the Eternals, due to their scope, certainly have that ability. But for now, this is it. Maybe in a couple of months, the script will be flipped and a new article will be in the works.

May 4, 2021
Marvel Studios, Disney Plus and the Art of the Cameo

Ever since Disney+ was announced that Marvel Studios made it extremely clear that the streaming service would become a pivotal part of their future going forward. Many reasons make this paradigm shift a game-changer for the MCU, but one of the most interesting ones is the possibility of having a larger number of relevant characters interacting on-screen, cross-pollinating the various projects. Characters that if Marvel Studios had stuck to feature films probably wouldn’t even have the chance to show up at all.

What the extended screen time and the weekly episodic format ended up causing was a constant increase in the expectations these possibilities allowed for. Be it because cast and crew hinted at big things to come in upcoming episodes or simply because fans’ theorizing became the norm, it seemed to be possible for everyone who’s anyone in the Marvel Universe to make a surprise appearance in some shape or form. Reed Richards, Mephisto, Wolverine, everyone was fair game. Until they weren’t. Now with both WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier in our rearview mirror, we can safely say that that’s a good thing.

Just like with the characters and locations that we did get, the absences themselves have shown us how Marvel Studios has been all about the particular story being told. Living mostly in the moment and only looking towards the future in ways that don’t weaken the plot. These “surprise appearances” always tended to serve at least one of two purposes. Either they helped move the story along with previously introduced elements (which helped not making them feel too forced), or they subtlety introduced new elements that laid the groundwork for something sure to pay off down the line. But there was a line that was never, ever crossed: Not a single introduction, not a single “surprise”, had the power to overshadow the true focus of the show.

It would have been fairly easy to make Reed Richards the friend Monica Rambeau kept referring to in WandaVision. That is if you don’t consider the issue of eventually rushing the casting process of a character that is sure to spearhead the MCU for the next decade, of course. Everybody would have loved it, there would be articles written on how the MCU was as big as ever and that Phase 4 was off to an impressive start. But it would also mean that Monica’s journey would be undermined, by asking less of the character from then on, thus limiting what it had to offer. In the end, it would be making WandaVision worse by changing what audiences would be caring about. The same with introducing Mutants, or almost any mutant for that matter, in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier as Sam and Bucky entered Madripoor. It would have turned the show on its head, moving away from the relationship between the two and centering audiences’ not on the “old and dusty” characters but on the “new and shiny” mutants that everybody seems to love.

This way, subtlety introducing someone like Eli Bradley or adding Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine to the mix proves to be a much better option, both by the possibilities it opens up and the “Who’s that?” 99% of audiences asked themselves when she presented herself, all but assuring their interest was peaked but that their focus would remain on Wilson, Barnes, Walker, and Karli. This is their story, their time to shine. Other characters might step into the frame, but the stage should always be theirs.

We’ll likely continue with this modus operandi in the upcoming Loki series, especially when introducing characters that only later on, in streaming shows and movies alike, will take center stage and become household names for the casual viewer. But for now, it’ll be Hiddleston‘s show, and any special appearance coming our way will be anything but gratuitous, serving the story first and foremost, without much concern for whatever mind-bending, and often lackluster theories might surface at the time.

Marvel Studios could be giving us new characters every single week, and the legacy characters would still manage to increase the amount of screen time they have had for the last ten years. The fact that it isn’t doing so, and that it’s taking its time, is perhaps the biggest selling point towards the bright future the MCU has ahead of itself.

April 23, 2021
RUMOR: Latest LEGO Toy Leak Hints at a New ‘What If’ Spider-Man and ‘Loki’s Throg

At this point, I think Marvel Studios will not trust any toy companies anymore. It looks like, once again, a leak from the toy company has offered a bit more insight into an upcoming project than it should be. The site Brick Fan has uncovered a list of LEGO Minifigures that are inspired by the various Disney+ shows. It includes quite a long list of characters, such as WandaVision‘s Scarlet Witch and White Vision alongside Bucky and Sam Wilson’s Captain America, which got heavily teased in the last episode of Falcon and Winter Soldier. It also includes some confirmed characters for the What If series, T’Challa as Star-Lord, Zombie Captain America, and Captain Britain. Of course, you’re not here for the already well-known characters.

The list includes the first mention of Lady Loki. She’s been rumored since the first potential hint at a child-version of the God of Mischief hit the web. There is also the mention of Loki alongside Throg, which could hint at the character’s live-action debut in the June series. He isn’t just a Thor version of frog, but actually, a man named Simon Walterson. He was turned into a frog by Loki in the comics. Now, the list also includes some reveals for What If. There is mention of a version of Steve Rogers, who holds the title Spider-Man. There was an interview some time ago where Chris Evans revealed he would love to be Spider-Man, but disliked the costume. So, maybe his wish finally came true. We have to take this with a grain of salt, but it would be quite a curious direction if it turns out to be true.

What gives this some credence is the inclusion of a Thanos version of Gamora. Her artwork was leaked alongside Ultron not too long ago. If we consider that would imply the other characters included in this Minifigure group may make their appearance in the MCU’s future. The curious inclusion of Steve Rogers as Spider-Man makes it a bit questionable, as the character does belong to Sony. Perhaps this could be a sign for a new era, as he can appear on the Disney+ projects. It’ll be interesting to see how this potentially pays off once the series release.

Source: Brick Fan via The Direct, ScreenRant

April 20, 2021
Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s ‘LOKI’ Role Revealed

Marvel Studios had been hoping to work with Gugu Mbatha-Raw for quite some time but things never quite lined up. The stars aligned and Mbatha-Raw landed a major role in the upcoming Disney Plus streaming series, Loki, and what a role it is. According to Disney, the actress is playing a character named Judge Renslayer and that almost certainly makes her Ravonna Renslayer, the great love interest of Kang the Conqueror!

The news comes via Fandango’s Managing Editor, Erik Davis, and seems like a pretty big reveal considering who she is. We’ve heard rumors that Jonathan Majors’ Kang would appear in Loki and if this Renslayer is indeed Ravonna, it erases almost all doubt that he’ll show up. The two have had a long and twisted history over the years as Kang’s love went mostly unrequited (and she may have even killed him once). Fans might be more familiar with Ravonna from her role in Kang’s arc on Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes where she was kept in stasis due to injuries sustained from the temporal anomaly caused by Captain America’s reemergence into the timeline. While she spent her entire time there on the shelf, be sure that Ravonna can handle herself and has proven to be arguably Kang’s most persistent and competent foe over the years. We’ll have to wait to see if Gugu’s character is Ravonna or a descendant or ancestor (time stuff, you know) but this seems like it could be a major ongoing role in the MCU.

April 5, 2021
‘Loki’: Latest Trailer Offers First Look at Sasha Lane

Marvel Studios surprised fans everywhere this morning when they dropped a brand new trailer for their upcoming Disney+ series, Loki. The series is set to follow the time-bending adventures of the titular God of Mischief. Of course, it isn’t the one we lost in Avengers: Infinity War. Instead, we’ll see what happens to the alternate timeline Loki, who appeared in Avengers: Endgame after he managed to escape captivity along with the Tesseract.

His shenanigans will land him in the clutches of the Time Variance Authority, and send him on a Dr. Who-like journey to correct his own wrongdoings. Somewhere on this quest, Tom Hiddleston’s fan-favorite Asgardian will come across a new character portrayed by Sasha Lane, and the new trailer has given us our first look at the mysterious new addition to the MCU. It confirms her involvement once again, which we reported on around six months ago when her stunt double Kelly Bellini was listed on IMDb.

It seems unclear where Lane’s allegiances lay or whether or not she’ll be a friend or foe to Loki. While it would have been reasonable to assume she was a member of the Time Variance Authority, the new footage does seem to show her fighting off another member of the organization. Perhaps she is someone in disguise, or a TVA member manipulated by Loki to do his bidding? According to IMDb, the actress will only appear in three episodes, but that service isn’t always accurate and it certainly doesn’t mean Lane won’t play a large role in the series.

If Sasha Lane looks familiar, it’s probably because you saw her breakout role in 2016’s American Honey or 2019’s Hellboy reboot. She’s a very talented performer and her appearance in the MCU will hopefully help propel her further into stardom.

Source: Twitter, IMDb

April 5, 2021
Additional Evidence Supports Kid Loki Joining the MCU in ‘Loki’

Over the last year, there’s been mounting evidence that the upcoming Marvel Studios Disney Plus streaming series, Loki, would feature different versions of the trickster. Sophie Di Martino is widely speculated to be playing a female version of the character (speculation that was backed up by some samples of the score for the series), Richard E. Grant’s role as “Classic Loki” may have been revealed by his stuntman, and, last September, evidence emerged that we might also be getting Kid Loki in the series. Now young actor Jack Veal has confirmed his role in Loki via Instagram and furthered speculation that he could be playing a younger version of the God of Mischief.

Veal shared the recently revealed poster for the show and, as you can see in the photo above, confirmed he was in the series and responded “can’t wait” to a user referring to Kid Loki. Obviously, we’re in no position to officially confirm that Veal will portray Kid Loki, but he seems to be pretty excited about the prospects. The idea of there somehow being multiple versions of Loki involved in the show is both comic accurate and could set up any number of potential stories or spinoffs down the road. You can never be sure what to expect from a Loki but we’ll all find out together when Loki streams on Disney Plus beginning June 11th!

March 23, 2021
How Marvel Studios Plans to Take the Fight to Superhero Fatigue

It probably feels like a lifetime ago but it was only in 2017 that the MCU started releasing three feature films every year. By that time the franchise was approaching its 10th year with 17 movies under its belt and many started wondering just how long could Marvel Studios’ dominance at the box office truly last until audiences’ superhero fatigue managed to creep up on it. The following couple of years presented everyone with a resounding answer to that question as five out of the six movies released in that period surpassed the 1 billion dollar mark at the box-office, with two of those going over the 2 billion dollar mark while making Avengers: Endgame the highest-grossing movie of all time.

By that point, and besides being the final chapter of a story being told since 2008 through 23 interconnected movies, the end of the Infinity Saga had audiences saying goodbye to arguably its two most important characters, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, that had been at the forefront of the MCU since its inception. So being, Marvel Studios had a few problems on their plate as 2019 came to a close: How to reintroduce surviving characters making them a bigger presence within the franchise filling the void of the ones lost, how to make fans care for the new characters being introduced as they did the legacy ones, and most importantly how to maintain global audience interested in the MCU avoiding the aforementioned superhero fatigue to finally become a real thing, in what the MCU is concerned.

A few of the issues mentioned above had already started being addressed head-on by taking a chance on characters like Black Panther and Captain Marvel, allowing for a larger and more diverse audience to feel embraced by the superhero cinematic universe Marvel created, all while keeping longtime fans engaged by diversifying the type of stories being told, the angles in which they were told, and the voices that told them. Phase 4 would be doubling-down on this idea of bringing into the franchise a much more diverse group of filmmakers (Cate Shortland, Destin Daniel Cretton, Chloé Zhao, Nia DaCosta) and introducing characters like Shang-Chi, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Ironheart, and the incredibly diverse cast of Eternals that are further living proof that the MCU is trying to evolve and become a much richer and relevant franchise by allowing so much different voices to shine through.

But today, exactly one week after the WandaVision finale and one week before The Falcon and The Winter Soldier premiere, it’s becoming increasingly clear that, as contradictory as it may sound, another way Marvel Studios is trying to avoid superhero fatigue is by going all out and delivering ten projects in a single year. One would think that that would be against their interests as this means that there’ll be hardly a week throughout the year without some sort of new MCU content, but Marvel Studios is managing to circumvent that by turning inwards and redefining what the superhero genre can aspire to become. This way, instead of only releasing properties that could be described as being the generic superhero production and thus paving the way for audiences to quickly lose interest by the lack of novelty, they are expanding into sub-genres that are already a reality across the industry.

As WandaVision played with sitcom tropes while combining romance, mystery, and drama, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is set to be more of an action-thriller experience. Ms. Marvel could be categorized as a teen drama while Hawkeye (mystery-thriller), Eternals (action epic), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (martial arts action film), and Loki (sci-fi adventure) will each have their particular characteristics, making each project fresh in its own right. Going beyond 2021 we’ll find the same being applied to shows like She-Hulk (courtroom drama) or movies such as Thor: Love and Thunder (space ~~opera~~ rock show). All of this seems to mean that Marvel Studios is thinking that, by diversifying, audiences won’t grow tired of what they have to offer in the same way they don’t get tired of movies and tv in general. Even if all properties are a part of a larger franchise, their particulars will allow all of them to be experienced without the added weight of being presented with the same formulaic concepts and narratives.

Marvel Studios broke the mold for what franchises of this magnitude could become, and by keeping themselves in the public eye year-round but also understanding that a gimmick can only keep itself relevant for so much time, so much so that it’s not afraid to reinvent itself on the go (as we were able to see with WandaVision), is likely doing it again, before our very eyes.

March 12, 2021
Kevin Feige Won’t Say No To Another Season of ‘WandaVision’

The minds behind WandaVision are making the press rounds this week to dissect the big moments that the show did and did not make good on and to talk about what’s next for the characters. We know that we’ll see the newly christened Scarlet Witch in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and that Monica Rambeau has a big part to play in Captain Marvel 2 but beyond that, we don’t really know what’s next for the rest of the core characters from the show, leaving fans wondering if we might see a second season of the streaming hit. Comicbook.com asked Marvel Studios One-Above-All Kevin Feige about the possibility of another season of WandaVision and while he didn’t say no, he definitely did not say yes, either.

We are developing all of these shows the way we’re developing our movies. In other words, when we start with a movie, we hope there’s a part two; we hope there’s a part three. But we aren’t factoring that into part one. We are trying to make something that hooks people enough and that people enjoy enough and want to revisit enough, that they want to see the story continue. So that is the way we’re proceeding on television as well.

I’ve been at Marvel for too long to say a definite no or definite yes to anything in regards to your question about another season of WandaVision but some of the shows that we’re about to start filming, we are keeping in mind a structure that would lead into a Season Two and a Season Three in a more direct way than, say, a show like WandaVision which clearly goes into a feature. But it is new. That’s part of the fun, exciting, adrenaline-boosting creativity that we’re able to do, thanks to Disney+, and really to figure out new ways of storytelling. Perhaps someday we’ll chart out five seasons of a show, but really we’re focusing on delivering the best seasons we can one at a time so far.

Reading between the lines of Feige’s comments, it seems less likely that WandaVision ends up with another season than something like Loki or She-Hulk and that seems directly related to the fact that WandaVision was designed to move Wanda’s story along from one film (Avengers: Endgame) to another (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) while some of the other series are seemingly being designed with future seasons in mind. Given the unique structure of season one, It’s hard to imagine what another season of WandaVision might be about at this point given the way things were left but maybe there’s a way to spend some more time with many of the same characters in another, differently names series down the road.

Source: comicbook.com

March 11, 2021
Murphy’s Law Podcast: Episode 84

Charles and Charles are back! Charles M. gives a bunch of Marvel Studios production updates and the guys talk about the big news around Marvel Studios X-Men reboot, the Thor: Love and Thunder set photos, Captain Marvel 2 rumors and more!

March 8, 2021