From the moment Kevin Feige announced Marvel Studios Fantastic Four film at SDCC ’19, fans had John Krasinski at the top of their lists to play Reed Richards. Fantasy became reality when the actor cameoed as the Reed Richards of Earth-383 in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, giving fans a little taste of a very Hickman-esque version of the character. Richards was quickly and grotesquely dispatched by the Scarlet Witch but as time has gone on without a new actor being cast for the 2025 film, fans have held out hope that Krasinski’s Reed being turned to spaghetti won’t be the lasting image. According to Krasinski, it might be time to turn the page.
While promoting Season 3 of Amazon’s Jack Ryan, Krasinski tried his best to put the rumors of his return as Reed to bed. “There aren’t any discussions at all,” said Krasinski of returning to the role. “The only discussion I had was actually in the second-to-last week of ‘Jack Ryan. Kevin Feige called and said would you ever fly to L.A. and play in our sandbox for a day?“, reaffirming reports that the cameo was a last-minute arrangement. “I was honored to do it,” he said, “I flew right from Budapest when we wrapped and went right to the ‘Doctor Strange’ set. I’m a big fan of all those characters and that world, so to get to play in that sandbox for one day was a real thrill.“
Of course, there’s always the chance that Krasinski has joined the long and distinguished list of actors who have lied through their teeth to keep their Marvel Studios’ role a secret. And with time travel and Multiversal hijinks on the menu, there’s always a possibility that Krasinski does return to the role even if not as the 616 Reed. But for now, it seems pretty reasonable to assume that Fantastic Four director Matt Shakman will have some voice in who eventually ends up playing Mister Fantastic when the film hits theaters on Valentines’ Day 2025.
Director Shawn Levy has forged a fascinating relationship with Ryan Reynolds over the past few years. The two paired up for Disney and 20th Century Studios Free Guy in 2021 and then again in Netflix’s The Adam Project in early 2022. Now the duo is back together for Marvel Studios’ upcoming and still untitled Deadpool and Wolverine film, which is slated for a November 8, 2024 release. Production on that film is slated to kick off next year, meaning Levy and Reynolds still to spice it up and according to Levy, it already sounds pretty spicy.
In an interview with SYFY Wire, Levy talked about being the guy to finally bring Deadpool and Wolverine together on screen and the potential of the film.
I’ll just say that to be developing and prepping this movie that has this iconic duo together in an entire movie for the first time — a pairing between Hugh and Ryan, Wolverine and Deadpool. [It’s] very much a pairing that the world has waited for for over a decade, [and] I’m the lucky son of a bitch who gets to tell a story about that pair. The potential is so rich and every day that we work on the screenplay, there are ideas that we didn’t anticipate that appear because you’re talking about the ultimate Marvel icon and the ultimate Marvel iconoclast.
Shawn Levy
The Emmy-nominated Levy, who also has work to do on Season 5 of Stranger Things and has a Star Wars film coming up, is sharp and seems to choose his words carefully in interviews. In that sense, choosing to refer to Deadpool as an “iconoclast” should be of note. One popular theory about the third film in the Deadpool series is that it will see Wade and Logan traveling the Multiverse to “kill off” prior iterations of the Fantastic Four, X-Men and other characters from properties made under the Fox banner. If that is in fact the premise of the film, it would see Deadpool destroying the “iconography” of those non-Marvel Studios Marvel properties, putting him firmly in the category of “iconoclast.” So while superficially Levy may not have had much to say, reading between the lines a bit might give a little better impression of what to expect from the project..
This week, we learned that actresses Margarita Levieva and Sandrine Holt have joined Daredevil: Born Again in major roles. While the roles are not confirmed, there is a chance Holt could be portraying Tyger Tiger, a character with more links to Madripoor than Hell’s Kitchen, but could tie together some criminal enterprises.
In the gaming world, it appears Marvel’s Avengersvideo game experiment is coming to an end. Developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix, Marvel’s Avengers was an ambitious attempt at launching Marvel’s biggest superhero brand in the digital marketplace. Marvel’s Avengers will reportedly “sunset” in 2023 with support for the game and new content slowly ceasing to exist.
Time travel! As Tony Stark warned in Avengers: Endgame, when you mess with time, it tends to mess back. Thanks to Sylvie’s actions at the end of the Season 1 finale of Loki, the heroes of the MCU are about to find out what happens when you come face-to-face with the Master of Time as Jonathan Majors‘ Kang the Conqueror is set to wreak havoc across the Multiverse. Rumors have Kang wiping the floor with the Avengers in Avengers: The KangDynasty before facing off against a multiversal team of heroes in Avengers: Secret Wars. While everyone ultimately expects a big win for the good guys, a crazy theory puts forth the idea that fans may have already seen the aftermath of the big battle against Kang!
The theory comes courtesy of Heavy Spoilers and it packs a pretty meta punch. Rumors of the plot of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty have the Avengers teaming with a version of He Who Remains, a Nathaniel Richards Variant first met in Loki. This Variant, who hasn’t become He Who Remains yet, goes by Nathaniel and eventually helps put together a multiversal team of heroes that take on Kang in Avengers: Secret Wars. According to the theory, once Kang is defeated, Nathaniel will go on to become He Who Remains and create the TVA in order to oversee the Sacred Timeline, just as seen in Season 1 of Loki!
If that theory were to play out in Avengers: Secret Wars, it would mean that the aftermath of that film will already have been shared with fans years in advance of it occurring on screen! This would mean that the story He Who Remains tells Loki and Sylvie about the peace between realities erupting into an all-out war was only in the past from his perspective and that he was actually describing the events of Avengers: Secret Wars to fans years before they would ever see the film. To quote Marty McFly, “this is heavy.”
As fans await the beginning of Marvel Studios’ Phase 5, they are already looking ahead to Phase 6 where a pair of Avengers movies will wrap up the Multiverse Saga. The first of those is Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, which is set for a 2025 release and is beginning to sound like it will have serious ties to Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania which kicks off Phase 5 in February as the Variant of Jonthan Majors’ Nathaniel Richards introduced there will be the main threat to the Multiverse moving forward. According to a new rumor, the Variant introduced in Quantumania isn’t going to be the only previously introduced one to play a key role in The Kang Dynasty.
According to a rumored plot leak by Heavy Spoilers, He Who Remains, who was last seen being murdered by Sylvie in the Season 1 finale of Loki, will play a key role in The KangDynasty. He Who Remains is a Variant of Kang who inhabited the Citadel at the End of Time and watched over the Sacred Timeline. Upon his death, the Timeline splintered and created the Multiverse.
According to the rumor, He Who Remains won’t have ascended to that lofty station quite yet in The Kang Dynasty and will still go by Nathaniel Richards. What’s even more interesting is that Richards will ultimately join the Avengers in their fight against Kang the Conqueror. Their alliance will continue into Avengers: Secret Wars where he and the Avengers will collect heroes from across the Multiverse to take on Kang.
As absolutely fascinating as this sounds, it’s important to note that Avengers: The KangDynasty is still more than 2 years away, making this and any other rumor, no matter how great they sound, nothing more than fun topics for discussion!
In the Season 1 finale of Loki, Gugu Mbatha-Raw‘s Ravonna Renslayer made the decision to leave the TVA after learning of her nature as a Variant who had been taken from her timeline by He Who Remains. When Season 2 of the streaming series hits Disney Plus next Summer, that thread won’t be left hanging loose, according to Mbatha-Raw.
While talking with Entertainment Tonight, Mbatha-Raw said that her character, who left in search of free will and the power to truly “be in charge” of the Time Variance Authority, teased the return of her character in Season 2. “In Loki, Ravonna is a powerful presence,” hinted the actress, saying “selfishly, Renslayer makes it out of the TVA, which I’m really excited about.“
In the comics, Ravonna has deep ties to Jonathan Majors‘ Kang, for whom the stage has been set to become the overarching villain of Marvel Studios’ ongoing Multiverse Saga. While it’s unclear if Mbatha-Raw’s character will play a role outside of Loki, it’s very likely she’ll come across one Variant or another of Kang at some point. Perhaps that’ll happen in Season 2 which, according to Mbatha-Raw, is shaping up to be another wild ride.
It’s been amazing to shoot the second season of Loki. [Fans] are gonna be in for a real treat because the show is bolder and more surreal. And in many ways, goes to some bigger, bolder places than season 1, which is really exciting.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw
Unfortunately, fans are still in for a bit of wait to get that treat as Season 2 of Loki isn’t set to hit Disney Plus until next Summer.
Somebody(s) will die in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. James Gunn has promised an emotional conclusion to his trilogy and we know that the film is the last ride for this version of the Guardians. Vegas should probably open the betting line on who fans think will die in the film (maybe they already have) and pretty much any death will pack a heavy emotional punch, but there’s one character who should have a lot more gas in the tank in the future of the MCU: Star-Lord. Gamora absolutely cannot die in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Zoë Saldaña is a sci-fi queen. Having held down roles in 3 major sci-fi franchises (Star Trek, Guardians of the Galaxy and Avatar), Saldaña has become the second highest-grossing female actress of all time and she’s not done yet. With Avatar: The Way of Water and at least 2 more Avatar films after that, Saldaña will almost certainly surpass Scarlett Johansson. While the Avatar films are about as safe of a gig as one could ever hope to land and Saldaña seems to be tiring of the intense secrecy surrounding her Marvel Studios’ projects, the actress could have the option of another decade of MCU projects ahead of her if Gamora were to survive Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. And, should Gamora survive, the opportunity to almost totally reinvent the character into a more traditional representation of the character from the comics certainly presents itself.
Created by Jim Starlin, Gamora earned her reputation as “the most dangerous woman in the galaxy” and “the deadliest woman in the universe” by…being dangerous and deadly. Raised by Thanos as a weapon in the fight against his great enemy, the Magus, Gamora was depicted in the comics as an assassin with a near-endless amount of bodies left in her wake. While Gamora has quite a bit of the same background in the MCU, her character, like the rest of the team, has been modified quite a bit with the Gamora who is now dead having grown less stoic and ruthless over time. The Gamora who now inhabits the prime timeline has had a different set of experiences and none of those have involved her falling in love with Peter Quill, making her a bit of a blank slate when it comes to what’s known about her. She was pulled from 2014 into the post-Blip world of 2023, disappears following the Battle of Earth and is not present with the Guardians during the events of Thor: Love and Thunder. Other than that, nothing is known about her at the present.
Though seen quite a bit in the trailer, Gamora doesn’t seem to be part of the team of Guardians. She’s not wearing the same gear as them and she seems to only be part of their trip to infiltrate the High Evolutionary’s weird space base but not part of their adventures in the first act or so. Like Loki, she’s a familiar character to fans but one who is capable of carving an entirely new path through the MCU should she have a future in it. And should the MCU’s future involve adapting the great stories of Marvel Comics’ modern cosmic age, Gamora, much like Star-Lord and Nova, could play a major role in those adaptations. Additionally, Gamora has a very complicated comic book history with Adam Warlock, who joins the MCU played by Will Poulter in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Should Gamora survive the events of that film, she faces a future full of possible stories ripped right from the comics.
Whether Marvel Studios took the path through Annihilation, Annihilation: Conquest and War of Kings or went wack with some version of Starlin’s Infinity Watch team coming together, Saldaña could suit up as Gamora anywhere between 3-6 more times in the next decade but, in doing so, completely redefine the character. That’s not an option everyone has and it seems that bringing something new to a character actors have played many times is just the type of thing that interests them enough to come back (that and lots of money). Of course all that is up to Saldaña, but from a narrative standpoint, Gamora’s recent death and the transplant of a Variant Gamora into the prime timeline provide way too many potential avenues to explore in the future for the character to die in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
A debate about which character should become the next Black Panther in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever arose among fans following the death of franchise star Chadwick Boseman. Some fans believed Marvel Studios should follow the route established in the comics and have Shuri assume the mantle. Other fans, however, had other ideas. Nakia, M’Baku and the villain of Black Panther, Killmonger, all made the lists of fans around the globe. Killmonger, who was played in the first film by Michael B. Jordan, was an interesting choice given the fact that he was both canonically deceased and made terrible choices during his reign as King and Black Panther of Wakanda. Ultimately, writer and director Ryan Coogler made the decision to have Shuri become the protector of Wakanda and take on Namor. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t room for Jordan’s Killmonger in the film.
Upon recreating the heart-shaped herb and moving into the Ancestral Plane where she believed she would be greeted by her brother, Letitia Wright’s Shuri was shockingly greeted by her cousin, the villainous Killmonger. The return of the character to the Ancestral Plane was the subject of rumor and speculation long before the film’s release, but Jordan never gave it away. In fact, according to the star, he knew that working with Marvel Studios meant he “had to lie to everybody” to keep the appearance a secret.
While discussing his return in an interview with Extra, Jordan indicated that lying and denying is just part of the deal when working with Marvel and that includes lying to his family.
I had to lie to my family over here. I had to lie to everybody out here… I had to just keep it under wraps… When you’re dealing with Marvel and stuff like that, you know the routine. So you just gotta, you know, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny until the end of it, yeah.
In 2018, Marvel Comics published Infinity Wars, a 6-issue event that saw Gamora inadvertently use the Infinity Stones to create some mash-up characters such as Iron Hammer (Iron Man and Thor) and Soldier Supreme (Captain America and Doctor Strange). It was a crazy idea that made resulted in some great-looking character designs, but they ultimately stayed behind in their own Warp World when things returned to normal.
Infinity Wars certainly didn’t corner the market on character mash-ups. Donny Cates has made a living on them and the long-running What If…? comic series explored the idea often but the idea hasn’t really translated to the big screen. However, some newly located concept art from Avengers: Infinity War reveals that fans were almost introduced to Iron Strange in the 2018 film!
Found on Reddit, the concept art from Phil Saunders, who has worked on Marvel Studios from Iron Man through Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which was created for a scene that didn’t make the final cut of Avengers: Infinity War, explored the idea of Tony Stark using the Mark 50 suit to save Doctor Strange from his torture at the hands of Ebony Maw. However, according to Saunders, it wasn’t just as simple as Strange wearing the suit. Once covered in the Mark 50, Strange’s Eye of Agamotto became the power source for the suit, making it a true mash-up: Iron Strange!
One early script idea that didn’t make into the final movie was this hybrid of the Iron Man Mk 50 suit and Dr. Strange. This would have been for a scene in the Q ship when Tony and Spidey are trying to rescue Dr. Strange from Ebony Maw. To protect Strange from Maw’s magic needle torture, Tony transfers his suit onto him. I imagined the Eye of Agamotto would have taken the place of Tony’s RT and powered the suit, burning a sigil around it. Later in the scene Tony gets Strange’s cloak, leading to a bizarre team-up. Could have been cool, I don’t know why they cut it from the script.
Avengers: Infinity War Concept Artist Phil Saunders
The concept even goes so far as to show Strange’s signature energy projection coming from the suit! As Saunders points out, this would have made for a fascinating scene and one that would likely stand out in the minds of fans for its uniqueness. Perhaps there’s a chance for the concept to find new life down the road, perhaps in Avengers: Secret Wars, should Doctor Strange come across any multiversal Iron Men.
The cast of Daredevil: Born Again is rounding out fairly quickly as business in Hollywood gets close to wrapping up for 2022. Over the past week, four major additions have been made to the cast. One of the latest additions to the cast was 24 and House of Cards alumn Sandrine Holt, who was cast to play a South Asian character in the series. Trade reports of her casting indicated she may be a possible love interest for one of the series leads (Charlie Cox or Vincent D’Onofrio) and while that may be the case, her character will be formidable in the series and Holt’s contract seems to include options for her to appear in other MCU projects. While the internet went wild theorizing who Holt might be, most of the guesses were drawn from a pretty shallow pool of characters who are well associated with Daredevil or Kingpin. However, given the scope of Daredevil: Born Again, it’s possible that Holt might be playing someone from outside Hell’s Kitchen. In fact, she might be playing someone who’s as far from Hell’s Kitchen as it gets.
Over the course of its 18-episode season, Daredevil: Born Again is rumored to eventually find Wilson Fisk running for Mayor of New York City. That’s a pretty tall order for a guy who was working out of a garage and running the Tracksuit Mafia before being shot in the face in the season finale of Hawkeye. Part of Fisk’s arc to becoming Mayor of NYC may take place in Echo, which is rumored to feature another gang known as the Black Knife Cartel, but fans should expect most of that arc to take place in Born Again. Whatever the case with Fisk, he certainly can’t be running for Mayor while most of income can be traced to organized crime. Even the Kingpin might need to clean some of that money to look legit and in the MCU, there’s one place where that kind of business gets done on the daily: Madripoor.
First visited in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, Madripoor is a criminal safehaven located in Southeast Asia where, for the most part, anything goes. Run by Sharon Carter, aka the Power Broker, Madripoor has plenty of crime, organized and otherwise, and was shown to be big into cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency has become the modern hub for money laundering and in the MCU, it wouldn’t be hard to believe that Madripoor could be the hub for laundering. Should Kingpin be in the market for such a racket, one particular character who is a major player on the island nation in the comics comes to mind quickly.
Jessán Hoan is exactly the kind of criminal Wilson Fisk might find himself turning to in order to clean a boatload of money quickly. A financial genius who once worked at her family’s major international bank, Hoan wound up in Madripoor where she quickly rose up the ranks, ultimately becoming the island’s overlord: the Queenpin of Madripoor. Better known as Tyger Tiger, Hoan is a known associate of Wolverine, or Patch as he calls himself on the island, and owns the Princess Bar that he so loved to frequent. Ruthless and brilliant, Tyger Tiger is just the type of associate Fisk would seek out.
Is Holt Playing Tyger Tiger?
It is certainly one option, but given the lack of information on the character, it’s impossible to tell. Given there’s only one South Asian location that’s currently established within the Marvel Cinematic Universe and that Holt is playing a South Asian character, there’s at least one potential link to Tyger Tiger. The character is also described as “confident”, “knowledgable” and willing to say what’s on her mind. Those descriptors all certainly match the comic’s presentation of Tyger Tiger. While there’s no comic book history between Tyger Tiger and Kingpin, the MCU isn’t exactly known for keeping to the pages of the comics these days. Madripoor exists. It’s the kind of place a guy like Fisk would certainly know about and depending on how they wish to film it, Fisk might not even have to visit The Princess Bar: Tyger Tiger could visit him in NYC. A return trip to Madripoor and a look around the Princess Bar would be pretty fantastic, though, and could easily be done while filming in New York City.
As is always the case when guessing at the identity of an unknown character, it’s more likely Holt is anyone else other than Tyger Tiger; however, Tyger Tiger is one intriguing option for Sandrine Holt, who is likely to return to the MCU down the line.
Who else could Holt be playing? We’d love to hear your ideas on Twitter.
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