Murphy's Multiverse

Tag: Spider-Man

  • The All-New, All-Different Hypothetical 2025 Marvel Studios Release Calendar, V1

    The All-New, All-Different Hypothetical 2025 Marvel Studios Release Calendar, V1

    Bob Iger‘s return to Disney and a pair of strikes have rendered nearly everything we once thought we knew irrelevant. Movies once slated for 2023 or 2024 have been moved to 2025 and the domino effect has probably only just begun. With so much having changed since last we ventured into the waters of the hypothetical calendar, it’s high time to relaunch them anew…and adifferent.

    January 8th-March 5th: Daredevil: Born Again, Episodes 1-9

    Following a major creative overhaul, the first episodes of Daredevil: Born Again–which were originally slated to debut in the Spring of 2024–are now TENTATIVELY on track to drop in January 2025. Though they didn’t throw the baby out with the bath water, it sounds like showrunner Dario Scardapane and new directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are going to take their time and make sure the MCU’s first Daredevil project does the character justice and given Bob Iger‘s demands that the projects live up to the high standards previously set for Marvel Studios, that might mean this gets pushed even further. We’ll know more shortly after the first of the year as we’ve recently heard that production is meant to get underway in January.

    February 14th: Captain America: Brave New World

    Reports of significant reshoots on Cap 4 lined up with Disney’s decision to move the film into 2025. Those reports suggested that the film will undergo roughly 5 months of additional photography which is a longer period of time than the film was in production for the first time around. Now, the studio has brought on a brand new writer in Matthew Orton and though they are targeting a mid-2024 restart, production will not resume until his work on the script is done. Throw in the amount of time it’ll take to make the VFX hold up–especially with an appearance by the Red Hulk in the cards–and the February 2025 date makes all the sense in the world.

    May 2nd: Fantastic Four

    Fantastic Four was announced at SDCC ’19 and two long work stoppages have kept pushing it further and further down the road though it’s continually in the news cycle. At this point, all anyone wants is for the casting rumors around this project to come to an end and for cameras to roll. According to a relatively recent interview with director Matt Shakman, production should get underway next Spring and be ready to serve as the studio’s tentpole film for 2025 and launch the summer movie season…just as it should.

    June 27th: Spider-Man 4

    No project on this hypothetical calendar is more hypothetical than this one. If all the rumors are true, its release is partially dependent on Daredevil: Born Again–and that’s IF the creative threads that originally tied the two projects together stay in the series with the new showrunner taking over. Throw in that there’s been no official announcement from Sony about this project and that Tom Holland‘s “new deal” hasn’t been officially announced either and you’ve got even more reason to think this one may not happen in 2025 at all. However, a script has been in the works for most of the year, Sony has this date on the calendar for a Marvel film and, at the moment, doesn’t have any other projects that seem to fit the date. On the other hand, rumors persist that Jon Watts may be on board to direct and plans are being made to film next summer…

    July 25th: Thunderbolts

    By the time production finally starts on this project, the entire plot will have been leaked online. Despite multiple creative retoolings and a revolving door of writers, Thunderbolts is ultimately only delayed by a year from its original July 26, 2024 release date. Production is currently set to get underway in the spring with a TENTATIVE April start on the books.

    September 3rd-October 8th: Ironheart

    A project that has been in the can for quite some time, Ironheart is on track to release 2 full years after it was originally slated to hit Disney Plus. It’ll be interesting to see if Disney ever addresses exactly why this series took so long to release (not even VFX touch-ups and reshoots can explain away a 2-year move), especially when the footage shown at 2022’s D23 looked pretty fun.

    November 7th: Blade

    Mahershala Ali has the patience of a saint. Ali is the driving force behind this project which, like Fantastic Four, was announced over 4 years ago, and is staying the course despite several changes to the creative team over the past year or so and the delays due to the strikes. As of now, Blade looks like it’ll actually start production in the second half of 2024 and be ready for theaters, complete with an R-rating, by November 2025!

    All in all, this is a major revamp from the last time we rolled out a hypothetical 2025 calendar. With things at Disney never having been in flux more than they are now, it’ll be fun to see just how much of this holds true.

  • Amazon Scoops Up ‘Punisher’ Showrunner Steve Lightfoot for ‘Spider-Man Noir’ Series

    Amazon Scoops Up ‘Punisher’ Showrunner Steve Lightfoot for ‘Spider-Man Noir’ Series

    After partnering with Sony, Amazon behan dipping their toes in Marvel waters with Angela Kang’s Silk: Spider Society. Earlier this year, Amazon gave Oren Uziel the green light to develop a live-action Spider-Man Noir streaming series. Now, they’ve enlisted someone intimately familiar with a Marvel character who first appeared in a Spidey comic to serve with Uziel as the co-showrunner.

    According to Variety, Steve Lightfoot, who was the showrunner for both seasons of Netflix’s The Punisher, has agreed to board the project and share duties with Uziel.

    Based on an alternate universe Spider-Man created in 2008 by David Hine and Marko Djurdjevic, Spider-Man Noir will follow the adventures of a non-Peter Parker Spidey in 1930’s New York. Actor Nicolas Cage voiced a version of the character in 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

    Though Kang’s Silk series has been in development for some time, no timeline for the debut of the series on the streaming service has been given. It’s believed that Amazon’s deal with Sony has also generated several other ideas that are at different points in their development.

  • Tom Holland “Engaging in Conversations” on Fourth ‘Spider-Man’ Film

    Tom Holland “Engaging in Conversations” on Fourth ‘Spider-Man’ Film

    We’ve all been waiting for the update on when we can expect an update on the fourth entry in Tom Holland’s Spider-Man franchise. As much as everyone is discussing the current status of Marvel Studios, there’s still hope to further build upon the rather melancholic ending that Spider-Man: No Way Home left us with. It seemed like the perfect time for Spider-Man to return back to basics.

    Yet, it seems Tom Holland isn’t quite on board. This would mark the first actor to get a fourth live-action entry and it seems he wants to make sure they do it quite right, as he feels “very protective” of this iconic Marvel franchise and character. It’s fitting and hopefully, we’ll get more updates as time goes by, but in an interview, he highlights that he’s “actively engaging in conversations” on the fourth entry.

    All I can say is that we have been actively engaging in conversations about what it could potentially look like for a fourth rendition of my character. Whether or not we can find a way to do justice to the character is another thing. I feel very protective over Spider-Man. I feel very, very lucky that we were able to work on a franchise that got better with each movie, that got more successful with each movie, which I think is really rare, and I want to protect his legacy. So, I won’t make another one for the sake of making another one. It will have to be worth the while of the character.

    Tom Holland

    Of course, there’s the likelihood that he’s already signed on and just highlighting how much he cares about the project, as they are trying to make sure they find their way moving forward. There are rumors that they might not fully remove the character from the multiverse saga though the hints have been for a more grounded storyline. Though, perhaps it’s simply a post-credit tie-in forced upon by Sony given that they don’t want to lose the contract again. Still, we’ll see once they start hinting at the next entry moving forward.

    Source: Collider

  • Sony Pushes Back its Fall Slate Instead of Paying Writers and Actors Fairly

    Sony Pushes Back its Fall Slate Instead of Paying Writers and Actors Fairly

    It seems like Sony is the first to cave. Hollywood is currently going through one of its most significant strikes as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA have decided to strike as no fair deal was made by any of the studios to make their life actually livable. Now, the trend continues as instead of coming back to the table to discuss the industry’s future, it seems Sony has decided to push back the major releases of their fall schedule.

    The big push comes with Kraven the Hunter, which has now shifted to a release on August 30th of 2024, which was initially set to release this October. It seems they were mostly banking on Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s press tour to push the film; uncertain if that would actually help their next Spider-Man spinoff without the webhead’s involvement. Surprisingly, Madame Web is getting released two days earlier on Valentine’s Day of 2024.

    That’s not all, as the Ghostbusters: Afterlife sequel has also been pushed further back to March 29th of 2024. It initially was going to have a Christmas release and had the lesser push even with the hope to wait it out until Paul Rudd is able to promote the project once the strike ends. They also postponed the Karate Kid reboot that was going to release in June next year to a December release.

    There are also some films that have now ended up in limbo. Blumhouse’s They Listen lost its August release date from next year. Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse has lost its March release, which was hinted at when reports pointed to a troubled production (even if the released film is quite a visual feast). Though, they surprisingly gave Venom 3 a release date, as it stopped production during the strike, as the film is slated for July 12th while Bad Boys 4 will release on June 14th. Gran Turismo is still set for its August release.

    Source: Variety

  • Animation Wins the Weekend as ‘The Flash’ Drops by 72%

    Animation Wins the Weekend as ‘The Flash’ Drops by 72%

    Ouch! It looks like The Flash isn’t doing so well as it dropped by 72% in its second weekend. DC’s biggest release of the year is not performing as “the best superhero movie” would, as it’s been completely overtaken by two animated projects. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse continues to show its legs and overtook the film while Elemental is only slightly behind. No Hard Feelings shows that R-rated projects still have some energy in them.

    The Flash overall pulled in $15.3M over the weekend, which is a sharp decline in its second weekend. As such, the film is only behind Morbius with the second-worst drop of any superhero film. As such, even bad performers Black Adam and Shazam! Fury of the Gods had better holds in its second weekend, the latter dropping around 69% on an even smaller opening. As such, the film may have passed $200M, but it’s unclear if it’ll even reach $300M at this rate.

    Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse returned to the top spot with $19.3M and already passed $560M globally. Has a decent chance of probably ending its total run at around $700M. Elemental even showed that a bad opening doesn’t mean the film could make up for it. It dropped only 37% which might not quite help with its $200M budget but if it keeps the pacing it could at least try to balance it out as much as possible. As of now, it placed second with $18.5M and stands at $121M.

    Jennifer Lawrence made her grand return to theaters with the raunchy No Hard Feelings, which opened pretty decent. $15M is a good start and better than some other R-rated comedies though won’t compete with Cocaine Bear. The big surprise is that not a single film managed to pass $30M this summer weekend, which is bizarre considering just how stacked the summer was going in. Either we’re seeing people become very selective about what they watch, or the box office still has quite a time to go before it heals.

    Source: Variety, Twitter, The Numbers

  • ‘The Flash’ Stumbles to a 70%+ Drop in its Second Weekend

    ‘The Flash’ Stumbles to a 70%+ Drop in its Second Weekend

    The Flash may be far removed from what Zack Snyder once started, but it seems it’s about to overtake Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’s box office drop. After a soft opening in its first weekend at $55.7M, far below initial expectations, the film is seemingly on its way to a heavy drop that’ll be likely above 70%. If you have a strong opening you might be able to balance it out, but this isn’t the case. As such, the film is dropping to third place after opening to $4.5M on Friday, which is an 81% drop.

    That drop is quite a bit higher than that of Green Latnern back in 2011, which only made around $116M and it’s unclear if this film will face a similar fate. It’s not looking good for the film to make enough money to make up its $200M+ production budget. Whiles some are liking this to be a sign of superhero fatigue, The Flash isn’t the only film that has lost quite a bit of momentum, and perhaps expectations for blockbusters generally have risen.

    Transformers: Rise of the Beasts proves that fact after a sharp 66% drop in its second weekend, but things are looking up a bit as the third is going a bit softer than initially expected. The film will drop around 45% and could still push the film to pass Bumblebee and Transformers: The Last Knight’s overall domestic box office gross.

    The big surprise though is Elemental is holding on. After the worst opening weekend for a Pixar film, its A CinemaScore is proving useful with a strong hold. It’ll likely only drop around 40% in its second weekend, which would push it further but it is still not likely to take the top spot. At the moment, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is showing a stronger hold and has a good chance at retaking the top spot with a $18.2M weekend.

    The big release of the week, No Hard Feelings is doing pretty good. It pulled in $6.25M on Friday (incl. Thursday previews) putting it at the top spot for at least a day. It’s projected to make around $12M but it seems likely that the debut will land somewhere around $15M. It did take the day and while it’ll lose momentum it’s still not too bad of a showcase. Comedies sadly generally seem to be struggling at the box office, as many other films like The Machine, Bros, and Easter Sunday struggling with that R-rating.

    Source: Variety

  • DC Veteran to Compose ‘Kraven the Hunter’s Soundtrack

    DC Veteran to Compose ‘Kraven the Hunter’s Soundtrack

    Looks like Kraven the Hunter is in good hands. Well, depends on who you ask when it comes to the upcoming Sony spinoff film focused on the Spider-Man film. Still, there is some exciting news with the addition of Benjamin Wallfisch. The veteran composer has seemingly joined the production and will give Aaron Taylor-Johnson the right melody to hunt down his non-animal prey.

    What is interesting about Wallfisch is that he’s no stranger to superhero properties. He’s worked quite a bit with Andy Muschietti on The Flash, his two It films, and even was involved with 2019’s Shazam! though his best work might be Blade Runner 2049, which he worked on it alongside composing icon Hans Zimmer.

    It’ll be interesting to see what direction he takes the soundtrack for this film, as Wallsisch has quite an extensive background. So, they could go any way they want with it but it would seem fitting if they lean into the characters’ Russian background in their choice of melody. Though, it’s hard to say if director J.C. Chandor already went in with a rather specific vision.

    Source: The Hollywood Reporter

  • ‘Spider-Verse’ Threequel Unlikely to Release Next Year

    ‘Spider-Verse’ Threequel Unlikely to Release Next Year

    Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has opened to much acclaim and is quite a success at the box office. Many saw it as the perfect showcase of what animation and superhero movies are capable of, but a recent announcement has unveiled that things were a bit rough behind-the-scenes.

    In a new report by Vulture, a lot of details on how the crew is overworked were unveiled. Not just that, but they also made quite a point to highlight that Phil Lord was a big part of the production leading to many rewrites and changes even with an almost finished product.

    Yet, the question remained if Beyond the Spider-Verse was even far along, but one of the anonymous animators has pointed out that they aren’t far along enough to even hit the next year’s release that was originally set when the film was split into two parts.

    The only progress that’s been made on the third one is any exploration or tests that were done before the movie was split into two parts.

    It’s definitely realistic that the film won’t be available in 2024. At this point, we don’t know how long the wait might end up being, but here’s hoping that for future developments of the project they’ll take their animation staff into consideration and avoid the issues that are currently being reported.

    Source: Vulture

  • Animators Speak Out on Turbulent Production on ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’

    Animators Speak Out on Turbulent Production on ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’

    For some time now, people have used the Spider-Verse films as a showcase of what happens if you respect animators and those working don’t the project. It has commonly been used as a point of comparison between how major studios utilize their VFX houses for live-action adaptations. Yet, it seems that there was a lot more happening behind the scenes than one might’ve assumed initially.

    Supposedly, while Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse cost only $150M to produce, it seems like things were quite messy and costly in the long run. Multiple crew members, who range from artists to production executives, have come out to share what has happened across the many years working on the film in a new article by Vulture. And, it seems that it wasn’t pretty.

    Around 100 artists have supposedly had to “flee the movie” before it was finished, as they share that the film sprinted in the last three years. One of the reasons is seemingly due to one of its producers, Phil Lord of LEGO Movies fame, having a hard time conceptualizing 3-D animation and seemingly prefers to edit with fully rendered work. This means, they finished an entire project and then end up having to scrap big chunks of it due to this editing style. Usually, these kinds of stages happen early on in production, but it seems they pretty much had to change elements that were already finished.

    Subsequently, their backlog started to pile on as time went by. It’s no wonder the film was postponed by more than a year from its initial April 2022 release. At the time, it was “pandemic-related delays” but it seems there’s more to that after all. Seems that Phil Lord’s partner, Christopher Miller was surprisingly absent throughout most of the production. Lord seemingly overshadowed even the trio of directors involved with the project.

    Of course, Sony executives have disputed the claim with producer Amy Pascal pointing out that “over a thousand” were involved and losing 100 isn’t too surprising. Though she did confirm that the project went through various major overhauls when it came to its visuals and narrative. Going as far as executive Vice President of Sony Pictures Imageworks, Michelle Grady, stating “It really does happen on every film,” which casts a darker shadow over their other work especially with Pascal’s stating: “Welcome to making a movie.”

    Though, it should be pointed out that one stated it was a harsh experience but one that is “extraordinarily rewarding” it’s still not a good sign that what VFX and gaming industries are going through also affects animation. We’ll have to see if the WGA strike might be a big milestone to push for better experiences of employees in these creative environments but it also is a sign not to point the finger at a single scapegoat and take a look at the bigger picture.

    Source: Vulture

  • ‘Spider-Man’ Spinoff Starring Bad Bunny’s Seemingly Still Happening

    ‘Spider-Man’ Spinoff Starring Bad Bunny’s Seemingly Still Happening

    You might remember some time ago that the studio behind Morbius announced that they are adapting another iconic Marvel character for the silver screen. While many might have gone through a slew of Spider-Man characters, no one very likely didn’t think it would end up being El Muerto. The character had only a tiny role in the comics and seemed like the last character anyone would expect to get their own film.

    Overall, it seems a big push is from singer and actor Bad Bunny, who wants to portray the character in the Sony film. Most expected that the film may lose steam quite a bit and with the WGA strike, they may have just postponed the production indefinitely. Surprisingly though, Collider is reporting that the film may very likely start production in August.

    We don’t know if this film might be more of a standalone project and just hint at the wider universe. It would seem rather bizarre to include this character as part of a Sinister Six that was teased during Morbius. We don’t know if Venom might also tie into this universe given that a third film is on the horizon, which may potentially even be a final entry for Tom Hardy’s time with the franchise.

    Source: Collider