Murphy's Multiverse

Tag: Marvel

  • ‘Loki’ Director Kate Herron Not Returning for the Disney+ Series’ Season 2

    ‘Loki’ Director Kate Herron Not Returning for the Disney+ Series’ Season 2

    In a shocking twist, besides the one in the Loki finale, Kate Herron won’t be returning for the second season. She acted as director and executive producer on the first season and is moving on two other projects. She revealed in an interview with Deadline that she never planned on a second season. It just developed as the series came together. There is no replacement announced and it’s uncertain if head writer Michael Waldron will also return for the series. She had the following to say on her departure:

    I always planned to be just on for this and to be honest, season 2 wasn’t in the — that’s something that just came out and I’m so excited. I’m really happy to watch it as a fan next season, but I just think I’m proud of what we did here and I’ve given it my all. I’m working on some other stuff yet to be announced.

    She confirmed that she is moving forward with her own projects but doesn’t deny a potential return to a Marvel project in the future. It’s a shocking reveals, as the series blending of Blade Runner and Minority Report was part of her original pitch. The open-ended nature of the series would make you think it was planned out, but they may also be taking a very different direction with the second season.

    Marvel Studios likes to reinvent their projects and could be making a similar approach with their series. The first season acted as a mystery thriller but as there are no more questions on who is controlling the TVA, it might take a completely new direction. It’ll be exciting to see what the future holds for Loki and especially Kate Herron‘s next project.

    Source: Deadline

  • Don Cheadle Gives ‘ARMOR WARS’ Production, Story Updates

    Don Cheadle Gives ‘ARMOR WARS’ Production, Story Updates

    Back in December, Marvel Studios One-Above-All, Kevin Feige, surprised fans with the Investor Day announcement that the late 80’s Iron Man comic book arc Armor Wars was being adapted into a Dinsey Plus series. With Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark out of the picture, Don Cheadle’s James Rhodes is set to take center stage in the project. While discussing his upcoming movie, Space Jam, with the Associated Press, Cheadle gave some insight into when production on Armor Wars will get underway and what to expect.

    “We are just talking about what that show is going to be. We probably will start filming sometime next year and are just kind of cracking the story right now, deciding what’s that journey gonna look like, what’s Rhodey’s…the iteration of this going to be. Obviously people know Armor Wars-if they know Armor Wars they know what the series is about but it’s also kind of figuring out how to establish and dig really deep into who Rhodey is because we haven’t really seen a lot of that in the movies.”

    Earlier this year, Cheadle mentioned that the show’s writer’s room was expected to open up around March and given the precedent other Disney Plus shows have set, it’s possible the show could go into production as early as March 2022. Armor Wars represents the types of projects that fans are going to be regularly treated to on Disney Plus. As Cheadle pointed out, Rhodey hasn’t had much character development since being introduced in 2008’s Iron Man; however, a 6-8 episode streaming series provides the time to not only develop Rhodey but a world full of supporting characters around him, similar to how The Falcon and The Winter Soldier built those worlds for Sam and Bucky. 

    Armor Wars will stream exclusively on Disney Plus.

  • ‘Loki’ Scenes Featuring Mobius and Ravonna Got Cut Due to Pandemic

    ‘Loki’ Scenes Featuring Mobius and Ravonna Got Cut Due to Pandemic

    The first three Disney+ series by Marvel Studios didn’t have an easy start. Falcon and the Winter Soldier was to kick-start the franchise’s new venture. Yet, that role ended up going to WandaVision. As the pandemic continued to rage across the world, their productions got delayed, and I was uncertain how they might be affected by it. Later, we’ve learned that both series went through some harsh limitations and had to cut quite a few scenes. WandaVision director Matt Shakman offered a detailed look behind the scenes with an entire sequence getting cut due to time restraints.

    We’ve all wondered if Loki was affected similarly, but there was no official word. Luckily, one of the writers and producers of the show, Eric Martin, took to Twitter to offer a glimpse behind the scenes. In it, he confirmed that Mobius and Renslayer were going to share the screen more often but got cut due to COVID.

     

    https://twitter.com/MrEricMartin/status/1415528496701394944

    It’s not surprising that the series had to cut some elements, especially as Gugu Mbatha-Raw‘s Ravonna felt underdeveloped, especially how she just exits the show at the end. Still, it’s a shame we didn’t get more from their dynamic. Luckily, we know that a second season is heading our way, and she’ll very likely make a grand return. It’ll be curious to see how she reacts once she realizes that Mobius and everyone she worked with lost their memory. We are still waiting for details on the second season which will give us some answers on where the franchise is heading and where within the MCU it takes place.

    Source: Twitter

  • Farewell, Marvel Cinematic Universe

    Farewell, Marvel Cinematic Universe

    Hello, Marvel Cinematic Multiverse. The Loki finale has changed the landscape. Not only did we get introduced to our main antagonist moving forward, but we also saw the Sacred Timeline meet its end. What once had order has now scattered into chaos. An endless possibility of Variants has now jumped into existence. What If will be our introduction to many of them. It’ll get explored further in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. We always knew it was coming ever since the Strange sequel’s title announcement. The Spider-Man: No Way Home rumors added even more to its existence, but we never knew we’d get to witness the actual birth of the multiverse.

     

    The brilliant 'Loki' finale might explain Steve Rogers' dance with Peggy Carter

     

    We’re about to enter a very new storytelling landscape for Marvel Studios. It adds more credence to our theory that Marvel Legacy projects are technically part of the franchise. No Way Home rumors hint at other Spider-Men making their grand live-action return with old villains confirmed to return. There are no limitations to how they’ll expand the franchise, yet the production company will face a new kind of hurdle. Up until now, our biggest worry was how the storylines fit together. Black Widow takes place between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 was a direct sequel to the first but didn’t release until the rest of the franchise moved forward. Moving forward, we’ll also question if we are still part of the main timeline.

    It’s a risky venture to make sense of multiple timelines and dimensions. We played around with the idea of them introducing characters from older franchises, especially with Deadpool joining the franchise in his upcoming threequel. So, it seems likely we’ll get some more multiversal storylines in the future, but it might be time for Marvel Studios to offer an overview. Marvel Studios’ Legends series offer a recap of a character’s history in the franchise, but there are still troubles knowing when every story takes place. Spider-Man: Homecoming offered a definite timeline between it and the first Avengers that didn’t even line up.

     

    Loki season finale recap: Post-credits scene, ending of episode 6 explained - CNET

     

    Of course, I might just be overthinking it. Even if there won’t be a guide through the MCU’s timeline and the future MCM expansion, we’ll have plenty of stories heading our way. Loki did teach us that the connective tissue might be Kang. It introduced us to the concept of the Multiversal War, and head writer Michael Waldron hinted that the familiarity of this storyline may be intentional. Marvel Studios saw the potential of reaching out into the multiverse, and nothing is stoping them now. Hopefully, we’ll find out what else they have in the story sooner rather than later.

  • ‘Black Widow’ Beats ‘F9’s Pandemic Record to Pass $100M at the Domestic Box Office

    ‘Black Widow’ Beats ‘F9’s Pandemic Record to Pass $100M at the Domestic Box Office

    We’ve covered Black Widow‘s Box Office success throughout its opening weekend. There are many uncertainties with the pandemic still raging, but the film still managed to grab $215M in its opening weekend worldwide. These numbers include an impressive $60M from Disney+’s Premier Access function.

    So, technically speaking, the film made around $80.3M in the domestic Box Office. Luckily, the film didn’t lose any momentum as it has officially passed the $100M mark after only six days. It joined the club alongside F9, A Quiet Place Part II and Godzilla vs. Kong and beat out the Fast and Furious sequel record of eight days during the pandemic.

    It currently holds the record opening during the pandemic and continued the momentum by getting the best Monday and Tuesday showings. The last time we saw these numbers was mid-March with around 7.16M and 7.6M. As such, the film has officially crossed the $200M mark globally. It has been available internationally for eight days and five days domestically.

    The film is keeping up the momentum as it faces new releases Space Jam: A New Legacy and Escape Room: Tournament of Champions in its second weekend. It also needs to be noted that Black Widow is only available in twelve international markets, and there aren’t any releases planned for others. China has been a big question mark as piracy is an issue due to its release on Disney+. Still, the film is performing great and showing the Box Office is slowly recovering.

    Source: Deadline, Forbes, Box Office Pro

  • ‘Marvel’s Avengers’: Black Panther’s ‘War for Wakanda’ Campaign Length Teased

    ‘Marvel’s Avengers’: Black Panther’s ‘War for Wakanda’ Campaign Length Teased

    Entertainment Weekly had a big day for Marvel’s Avengers. We got the confirmation for Christopher Judge as Black Panther alongside some story details. There was also a rather curious claim that the upcoming expansion known as War for Wakanda would be around 25 hours long. Now, we theorized that this might be about the various missions that’ll be available in the game, as the length of the main campaign is around ten hours long. Luckily, Keano Raubun, game and narrative designer on the game, clarified the meaning of the number. It seems that it was definitely not about the story length but rather how long the game’s overall storyline is since the first Reassemble campaign.

    https://twitter.com/xArcky/status/1415693314276438023

    He didn’t clarify how long we can expect the new expansion to end up being, but you can make a decent estimate. He also confirmed that it includes Kate Bishop’s Taking AIM, Hawkeye’s Future Imperfect, and the recent Cosmic Cube villain sector. So, we can guess around five to eight hours’ worth of story in the upcoming Black Panther operation. Now, that is no small feat as it rivals the length of the main campaign and doesn’t include the various additional content that is heading our way. So, you might be playing quite a few more hours, as it only references the story length.

    Of course, we still don’t know exactly how long it will be and some people’s playtime can vary depending on how they tackle each mission. Either way, it seems like the expansion is truly that and with a brand new playable character, a lot is heading our way with Marvel’s Avengers. We also know that a new roadmap will get released in the coming month, which will also give us a better picture of what we can expect beyond the expansion.

    Source: Twitter, Twitter (Included)

  • ‘Marvel’s Avengers’: First Story Details for ‘War for Wakanda’ Revealed

    ‘Marvel’s Avengers’: First Story Details for ‘War for Wakanda’ Revealed

    The wait has been long, but Entertainment Weekly finally unveiled that Christopher Judge will voice Black Panther in Marvel’s Avengers upcoming expansion. War for Wakanda is eyeing an August release and will introduce players to a very distinctive version of the famous story. Outside of the story trailer teasing a conflict with Ulysses Klaw, we knew very little about the story. The title certailny gives away the main plot, but the EW article offered a bit more insight into the story.

     

    Marvel's Avengers game Black Panther

     

    The story will continue where the first campaign took place. T’Challa, who has been king for some time now, was negotiating with Steve Rogers to work with the Avengers. Yet, after A-Day, his death led to the closing of their borders once again. Klaw got hired by MODOK to steal their vibranium, which kicks off the events of the expansion. Narrative Lead Hannah McLeod teased his motivation for this personal vendetta.

    [Klaw] has a personal vendetta against Wakanda that I don’t want to spoil. It’s different than the comics,” teases McLeod. “We’ll say he has this sonic technology he developed that is used specifically to make vibranium tech vulnerable, but it also has this issue where it causes corruption in vibranium. That corrupt vibranium is starting to sprout all over the earth, which is why the Avengers get involved.

    As T’Challa has been king for some time, we’ll see a very different version of the character. He has some tension with his sister Shuri, as he believes to know what Wakanda needs. Klaw won’t be the only antagonist, as they confirmed two central villains in the game’s story. You’ll also get to meet the game’s version of the Dora Milaaje and the sorcerer Zawavari. EW teases a 25-hour single-player campaign, which may include quite a few side activities. It sounds like quite a massive expansion if it truly offers that length of content outside of the usual GaaS grind. We’ll find out more in the coming weeks, and we cannot wait to play T’Challa once he is made available in the game.

    Source: Entertainment Weekly

  • ‘Marvel’s Avengers’: ‘God of War’s Christopher Judge Voicing Black Panther

    ‘Marvel’s Avengers’: ‘God of War’s Christopher Judge Voicing Black Panther

    Marvel’s Avengers has drawn in quite a lot of talent to voice their adaptations of the iconic Marvel characters. We’ve theorized for some time that perhaps Christopher Judge would end up voicing Black Panther and even theorized when the first sound bites leaked online. It seems we were right, as Entertainment Weekly has officially announced that he is indeed voicing the king of Wakanda. He will make his debut in the expansion release of War for Wakanda, which is eyeing an August release. He revealed he initially denied voicing the character due to the legacy left behind by Chadwick Boseman but eventually decided to embrace the role.

    I turned it down straight away. There’s many Black Panthers, but I really didn’t believe that anyone should ever do T’Challa again [after Boseman]. The actual talks proceeded and, basically, I wound up doing it because my mother and my children said if I didn’t do it, they would disown me.

    When he did end up taking the role, he decided to make the role his own by taking a different approach on how to lend his voice to the character.

    To be quite honest, I was fearful of being compared to what Chadwick had so wonderfully done. The only way I could really wrap my head around it was to not even attempt a voice match, to let my performance stand on its own. I put all that into it and hopefully people like it

    Evan Narcisse, who wrote the Rise of the Black Panther comics, joined as a narrative consultant to craft the story alongside Crystal Dynamic’s narrative lead, Hannah McLeod. Their goal was to create a very distinct mythos inspired by the comics and films but wanted to add some curious surprises. You can check out a brand new look at the character in the following images:

     

    Marvel's Avengers game Black Panther

    Marvel's Avengers game Black Panther

     

     

    His addition is a great choice and proves the potential of this franchise. Hopefully, his popularity also could spin off into a Wakanda-focused spin-off. There’s a lot of potential with the character moving forward. To add to the excitement, Judge will also be a special guest on this Friday’s Crystal Dynamics stream to promote the character.

    Source: Entertainment Weekly

  • EXLCUSIVE: Olga Kurylenko Reveals How Much of Taskmaster In ‘Black Widow’ Was Her and How They Kept The Reveal a Secret

    EXLCUSIVE: Olga Kurylenko Reveals How Much of Taskmaster In ‘Black Widow’ Was Her and How They Kept The Reveal a Secret

    Black Widow threw fans a curveball when O-T Fagbenle‘s Mason, a character everyone believed to be Taskmaster for more than a year, wasn’t the person behind the mask. The film revealed that it was Antonia Dreykov, played by the wonderful Olga Kurylenko, who was behind the killing machine. With a secret that was constantly pried by many in the years leading up to the film’s release, it stands to reason that a curious fan myself would ask Kurylenko in lengths Marvel went through to keep the role a secret. So, I did when I had the opportunity to interview her.

    It started with me being on set where no one could see me [laughs]. I’ve never gone through that so it was quite interesting. I remember walking out… there was this umbrella created that had fabric hanging all the way to the ground and I had to be underneath. It was quite fun. It started with that and most of the time, I couldn’t really walk around and I had to sit in my tent and trailer. Obviously, I wasn’t allowed to talk about it understandably. That’s what I did. Even my mother didn’t know. She only found out a few days ago. The movie was supposed to come out last year so she saw the trailer and went, “Oh Olga, there’s this super cool movie coming out. I wanna see it! Can we go together?” I went, “What movie?” She goes, “Black Widow.”

    Because the character stays masked for the majority of the film, I also wondered just how much of the Taskmaster we see in the film is Kurylenko in the costume. Her answer wasn’t surprising as the role was more physical and stunt-oriented than it was character-driven. However, it was nice to know that she was in the suit for the film’s last stretch.

    The fighting and the scenes that came after my reveal, I got to do. Obviously, it’s such a complex character with so many abilities so I had to be doubled. There was more than one person involved because the character can so many different things from all specialties. It’s great because the character can do anything.

  • In ‘LOKI’, Disney Plus Fulfills Its Own Glorious Purpose

    In ‘LOKI’, Disney Plus Fulfills Its Own Glorious Purpose

    Glorious purpose. Glorious purpose! We’ve heard Loki’s line delivered many times and in many ways. We’ve heard it said with arrogance, we’ve heard it said derisively and we’ve heard it said as a character acknowledges his fate. Today, Loki’s line took on new meaning as the finale of Marvel Studios third Disney Plus streaming series stuck the landing in a way neither of the series before it managed to do. This finale succeeded by undoing the tenuous existence of the bond between Sylvie and Loki that began on Lamentis-1 and ending/pausing their time together in a way that felt satisfying if not painful. It handled the small, personal part of the series incredibly well. However, this finale also succeeded by undoing the tenuous existence of the Sacred Timeline and undoing all the progress the TVA agents had made in coming to know who they really were (those last moments with Mobius and Loki were heart wrenching). It handled the huge, MCU altering part of the series incredibly well. The finale of Loki handled it so well that we don’t even have an MCU anymore, we have an MCM. Just like that, a streaming series changed everything fans know about their favorite shared universe.

     

     

    Make no mistake, this was a bold, bold move. Using a streaming series to completely alter the very fabric upon which this narrative is woven is unheard of. It was also planned and executed masterfully but not without risk. The big shift on screen represents a big shift behind the scenes. A few years ago, it seemed the MCU was headed in a little bit of a different direction than where this new, multiversal trajectory is headed. The Doctor Strange sequel seems to me the poster child for the big changes behind the scenes. Scott Derrickson was back, he had a script and was ready to create the MCU’s first big horror film. Suddenly, the brakes were pumped, Derrickson moved on due to creative differences and Sam Raimi and Michael Waldron were brought on board to set recreate the film in a way that it fell in line with the big creatives at Marvel Studios’ decision to open up the multiverse. Deciding to go the route of the multiverse meant risks were going to be taken. Presumably the calculations were done and the losses were deemed acceptable because the expected rewards were going to be great. But the biggest risk of all was including moments that shift the very foundation of the stories being told in streaming series that would only be watched by the hardcore fan base. It meant that at some point down the road, a whole lot of fans would be walking into a theater not prepared for what they were about to see. In a 2019 interview with Bloomberg, Marvel Studios One-Above-All, Kevin Feige, told us all exactly what was coming.

    If you want to understand everything in future Marvel movies, you’ll probably need a Disney+ subscription, because events from the new shows will factor into forthcoming films such as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The Scarlet Witch will be a key character in that movie, and Feige points out that the Loki series will tie in, too.

    And to nobody’s surprise, a lot of fans, even the hardcore ones, didn’t take Feige at his word. “Nothing major will ever happen in these shows! Didn’t you learn anything from WandaVision?” But then the finale of Loki happened, the multiverse was born, Jonathan Majors, who is set to play a huge role over the next several years, made his debut as a kooky Variant Kang known as He Who Remains, and all of those “crazy” Spider-Man “rumors” suddenly seemed a lot more plausible. This series, particularly this episode, is landmark event for the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse. It’s a cliche thing in the comics to say that the big summer events will “alter the landscape” and “things will be changed forever.” Loki is Marvel Studios version of that summer event and through it, Disney Plus fulfilled the glorious purpose that Feige set for it: “to expand the MCU to even bigger and better heights.” It’s just the beginning.