Well, this is certainly a way to start off the year. Spider-Man: No Way Home continues to push through even as uncertainty remains with the Omicron variant potentially putting a halt to any film’s momentum. Still, just a week ago the film passed $500M at the domestic box office and has now already managed to swing past $600M. It’s a motivating start to the New Year for many theater owners and Hollywood, but not everything has been rosy at the domestic box office.
The Matrix Resurrections and The King’s Man have been struggling at the box office. The latter managed to outpace the former, which may be attributed to the simultaneous release on HBO Max. It only managed to nab $3.8M over the entire weekend, which puts it at $31M and far out of range for a potential $100M domestic release. The latest Matrix entry was overtaken not only by Matthew Vaughn‘s latest entry but also American Underdog, a film about NFL quarterback Kurt Warner.
Still, the family-focused Sing 2 was a shining light as it held on to the second spot with $19.6M. It’s made $89.8M in 14 days, it’ll reach the benchmark faster than Disney’s Encanto, which only managed it now since its initial release over Thanksgiving. The big test will be how The Batman performs in March to see where 2022 is heading.
We still have a few months until Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness finally releases in theaters. After originally eyeing a March release, the film was pushed back to a May release but that isn’t stopping the toy releases to offer a glimpse of what we can expect from the upcoming sequel. We did get a look at a Strange Variant, only known as the Defender Strange, and now we also got one for Chiwetel Ejiofor‘s Mordo, which offers our best look yet at his new look in the upcoming film.
The official promotional art for Mordo in DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS! 🎨 pic.twitter.com/EJPzGYDs7Q
We still don’t know what his role in the story will be, but he seems a bit more sympathetic towards Strange even though he was focused on ending the existence of sorcerers. Perhaps he has gone down a different path, especially with the new dangers they oppose. Of course, there’s also the possibility that this version of the character is a Variant due to the multiversal nature of this story. There’s no mention of him having a different name like with Defender Strange, but it doesn’t mean we might not see different versions of the character throughout the film. It’s going to be fun speculating as we near its release.
The Justice League can be considered the crown jewel of the DC Universe, where some of its greatest and most popular characters brought together as its definitive team. In live-action, however, they’ve struggled making that a reality. 2017’s Justice League was a testament to that struggle, and it’s been a long road until we got Zack Snyder’s Justice League. With so much up in the air, fans are wondering just when and where we might see the team return again to the big screen, and if rumors are to be believed, The Flash may have the answers.
Take this as a spoiler warning, while it is still a rumor, it may give away important plot details of the upcoming The Flash film. So, only continue at your own risk.
Leaker MyTimeToShine recently took a quick break from sharing info on Marvel Studio’s projects to dish out some info on the upcoming The Flash film, and gave away how it’ll reinstate the popular superhero team into the universe after it was left open-ended since the initial release of the Justice League film.
Movie ends with Flash and Supergirl and Shazam forming a new Justice League. https://t.co/xzN4RpJLZd
As such, we may expect an all-new Justice League once the film ends its runtime. With the events of the previous films, most noticeably any Snyderverse entry, supposedly erased from the timeline, this would mean the team never came together to fight Steppenwolf and Barry would be the only one with knowledge of that battle. Here in this new universe, Barry will reportedly bring together a team with the first members being Supergirl and Shazam. Geeks Worldwide’s KC Walsh further backed up these claims:
It’s still unclear just who the rest of the roster will be but it seems likely that both Aquaman and Wonder Woman will most likely return. It’ll be interesting to see if this is a “first time” for these characters or they also will remember being part of a previous iteration of the Justice League. We’ll see what this means for the future of the DCEU
Continuity in the DC extended universe has been a bit loose these past few years with a lot of factors up in the air. It’s been tough for many fans who just wanted solid answers on the future of beloved characters like Batman and Superman, two pillars of the franchise throughout many mediums. We’ve known for a while now that Affleck was basically out the door, and Henry Cavill’s future is still very much up in the air. Some recent reports seem to point us in the direction of where the DCEU will be heading and the future of the extended universe.
MyTimeToShine, who made a name for themselves with stories based off of Marvel Studios’ upcoming projects, recently shared some details on The Flash, and just what effects the film will have on the shared universe. By the sounds of it, it’s not going to be good for long-time fans of Zack Snyder‘s additions to the franchise, who was the person that initially kicked off the new rendition of the franchise.
I don't usually tweet about DC stuff but I habe a friend who have seen The Flash and the movie will erase every movie Snyder has done. Man of Steel, Batman v Superman and Justice League never happened now. Erased from continuity. Affleck and Cavill are both gone
As such, The Flash may effectively “erase” the events of Man of Steel, Batman Vs Superman, and Justice League. Along with the films, Flash would also be erasing both Affleck and Cavill from the DCEU timeline entirely with the return of Michael Keaton cementing him as the new Bruce Wayne. Of course, it’s uncertain how the film will accomplish this and with the multiverse, it may simply end up redefining the mainline timeline like in DC’s famous Crisis events.
This news, if it pans out, will undoubtedly upset many fans as the films made by ZackSnyder that started it all are quite beloved by parts of the fandom. Cavill also never really got his dues, and didn’t get another chance to prove that he could be the definitive live-action Superman that many fans knew he had the potential to be, but the actor still stays booked and busy.
The Marvels, Marvel Studios 2023 sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel, filmed in the UK and Europe and, with the exception of a few leaked set photos, did so rather quietly. The film will see Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers teaming up with Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau and Iman Vellani’s Kamala Khan against Zawe Ashton, who we believe will play an iteration of one-time Kree emperor Ael-Dan. The rest of the film’s cast has stayed pretty secret, with only Samuel L. Jackson’s return as Nick Fury seemingly confirmed.
To that end, rumors and unconfirmed castings by the studio have made the rounds and once such casting is that of Zenobia Shroff, who will play Kamala’s mother, Muneeba, in Ms. Marvel. While Shroff hasn’t been officially revealed as part of the cat by Marvel Studios, she did reveal her involvement in the project via social media. And now it looks like she may have also confirmed the appearances of several other members of the cast as well.
The photo above was found on Shroff’s Instagram and contain 9 headshots that can pretty easily be found via a quick Google search. From left to right, we can see headshots of Larson, Parris, Vellani, Jackson and Ashton, all of whom were known to be part of the cast. After Ashton, however, it gets interesting as the remaining headshots would seem to confirm the rumored and/or previously unconfirmed castings of the following:
Seo Jun Park
Lashana Lynch
Tessa Thompson
Zenobia Shroff
Park has long been rumored to be a part of the film and even shows up on the IMDB cast list. Lynch’s name has also been previously associated with the project, in which she’ll return, likely in flashbacks, as Maria Rambeau, but this is the first time that Thompson, who would be reprising her role as Valkyrie, has been associated with the film.
Given the scope and scale of Marvel Studios recent and upcoming films, it’s not too surprising to see a major player like Valkyrie show up in another project. With a universe full of so many characters comes the natural consequence of being able to have them appear any and everywhere. Thompson’s appearance in The Marvels is just one more benefit that fans of the shared cinematic universe will get to enjoy.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will see Stephen Strange explore new territory in the MCU when it hits theaters this May. The recent teaser for the film shows Strange exploring the multiverse and, in the process, running into Variants of himself. Recently, one of those Variants, Defender Strange, was revealed by way of a Target Exclusive Marvel Legends figure. Now a new image, first shared by Twitter user @eljaunleon, gives us our best look yet at the Variant.
The Variant of Strange, who was seen briefly in the teaser, is based, at least aesthetically, on the character as he appeared in Matt Fraction and Terry Dodson’s 2011 comic book series, The Defenders. That series, which ran for 12 issues, saw Strange team up with Silver Surfer, Namor, the Red She-Hulk and Iron Fist and ended, ironically enough, with Strange altering time to prevent the destruction of the universe. At the time it was being developed, Fraction teased that the series would “explain everything that has ever happened in the Marvel Universe”, so referencing it in a film that might attempt to do the same seems logical.
The teaser only shows Defender Strange for the briefest of moments, so there’s no telling what his role in the film is or what other Defenders he might or might not be working with in his universes. To know that, we’ll have to wait to see how things unfold when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness hits theaters on May 6, 2022.
Following the cancellation of Netflix’s streaming series, Daredevil, fans united under the #SaveDaredevil movement to make it clear that Charlie Cox’s iteration of the character shouldn’t be retired. In late 2020, the first reports of Cox’s return to the role in Spider-Man: No Way Home circulated and sparked a debate among disbelievers that wasn’t truly settled until nearly a year later when Kevin Feige finally declared that Cox would be returning in the role. Though his appearance was brief, it was met with thunderous applause in theaters and has fans wild with anticipation about when they might see him again. Several months ago, a source who confirmed Cox’s return to the MCU last December shared something that should add to that anticipation. When asked where Cox might appear again, the response was, “expect to see him everywhere.” With a recent run of rumors lining up with that statement, let’s take a look at what’s next for Cox’s character.
She-Hulk
Rumors have persisted that the next place we’ll see Charlie Cox is in Marvel Studios yet-to-be-dated for 2022 streaming series, She-Hulk. This rumor (is it even still a rumor at this point) makes too much sense for it not to happen and promises that Cox will have quite a bit more to do than catch a brick. Rumblings have Cox showing up in the court room as Murdock, where he’ll probably go up against Tatiana Maslany’s Jennifer Walters. The two, of course, faced off in Charles Soule’s 2014 She-Hulk, and had quite a fun relationship. It is worth noting that while the rumor has them facing off in a court case involving a superhero tailor, issue #9 of Soule’s run found the two on opposing sides of a case involving an old, depowered Steve Rogers. With Chris Evans rumored to return for two non-Captain America projects, his presence would make for one helluva surprise.
Of course that’s only half the rumor and the other half sounds a whole lot more fun. Probably also inspired from the same Soule run, the rumor suggests that Cox, sporting a shiny, new, yellow suit and kicking some ass as Daredevil. It looks as though Cox’s reintegration into the MCU is going to be step-by-step with She-Hulk giving fans their first chance to see Daredevil hit the skyline again. So we’ll see the character at least once in 2022, though there is a rumor he has some role to play in Moon Knight as well.
Echo
Daredevil is also rumored to be appearing in the Marvel Studios streaming series, Echo, which is currently slated to go into production in April. Echo will feature several new Native American roles and a couple of new, female villains but there’s definitely room for Daredevil. Whatever role Cox’s character plays in the series, it’ll be markedly different from the source material. Echo was first introduced in Daredevil Vol. 2 and was trained and sent out by Kingpin to take out Daredevil, who he blamed for the death of Echo’s father; along the way, she met and fell in love with Matt Murdock. While the two did battle, Murdock was able to convince her of the truth before she killed him. Echo went on to take her revenge on Kingpin by shooting him in the face, similar to the scene we saw at the end of Hawkeye.
Even though that story seems like it’s off the table (we could always see a flashback if Marvel really felt the need to tell it), there’s plenty of room for the two to run into one another. The end of Hawkeye is just the beginning of Echo’s journey. Everything she once thought to be true about her life was revealed as a facade that came crashing down. It’s likely that her journey will lead her back to New York and the Kingpin and that her path will intersect Murdock’s along the way. This should be the first of at least two 2023 appearances for Cox.
Armor Wars
Armor Wars is still a long way off and very, very little is known about it but the premise is that a group of villains mysteriously come into possession of Stark Tech and that James Rhodes will have to deal with the fallout. One of those villains is engineer Wilbur Day who uses the tech to upgrade his original suit. It would represent a major missed opportunity not to include Stilt-Man, originally a Daredevil villain who first appeared on the page in 1965, in Armor Wars and have Rhodey enlist the help of Daredevil in taking him down. Assuming we also see Cox in Echo, this will mark at least his second 2023 appearance (there’s also a rumor he’ll appear in Ironheart, which would come out before Armor Wars).
Spider-Man 4
Spider-Man: No Way Home gave fans the first onscreen meeting of two longtime comic book friends: Spider-Man and Daredevil. Although they only met as Peter Parker and Matt Murdock, hope remains that the two will team-up again down the road to take on a shared foe: Kingpin. While he’s best known as Daredevil’s archenemy, Kingpin first entered the world of Marvel Comics in 1967’s Amazing Spider-Man #50. The stage is set up perfectly for an adaptation of that arc where Fisk united crime bosses into the international crime syndicate known as the Maggia.
Both Tom Holland and Vincent D’Onofrio have expressed their interest in their respective characters coming into conflict, making Fisk a very likely possibility to appear in the next Spider-Man film. With Spider-Man now known to be sticking close to his new NYC neighborhood and Daredevil likely patrolling the city as well, it’s only a matter of time before these two bump into one another and unite to take down the head of NYC’s organized crime. With Kevin Feige revealing that they have already begun work on the next Spider-Man film and Sony’s eagerness to have the character appear every two years, it’s possible that this film could make it into theaters for late 2024.
Daredevil
The final rumor is that a solo Daredevil project is now in development at the studio. I’ll caution (though it’ll do absolutely no good) that being “in development” never, ever means a project will get made but, given the enormity of the popularity of Cox in the role, this odds that this ends up getting a green light have to be high. It it happens, it’s probably 2 to 3 years off but given the possibilities outlined above and Cox’s other contractual obligations, it may well be that long before he can lead his own project. At this point, all we really know is that it is not currently slated to enter into production in 2022.
While Tom Holland’s time as Spider-Man has been full of critical and box office success, it has not been without criticisms. Among the most common is that Peter’s relationship with Tony Stark gave the young hero too much, too soon, and took him far away from his comic book origins. Fans grew tired of Parker’s dependance on Stark’s technology, calling him “Iron Boy”, and hoped, with Stark now out of the picture, that Parker would have to learn to fend for himself. Stark tech was present once again in Spider-Man: No Way, both by way of the Ion Spider suit and the fabricator that helped Parker synthesize cures for the multiversal villains. By the end of the film, however, audiences saw a Parker who more closely resembled the young hero from the comics, having learned the true cost of being Spider-Man. And according to the film’s writing duo, Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna, putting Parker in that place was part of their mission.
Fans of the long-running comic book series are used to Peter having to deal with what he’s come to call “Parker Luck.” It’s never been strictly defined by Marvel (I don’t think), but Parker Luck seems like a very specific branch of Murphy’s Law: if anything can go wrong for Peter, it will. More acutely, it seems to explore the inverse relationship between the time Peter spends doing good deeds as Spider-Man and the amount of GOOD things that happen to him. In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Peter’s acceptance of his moral mission as Spider-Man, morals defined by his Aunt May, came at the cost of those he loved most, as McKenna explained:
He was trying to do what May taught him and that made the sacrifice that much more difficult, because it blew up in his face and it got her killed. Then he started questioning that morality in a way that he never really questioned because he hasn’t been put to the test in that way.
How did Parker come to terms with those questions? As we see by the end of the film, he seems to have come to terms with the fact that in order to be the hero he wants to be, there could be no getting around the spell cast by Strange to make people forget him. Though he promised to find MJ and Ned and “make them remember” him, McKenna says he comes to the realization that making that choice would only put them in danger:
You want to have that doughnut scene be him making the last piece of the sacrifice. “I could tell them everything. I can try to get my friends back. But I’d be going right back to the place of endangering my loved ones by bringing them into my life. And I can’t have that.”
Peter makes the mature choice after MJ mentions that her cut doesn’t really hurt anymore. While her words describe the physical pain of the cut, Peter realizes that the MJ’s emotional pain of losing him has also dissipated and chooses to leave her and Ned happy and safe, making, as McKenna said, the final step in his sacrifice and choosing not to try to continue live in two worlds, as Doctor Strange warned him. As many astute fans have noticed, it’s only at the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home that we are finally getting the version of the character that made him so beloved over the years. Moving forward, Holland’s Parker is on his own without the benefit of Stark’s tech or the support of those around him, meaning the next trilogy of MCU films will look a whole lot different and, potentially, a whole lot more like the comics.
Magic. In Spider-Man: No Way Home, magic was both the problem and the solution and, because how magic works remains a mystery to us, fans were left with a lot of questions as they walked away from the theaters. Why did Doctor Strange’s original spell-gone-wrong draw Tom Hardy’s Eddie Brock into the MCU? Does Strange’s final spell mean the Guardians or Captain Marvel, who weren’t on Earth when it was cast, will forget Peter, too? In an interview with Variety, writers Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna explained their approach to magic in the year’s biggest box office hit.
The film’s central plot revolved around Peter meeting five villains from previous Spider-Man films and trying to cure them. The mid-credit scene, however, introduced a sixth: Hardy’s Eddie Brock and his alien symbiote companion, Venom. While the other five found themselves involved in a conflict with the Spider-Men, Brock chose to while away his time in Mexico, having drinks and catching up on the history of the MCU. But why was this version of Brock, who has yet to meet a Peter Parker in his own universe, brought to the MCU by the spell? According to the writers, the answer lies in a line spoken in the post-credit scene to Sony’s Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which the duo revealed was actually directed by No Way Home’sJon Watts.
In that scene, Brock and Venom are catching up on their telenovelas while hiding out in Mexico when Venom begins to explain to him that he possesses “80 billion light years of hive knowledge across universes” that would “explode” Eddie’s “tiny little brain.” And just as Venom prepares to give Eddie a “taste” of that knowledge, the pair are caught up in Strange’s spell and brought to the MCU. According to McKenna, somewhere in that hive knowledge exits the Parker/Spidey connection, as he explained, “The idea is that the symbiote has knowledge of other universes. Buried in his brain is some knowledge of that connection.” Problem solved.
The writers were a little less specific in their explanations as to exactly how Strange’s final spell, which made everyone on Earth forget about Peter Parker, would play out down the line, especially with him still actively working as Spider-Man. “Obviously, some sort of magical redaction has occurred,” McKenna explained. “At the end of all this, we didn’t want a lot of people trying to do magical math in their head.” And so, according to Sommers, they left the problems to be solved by their future selves:
We decided, let’s try to do it in the most satisfying way and just focus on the emotion of it. And then if people have questions about some of those details that didn’t get answered here, we’ll answer them hopefully in another movie somewhere down the line.
Give that the duo have worked on each of the MCU’s Spidey films so far and that there’s a fourth in development, they’ll probably have to start figuring out how to answer them sooner rather than later.
Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s ending might go down as one of the best in Marvel’s cinematic history and as one of the most tragic. Tom Holland’s run as Peter Parker came full circle, but at a deep cost. After a fun multiversal romp filled to the brim with familiar faces, the story still ended with Peter making an important decision. It still remained his story and while open-ended, could’ve still felt like the perfect bookend to this version of the character. Luckily, it seems that the writers had exactly that in mind.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna discussed the ending of the film, and that they had this in mind when tackling the project, especially as it builds upon the lessons learned from the past two entries. As Sommers points out:
We knew we were going to end up in that place. As far as what it means, whether or not there are going to be more? All we could do was try to service this story and tell what we felt was the best version of this story. It’s ended in a place where it could feel like a satisfying to this particular Spider-Man, or it definitely could keep going.
Erik Sommers
Of course, they also took this ending as a potential “end” for the entire franchise. It’s a given after the dealings already fell apart before they even entered the third film’s production. While a fourth is in development as confirmed by Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige, they did keep that in the back of their mind while writing it.
I think it’s a fitting ending if it had to end this way. We never know. “Oh, is Tom doing another one? Will we be a part of it?” At a certain point we just got to keep our eye on the one in front of us. “Is this a satisfying story that doesn’t just feel like we are ending on a cliffhanger that is trying to trick you in to the next one?” I do feel with this ending, Peter makes a sacrifice. There are all these Marvel movies about him trying to figure out what it is to be a hero, what it is to be Spider-Man, what it is to be Peter Parker, how to balance both, how to have it all. He gets to have it all at the end of the last movie, right before that tag and then it’s all stripped away. “Oh no! What are they going to do next time?” This one feels like it’s more mature because it really is, as Doctor Strange says, “You are trying to have it all. You can’t have it all. You’ve got to make a choice.”
Chris McKenna
They certainly had to tackle quite a challenge when bringing this film to life. Some of the previous entries always end up buckling under the weight of expectation, as they juggle multiple storylines that end up distracting from the core narrative. Here’s hoping to see what the future has in store for Tom Holland‘s take on the character.
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