Tag: Marvel Studios MCU

Murphy’s Team-Up Volume 3: Russos Assemble

In this week’s Murphy’s Team-Up, the group talks about what project they would like to see the Russo brothers tackle when they return to Marvel Studios.

Anthony Canton III

As far as an Avengers team for the Russos to direct, let’s get Captain Marvel, Captain America, Spider-Man, Thor, Dr. Strange, Monica Rambeau, and Banner as our main team. There’ll be support from others if needed but I like that crew. The villain for a crew like this would be Annihilus. A fun scenario would be an earth takeover as the Avengers take on him and his army.

Charles Murphy

While it’s more likely they’re coming back for something major like Secret Wars, I’d be happy for them to work on a Silver Surfer trilogy. Following the mold they cut on their work with Captain America, I’d love to see them explore the “fallen hero” themes from Stan Lee’s seminal late-60s/early 70s run (honestly some of Stan’s finest writing) without having him confined to Earth. Surfer is probably one of the heaviest hitters in the toy box that Marvel Studios bought from Fox and I hear he may be introduced sometime in 2022 (it’s just a rumor for now, so settle down); the Russos, who have expressed their love for the character in the past, could elevate the character to heights he deserves.

John Sabato

The next team I’d like to see the Russos direct is Captain America, Wasp,
Ant-Man, Mighty Thor, Shang Chi, Black Knight, Sersi, and Photon. The villain? AC is right: Annihilus.

Joao Pinto

The Russos have themselves said that the inspiration behind Avengers: Infinity War’s team comprised of Cap, Falcon, Black Widow, and Wanda was Marvel’s Secret Avengers. Even in their debut feature for the franchise, Captain America: The Winter Soldier they managed to get Steve Rogers donning a suit clearly hinting at the one he wore while leading the Secret Avengers in the comics. So with that said, why not give them the keys to their own black-ops superhero team? There are a number of members that have already left the MCU but, hopefully, we’ll soon have brand new characters introduced that would manage to make the cut. Original team members Moon Knight and Nova would be welcomed additions, with Yelena Belova taking Natasha’s place in the team, all while having War Machine serve as the liaison between the team and government authorities. Hank McCoy and Shang-Chi would complete the team, making it extremely diverse in its disfunctionality.

Joseph Aberl

With the Russos potentially returning, it seems like the obvious choice for them to spearhead the project featuring the Avengers fighting Kang the Conqueror, but I’d like to propose a different kind of story. After the aftermath of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the multiverse breaking loose is just a matter of time. They end up realizing that another multiverse is going to try and merge with theirs. A new team featuring Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, the new Black Panther, White Vision, and more face off against an Incursion. They meet familiar and new faces of old friends that force their hand in an unlikely war. Yet, at the end of the day, they realize this was just the prelude. Something sinister is waiting for them in the future.

Mary Maerz

I honestly don’t know who my preferred team for a Russo’s feature would be, but I am most excited for Sam Wilson to make his Avengers debut as Captain America, and would love for the Russos to have a hand in that. With all of the more complex storylines going on in Phase Four, he will definitely ground everything. His character also just rocks and will probably make a lot of wild stuff feel more human and relatable. As far as a villain, I would really like Kang to still be the Big Bad by Avengers 5. After he (his variant) appeared in the Loki series, it seems obvious to me that there is so much potential in building him up over time into something really special. The MCU sort of did that with Thanos, but mostly just through teases—we didn’t really see him do anything in particular until Infinity War. Kang, though, with Ant-Man 3 in particular, has the ability to feel like a huge and constant threat for the foreseeable future if they keep him around. It would definitely have an incredible payoff. Plus Jonathan Majors is going to be amazing, so we’d have a villain with some personality too.

Nathan Miller

I’d honestly rather give Chloe Zhao or Nia DaCosta a go at directing the next Avengers film rather than the Russo brothers. I’d like to see the Russos have a go at a Dark Avengers or Thunderbolts Disney+ series instead. So inline with that, the team would be: Zemo, US Agent, Yelena Belova, Abomination, Songbird, Agatha Harkness and Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine. I can see them having a rivalry with a team Sam might put together, but not a wholly antagonistic relationship with them, with the bigger fractures likely from within the team itself. As for who they would be taking on, perhaps a villain like Morgan le Fay, or perhaps they might try to lay Siege to New Asgard.

Join us next week for another Murphy’s Team-Up!!

October 18, 2021
EXCLUSIVE: MARVEL STUDIOS HAS COMMISSIONED A ‘DARK AVENGERS’ SCRIPT

Note: This article was originally published by Charles Murphy at That Hashtag Show on October 5, 2018

Marvel Studios has enjoyed an unprecedented 10 year run of box office success as that began with 2008’s Iron Man. That film gave the studio the momentum it needed to build a cinematic universe around a few well-known heroes, take some gambles on a few others and tell a longform story unlike any that’s come before. That story, however, will come to an end with 2019’s Avengers 4 as will the tenures of several of the studio’s flagship heroes leaving fans to wonder what comes next. Some of the heroes and franchises will live on post-Infinity with sequels being developed for Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and Black Panther; other new heroes such as Captain Marvel and Monica Rambeau will be introduced before Avengers 4 and become a part of the story that comes next; new franchises, such at The Eternals, are being developed, showing that Kevin Feige and company are still willing to roll the dice on some lesser known characters even as their deal to bring home the X-Men, Fantastic Four and related characters creeps towards closure.

As exciting as the influx of new characters is for fans, Feige couldn’t have counted on them to shoulder the load going forward until the recent approvals to the deal. As a result, Marvel Studios has been developing dozens of properties for potential films and those dozens of properties probably stand at a dozen different stages of development. Some of those properties will feature prominently in the future of the MCU and others will never be known to anyone not lucky enough to be a part of the Marvel Studios brain trust. We’ve been fortunate enough to find out about similar projects in the past and today we’re happy to share another: Marvel Studios has developed and completed a script for an adaptation of Dark Avengers.

To be clear, Marvel Studios has many scripts for many projects, not all of which will make it to the big screen. It’s a smart move for the studio to commission as many scripts as possible knowing that at any time someone might come up with a take on an IP that blows people away while also knowing some of them will go straight to the bottom of the pile. We at That Hashtag Show don’t pretend to know where in that pile the Dark Avengers sits, only that a script for the IP was completed .

The Dark Avengers were created by Brian Michael Bendis and first appeared in their own title in January of 2009 in the aftermath of the Skrull Secret Invasion. With the people and the government having lost faith in the Avengers, Norman Osborn, who had been in charge of the Thunderbolts, was appointed head of the reformed S.H.I.E.L.D., now known as H.A.M.M.E.R.. Osborn took the opportunity to assemble his own team of “heroes”, including Sentry, Noh-Varr and Ares and to disguise some Thunderbolts as former Avengers. Osborn’s team included a Mac Gargan “Spider-Man”, a Moonstone “Captain Marvel”, a Bullseye “Hawkeye”, a Daken “Wolverine” and Norman in the Iron Patriot armor. The initial run of the comic lasted 16 issues and ran throughout the Dark Regin and Seige line-wide arcs.

October 5, 2018