Murphy's Multiverse

Tag: Movie News

  • Holt McCallany Accepts ‘Mission: Impossible’ Role

    Holt McCallany Accepts ‘Mission: Impossible’ Role

    Mindhunter actor Holt McCallany has signed on for a role in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning – Part Two. The actor will play Secretary of Defense Bernstein. He joins Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigham and Pom Klementieff, who all star alongside leading man Tom Cruise.

    Part Two will serve as the eighth title in the hit franchise. Cruise returns as agent Ethan Hunt who leads his team on globe-trotting missions as a means to avert global disaster. Details regarding the film’s plot are sparse, but the film could potentially serve as the end of the franchise, although no decision looks to have been made as of yet. Christopher McQuarrie returns to direct the film from his own script after wrapping on Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning – Part One.

    McCallany starred as FBI Special Agent Bill Tench on Netflix’s critically acclaimed series Mindhunter. He currently stars in the AMC drama 61st Street alongside Courtney B. Vance, which has been renewed for a second season. Other credits on his resume include Lights Out, Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley and Blue Bloods. 

    The last Mission: Impossible film, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, earned $791 million at the worldwide box office back in 2018. Cruise can currently be seen on the big screen in Paramount’s Top Gun: Maverick, which continues to fly high at the box office after two months in release.

    Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning – Part Two will hit theaters on June 28th, 2024.

    Source: Deadline

  • Marvel Studios Director Takes Himself Out of the Running to Helm ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’

    Marvel Studios Director Takes Himself Out of the Running to Helm ‘Avengers: Secret Wars’

    Kevin Feige delighted and confused Marvel Studios’ fans with the announcement that Avengers: Secret Wars is targeting a November 2025 theatrical release. Though the project had been teased as early as June of 2021 in Season One of Loki, the debate about whether or not something on the scale of Secret Wars could be put together in less than a decade raged on amongst fans.

    That debate hasn’t ended with the announcement of the film, but some attention has been diverted to who might be directing Avengers: Secret Wars. When it was announced that Destin Daniel Cretton signed on to helm Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, which will debut just six months before Avengers: Secret Wars, it was also revealed that Cretton was not on board for Secret Wars. It’s hardly uncommon for a Marvel Studios’ film that’s over 3 years away to be without a director, but for one of this magnitude, it’s become a talking point and most of the discussion seems to center on directors who have worked with Marvel Studios in the past.

    One such director, Scott Derrickson, who directed 2016’s Doctor Strange and served as an executive producer on Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness, has been mentioned as a possible candidate, but according to Derrickson, it’s not in the cards. When asked if there were any possibility of him landing the gig, Derrickson promptly replied with a GIF that provided a firm “NO” as an answer.

    https://twitter.com/scottderrickson/status/1552688255795171329

    If Derrickson is truly out of the running, the pool of candidates who have worked with Marvel Studios in the past is still pretty deep. While Feige has said the Russo brothers aren’t on board for the project, it had the “they aren’t on board YET” feel. Other candidates could include Ryan Coogler, Sam Raimi, Peyton Reed, Nia DaCosta and Jon Favreau, who while he’s been busy with Star Wars, could return for a project the size of Avengers: Secret Wars. And there’s no reason to close the door to directors who haven’t worked with the studio before, as a big project like this could attract the interest of some big names in the industry. Whoever they land, Marvel Studios could have an announcement as early as this September at their D23 presentation in Anaheim.

  • Kevin Feige on Marvel Studios’ New Outlook on Avengers Films

    Kevin Feige on Marvel Studios’ New Outlook on Avengers Films

    For the first decade of its existence, Marvel Studios rolled out an Avengers film every three years or so to signal the end of a Phase. Fans were treated to The Avengers in 2012, Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015 and then double-dipped with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame in 2018 and 2019. Endgame, of course, was the final film in what’s now known as The Infinity Saga, a long-form narrative told over the course of 23 films.

    Three years removed from the release of Endgame, Marvel Studios’ next phase is off and running and, in less than two years, has seen the release of more than half of what the studio did in the first eleven years. Thanks to the addition of in-universe streaming series on Disney Plus, Phase 4 is already 13 projects deep with two more coming in 2022 (She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) and 26 more scheduled from 2023 through 2025. As it stands, when Daredevil: Born Again releases on Disney Plus in the Spring of 2024, Marvel Studios’ post-Infinity Saga output will surpass what the studio released in its first 10 years, with 25 total projects released in just over 3 years (2021-24). None of those projects, however, will have been Avengers projects.

    At SDCC ’22, Marvel Studios head cheese Kevin Feige revealed the studio’s upcoming slate, which includes two upcoming Avengers films. With both of those films slated to hit theaters in 2025, fans are staring down a six-year stretch in between Avengers films, double what they’ve been accustomed to. Feige explained why the studio has broken free from the pattern they once set for themselves:

    The truth is, when we were doing Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3, there were less projects over more years. They were smaller projects and individual character stories, and it felt appropriate at that point, that after every two or three years that it took for a phase, we would do an ‘Avengers’ film. As [Phase] 4, 5 and 6 were coming together, there are more projects in less years – because of all the amazing stuff we’re now allowed to do on Disney+, and getting characters from Fox, Fantastic Four and Deadpool — that it felt like, certainly after ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame,’ that we thought ‘Avengers’ movies aren’t cappers. So many of our movies now — ‘Multiverse of Madness’ and what you’re about to see in [‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’], all are big team-up films introducing big parts of the mythology… ‘Avengers’ films really should be the capper to a saga.

    Kevin Feige

    Feige left a lot to unpack there, but the key points are that the increase in the number of productions, the ability to tell stories on Disney Plus, the addition of new properties via the Fox merger and the fact that the studio can use the already existing wealth of characters in team-up style films all helped the studio rethink what an Avengers film might need to be. Part of the allure of an Avengers film is seeing multiple heroes working together and that’s something that the studio can do in nearly every project they roll out these days, given that they have dozens of already established characters at their disposal. And so, at the end of the day, what it really means is that the Avengers films will feel like even bigger events than they did before with the ability for them to all include something on the scale of the final battle in Avengers: Endgame. For fans of Marvel Studios, that’s a prospect worth waiting to see on the screen.

    Source: Variety

  • Maris Abela in Talks to Portray Amy Winehouse in ‘Back to Black’

    Maris Abela in Talks to Portray Amy Winehouse in ‘Back to Black’

    The forthcoming Amy Winehouse biopic looks to be zeroing in on an Industry actor. Just weeks after confirming Sam Taylor-Johnson (Nowhere Boy) will direct the film, Variety is reporting that newcomer Marisa Abela is in talks to portray the singer in Back to Black, although the outlet has noted a deal is not yet in place.

    Abela currently stars in the BBC drama Industry where she plays the privileged but troubled Yasmin Kara-Hanani. The series will return for its second season next month. Outside of Industry, Abela has starred in the Sky TV series COBRA and starred alongside James Norton in the film Rogue Agent. She’ll next be seen alongside Haley Bennett and Sam Riley in She is Love. She is also set to appear in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie which will hit theaters next year.

    The biopic is a passion project for Taylor-Johnson who was good friends with the singer and the project always intended to find a newcomer to portray Winehouse, rather than a pop star. The production also made sure to find someone that was of Jewish heritage to stay true to Winehouse’s background. While Abela has not sung in any of her projects to date, her RADA profile notes that she does sing and is described as an alto.

    The script for Back to Black was written by Matt Greenhalgh. The biopic is being produced by Studiocanal along with Alison Owen and Debra Hayward alongside Tracey Seaward. A deal for a Winehouse biopic was first signed off on in 2018, when the estate signed a deal for the movie. Owen and Hayward have been attached to the project since then. Winehouse’s father, Mitch Winehouse, has thrown his support behind Back to Black.

    As of now, a deal for Abela has not been finalized nor has a release date been announced for the film.

    Source: Variety

  • Kevin Feige on the High-Bar Marvel Studios Has Set for ‘Fantastic Four’

    Kevin Feige on the High-Bar Marvel Studios Has Set for ‘Fantastic Four’

    Three years after being announced at SDCC ’19, Marvel Studios Fantastic Four finally has a release date. During SDCC ’22’s Hall H presentation, Marvel Studios One-Above-All, Kevin Feige, revealed to fans that the first ever MCU-set Fantastic Four film will hit theaters in November of 2024.

    While a release date has been carved out, much about the film remains up in the air. Without a director, after Jon Watts exited the project, and no writer announced as yet, Fantastic Four seems, for the moment at least, pretty directionless. Rumors have swirled that Feige has shown interest in some of Hollywood’s biggest names, including Steven Spielberg, to helm the film but SDCC came and went without a hint of a director…or a cast. It’s not all bad news, however, as Feige explains to THR, it’s because he and the top brass of Marvel Studios are taking great care in developing the project and separating it from Fox’s prior attempts to bring the First Family of Marvel Comics to the screen.

    A lot of people know this origin story. A lot of people know the basics. How do we take that and bring something that they’ve never seen before? We’ve set a very high bar for ourselves with bringing that to the screen.

    Kevin Feige

    Unpacking Feige’s quote (and the implications from the original article), it’s clear that the plan is NOT to retell the origin story of the team again. Marvel Studios took the same approach when introducing Spider-Man into the MCU, choosing to sprinkle in jsut enough info about how Peter Parker became Spidey via dialogue as opposed to spending an act or two of a film on it. Does this mean that the Fantastic Four might, as Spidey did before them, enter the MCU in another film? Rumors and speculation have identified Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania as a potential entry point for the team, but without casting decisions for the team having been made, the clock is ticking on that as the Ant-Man threequel hits theaters in February.

    Whatever the plan, it’s encouraging to know that Feige understands the gravity of this film and that Marvel Studios MUST take great care to set it apart from Fox’s less-than-successful films. As of now, all eyes are on D23, September 9-11th in Anaheim, as a potential time and place for Feige to trot out a director and cast. With less than two months to go until the event, fans are holding out hope that Feige can solve everything.

    Source: THR

  • Wyatt Russell on ‘Thunderbolts’ and Director Jake Schreier

    Wyatt Russell on ‘Thunderbolts’ and Director Jake Schreier

    A Thunderbolts movie was officially announced by Marvel Studios at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, but news of the project’s existence actually broke several weeks earlier. Deadline revealed in June that director Jake Schreier would helm the film, which fans now know will be for a July 26, 2024 release date. One of the actors expected to play a role in Thunderbolts is Wyatt Russell, who debuted as the government-selected Captain America John Walker in last year’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+. By the end of that series, Walker had become the U.S. Agent, and was recruited by Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Val for a mystery team that many assume will turn out to be the Thunderbolts.

    Russell actually has a history of working with Schreier, as the two previously teamed to bring critically acclaimed cult show Lodge 49 to life at AMC. Speaking with The Digital Fix, the actor was asked how he felt about his former creative partner being hired for Marvel’s next big team-up film. According to Russell, the Marvel Cinematic Universe couldn’t have gotten a better talent:

    Incredible. Amazing. I’m so biased, but like you couldn’t have dreamt of a better person. He has such a tender quality to who he is as a person. But I think in all of his movies, like Robot and Frank, like his way of dealing with relationships is always great. I think his structures are always on point. He’s professional. He’s amazing at filtering ideas, listening to opinions, making the best decisions for the movie, listening to all the voices in the room, but holding power as the filmmaker. He needs to make the film that he needs to make. I just don’t think they could have picked a better person.

    Wyatt Russell

    Fans shouldn’t get too excited about a reunion between the two just yet, however, as Russell also stressed he has yet to receive an actual call about appearing in Thunderbolts:

    I’m still waiting. I know they’re doing it. I know that they’re planning it. I gotta imagine that there’s something in there for me. But yeah, until you get that true actual prompt, like, ‘Okay, this is your start date. And this is when you’re coming, and this is when you rent your house, and this is when logistically you need to start setting up to do these things.’ That’s when I shift my mindset to going to do that, you know? Other than that, before you get that call, things can change on a dime; you never know.

    Wyatt Russell

    He continued to explain the anxieties of waiting for the job, citing his desire to call Schreier and get the wheel turning himself:

    It’s so hard not to call Jake and be like, ‘so what’s going on?’ Yeah, you have to hold your tongue, because Marvel has their process, and their process is great. You respect it for how they do it. And they’ve had so much success doing it that you want them to do it the way they know best, and so that’s the way that it works, and I’m happy to be a part of that process and fit into their world that way.

    Wyatt Russell

    There have been no casting announcements for Thunderbolts at this time.

    Source: The Digital Fix

  • ‘Leauge of Super-Pets’ Circling the Top Spot at The Box Office

    ‘Leauge of Super-Pets’ Circling the Top Spot at The Box Office

    DC’s League of Super-Pets looks ready to fly high at the box office this weekend. The animated flick is eyeing a $25 million-plus debut this weekend, which should be enough to take the top spot from Jordan Peele’s Nope.

    While that’s far from a bang, that’s a decent enough start to earn first place at the domestic box office. Current projections have it opening between $25 million and $30 million when it opens across 4,300 theaters in North America. With a reported $90 million price tag, League of Super-Pets will need to stick the landing among families and comic book fans. Universal’s Minions: The Rise of Gru has shown family films are still big business despite the pandemic, with the film surpassing the $300 million domestic mark.

    One thing working in the film’s favor is that it has the DC Comics branding attached to it. Being based on comics could help carry the film, at least through its opening weekend. However, the film being its own entity and not attached to a popular film franchise could also hurt it. 

    The film is directed by Jared Stern and features voice performances by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Kevin Hart, Diego Luna, Natasha Lyonne and Kate McKinnon as the pets of Justice League members. DC League of Super-Pets was written by Stern and John Whittington (The Lego Batman Movie). It flies into theaters this weekend.

    Source: Variety

  • REPORT: Fox Contracts Delaying the X-Men’s MCU Introduction

    REPORT: Fox Contracts Delaying the X-Men’s MCU Introduction

    In 2019, Disney officially completed its acquisition and merger with 20th Century Fox, one of the biggest such mergers in entertainment history. What many fans focused on, however, was the idea that Marvel Studios gained the live-action rights to many beloved characters from the Marvel universe, such as the X-Men and The Fantastic Four. Three years removed from the excitement, we’ve yet to really see much happen aside from X-Men ’97 being made, Deadpool 3 being green lit and Kamala Khan retconned as the MCU’s first mutant and it seems there may be a reason behind that.

    In a recent podcast at his Patreon, CInema Sangha, journalist Devin Faraci shared some information about the situation behind the scenes with the delayed introduction of the mutants in the MCU.

    Despite the introduction of mutants at the end of Ms. Marvel, there’s no mutants in Phase 5. I know why. I know why there’s no mutants. I know why this is going to take a while. There might be individual mutants, there might be other characters that show a certain interest. The reason why is the contractual situation with the original Fox stuff is going to be in effect until 2025. So, if they don’t want to use those actors, then they have to wait until that contract all expires.

    Devin Faraci

    It seems like fans are gonna have to wait a while to see quite a few of the big names that they’re looking forward to seeing pop up in the MCU. The problem seems to be that some of the talent brought on by Fox have contracts that are still in effect and carried over following the acquisition of 20th Century. These actors cannot be recast until the contract concludes in 2025. This will most likely result in an X-Men likely not coming till 2026 once Phase 7 begins.

    If they’re going to have stuff hitting in 2025 at the end of the contract, then they’ll announce it. But I think they actually can’t go into production until the contract’s up. So it’s not even a release – it’s the same thing with Superman. So they’re going to be Phase 7. So you’re not going to see mutants until Phase 7. There are going to be mutants that will show up after the Multiverse Saga is over.

    Devin Faraci

    The Illuminerdi was able to back up this claim, saying that their own sources reported that Marvel Studios is holding off on the X-Men due to talent and producers still being contractually attached to anything regarding that group of characters. Feige and company obviously would like to move in a different direction with these characters following the films produced by Fox, and would like a fresh slate to revamp many that may have been mischaracterized and underutilized in the Fox era.

    For now, fans will just have to wait for X-Men ’97 to hit Disney+ next year to get their mutant fill.

    SOURCE: Illuminerdi

  • New ‘Madame Web’ Set Photos Offer Closer Look at Dakota Johnson

    New ‘Madame Web’ Set Photos Offer Closer Look at Dakota Johnson

    Madame Web is quite the weeb of mysteries. Not only is Sony’s general direction with its Spider-Man franchise sans Spider-Man heading in a questionable direction, but it also seemingly is trying to set up something. Morbius‘ post-credit sequence hinted at some kind of team-up but even forcefully pulled Michael Keaton‘s Vulture into the multiverse to do so. Now, we also have a story focused on a primarily minor supporting character that weaved throughout the Spider-Verse.

    While we still question just how this project is going to come together but the casting of Dakota Johnson in the titular role is something to be excited about. We had a glimpse of set photos hinting at an early 2000s version of the story but the latest set photo offers our closest look yet at her in costume. Well, she’s wearing a red jacket over some regular clothing but it’s at least something to talk about.

    https://twitter.com/MarvelCrave/status/1551805010081636353

    There have been hints that this story might actually be something very different from what we’re expecting; that is hard to define, to begin with. Given her connection to the multiverse, it may potentially be an element that will lead to the recently announced Avengers: Secret Wars. There have been slight hints at a connection to Marvel Studios, but with Kevin Feige mostly having a supporting role over at Sony by consulting on projects, it’s unclear if that may have caused some confusion. Yet, there’s potential with this project and we’ll see if future looks behind the scenes make it clearer what exactly is heading our way.

    Source: Twitter

  • BREAKING: ‘Shang-Chi’s Destin Daniel Cretton to Direct ‘Avenger: The Kang Dynasty’

    BREAKING: ‘Shang-Chi’s Destin Daniel Cretton to Direct ‘Avenger: The Kang Dynasty’

    It looks like the first Avengers director has been found in a Marvel veteran. According to a new piece by The Hollywood Reporter to continue the San Diego Comic-Con hype, it turns out that they already found their director for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed the much loved Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is currently set to direct the upcoming first entry of a two-part Avengers film to round out Phase 6 and the Multiverse Saga. It’s currently set to release on May 2nd, 2025.

    It’s certainly a highlight of his skill if Marvel Studios sees him as the one to follow up the monolith that was Avengers: Endgame. It’s unclear if they are going to have him also join Secret Wars, but that seems unrealistic given that there is no one-year break in-between films. It may be a plan to have both films simultaneously so actors can jump from one project to the next with the number of potential characters set to appear.

    As the name implies, the film will focus on Jonathan Major’s villainous turn as Kang the Conqueror. After first making an appearance in Loki, he’ll be the main antagonist in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania with many more appearances potentially teased in the future. They have already gathered a talented pool of new directors for their upcoming projects such as Blade‘s Bassam Tariq, Captain America: New World Order‘s Julius Onah, and Thunderbolts‘ Jake Schreier. So, it’s nice to see another familiar face return, especially with the Russo Bros. constantly teasing how they’d approach a film of this scope.

    Source: The Hollywood Reporter