Ahead of the debut of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, rumors began to swirl that co-lead Elizabeth Olsen’s character, Wanda Maximoff, would be at the center of two upcoming projects: a Scarlet Witch solo project and an adaptation of Alan Heinberg’s Avengers: The Children’s Crusade.
As it turns out, it sounds like the Scarlet Witch solo project, which would presumably follow Wanda following the harrowing events of the Strange sequel, will not only come first, but also possibly start filming in 2023, making a 2024 debut a distinct possibility. Whatever the case, it’s exciting to know there are still more chapters to Wanda’s story.
Cast
Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff / The Scarlet Witch
The success of Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings made a sequel to the 2021 release a no-brainer, so it surprised nobody when, in December of 2021, Marvel Studios put it on the slate.
Following his appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Charlie Cox is expected to appear in several MCU projects spread out over 2022 and 2023. She-Hulk, Echo and Armor Wars are all rumored to feature appearances by the Man Without Fear, but what fans of the character really want is another solo project.
The continued story of the Ten Rings organizationwas teased in Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings, so it wasn’t a complete surprise when, in December of 2021, a Disney Plus spinoff project from the film was announced. While it has not been confirmed by Marvel Studios, it is expected that the series, being developed by Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton, will focus on the Ten Rings, now under the command of Xialing.
During the Disney Entertainment Showcase at D23 2024, Daredevil: Born Again star Charlie Cox confirmed that a second season of the series was set to start production before the end of 2024.
Season 2 of Daredevil: Born Again kicked off in late February in New York City. On March 1st, Matthew Lillard was confirmed to join the cast and was later revealed to be portraying an international power player named Mister Charles.
If you’ve never read an installment of Connecting Imaginary Dots, allow me to explain the idea. Connecting Imaginary Dots was the title I came up with for my speculation pieces when I was writing at MCU Exchange. These types of pieces basically allow me to unload a bunch of junk that’s circulating in my brain in a way that should never be confused for things I actually expect to happen. I basically take a bunch of facts that are almost always entirely unrelated and do my best to connect the dots with by stretching my imagination. In the past these types of pieces have resulted in me theorizing that the Spider-Man sequel which became Far From Home might end up being a team-up outing of Spidey and Hulk in the Savage Land; however, I also wrote one theorizing that Sterling K. Brown would be playing the father of Erik Killmonger in Black Panther LOOOOOONG before anyone else was considering it and one in which I theorized that Annette Bening was actually Mar-Vell when everyone else still thought Jude Law was playing the character. The bottom line is this: these are fun spec pieces that allow me to just be a fan. With that out of the way…
This piece is probably as convoluted and out there as any Connecting The Imaginary Dots piece I’ve done since I decided that Spidey and Hulk were headed to the Savage Land, but it’s in my head and I’m going to get it out.
Family. The less than subtle theme of this May’s Black Widow has been built up through the trailers and has led us to believe that Nat’s reunion with her Russian family will take her on a bit of a redemptive arc. The film is also setting up Taskmaster as the main antagonist and, often times in film, the antagonist’s arc is a dark reflection of the hero’s. I’m beginning to wonder that as Nat’s reunion redeems her, if we might see a family separated and out for revenge.
There are a lot of dots here, so I’ll lay them out now:
Last March, I revealed that Ned Benson’s script work on Black Widow introduced a new character to the mix. The studio was searching for a “diverse female” to play a small supporting role. A number of actresses ranging from Storm Reid (15 years old at the time) to Hannah Quinlivan (25 at the time) were up from the role.
16 year old Liani Samuels was cast in Black Widow as Anya. I believe, but cannot confirm, that she appeared in yesterday’s final trailer.
Is that Samuels front and center? I don’t know.
The final trailer revealed that Taskmaster is now in charge of the Red Room and training an entirely new kind of Widow who have no control over their actions. He is essentially the Headmaster of the Red Room.
Mark Waid’s run on Black Widow, which began in 2016, introduced the Headmistress. The Headmistress oversaw the Red Room when Natasha was trained. With the help of her daughter, known as Recluse, she has developed the Dark Room: a new, more violent Red Room that would train child assassins and would have no ties to any country. The Headmistress ultimately killed herself, leaving her daughter to become the new Headmistress and out for revenge against Natasha.
Marvel Studios filmed part of Black Widow on location in Norway. I believe a shot of the landscape appeared in yesterdays final trailer:
Avengers Academy #1 introduced a character known as Finesse. Over time and because of her abilities as a polymath, she became suspicious that her father was Taskmaster. This has never been confirmed or denied.
This is a big one that has to be marked as a rumor: I was told that Black Widow would feature two Taskmasters: the first one male and the second one a female. This is an unconfirmed rumor and only here because it supports my wild speculation.
With the dots all laid out, here’s what I’m staring at:
Samuels’ Anya is Taskmaster’s daughter. Marvel Studios specifically wanted a non-white actress for the role because they were casting her as the daughter of Fagbenle’s Mason/Tasky. Her character is is an amalgamation of Recluse and Finesse. Marvel Studios has a lot of great characters and they’re not going to get to them all, so they’ve brought the two together to make an intriguing new character. Recluse is part of the Dark Room Academy where she is trained by her father. At some point during the climax of the film, her father is killed by Nat, or maybe Yelena. When she find out, she swears revenge, becomes the new Taskmaster and will be the face under the mask going forward. Anya’s loss sets her on the very path Nat is trying to step off of. Of course that means she’s not going to get revenge on Nat so, like I said, maybe Yelena…but you guys all think she’s dead! Which is really weird because this series of screenshots pulled from the trailers tells a really different story: one in which she is alive (note she is wearing the same white outfit without the vest when she’s on the table) and being prepped for some sort of medical procedure:
But all that is another story…
The bottom line is this: I look forward to more Tasky shenanigans and a couple more Black Widow solo films starring Florence Pugh.
How crazy and convoluted is this conjecture? Let me know in the comments!!
In December, I wrote a piece about how The Falcon and The Winter Soldier would explore some of the efforts to rebuild the world after the Blip. A big part of that rebuilding process seems to be the ever-present Samson Development Company whose motto, conveniently, is “Rebuilding Your City After the Blip.” While we don’t know what role Samson Development will have in the series (Will the company be in the background? Is it somehow related to Doctor Leonard Samson? Is the company somehow integral to the plot?), a new series of set photos from out friend @loburger indicates that as the series comes to a close, Samson Development is working on a pretty big project that could hint at something major coming down the road (it also could be hinting at nothing).
@loburger recently went down to get a closer look at the area where our exclusive set videos were shot and got us not only a good look at the signage indicating a large undertaking by Samson Development, but also some information about the production timeline of the series as well. As you can see in the photos below, Samson Development is building a massive tower located on Broad Street.
The identity of this mysterious new tower is sure to cause a stir. Could it be the Baxter Building? Possible, but unlikely as the Baxter Building is located at 42nd and Madison Ave. and very near the UN building. Oscorp? Again, possible but unlikely. As much as we’d love for it to be one of those great landmarks, at this point we do not have the evidence to support those ideas.
In addition to the interesting new tower going up on Broad Street, a closer look at one of the set photos shows a curious logo that calls back to some graffiti seen in earlier set photos.
Those set photos, which can be seen here, have fueled speculation of Captain America villain Flag-Smasher showing up in the series and this sticker might well be connected to the same perpetrators of that graffiti. While we have no context for why this logo is here or what to expect, it’s consistent with things we’ve seen before.
A final note of interest: according to @loburger’s conversation with set security, it appears that The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, which is now filming in the Czech Republic, is scheduled to return to Atlanta for additional filming “at the end of the month.” Hopefully we are able to gather some more photos then and continue to get an idea of what to expect from the series!
Several months ago, an alleged leak of the plot of the upcoming Marvel Studios feature film, Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings, indicated that the titular character would enter into an underground Kung Fu tournament in order to try to win the legendary Ten Rings. The leak can be found at the bottom of the page.
Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings is looking for a male to film a one scene cameo in which he will livestream the film’s main characters as they enter into what is described as a large scale fight. The character, named “KANE”, is traveling with the main characters on a bus when the fight occurs. Could this bus trip be taking the characters to a location for the underground tournament? We’ll have to wait and see, but one thing we can say for sure is we have not seen any evidence to suggest the tournament leak is purely fan fiction. If you haven’t read it, check out the original leak below. Make sure to let us know your thoughts on the tournament in the comments!
An alien spaceship landed in China hundreds of years ago. The ship was powered by the Ten Rings, magical relics that all serve a different purpose. The rings were looted by a secret society known as the Avatars, which is led by a wise martial artist simply called the Ancestor. The Ancestor wore the rings and used them to become an expert fighter.
The Mandarin grew up hearing about the ancestor’s story and was fascinated by it, despite everyone else believing it was just a myth. He began to idolize the Ancestor, and devoted his life to finding the rings. This inspired him to form his own mafia, which is the Ten Rings gang. Basically, the point of the gang is look for the rings all around the world. He adopted his niece, Fah Lo Suee (Awkwafina) and taught her martial arts.
After years of investigation, he discovers that the legend of the ten rings are real, and that the Ancestor is dying. There was a leak a little while back that Shang-Chi is a tournament film, and that’s actually true. When the Ancestor dies, the Avatars will run a secret tournament/kung-fu trial in which the winner will be granted the rings. The Mandarin is too old to compete, and he doesn’t want to risk Fah Lo Suee’s life. That’s where Shang-Chi is going to come in.
Shang is a street urchin who meets the Mandarin after he starts dating Fah. The Mandarin takes a liking in Shang and starts training him as his apprentice. His first task, as an act of gang initiation, is to kill Trevor for impersonating the Mandarin. People speculated that they would be related, but it will be more of a Walter White/Jesse Pinkman dynamic.
When the tournament begins, the Mandarin will send Shang to win and get the rings for him. That’ll be the basic gist of the film pretty much. I know that defeating Fin Fang Foom will be an obstacle. Leiko Wu and Clive Reston will be in the movie as SHIELD agents who are investigating the Ten Rings gang. Shang-Chi will obviously betray the Mandarin and become a hero over the course of the film. He will get the ability to create multiple duplicates of himself. It will be an ‘Orphan Black’ situation, where each clone of himself has their own personality. So the fights will obviously be insane to witness.
Marvel is casting Shang’s enemies in the tournament, and one of them will be a character named Chao.
If you’re a part of the tl:dr crowd, this probably isn’t for you.
Over the past 5 months, Marvel Studios has begun production on 3 series set to stream on Disney Plus. The production schedules themselves have been in flux and we’ve even seen a shift in the release date of one show as WandaVision moved from its original 2021 debut to late 2020. What I think we are witnessing here is Marvel Studios learning on the fly. While they’ve produced a couple dozen films, these series are an entirely different animal and the studio has been learning and evolving while responding to all sorts of different issues (weather, natural disasters, leaked locations and more).
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier kicked off production in Atlanta at the end of October. That production was loudly announced via a social media blitz from stars Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie. This production has been very public, even throughout the last week, yet the general public has no idea the number of surprises in store for them (even if I did scoop Madripoor when they didn’t want me to).
WandaVision was widely reported to begin filming in September in Los Angeles. However, as I reported in September (the site wasn’t up and running yet, so I just tweeted out the info), neither of those things were correct. As seen in the documentation below, production kicked off in early November in Atlanta.
For those who like their proof. If you start seeing Static Productions, LLC trucks and signs around, you're in the middle of 'WANDAVISION' production. pic.twitter.com/JNdbxVsDuD
In early December, I used similar documentation (seen below) to inform fans that production on Loki was set to begin in early February. Just about a month later, I learned that Marvel Studios was slightly accelerating the start of production for Loki (which we later learned was so they could have the brief footage for the Super Bowl spot). That report was met with a great deal of skepticism; I was even told publicly on my Twitter feed by a Marvel Studios crew member that I was wrong because he was told Loki wouldn’t start until “closer to summer.”
Similarly, a lot of people believed 'LOKI' wouldn't start filming in February. And when I say a lot of people, I mean that includes a crew member of another Marvel Studios project who came to my Twitter feed to tell me that 'LOKI' wouldn't start filming until summer. pic.twitter.com/BHHni0210F
I think this is an important lesson here. I believe that the crew member was told that. I believe he believed that. I also believe that at any given time only about 5% of the people involved with a production (that includes the cast as well) actually knows the entirely of “what’s going on.” Obviously cameras rolled on Loki; we all saw the proof with our own eyes.
As 2019 came to a close, I learned that The Falcon and The Winter Soldier was set to film in Puerto Rico after the holiday break. As we know, filming in Puerto Rico was delayed and then abandoned after the island was ravaged by earthquakes. As filming in Atlanta is reaching its end, we’ll see just where the show lands next…
The new year brought more changes to production. Ms. Marvel, once slated for an April start, was seemingly moved to August as the studio reopened casting. Then I learned that production on Hawkeye (originally planned for an April start before being pushed to July), was indefinitely delayed. Recently, I updated that original report to indicate that the studio has tentatively targeted (pun most definitely intended) September for a start of production, turning the indefinite delay into a defined one: start of production was pushed back another 2 months. I know this is a really big topic of debate, so as I did with WandaVision and Loki, I’m sharing the recently updated documentation for Hawkeye, which is filming under Finger Guns Productions, LLC.
Way back in October of 2020, I tried really hard to hint to everyone that Finger Guns Productions LLC was the company for Hawkeye:
October 16th was the day I broke the 'MS. MARVEL' news. On October 17th I left you guys the same hint twice. I tried. And if you think I'm only making it up now that the news came out, @cfsvillanueva and I have DMs to prove it. pic.twitter.com/yRMw8xwc38
Quite a few people believed, and some still may, that it was the production company for Deadpool 3, but as you can see it is clearly marked as a Disney Plus production. Further evidence which has been redacted also indicates that it is Hawkeye. So, as of late yesterday, production on Hawkeye is set to kick off in Atlanta on September 28, 2020. Before people start jumping to the conclusion that this means Hawkeye will miss its Fall 2021 premiere date (something that was widely reported due to poor reporting on the original story), we should take cues from the two longest running productions: The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and WandaVision. As I mentioned, Marvel Studios has been learning and evolving and one lesson I believe they have learned is that they have MORE time than they originally believed to get these shows done. Despite delays of every kind, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is on track to meet its August release date and WandaVision is on track to arrive several months earlier than originally intended. So, if Hawkeye does in fact begin in September of 2020, we could reasonably expect it to air anytime between July and Decemeber of 2021. With that lesson in mind, here’s a little more breaking news…
Not too long ago I learned that She-Hulk was looking at kicking off production in Atlanta in July. A recent report from the Illuminerdi indicated that it would instead kick off in August. As of yesterday, neither of those things are still true. She-Hulk, under Thine Selves Productions LLC, is now looking to get the cameras rolling in mid-November of this year. If we are to use WandaVision as an example, that means we could very well see She-Hulk streaming on Disney Plus in December of 2021.
Finally, it was recently reported that Moon Knight will film in Atlanta in November. I can confirm that this is accurate. What I can add to that is that Moon Knight, under Spectorcorp Productions, is still planning to go to the UK. As I originally stated, it is HIGHLY LIKELY that the reason they are heading to the UK is to use it as a base from which they can easily access some more exotic locations (think deserts) that are often used for filming.
The constant here is change. Even as I type this, I’m confident that within a month, something here will change. That doesn’t stop me from continuing to look, rather it’s what keeps me going.
Every now and then I come across some information the veracity of which can be confirmed by a second source. What happens FAR more often is that I come across some information that while believable and from trustworthy sources, cannot be confirmed by other sources for various reasons. Typically, when the second scenario occurs, I move on and forget about the information unless, in rare instances, it turns out to be proven true somewhere down the road. For instance, on February 19th, I wrote this piece relaying some rumors I’d heard about Marvel Studios updating its Disney Plus slate; the next day, the news broke that a special Disney Plus event would be held in London on March 5th where it is expected that Marvel Studios and Star Wars slates will be updated.
A thing I heard this week: Thor: Love and Thunder may shoot some scenes in Vancouver, British Columbia, aka Hollywood North.
Since the 1970s, Vancouver has been one of the world’s top production locations. While it hasn’t been a hot spot for Marvel Studios, Helstrom is filming there now and it looks like the plan is for Taika Waititi’sThor: Love and Thunder to do some work there as well. As far as I can tell, the plan is still for the bulk of the filming to take place in Australia and for additional filming to take place in Vancouver, among other locations. While I continue to search to find out if the film will be using studio space, my assumption is that they’re going to Vancouver to shoot locations and, to that end, there is no shortage of beautiful places from which to choose.
Thor: Love and Thunder is expected to kick off production in Australia this August and shoot through the end of the year.
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