Marvel Studios’ search for its “evil Superman” is over if a new round of rumors and reports is to be believed. As work on Thunderbolts progresses ahead of its scheduled June production start, it appears that The Walking Dead star Steven Yeun has landed therole of Robert Reynolds/Sentry.
Rumors of the involvement of the Sentry in the plot of Thunderbolts have swirled since late Fall of 2022 when a casting call for an “evil Superman” circulated online. After sorting through a few of Marvel’s Superman analogs, Sentry rose to the top of the list of possible choices and additional information from reliable insiders has continued to build the case that he’ll make his MCU debut in the film. Now a slew of reports, including one from The Illuminerdi, all indicate that the 39-year-old Yeun has landed the part, which will make him a key player in the MCU beyond the events of 2024’s Thunderbolts.
Though Yeun is most well known (and beloved by fans) for his long-running role as Glenn on AMC’s The WalkingDead, should he have landed the role of Sentry it won’t be his first rodeo as a nigh-omnipotent and indestructible hero. Yeun has served as the voice of Mark Grayson, the Viltrumite-human hybrid hero known as Invincible, for 2 seasons of the animated Amazon Prime series Invincible. For all their similarities in terms of powers, however, Sentry and Invincible are far from the same character and stepping into the role of Sentry would provide Yeun an opportunity to explore a character with a much, much darker side. In the comics, that darker side is, in part, due to an entity known as The Void, and that entity is rumored to appear in Thunderbolts as a key part of Sentry’s character arc.
The second lowest-rated Marvel Studios film on Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. The second lowest Cinemascore of any Marvel Studios film. The largest second-weekend drop of any Marvel Studios film. An endless onslaught of complaints on social media. Things seem pretty bleak for Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania everywhere you look. But Marvel Studios isn’t anywhere near as worried about things as you are.
According to Deadline, a Marvel Studios insider who was described as being “close to the film“, isn’t worried at all about the critical reception or box office receipts. In fact, while the insider knows there’s something to be learned from Quantumania, they suggest Marvel is “proud of the film.”
Marvel takes something away from movie including Black Panther, including Avengers. I can say we’re incredibly proud of the film, Jonathan Majors does a fantastic job as Kang. It’s the movie we wanted to make. Box office is what it is. But it’s not going to stop people from going back to the theaters.
Anonymous Marvel Studios Insider
The reality of the whole situation is that in another week, Quantumania won’t even be a talking point as March comes loaded with major films. However, the last statement from the insider will be one to watch as Marvel Studios next project, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, starts its big marketing push ahead of its May 5th release. Should that project somehow fall short of expectations at the box office and be equally poorly received by critics, it’s possible Marvel may take a step back for deeper reflection on the performance of its Multiverse Saga.
As Marvel Studios first 2023, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania film works through a rough second weekend in theaters, the company’s first 2024 film is gearing up to begin production. Captain America: New World Order, which will see Anthony Mackie‘s Sam Wilson step into the lead role previously held by Chris Evans‘ Steve Rogers, is slated to hit theaters on May 3rd, 2024 and rumors about its production schedule have been making the rounds over the past few months. Fortunately, Executive Producer Nate Moore put an end to any debate about when cameras will roll on the film.
While attending the Producers Guild if America Awards in Beverly Hills, Moore revealed that principal photography on Cap 4 is expected to kick off in “3 weeks.”
That timeline puts New World Order on Pace to begin filming after St. Patrick’s Day with Monday, March 20th looking like a good bet. That means the film’s stars, including Mackie, Harrison Ford and Tim Blake Nelson, could start arriving in Atlanta any day now to prep for shooting for the Phase 5 film.
To date, Marvel Studios’ most off-the-wall mid-credit scene came attached to Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. The scene introduced a thousand or so Kang Variants, most of which were shown so quickly that they were fairly hard to identify; however, three of the Variants had a little more screentime, making it clear they were the first among equals of this Council of Kangs. Two of the three seemed to be pretty one-to-one and obvious adaptations of different Kangs from the comics, but the third one caused some confusion even among comic book fans.
Thankfully, director Peyton Reed took the time to identify the key Variants in an interview with ET. Though he looked a bit Robocop, fans easily identified the Variant known as Rama-Tut, about who Reed said “we sort of bent [him] up a little bit and made him this very strange sort of bionic variant of Rama-Tut.” Like Rama-Tut, Immortus, too, was pretty easily recognizable; however, the third member of the group didn’t really have much in common, at least aesthetically, with any of Kang’s comic book selves. And so while fans assumed he was probably a version of the Scarlet Centurion, the next most prominent version of Kang from the comics, uncertainty lingered until Reed came to the rescue.
We knew we wanted to sort of just give a tiny taste of the potential of what some of these Kang variants are and brief nods to [Pharaoh] Rama-Tut, [Scarlet] Centurion, Immortus.
Peyton Reed
Scarlet Centurion it is! Of course, while they are all Variants of the Prime Kang (have we met him yet?), each of these Variants has different experiences and often different goals in the comics. Despite all that, they seem to be working together, at least to some extent and are very concerned about the fact that more and more heroes are discovering the Multiverse. While there will certainly be more time spent with these Variants soon, they are shaping up to be quite a force to be reckoned with in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.
As Marvel Studios Disney Plus streaming series Wonder Man prepares to enter production over the coming months, the cast is beginning to round out. Just days after reporting that Demetrius Grosse had signed on, industry insider Daniel RPK broke the news on a pair of castings. According to RPK, Lauren Glazier (Takes of the Walking Dead) and Werner Herzog (The Mandalorian) have joined the cast.
No details were given concerning the roles either actor would fill, Glazier does seem to fit a the bill for the female lead of the project. While it’s possible Herzog could have been cast in a role that was previously rumored to be offered to Bob Odenkirk, the former is significantly out of the age range Marvel Studios was reported to have identified for the role.
The project, written by Andrew Guest and created by Destin Daniel Cretton, is set to enter into production in April. Wonder Man will introduce long-time Avenger Simon Williams, played by Yaha Abdul-Mateen II, to the MCU and is said to be a Hollywood satire. Given the mandate by Bob Iger that Marvel Studios slow the wheels on its production machine, it seems unlikely that Wonder Man will be headed to the streaming service any time soon, with eyes on a possible late 2024 or early 2025 release.
A common criticism of Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania has come from the perceived lack of a true threat posed by Jonathan Majors‘ Kang. After being billed as the big bad of the Multiverse Saga, Kang the Conqueror was defeated by the Ant-Family who escaped the Quantum Realm and their encounter with Kang relatively intact. In fact, the film ends, for the most part, on a rather upbeat note given what the Langs and the Pym van Dynes had gone through. However, it turns out that wasn’t always the case.
In an interview with Comic Book, writer Jeff Loveness confirmed some fairly major changes were made to the ending. While the film ends with the whole family having returned home from the Quantum Realm, it turns out it wasn’t always that way as Loveness confirms that one potential ending had Scott and Hope stuck in the Quantum Realm. Ultimately, given the similarity to the ending of Ant-Man and The Wasp, that ending was removed from the film.
Yeah, I mean, certainly in these Marvel rooms and all that, you certainly game out all these stories and you pitch them out, you write them out, and you’re trying to land the best puzzle piece because there’s so many characters in the ensemble. Certainly, you see what people are saying online. But on paper, and then just in your heart, as much as you can see that point about stranding Scott and Hope down there or whatever, at the end of the day, it is just repeating the same beat from the second movie. That just was a hurdle that you couldn’t eventually get over. And then also, it kind of affects Avengers in the same way of, well, then you’re just doing the same exact beat from Endgame as well, getting out of the Quantum Realm and I don’t think that would be a satisfying finale that people maybe think it would be.
Jeff Loveness
Online criticism of the film has also centered on the fact that none of the story’s protagonists died despite going up against Kang. At one point, rumors swirled that Michael Douglas‘ Hank Pym might be a casualty of the Quantum Realm, something Loveness seemed to acknowledge when describing the tone he ultimately chose for the film.
But certainly, you go through all these permutations and then at the end of the day though, I think … I don’t want to kill Michael Douglas! At a certain point, it feels expected to kill someone in the third movie and I actually felt the joy of this movie was having a bit of a joyful adventure. Fellowship of the Ring, only one guy died. He kind of deserved it. But you’re not killing off Pippin. Killing off Pippin in Return of the King would’ve just bummed everybody out, man. If Gimli gets his head ripped off by a troll, that’s not going to be great.
For fans who want to see Kang rack up a body count, however, Loveness has good news in the way of a thousand or so Kangs who are capable of doing plenty of damage when they show up again in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, which he’s writing as well.
But certainly, it’s up in the air but I think for these bloodthirsty fans, there’s a little movie called, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, I think he’ll bring the heat.
Jeff Loveness
Rumors have already suggested a trio of Avengers who might fall at the hands of Kang(s) in that film but whether those are true or not, it certainly seems as though there will be blood down the road.
While he won’t be the sole creator behind the MCU’s version of Kang, it seems safe to say that Jeff Loveness will be the one most associated with the character. After introducing Kang the Conqueror and the Council of Kangs in Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, Loveness will bring the full might of everything Kang to life in Avengers: The Kang Dynasty which he’s currently writing. The Kang Dynasty, which is currently slated for a 2025 release, will be the first Avengers movie since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, which means it will be one of the most anticipated movies in the history of film.
For Loveness, the anticipation and excitement that fans feel is something he’s very familiar with and, as such, something he has taken to heart while writing the film. “I don’t take it lightly that I am writing the biggest movie in the world,” said Loveness of The Kang Dynasty. The opportunity to write “the biggest movie in the world” is something that caused Loveness to reminisce about his own experience with “big” movies from his childhood.
I am from a very small town; I didn’t even have a movie theater in my town so we would have to drive an hour away to go watch movies. And I love small movies, Tar is the best movie of the year; Triangle of Sadness is so funny and innovative, but when I was a kid, I went to see Lord of the Rings right when school ended. I didn’t know what it was. Our movie theater was playing that. It was a BIG movie and it changed my life.
And so now it is Loveness‘ turn to put together what will be the big movie of 2025 and what will ultimately be compared to prior Avengers films Infinity War and Endgame in terms of quality and ability to impact pop culture. Loveness says he’s up to the task and adds that he has a secret weapon in achieving the goal of creating an “American epic” that people will remember: star Jonathan Majors.
I have this opportunity to write a vast, American epic–I’ll use American in a general term–but a big, American movie. I don’t take it lightly and I want to make it this big, sweeping and exciting, funny movie and I think we have the best actor in the world as the most complicated villain in comic books. So I can’t say too much, but we’re really swinging for the fences and I can’t wait for you to see what Jonathan does.
Jeff Loveness
Loveness and fans will have to wait a bit, however, as Avengers: The Kang Dynasty isn’t slated to release until May 2nd, 2025.
Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania introduced audiences to one of Marvel Comics’ most iconic and disruptive villains in Kang the Conqueror. Played by Jonathan Majors, who previously appeared in Loki as a Variant of the character known as He Who Remains, Kang is a man with a deep belief that the atrocities he’s committing are for the greater good though he’s found himself with quite a bit of time to reflect after being exiled by other powerful Variants of himself.
While those historical figures provide a solid foundation for the character, Loveness also turned to one of Marvel Comics’ greatest villains for inspiration in fleshing out Kang.
I’m a deep comic book guy, too, it sounds like you are as well. I took a lot from obviously Kang in the comics but to me, the best version of this is Chris Claremont’s Magneto. That is a man who is on a crusade and your morality does not matter to him because he knows the deeper truth. You have not lived his life, you have not been through the things.
Jeff Loveness
Claremont took over writing duties on Marvel Comics X-Men in 1975 and created the now well-known backstory of Magneto as a survivor of the holocaust. Suffice to say, whatever it is that most folks know about Magneto is what Claremont added to him. Like Claremont’s Magneto, it seems that once the MCU’s Kang sets his sights on something, nothing short of death will stop him especially when, in this case, he realizes that the problem he’s trying to fix was caused by him(s).
There’s a line that Kang says, ‘When you can see time the way I do you don’t get to close your eyes,’ and there’s also a guilt to it as well because he says that time is broken. Janet challenges him and says well who broke it, and he says I did. And that’ll be something for Avengers or whatever, but he has almost this broken–he’s looking out the broken window of the multiverse and all of his Variants causing it, him causing it, and realizing…almost like America looking at climate change, ‘Oh boy, I think we left the A/C on a little too long. I think we better do something about this.’ He’s literally in a crusade against himself and his other selves didn’t like that too much, so they got rid of him.
Jeff Loveness
Quantumania served as a bit of an origin story for Kang, who Loveness seems to hint will return to face off with the Avengers despite the way things ended for him. According to Loveness, who is also writing Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, that “origin” was a necessary part of the development of the character so fans get to know him before things get really wild. “Before it gets all crazy and multiversal, I wanted to spend a lot of time with the man” said Loveness, “because then I think we’ll be along for the ride a little more.” Given what was glimpsed in Quantumania’s mid and post credit scenes, it seems like it’s going to be one helluva crazy, multiversal ride.
Loki. Ultron. Thanos. These classic Avengers’ foes found their way into the MCU’s Infinity Saga and provided formidable and nearly unstoppable threats to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Despite their powers, their goals were fairly pedestrian and their means easily understandable. Marvel Studios certainly took a completely different path in selecting the big bad of their next saga, however. By choosing Kang, Marvel Studios took on the challenge of introducing a character that is inherently more difficult to adapt because…he’s not just one character. Moreover, he’s nearly as often at odds with himself as he is with the Avengers.
Time travel, alternate universes and divergent selves make for great science fiction but can also be considered too high-concept to be embraced by mainstream audiences. Kang is all those things and more, yet he also belongs on Marvel’s Bad Guy Mount Rushmore with the trio of villains fro the Infinity Saga. So how do you adapt a character as complicated as Kang? That’s exactly the question I asked Jeff Loveness who joked that getting past “the thigh-high purple boots and the invisible bean bag chair he was always lounging on” were among the first obstacles he had to face.
“That was the huge challenge,” said Loveness of bringing such a complicated character to the masses, “cause Thanos is pretty single-minded and pretty monolithic and pretty easy to get and so the challenge and the kind of the beauty of Kang is that he is this almost post-modernist, limitless guy.” The contrast between Thanos and Kang, as Loveness saw it, was stark and certainly proved troublesome, especially when the idea of the Multiverse came into play.
“In a Multiverse story, you’ve always gotta be careful about pulling the rug out of people with stakes,” Lovesness explained, “cause if there’s a thousand Doctor Stranges, who cares? You know you run into that with Rick and Morty or Everything Everywhere All at Once touched on that too. Like what’s the point if it’s just limitless? How do you create stakes in that?” As much fun as it may seem to be for a writerto have a character who can do whatever he wants whenever he wants, Loveness understood that the audience will quickly lose interest in those types of shenanigans. So he took a much more grounded approach in creating the MCU’s Kang.
So for me, a lot of it was like stripping Kang down because in an Avengers movie, even before I was the one writing it, I’m sure there’s going to be plenty of Kang stuff there’s going to be plenty of doing lasers and time travel and monologues. So I think the movie really started to take shape when I realized let’s just actually focus on him as a singular human being. He doesn’t have powers. He’s not a big purple space alien with motion capture. Let’s really focus on the vulnerability and humanity of this guy. And so that’s where the idea of him being almost like marooned in the Quantum Realm [came from].
Jeff Loveness
The idea of the exiled conqueror allowed fans to meet one of the most powerful villains in the history of Marvel Comics, as Loveness explained, as nothing more than a man. Of course, it’s not going to end there as the mid-credit scene revealed, but in order to really create a villain that would resonate with audiences, Loveness turned to history for examples of failed conquerors.
And I’m just a big history guy so I thought about Julius Caeser. What if he got assassinated by 50 other Julius Caesars? Or like Napoleon in exile after he had gotten defeated in Europe, turned back from Russia…defeated in Waterloo. Kang is a non-linear character; he says “I don’t live in a straight line”, so let’s show that and let’s meet him almost after a major defeat and let’s meet him kind of in this lower, more vulnerable stripped down place because if we do that, we really get to know the guy…we don’t get lost in all the multiverse and the time travel stuff. You can fish food it a little bit, which we did, but I think the best parts of that movie are when you’re just on Jonathan Majors’ face.
Jeff Loveness
Majors, of course, has been at the center of the praise for the film and according to Loveness, the real key to adapting Kang and “beating Thanos” is really the incredible amount of talent possessed by the man behind the character. “In my head, the competitive part of me is ‘That’s how you beat Thanos,’” said Loveness of having Majors on board as Kang. “Thanos is fantastic he speaks for himself; an iconic villain. But, man, we have the best actor in the world and a camera that’s right on his face and so you get to really see the pain, passion and crusade in this guy’s voice.” And as Loveness said, there’s plenty of “Kang stuff” to come which means plenty more Jonathan Majors.
Kang and M.O.D.O.K. made for a formidable one-two punch as the villains of Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. Jonathan Majors‘ tormented and desperate Kang paired deliciously with Corey Stoll‘s demented and deformed Darren Cross to stack the odds pretty heavily against the Ant-Family until a reformed Cross helped turn the tide against Kang. As crazy of a character as M.O.D.O.K. was, however, there was a time when another, potentially crazier villain was on the table for an appearance in the film.
While explaining to Hank and Hope why they were never able to discover the Quantum Realm cities brimming with life, Janet mentions that interference from The Void and Sub-Atomica prevented them from being able to see things clearly. Though it’s never mentioned again, Sub-Atomica has an interesting history in the comics as it is its own star system and is home to a number of planets and interesting species all of whom are ruled over by Fantastic Four villain Psycho-Man.
Psycho-Man from the pages of Fantastic Four #283
Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1967, Psycho-Man often clashed with Marvel Comics’ First Family over the years after deciding to conquer Earth. Using his Control-Box, a weapon that induces emotional responses in humans at his whims, Psycho-Man actually presented a pretty major threat to the Fantastic Four and the Marvel Universe on occasion. During my interview with Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness, I asked him if there was ever any conversation about including Psycho-Man in the madness especially given director Peyton Reed’s love for the Fantastic Four and admission that he turned to their stories for inspiration for his Ant-Man films.
Oh man, yeah…I don’t think it made it too far. I certainly like Psycho-Man. I had–I can’t remember–it was so long ago. I mean MODOK was always in the cards and I was a big proponent of MODOK as well. Peyton and I from Day One…Peyton had the idea of making him Darren Cross, which was just incredible, I just jumped on that.
Jeff Loveness
Psycho-Man was indeed a possibility for the film but was ultimately left out as they developed M.O.D.O.K. That seems to have been for the best as M.O.D.O.K. is frequently mentioned in conversations about the best bits of Quantumania. Loveness went on to explain how he found inspiration for this version of M.O.D.O.K. in a classic episode of The Simpsons.
Are you a Simpsons fan at all? Did you ever watch that episode “Homer’s Enemy” with Frank Grimes and all that? I just thought there’s such a Frank Grimes quality to M.O.D.O.K. in the way of if you had not seen Scott Lang in 10 years, he’s [M.O.D.O.K.] missed so much! There are more of those jokes in the movie but he didn’t even know Scott was an Avenger. He doesn’t know he time-traveled twice with Captain America. He’s in love with Hope. Hank Pym respects him. All this stuff has happened and Darren is just this big, fat floating head and to play the broken man quality of that I thought was really fun.
Jeff Loveness
Loveness then returned to the idea of Psycho-Man, revealing that discussions about his potential inclusion in the film went as far as crafting some jokes around his Control-Box. “Psycho-Man, I’m a fan of him, but that does seem maybe that’s someone for the Fantastic Four to deal with and that’s in their wheelhouse.,” said Loveness. “There were some jokes that there was a big button that said AFRAID, SAD, HORNY,” he added referring to the ridiculous-looking and deadly device the character uses to control the emotions of the humans he hopes to conquer.
Though he didn’t make the cut for Quantumania, it’s fun to hear such a wild character was considered for the film. Given Marvel Studios’ penchant for revisiting ideas that didn’t make it into different projects, there may yet be hope that fans will see Psycho-Man realized on the big screen one day!
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