Down to days before the release of The Marvels, Marvel Studios has made some significant changes in its marketing approach. Facing a disappointing opening weekend at the box office, the studio released a new trailer full of scenes ripped from the film’s third act (something they have typically avoided over the years) that play up the film’s multiversal stakes. Now, a new synopsis further teases the problems caused by the tear in space.
In Marvel Studios’ “The Marvels,” Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree and taken revenge on the Supreme Intelligence. But unintended consequences see Carol shouldering the burden of a destabilized universe. When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled with that of Jersey City super-fan Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, and Carol’s estranged niece, now S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau. Together, this unlikely trio must team up and learn to work in concert to save the universe as “The Marvels.”
As seen in the trailer, Monica Rambeau is tasked with investigating and repairing the wormhole created by Zawe Ashton’s Dar-Benn. Given what awaits on the other side of that tear, it’s shocking that the studio featured it in the latest trailer (they’ve also already shown what’s over there as well). While all signs point to The Marvels winding up as a box office disappointment for the studios, first reactions will hit social media later today so maybe some positive last-minute word of mouth can help boost the opening weekend take.
In the wake of multiple Marvel Studios hit pieces that have made the rounds in the past week, actual news about one of the studio’s most frequently targeted properties has emerged. In an interview with Deadline, director Yann Demange, who replaced Bassam Tariq as the director of Blade in November of 2022, detailed plans for the film, including its rating.
Since SDCC 2019, when Kevin Feige revealed that the studio was working with Mahershala Ali to bring the Daywalker to the MCU, the film’s rating has been the subject of speculation and debate among fans. While it’s not unheard of for vampire films to be rated PG-13, it’s certainly much more commonplace for them to receive an R-rating. Each of Wesley Snipes‘ Blade trilogy films, which introduced the character to mainstream audiences beginning in the late 1990s, received an R-rating and fans seem to staunchly believe that the MCU’s take on the character needs to be every bit as mature and violent. As it turns out, Demange shares that belief.
“They gave me the R, which is so important,” said Demange of the rating of the Ali-led reboot. According to the director, part of why that rating was so important to him was because of the singular talent of the project’s star. “We are going to have fun because Mahershala is such a deep actor. I’m excited to show a kind of ruthlessness, a roughness he has, that allows him to walk the earth in a particular way. I love him for that. He’s got a dignity and integrity, but there is a ferocity there that he usually keeps under the surface. I want to unleash that and put it on the screen.“
Though the film has had its share of issues in pre-production, Marvel Studios renewned committment to ensuring its upcoming projects hold up to the high expectations of the audience should pay dividends…and Blade, depsite all its ups and downs, may end up being the poster child of those efforts. Blade is currently slated to release on February 14th, 2025.
Blade has been Marvel Studios’ one project that isn’t seemingly getting off the ground. While they did announce a while back that Mahershala Ali would play the iconic character many years ago, the film never seems to have a finalized script or even a production start. There was one time it almost got the ball rolling but swiftly had to postpone again.
It seems a problem is that the story keeps evolving depending on who is writing it after going through at least five writers. There’s a weird phrasing by Variety where they state: “the story at one point morphed into a narrative led by women and filled with life lessons” as if life lessons aren’t a common element in many of these films’ core themes. Yet, who knows where the sentiment came but it would be strange to have Ali’s Blade not be the main character.
Either way, it seems that the script issues almost led to Ali leaving the project (something that has been hinted at in the past) and Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios’ CEO, has hired Logan writer Michael Green to start from scratch. The upside is that Marvel may be learning from the budget bloats and hopes to make the film with a “smaller” budget of $100M, which may become more common moving forward.
The headlines surrounding The Marvels are surprisingly harsher than you’d expect from a tentpole summer release like The Flash. DC’s general struggle this summer has led to some mixed feelings on what the future has in store for the superhero genre yet other releases seem to hint that the genre isn’t fully out. At the same time, there are enough examples throughout the entire summer that blockbuster fatigue is a bigger issue looming over cinemas going into a strike-affected 2024.
The current projection for The Marvels have been a bit all over the place. Box Office Pro has a more subdued $50M with a high point of $70M. Its pre-sales trackings are quite a bit behind other Marvel tentpoles, especially 2023 releases. It also simply be a showcase that the frontloading era these films have enjoyed fizzled out early on, as even Elemental proves there are still some legs for Disney releases.
Projections by The Hollywood Reporter are a bit more positive with a potential high of $80M for the Marvel Studios release, which may be quite a bit behind the initial Captain Marvel with its $153.4M. Three female leads are a big selling point of the project, especially after the success of Barbie a few months back It also grew from its initial $70M prediction but word-of-mouth is going to be the deciding factor here. However, the fact that its leads can’t actually promote the film is likely a huge factor.
What also seems to be easily forgotten is that Captain Marvel enjoyed the build-up towards Avengers: Endgame and her potentially major role in that franchise “ender” as some claim it was. So, we might be seeing what the film originally might have opened to plus the name-change could also be a factor that people aren’t seeing it necessarily as a sequel even if trailers try to highlight that aspect (to be fair, barely any MCU entry acts like a true sequel but rather just an additional chapter for a specific character).
Is it the end of Marvel Studios? Who knows at this point, but they are still holding on better than DC is with a questionable reboot. What everyone believed was the “biggest flop” of the year with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania turned out to be a high bar barely any major release would reach. Even after the summer blockbuster, the film remains the eight highest-grosser of the year domestically.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Barbie were the exceptions rather than the rule this summer which saw major franchises like The Flash, Dungeons & Dragons, Shazam, Transformers, Indiana Jones, Blue Beetle, and even Mission Impossible fizzle out with huge post-COVID budgets. Exhibitors should be more scared that going to the movies is becoming a rarer occurrence and relying on two or three tentpoles per year is not going to keep the box office afloat long-term; even if some are hailing the end of superhero movies and its fatigue discussions.
Despite some positive momentum in the immediate aftermath of the settlement of the WGA strike, actors remain on strike as negotiations between SAG and AMPTP have broken down once again. As such, productions for screens both big and small remain on hold and with the strike now looking like it might drag into November or beyond, 2024 release dates are certainly in jeopardy. One project with such a date is Marvel Studios Deadpool 3 which was already deep in production in London when the strikes shut everything down. Should the SAG strike resolve soon, could the Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman team-up make its May 3rd, 2024 release date?
It doesn’t sound good, according to director Shawn Levy. In a recent interview with Yahoo!, Levy, who worked with Reynolds on Free Guy and The Adam Project and with Jackman on Real Steel, admitted that while “half the movie” has been shot and edited, he’s uncertain if they can make the date…or if the film is even still slated for May 3rd.
I wish I knew. I don’t even know if we officially have [a release date]. I know we were gonna be May 3. Certainly, the actors’ strike and the long pause in production have put that release date in true risk. We’ve shot half the movie. I’ve edited half the movie. We’re dying to get back to work and get this movie out next year.
Shawn Levy on the chances that Deadpool 3 makes its release date
After reshuffling its entire release slate in June, Disney has remained silent about what to expect in 2024 and beyond since, even skipping SDCC where they’ve often had a big presence. Should cameras roll on Deadpool 3 again in 2023, it might be possible for the film to make the May 3rd date; however, given recent concerns with VFX workers at Marvel Studios, it seems more likely that it might end up being pushed down the road a bit. Perhaps it might find itself filling the staked-out July 26th, 2024 release date that once belonged to Thunderbolts (which will certainly not end up in theaters until 2025) and is now set aside for Captain America: Brave New World. As fun as speculating is, however, it’s fruitless to think too hard about all these dates until the SAG strike is resolved AND cameras start to roll again.
The WGA and SAG strikes shut down Hollywood for several months and in the absence of genuine news, a deluge of liquified bullshit ran wild. Marvel Studios long-gestating Fantastic Four was the subject of many such rumors, including one that indicated director Matt Shakman had departed the project. It looks as though that rumor–like many of the other rumors that have made the rounds since July–has been dispelled as Shakman provided an encouraging update on the project in an interview with Collider.
From the sounds of the interview, it seems unlikely that there was ever any chance of Shakman bailing on Fantastic Four. “Absolutely having a great time,” said Shakman when asked how his work on Marvel Studios First Family project was going. “It’s a dream of mine to be able to work on that. I’ve loved those characters since I was little. It’s such an awesome world to be in,” he explained. “The script is awesome, the characters are brilliant. I’m super excited. I’m obviously very happy now that the writers’ strike has resolved in such a good way, and we’re able to reunite with Josh Friedman, our amazing screenwriter. I’m really hoping for a fair and equitable resolution to the actors’ strike soon, too. Keeping our fingers crossed. But we’re going! We’re a snowball heading downhill. It’s awesome. It’s got a lot of momentum. It’s really fun.“
After updating the post-WGA status of the script, Shakman revealed that the project will be ready to go in front of cameras in 2024, “probably in the spring” at Pinewood Studios in London. The director also explained that the film should be able to make its projected start date because while the WGA and SAG strikes were ongoing, work continued with visual effects and production design crews to build the right mix for the world that the Fantastic Four will inhabit.
We have been nonstop. Despite the strikes, yes, we’ve been working with the effects and with production design and building our world, and that’s been incredibly exciting. You know, how do you translate those skills into live-action in dynamic ways? Because some things that work beautifully in John Byrne and Jack Kirby are a little tougher when you’re filming them. How do you make sure that things are exciting but also grounded in a scientific thing, which is also part of the Fantastic Four that I love? There’s some stuff I’m super excited about. I can’t say too much, you know?
Matt Shakman on the world building of his Fantastic Four film
While Shakman couldn’t give any updates on casting, he was pleased to heap more praise on the new script. “It’s different in so many ways,” Shakman said of Friedman’s rewrite. “I wish I could be specific. I wish I could say more. But we are doing things very differently from a story standpoint, from an approach to the filmmaking standpoint, that really fits the material. I wish I could say more. I would love to, but I can’t. But I think it’s going to be unlike anything you’ve seen before, and certainly unlike anything at Marvel that you’ve seen before.” Given the importance of this project not only to the Multiverse Saga but the continued health of the MCU, setting it apart not only from previous big-screen iterations of the team but other teams already in place is perhaps the most encouraging update fans could have hoped for.
It’s no secret that the Doctor Strangesequel that made its way into theaters in 2022 was miles away from the film that was originally pitched by the director of the first film, Scott Derrickson. When Derrickson and Marvel Studios parted ways, the rumor mill churned out the idea that departure stemmed from the director being told his pitch was “too creepy.” That rumor was squashed by Marvel Studios One Above All, Kevin Feige, and never really made much sense anyway since the studio went on to work with Sam Raimi, who inserted plenty of creepy stuff into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. That doesn’t mean, however, that Derrickson, who has directed horror movies such as The Black Phone, The Exorcism of Emily Rose and Sinister, didn’t have creepy ideas in mind for the sequel.
In an interview with The Playlist, Derrickson opened up about the reasons he and Marvel Studios chose to part ways and his pitch for the film. “All I can say is that what we said publicly is exactly the truth,” said Derrickson. “We had real creative differences. You know, the movie I wanted to make and how I wanted to make it was different than–it was just increasingly obvious that we were pulling against each other. And that’s how you make a really bad movie, I think. When the producer or the studio and the filmmaker are making different movies, you end up with a monstrosity and, you know, that’s why I had to bounce.”
As for what the movie Derrickson wanted to make entailed, the director told The Playlist that is was an “extreme departure from the first film” and “a genuine horror film of sorts.” Concept art for Derrickson’s version of the sequel included designs for Nightmare, a Fear Lord who has served as one of Strange’s longest-lasting antagonists in the comics. So what becomes of all those concepts and ideas? As it turns out, Derrickson explains “there’s no bad blood” over his departure, backing up his previous comments about being open to returning to work with the studio. While it seems unlikely his pitch would line up with what Doctor Strange 3 seems to be about, it’s possible it might find life in whatever comes next for the MCU following the Multiverse Saga.
With the Writers Guild of America strike coming to an end, Marvel Studios wasted no time in getting the big wheel of development up and running again. According to Deadline, Kevin Feige and crew are set to begin meeting with writers this Fall in search of pitches for their reboot of the X-Men!
According to the report, facing a major backlog of projects–both theatrical and streaming–Marvel Studios is set to take their time in finding the scribe for the project with a decision not expected until sometime in 2024. In days of old, that would mean the project might look to start filming in 2026 but with so much uncertainty around productions as the SAG strike continues and studio space at a premium, there’s been no certainty when the film might go into production much less make its way into theaters.
It is widely rumored that Deadpool 3 and Avengers: Secret Wars will close permanently close the doors to the Fox X-Men franchise, allowing the MCU mutants to be the only game in town. A 2021 report from The Illuminerdi indicated that, in an attempt to set its reboot apart from those Fox films, Marvel Studios was looking to develop the project as The Mutants. Though the idea was roundly dismissed online, documents showing that title did circulate and it is a title that was tossed around by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for the X-Men comic back in the early 1960s.
While Hugh Jackman is set to suit up as Wolverine for an MCU adventure, the shared cinematic universe has already seen its first mutant in Kamala Khan and a Marvel Studios-produced revival of the popular X-Men: The Animated Series is set to debut in 2024. All signs point to a BIG future for mutants within the MCU!
Even as it becomes increasingly unlikely that Marvel Studios meets its previously slated 2024 release dates as the ongoing WGA and SAG strikes begin to knock down some dominoes, rumors about the future of the MCU continue to swirl. One such rumor indicated that Marvel Studios is contemplating an adaptation of Time Runs Out, a 20-issue comic book event published in 2014 and 2015, for the plot of the third Doctor Strange film. Written by Jonathan Hickman, Time Runs Out served as a prelude to his 2015 Secret Wars and capped his long run on Avengers and New Avengers titles. With Marvel Studios’ Multiverse Saga set to end with Avengers: Secret Wars, it seems sensible that the studio would turn to the comic book prelude to Secret Wars for inspiration; however, for a studio that’s already losing connectivity with its fanbase, it might be best for them to stay clear of borrowing anything but the title for Doctor Strange 3.
What is Time Runs Out?
In 2012 and 2013, Jonathan Hickman took on one of his most ambitious Marvel Comics projects. Working across both the Avengers and New Avengers titles, Hickman laid the groundwork for a new iteration of Secret Wars. Hickman, through Reed Richards “Everything Dies” speech, introduced the idea of the contraction of the Marvel Multiverse through incursions, an eight-hour timeframe in which parallel Earths collide with one another. Those collisions cause the destruction of both universes and, over time, only two universes remained: Earth-616’s, the original Marvel universe, and Earth-1610’s, the Ultimate Universe.
Time Runs Out tells the story of the final eight months before the incursion between Earth-616 and Earth-1610. It is a vast that includes high-profile members from across the Marvel universe such as the Avengers, the Illuminati, the Cabal, the Fantastic Four, members of the Future Foundation, the Shi’ar Empire, Doctor Doom and more. As a member of the Illuminati, Doctor Strange played a pivotal role in the event. Though a prelude to Secret Wars, Time Runs Out was also the culmination of nearly 60 issues of storytelling by Hickman and required every inch of runway to make it work. As is often the case with Hickman’s work, Time Runs Out included high-concept science fiction and complicated real-world science and, as is often the case with Hickman’s work, it wasn’t for everyone.
Why Should the MCU Steer Clear of Adapting Time Runs Out for Doctor Strange 3?
Before answering the question, it’s worth pointing out that if Marvel Studios does choose to move ahead with Doctor Strange: Time Runs Out, the film adaptation will likely only borrow the title and a few plot points and/or characters from Hickman’s work…and that’s for the best.
An Incursion occurs when the boundary between two universes erodes and they collide, destroying one or both entirely.
Reed Richards explains incursions to Stephen Strange in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
As of now, incursions are the only thing the MCU has in common with Hickman’s run on Avengers and New Avengers and that’s in name only. Whereas in the comics incursions are just part of the natural order of things, though sped up a bit by the untimely end of one alternate Earth, as once again explained by Reed Richards, the MCU’s incursions are–maybe–the result of too much traveling between alternate Earths in the multiverse and, so far, pretty much all caused by different Doctors Strange. Want to destroy an alternate Earth? Just travel to it and hang out there and you’ve got it done.
The decision to make incursions the results of choices made by characters rather than part of the contraction of the multiverse makes TRULY adapting Time Runs Out impossible. The whole point of Time Runs Out is to put the heroes up against the clock as they try to find a way to stop the incursion that will wipe out their Earth. As more incursions happen, they learn more and more, including how to prevent one. According to the present rules of the MCU’s multiverse, that entire scenario isn’t viable. Incursions are super easy to avoid: just stop traveling the multiverse. And what happens when there are only two Earths left, like in the comics? Why are the heroes and villains of each Earth fighting each other at that point? To keep each other from traveling to each other’s Earth? It seems like moving forward in the MCU, an incursion will probably be an intentional tool of destruction.
In the Time Runs Out comic book event, Stephen Strange actually joins up with a group of powerful beings, The Black Priests, who were actually all in on intentionally destroying other universes. By deleting a few intrusive Earths, The Black Priests hoped they would stabilize the contracting multiverse. These same Black Priests are rumored to be part of Marvel Studios’ Time Runs Out adaptation and apparently one of them, Clea, has already appeared on screen. Clea’s goal: to fix the latest incursion caused by Strange’s trip to Earth-838. Black Priests fixing incursions rather than causing them (how can they be fixed, anyway?) would make them Black Priests in name only.
So what’s the problem with adapting Time Runs Out? Nothing has been earned. Nowhere near enough has been set up. And as has already begun to happen, general audiences are going to have a very hard time following the multiversal logic that causes incursions and how they can be fixed. Any true adaptation of Time Runs Out would need to include a significant amount of exposition about the origins of the multiverse and should include a much bigger team of heroes working on the problem. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the comic event was, as a reader, working through the problems in lockstep with the greatest minds of the Marvel Universe. Having Doctor Strange be the sole POV character for an event of this magnitude would not only be underwhelming it would underserve the enormity of the event itself.
While there’s plenty of reasons for Marvel Studios to turn to Hickman’s works as they approach Avengers: Secret Wars, trying to make an event that included dozens and dozens of Marvel Comics’ brightest and best into another Doctor Strange multiverse adventure (especially considering the lukewarm reaction to the last one) would be a mistake…and Marvel Studios can’t really afford another theatrical mistake in their Multiverse Saga. If they’re not careful, they are going to end up with a film, that like Hickman’s work, is not for everyone.
As Marvel Studios has rolled out its post-Endgame slate, it’s become more and more obvious that while there’s a plan in place that gets the MCU to Avengers: Secret Wars, the finer details of that plan haven’t quite been worked out yet. It would seem that there’s a lot of “that’s the next guy’s problem to solve” as projects are handed off from one team to the next (you can’t convince me that anyone knows if Kang the Conqueror is really alive or dead following the events of Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania…and that’s just fine) but it’s not something that’s been talked about…until now.
In the latest issue of Total Film, The Marvels director, Nia DaCosta, and executive producer, Mary Livanos, both came clean on the subject. While they both admit that the story of The Marvels will result in something that the Avengers will ultimately have to deal with, they also make it clear that neither of them are quite sure what that will mean. And if those two–who know more about the film than anyone–don’t know…it’s quite possible nobody does.
“It definitely leads to plentiful opportunities for the future of the MCU, whatever the Avengers and Secret Wars teams may want to do with them,” said Livanos of the conclusion of The Marvels, which will see Kree villain Dar-Benn, played by Zawe Ashton, look to unlock the full power of Kamala Khan’s bangle by reuniting it with its rightful paired partner. Though nobody’s saying it quite yet, those bangles sure seem like they might be the MCU’s versions of the Quantum Bands and may just have some sort of connection to the Multiverse Saga’s big bad, Kang. But do they?
“That’s a question for [Marvel boss] Kevin Feige,” says DaCosta of how The Marvels fits into the larger shared narrative of the Multiverse Saga. “I have lots of thoughts. But I actually have no idea what they’re going to do in the Avengers movies. I do know that those guys who are doing that watch the films, see what we’re doing. I have things I really want [to happen]. But I’m not sure.” And that means it’s the “next guy’s” problem which Livanos explained.
“The plot [of The Marvels] deals with some fluctuations in time and space, and there’s definite danger afoot that could affect the multiverse,” said Livanos. “Where it all leads is a bit of a spoiler, and exactly how it’ll all pan out in an Avengers movie is currently being figured out right now. But we’re definitely ending our characters in places that allow for plentiful opportunity.” Who is figuring it all out? At one point, it was definitely in the hands of Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness, who was hired to pen Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, but there have been relentless rumors that he’s since left the project after completing a portion of the script. Will the next writer start from scratch and get left solving whatever problem the ending of The Marvels leaves for the Avengers? Or will the ending of The Marvels become the next 616 Mordo and never be seen or heard from again?
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