Murphy's Multiverse

Tag: Marvel Movies

  • Matt Murdock is Back…and On a New Marvel T-Shirt

    Matt Murdock is Back…and On a New Marvel T-Shirt

    After almost a year’s worth of debate as to whether or not Charlie Cox would be back as Matt Murdock, the actor popped up, as reported, in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Murdock served as Peter Parker’s lawyer and, in a brief scene early in the movie, displayed his radar sense by deftly snagging a brick thrown through a window. When asked by Parker how he did it, Murdock simply said, “I’m a really good lawyer.”

    Marvel is now putting that humorous scene on display on three new t-shirts available on Amazon.

    Amazon has made available a classic t-shirt, a raglan baseball shirt and, a tank top version so you can have the guns out when the sun’s out. You can purchase the shirts by clicking on the appropriate link below:

    Premium T-Shirt
    Raglan
    Tank Top

  • New ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Merchandise Features All Three Spider-Men

    New ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Merchandise Features All Three Spider-Men

    It looks like Sony and Marvel Studios have reached the limit to keeping all the secrets from Spider-Man: No Way Home. As it seems that concept art has found its way online featuring all three “Spider-Men” that appear in the film in their iconic costumes. It features Tom Holland front-and-center with Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield joining in the fray. The designs are great and are definitely something for collectors that were excited to see all three together. Each design has a different tribute and even includes the “Spider-Men” name. The merch is shared by @BRMarvelNews.

    There are some great details in here, especially with one playing tribute to Doctor Strange’s magical circle. We even get the scaffolding from the film’s final battle between the Spider-Men and villains from across the multiverse. It’ll be interesting to see if Garfield and Maguire might get their own unique character posters, but neither did Reptile or Sandman. So, we’ll see if we get any additional material besides the tie-in merchandise. Here’s hoping they get a bit more attention to highlight their inclusion as the film continues to dominate the international box office.

    Source: Twitter

  • The Original Plot of ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 3’ May Have Adapted the Clone Saga

    The Original Plot of ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 3’ May Have Adapted the Clone Saga

    The (sort of) surprising return of Andrew Garfield in this month’s Spider-Man: No Way Home already has fans buzzing about the potential of his character’s future. While any plans for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 were scrapped when Sony announced Marvel Studios would once again reboot the web-slinger in 2015, the multiversal trajectory of the MCU’s next phase has opened the door for any project to become possible. As such, enthusiastic members of the Spider-Man fandom have already started petitioning for Sony to put a third Garfield-led film into production.

    If this were to ever become a reality, it’s likely the movie’s plot would have to be dramatically different from what was originally mapped out. Garfield is now an older version of Peter Parker, and his dialogue in No Way Home hints that events in his universe played out unlike anything we’d seen set up in 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Last we saw “Peter-Three”, he was engaged in battle with Paul Giamatti‘s Rhino, triumphantly returning to heroics after the death of his love Gwen Stacy. While we may never know for certain what exactly was to come next, it is possible to get an idea of Sony and director Marc Webb‘s general plot ideas from a collection of interview sound bites over the past decade.

    The first hint at genuine story details for The Amazing Spider-Man 3 came from actor and comedian Denis Leary, who portrayed Captain George Stacy in both previous movies. In an interview with IGN at San Diego Comic-Con 2015, Leary was asked his thoughts on the cancellation of his Spider-Man franchise. His response was far more intriguing than could have been anticipated:

    I was disappointed because I’m totally selfish and greedy. I came back briefly in two and possibly in [The Amazing Spider-Man] 3, there was this idea at one point that Spider-Man would be able to take this formula and regenerate the people in his life that had died. So, there was this discussion that Captain Stacy would come back even bigger in episode 3. So, I was like, let’s go!

    Denis Leary

    This sounds absolutely bonkers, but it doesn’t come without comic book precedence. Shortly after Marvel published The Night Gwen Stacy Died, they introduced a new villain to the Spider-Man mythos. Professor Miles Warren, a.k.a. the mad scientist Jackal, would go on to be involved in multiple controversial story arcs that involved him using Peter and Gwen’s DNA to create a variety of spider-clones and revive characters thought long-dead, mainly Gwen herself. This climaxed in the well-known 1990’s “Clone Saga” plot, where it was revealed that the many new versions of Peter and his deceased loved ones were actually all part of a ploy concocted by yet another thought-dead character from his past. I’m referring, of course, to the infamous former Green Goblin, Norman Osborn.

    Chris Cooper had a brief role in the last Garfield film as a dying Osborn, passing away after leaving his “Osborn curse” and the Goblin mantle to Dane DeHaan‘s Harry. According to a 2017 Marc Webb interview with Den of Geek, this was never supposed to be the last time we saw Cooper. The filmmaker revealed the actor was initially slated to return as the surprise main villain in The Amazing Spider-Man 3:

    Yeah, we were talking about the Sinister Six. They were going to make a Sinister Six movie before we did the third one. But I wanted…Chris Cooper was going to come back and play the Goblin. We were going to freeze his head, and then he was going to be brought back to life. And then there was that character called The Gentleman. We had some notions about how to do it…that was going to be the main villain. He was going to come out and lead the Sinister Six.

    Marc Webb

    For those counting at home, that’s two major plot points taken directly from the Clone Saga. Of course, the inclusion of the Sinister Six, which was also teased at the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, does take the film in a slightly altered direction. However, Webb makes a point to note that the super-villain team would first appear in their own movie, which was to be directed by Drew Goddard and was rumored to feature Garfield’s Spider-Man in a supporting role. There is no clarification on how involved the Six and the Wall-Crawler would be in each other’s solo outings, but it’s possible the villainous team would have been a more physical threat to pair with the psychological conundrum of Stacy clones running around everywhere.

    If this seems like a lot of plots for one movie, it’s because it is. Yet, the Amazing franchise was sort of known for putting too much into one movie. For example, the one that tanked everything had a Goblin arc, an Electro plot, a love story, a Sinister Six set-up, and a C-plot involving Peter discovering his parents’ role in an international weapons scheme and the special nature of his own genetics. So, yeah, it seems likely they really may have gone for both the Clone Saga and the Sinister Six…in one film. After all, the idea of cloning lines up with the aforementioned Parker genetics’ throughline Sony was weaving in their superhero movies.

    The now-famous Sony email hack of 2014 also hinted at elements from the Ultimate Comics version of the Clone Saga being used in the future of the Amazing series. In a now-deleted article from CBM, some of the leaked emails were detailed and revealed that Sony executives had actually discussed bringing back Emma Stone‘s Gwen Stacy in the same fashion as her Ultimate counterpart:

    Hannah Minghella brings up a suggestion made in jest by Emma Stone that she returns as Carnage (like in the Ultimate comics) as a ‘thought to consider for the future’ because it ‘could be really cool/sexy/intense to see.

    Email Received by CBM

    This revelation lines up shockingly well with a deleted scene from The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which featured the unexpected return of Peter’s father Richard. A resurrection of a similar kind, with the elder Parker claiming to have actually secretly survived his supposed death, comes straight from the pages of the Ultimate Clone Saga story. The potential return of Gwen also could have fixed a brewing problem for Sony, where the cast-but-never-seen Shailene Woodley said she was unsure about coming back to play Mary Jane in the threequel:

    I don’t know anything but seeing as how they picked up the next two ‘Divergent’ films, I don’t know how I would keep my sanity with two big action films in one year. But anything can happen.

    Shailene Woodley

    As previously stated, it’s possible fans may never know what was actually supposed to happen in The Amazing Spider-Man 3. A lot of what is presented here is conjecture, based on short looks into a long, turbulent filmmaking process. Leary‘s claims of revival could have been from a version of the story written before Webb decided on Osborn and the Sinister Six. The information about Stone’s role reprisal and Woodley’s maybe-departure could be completely unrelated. Realistically, however, it does seem very likely that parts of the next Amazing were set to be inspired by the Clone Saga, with Garfield’s Peter Parker conceivably going up against a team of supervillains while contending with “clones” of those he lost. It’s a lot, but that’s what the The Amazing Spider-Man franchise’s legacy will always be.

    Source: Den of Geek, IGN, Geek Tyrant, MTV

  • Michael Giacchino to Direct a Marvel Studios Streaming Project

    Michael Giacchino to Direct a Marvel Studios Streaming Project

    No, you didn’t read the headline wrong nor did we mistype. Composer Michael Giacchino, who has worked with Marvel Studios on Doctor Strange, two Spider-Man films and Thor: Love and Thunder, is rumored to be on board to direct one of Marvel Studios’ upcoming streaming projects for Disney Plus.

    The rumor comes by way of The Illuminerdi, who point out that Werewolf By Night, Echo and Ironheart are among the streaming projects up next for Marvel Studios. As we pointed out here, Sydney Freeland is likely to be directing Echo, taking one potential project off the board for Giacchino. Out of the other two projects, Giacchino seems a much better fit for Werewolf By Night, especially given that his two prior director jobs were shorts. Werewolf By Night is expected to be a short, one-off film rather than an extended series like Ironheart.

    Giacchino’s previously worked behind the camera on an episode Star Trek: Short Treks and the comedy short, Monster Challenge, which starred Patton Oswalt. Should Giacchino be directing Werewolf By Night, which is expected to film from February through March, it’s likely he’ll be happy with the work of the composer. This is an interesting choice for Marvel Studios, experimenting with a relatively inexperienced director on their first streaming movie.

    Werewolf By Night will star Gael Garcia Bernal as the lead character, rumored to be Jack Russell, and is expected to stream sometime during Spooky Season 2022.

    Source: The Illuminerdi

  • RUMOR: Gael Garcia Bernal to Play Jack Russell in ‘Werewolf By Night’

    RUMOR: Gael Garcia Bernal to Play Jack Russell in ‘Werewolf By Night’

    Early last month, Golden Globe winner Gael Garcia Bernal joined the cast of Marvel Studios Halloween Special, Werewolf By Night. At the time of his casting, it was widely assumed that Bernal would be playing Jake Gomez, the most recent Marvel Comics’ character to carry the burden of lycanthropy. A new rumor from The Illuminerdi contradicts that report and indicates that Bernal is instead playing Jack Russell, the original Werewolf By Night.

    In the comics, lycanthropy has been part of Russell’s family line dating back to 1795 when his ancestor, Grigori Russoff first became a werewolf after being bitten by one following a battle with Dracula, of course. The curse of the werewolf was passed through generations, with some assistance from the Darkhold (which now plays a prominent part in the MCU), until it manifested in Russell. Over time, Russell used his powers as a werewolf to battle evil, serving at one point as part of the Midnight Sons.

    It’s worth noting that the Illuminderi’s report indicates that another “by nighter”, Vampire By Night, could be joining the party in Werewolf By Night. That character, Nina Price, is the niece of Russell and a vampire/werewolf hybird. Price carried the lycanthropy in her DNA and was further changed after being, of course, bitten by a vampire.

    Werewolf By Night is set to go into production in February and is being billed as a “one-off movie” for Disney Plus. It is expected to complete filming by the end of March and ready to stream for Spooky Season 2022.

    Source: The Illuminerdi

  • ‘Iron Fist’ Star Jessica Henwick Turned Down ‘Shang-Chi’ To Keep Hope Alive for the Return of Colleen Wing

    ‘Iron Fist’ Star Jessica Henwick Turned Down ‘Shang-Chi’ To Keep Hope Alive for the Return of Colleen Wing

    Netflix’s Iron Fist seemed to finally be finding its identity when it was canceled following its second season. A big part of that identity was giving then budding star Jessica Henwick more to do. By season’s end, Henwick’s character, Colleen Wing, wielded the power of the Iron Fist of K’un Lun and, presumably, would have had a major arc in a third season.

    Henwick is now starring in the recently released Matrix Resurrections and revealed that, in order to land that role, she passed on one in Marvel Studios Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings. After that report, fans speculated, wildly as always, that Henwick was set to reprise the role of Wing in Shang-Chi. Thankfully, in an interview with a trade,Henwick clarified that not only was she NOT going to be playing Wing in Shang-Chi, but also that she passed on the role in order to keep hope alive that she might reprise the role sometime down the road.

    If I did [Shang-Chi], I would effectively be putting Colleen to bed. It wasn’t the main factor, but it definitely came up in conversation. I love Colleen. She changed my life. Of course, if I was given the opportunity to revisit her, I would, but I just don’t know how likely that is. Charlie [Cox] knew about that opportunity years ago. He already knew it was happening. I think I would have heard by now if there were any plans with Colleen.

    As Henwick noted, plans for Daredevil star Charlie Cox to return were in place for some time ahead of his work on Spider-Man: No Way Home and the fact that she hasn’t heard anything about a potential future for Wing could easily be construed as the end for the character; however, as Spider-Man: No Way Home and Hawkeye have proven, there can be life after Netflix death for these characters.

  • Tom Holland on Working With Tobey Maguire, and Andrew Garfield’s on ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’

    Tom Holland on Working With Tobey Maguire, and Andrew Garfield’s on ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’

    It’s crazy to think that all the rumors circulating throughout the internet turned out to be true. Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire made their grand return as Peter Parker at the moment you would at least expect it. Of course, the current Spider-Man actor, Tom Holland, was quite excited to meet those that defined the shoes he stepped into back in Captain America: Civil War and shared some thoughts on their return. To kick it off, he talked about how excited Maguire was about returning to the role and once again putting on the suit, which started it all off.

    He was really excited to be back. You could tell it really meant a lot to him. Him putting the suit on again. Us getting back together. It was awesome.

    Tom Holland

    Of course, there was also his meeting with Andrew Garfield, who may have given the most heartfelt performance in the film. The actor originally played the character with potential hints at crossovers planned early on, but his trilogy was cut short and the project seemed like the perfect way to find some closure as highlighted by Holland.

    Andrew Garfield, the legend himself.  He’s such a lovely guy. I think this film was his way of making peace with Spider-Man It was such a privilege to work with him. I know that it meant a lot to him

    Tom Holland

    Zendaya also gave her thoughts on watching the three actors come together and the respect they had for carrying this very specific role. It also seems like they bonded quite a bit throughout production.

    It was so beautiful. [Tobey, Andrew, and Tom] care so deeply about the characters, and what their characters— what their journey had been as Spider-Man. It was so beautiful to see all of you guys connect on that and be able to talk to each other about such a special experience that very few people have been able to don the suit. It was great to see how much you guys all really cared and had each other’s back. It was really sweet.

    Zendaya

    We’re about to head into a new era for Holland‘s take on the character. So, it seemed like a surprisingly perfect time for the past to push him forward. It’s great to see what each actor brought to the project, especially Garfield making up

    Source: Marvel

  • ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Already Passes $300M Domestically, May Pass $500M By Christmas

    ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Already Passes $300M Domestically, May Pass $500M By Christmas

    Spider-Man: No Way Home is dominating the box office even as there still remains some uncertainty surrounding the pandemic’s current development. As mentioned in the previous coverage, the film managed to already pass $600M. Well, it continued its momentum into its Monday showing with the third-best fourth-day release, as it garnered $37.1M right behind Black Panther‘s $40.2M and Star Wars: The Force Awakens $40.1M. It is currently following a similar trajectory to both films and is showcasing some promising development, as highlighted by @GiteshPandya overview.

    With its Tuesday release, the film has now managed to cross the $300M mark domestically by garnering $31.4M and has now passed $700M worldwide. It’s uncertain how far it’ll go at this point, but a billion box office seems like a certainty. At this rate, there’s a good chance that it may pass the mark by next week, as its trajectory is going towards a $500M by the end of its second weekend. Plus, as pointed out above, there’s the holiday weekend boost that’s on the horizon. So, we might be looking at a potential $1.5B run at least.

    The only real competition the film has is the latest Matrix entry and Sing 2, but they don’t fully share the same core audience. At this rate, it is also performing incredibly well overseas, as it’s going to pass F9 and No Time To Die‘s international grosses (including China) to become the biggest international success since Frozen II.

    Source: Twitter, Forbes

  • New ‘Doctor Strange’ Trailer Includes Updated Version of Original Marvel Fanfare Used in ‘X-Men’, ‘Spider-Man’, And More

    New ‘Doctor Strange’ Trailer Includes Updated Version of Original Marvel Fanfare Used in ‘X-Men’, ‘Spider-Man’, And More

    Here’s a rather curious detail. For some time, Marvel Studios has been highlighting its intros in new and creative ways, as fanfare has become an essential aspect of any Marvel viewing experience. It also makes them distinct from other studios that used the logo, such as Sony who included the “In Association With” during airings of their spinoffs like Venom. Interestingly enough, the first trailer has dropped for next year’s ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and it includes an interesting detail.

    In the brief showcase of the fanfare getting split apart by what is likely the multiverse, similar in design to What If…?’s crystal effect, you can spot the original Marvel opening that was used for the original X-Men, Spider-Man, or any classic Marvel film. Early on, even Marvel Studios used it only adding the “Studios” part to make it distinct.

    It’s not a direct reference, but the logo nowadays includes the live-action characters in its opening rather than comic depictions. It looks like an updated or slightly altered version of the original, if you compare it to Logan, for example.

    The current version is quite a bit different, as it opens up with the comic logos but doesn’t showcase the Marvel logo until much later. What is interesting is that you can see a 3D version of the classic logo included as well. Perhaps we get a unique intro fanfare in the Doctor Strange sequel, which would make it stand out even more. It would be fun for them to explore different versions of their intro to highlight what the series or film focuses on, as they expand with cosmic and grounded storylines.

    Source: Twitter

  • ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ Trailer Released, Includes New Logo

    ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ Trailer Released, Includes New Logo

    The trailer has finally dropped for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It was first included as a post-credit sequence during the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home, which made a lot of sense if you consider how that storyline continues the multiversal storyline that kicked off during Loki. As Strange is about to face off against his own darker reflection, we got a first look and poster. Not just that, but even a new logo is highlighted at the end that offers a streamlined version of what was used in the original announcement.

    https://twitter.com/DrStrange/status/1473684762011189248
    Image

    The logo is surprisingly simple, as they dropped the visual design to make Strange’s name stand out. Of course, there’s always the chance that this is the version used in the film, as they stick to the previous version in the film’s marketing. The poster noticeably is lacking the logo, which is quite a curious choice and highlights the potential power they have with this project. It was also really clever to advertise the film through the post-credit sequence of Spider-Man: No Way Home, which has been breaking records left and right.

    Source: Twitter