Confirming earlier reports, Marvel has successfully lured its most successful directing team, Anthony and Joseph Russo, back to their Cinematic Universe. The two directors will tackle the next two Avengers movies. The first of these has been retitled Avengers: Doomsday and will be released in May 2026, with Avengers: Secret Wars to follow in May 2027. But the Russo Brothers and Kevin Feige also confirmed an old friend will be returning.
Robert Downey Jr., who previously played Tony Stark/Iron Man in nine Marvel movies, is rejoining the MCU as iconic supervillain Dr. Victor von Doom. The announcement was made at the San Diego Comic-Con yesterday.
The role of Dr. Doom, the ruler of Latveria who wants to bring about global order under his rule, was previously played in live action by Joseph Culp in Roger Corman's 1994 movie, Julian McMahon in the 2005 movie and its sequel Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Toby Kebbell in the 2015 film.
The Russo Brothers' longtime writing partner, Stephen McFeely, is also taking over scripting duties on both new films. He previously co-wrote Captain America: The Winter Solder, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the four films previously helmed by the Brothers.
The move represents a near-inevitable pivot by Marvel Studios once actor Jonathan Majors was convicted of misdemeanour assault and harassment in December 2023. Majors had played the villainous Kangs and various alternate timeline versions of the same character in numerous projects leading up to the next Avengers face-off. Marvel had mused recasting, but, given his last appearance in Season 2 of Loki acted as a good pause point for the character, they have instead decided to move to a different story. It may be they return to the Kang storyline with a new actor at a later date, although perhaps they could be forgiven for just writing off the whole thing as a bad idea and moving on.
Speculation will now be rife that Doom - primarily a Fantastic Four villain before appearing with other Marvel characters - may appear or at least cameo in the 1960s-set The Fantastic 4: First Steps (as it was recently retitled), which is due in cinemas on 25 July, 2025 (although the main villain has already been confirmed to be Ralph Ineson's Galactus). It was also confirmed at the Marvel panel that the Fantastic Four will be (similar to Steve Rogers) travelling to the present to fight Dr. Doom in the two new Avengers films.
Given Marvel's recent creative woes, you can't fault them for turning back to their "dream team" to drag them back to the glory days, although some may also feel it's a shame they could not find a firmer footing with new talent to drive them to new levels of success.
The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Disney and the Russo Brothers are in talks about a return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Russo Brothers have apparently been offered the job of directing both The Avengers 5 and 6 (not the final titles), due in 2026 and 2027 respectively.
Anthony and Joseph Russo initially made their name as directors in television, helming episodes of Arrested Development (2003-06) before achieving critical acclaim as frequent directors on Community (2009-14). They established themselves in film directing Welcome to Collinwood (2002) and You, Me and Dupree (2006) before joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe and directing Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), as well as working on the TV series Agent Carter (2015).
The directors are credited with being instrumental in the success of "the golden age" of the MCU, running roughly from The Winter Soldier to Endgame, when the franchise's critical and commercial success were both at their height. Endgame was the highest-grossing movie of all time shortly after release, although it was subsequently pushed back down by a re-release of James Cameron's Avatar and then the release of its sequel.
The Russos decided to get out whilst the going was good and have focused on developing other projects, directing Cherry and The Gray Man and producing shows including Amazon's expensive flop Citadel. They are currently in post-production on a new film directed by them, The Electric State, for Netflix.
The MCU has carried on into a new era, but one that has been decidedly patchier than what came before, with both critical and commercial performances dropping significantly from the Russo era.
With both sides' post-Endgame performance being questionable, them joining forces once more makes a lot of sense. Marvel needs the Brothers' proven ability to shape complex stories with large casts into box office gold.
However, the move may be seen as desperation on Marvel's part given the chaos that has recently engulfed their plans. Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy apparently turned down the gig after reading the draft script, whilst Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi) had previously been announced in the role of director but then withdrew to focus on a Shang-Chi sequel that has still not materialised. The two movies were being developed as one project, under the titles The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars, culminating a story arc revolving around the character of Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors). This plan had to be shelved quickly after Majors was arrested for assault and subsequently found guilty; Marvel terminated their contract with him. The two films are now apparently being rewritten to revolve around a new threat, with the intervening projects (such as Captain America: Brave New World, due in early 2025) being rejigged to set up this new storyline.
The Russos are not believed to have accepted the offer yet, and negotiations are in the early stages, but there seems at least a reasonable chance this might come to pass. If it does, expect the timeline to be changed and the movies probably dropped back whilst new scripts are put into place.
More than thirty years ago, Skrull refugees on Earth reached a deal with Nick Fury and SHIELD that they would work undercover for the organisation, using their amazing shapeshifting skills, in return for SHIELD's help in locating a new homeworld for them. Unfortunately, some of the Skrulls are unhappy with the length of time it has taken Fury to deliver on his promise, and instigate a new plan: to take Earth as their new home. Fury and his old Skrull friend Talos join forces to defeat the rebels' plan, but find fighting an army of shapeshifters is incredibly hard, even with shapeshifters of their own to help.
Secret Invasion is, in almost all respects, a television series. It is six episodes long, and features sequential events that build to tell a story. If this sounds like a very dull and overly pedantic description, that's because Secret Invasion is possibly the ultimate example of Extruded Franchise Product: something that exists to make money and to keep fans ticking over until the Next Thing in the franchise appears to take their money. It does not dare to innovate, say or do anything interesting. It simply exists, without much in the way of passion or engagement.
Exactly how you make this premise the most boring entry of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date is a matter for conjecture. You have an outrageously good cast, including Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Olivia Coleman, Don Cheadle, Cobie Smulders, Martin Freeman (in a much smaller-than-expected role), Emilia Clarke and a bunch of promising newcomers. The most notable of these is Kingsley Ben-Adir who shows some fire as main antagonist Gravik but is let down by the indifferent writing. Everyone else phones their performances in, apart from Olivia Coleman who is having more fun than everybody else on the show combined, and Don Cheadle, who gets a few great scenes as the sarcastic Skrull-disguised-as-Rhodey. Perhaps a sign that Cheadle should get more villainous roles in the future.
The show also has a remarkable air of topicality: the rebel Skrull plan is to trigger a third world war by undertaking attacks on Russian and NATO soil and getting them to blame one another. In one decidedly bonkers moment, we learn that Russian forces are moving into Ukraine (the show was written and partially filmed before the February 2022 invasion, but completed shooting and post-production afterwards). There is also a lot of commentary on how to handle refugees and deal with displaced populations. However, any potential for the show to speak to our current moment is lost by the writing resolutely steering away from such things, presumably because it just wants to be escapist entertainment (which is a bit hard when the show leans so hard into modern-feeling issues).
Still, you could still have a good show if anybody felt like they were actually invested in this idea. Much has been made of the opening title sequence, which was partially generated by artificial intelligence. I'm surprised there hasn't been more attention paid to if the script was written by artificial intelligence as well. It feels like a greatest hits of Marvel and thriller tropes thrown into a blender and the results fired at a wall to see what sticks, but with almost no passion or excitement about the ideas in play.
The show's biggest mistake is wasting Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson is a fantastic, charismatic performer, but here he is depicted as filled with self-doubt. On one level, it's great that the show allows Jackson's Fury to be human and flawed, and weighed down in the latter part of his life by everything he's done. But that would require an outstanding pedigree of writing and direction to pull off, which is not the case here. Jackson instead often comes across as bored, with flat line deliveries. He sometimes sparks into life, and the show is at its best when he and Mendelsohn are exchanging quips or he and Cheadle are engaged in dramatic face-offs. But these moments are relatively few and far between.
Secret Invasion (**) should be a home run: one of the most popular performers in the MCU in a (relatively) grounded, near-future thriller, packed with interesting and - if inadvertently - topical ideas. Instead it feels tired, bored and out of gas. There are flashes of quality, a few good performances, a couple of solid character scenes, some nice action beats, but these are separated by yawning voids of mediocrity. Easily the weakest MCU TV show to date and a strong claimant to being the weakest instalment of the MCU as a whole.
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Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige has taken to the stage at the San Diego Comic-Con to outline the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Feige confirmed an ambitious release schedule taking the franchise through its fourth and fifth phases and even into a sixth, and even confirmed that the second major arc of the MCU will go by over-arching title The Multiverse Saga, just as the first three phases became known as The Infinity Saga.
The next instalment of the franchise launches on 17 August 2022 with the 9-episode Disney+ series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, which has a lighter tone. It features Jennifer Walters (Orphan Black's Tatiana Maslany), a skilled attorney and the cousin of Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). When Walters is injured in a car crash, Banner has to use his scientific know-how to save her...which inadvertently grants her powers similar to his own. Whilst the media is excited over the emergence of the "She-Hulk", Walters has to balance her new abilities with her career and her own life. Walters' newfound fame sees her assigned to defend Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), the Abomination who tried to kill her cousin in The Incredible Hulk (2008). Benedict Wong also reprises his role as Wong, the new Sorcerer Supreme, and Charlie Cox makes his second appearance in the MCU as Matt Murdock/Daredevil. Jameela Jamil, Ginger Gonzaga, Renee Elise Goldsberry also star.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will mark the end of Phase 4 on 11 November. The plot deals with Wakanda dealing with the passing of King T'Challa, the Black Panther (reflecting the untimely passing of star Chadwick Boseman in August 2020 from cancer) and the question of the succession. Ramonda (Angela Bassett), has taken over as the Queen Mother of Wakanda until the matter is settled. However, Wakanda is threatened by a new conflict with an underwater kingdom led by Namor (Tenoch Huerta) and a group of allies led by Shuri (Letitita Wright) and Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o) must help lead Wakanda to safety. Dominique Thorne debuts as genius inventor Ririr Williams/Ironheart. Ryan Coogler directs.
Airing around Christmas this year is The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, a live-action special focusing on the titular Guardians. Inspired by the disastrous Star Wars Holiday Special, the episode features the main castmembers of the Guardians of the Galaxy film series: Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), Groot (Vin Diesel), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff). The special takes place between Thor: Love and Thunder and Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3, and was filmed alongside and on the same sets as the latter. According to rumour, the plot may involve Groot returning to his mysterious homeworld whilst Quill tries to imbue the Christmas spirit in his baffled ship-mates. James Gunn directs.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania kicks off Phase 5 on 17 February 2023. The third Ant-Man film sees the return of Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and Hope Pym/Wasp (Evangeline Lilly). The two team up to defeat a new multiverse-spanning threat unleashed by Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors). Majors previously portrayed "He Who Remains" in the first season of Loki and notes that Kang is an alternate timeline version of the same character, but has a very different personality. Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer also return as Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne. Bill Murray will also star and the popular Marvel Comics villain MODOK will also appear (the conclusion that Murray will play MODOK does not appear unreasonable). Peyton Reed directs.
The 6-part Disney+ mini-series Secret Invasion arrives in Spring 2023 and sees Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) teaming up with Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) and James Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle) to face down a serious threat to Earth emanating from outer space. SHIELD's successor/spaceborn partner organisation SWORD is expected to feature. Kingsley Ben-Adir plays the lead villain, with Olivia Colman, Emilia Clarke, Killian Scott, Christopher McDonald and Carmen Ejogo in undisclosed roles. Dermot Mulroney plays US President Ritson.
Launching on 5 May 2023, Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3 will mark the end of the space franchise, almost nine years after it began. The film's plot appears to revolve around Peter's ongoing attempts to win back Gamora, despite "this" version of Gamora being from another timeline who has no memory of him, whilst the Guardians are hunted down by Adam, a powerful being unleashed by the Sovereign at the end of Volume 2. The team also has to explore Rocket's origins, as he is being tracked by his creator for nefarious purposes. The main antagonists are expected to be Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) and the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji). The main Guardians cast returns: Peter Quill/Star Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), Groot (Vin Diesel), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and Kraglin (Sean Bugg). Ayesa of the Sovereign (Elizabeth Debicki) and Stakar Ogord (Sylvester Stallone) are also returning. Maria Bakalova will play Cosmo the Spacedog and Daniela Melchior, Nico Santos and Callie Brand will appear in undisclosed roles. James Gunn directs.
Launching in Summer 2023, Echo is a Disney+ series focusing on the character of Maya Lopez/Echo (Alaqua Cox), who debuted in Hawkeye. The plot sees Echo returning to her home town to confront her past and reconnect with her Native American roots. The series will see Zahn McClarnon reprise his role as Maya's father, William Lopez, in flashback scenes. Vincent D'Onofrio will also return as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin, and Charlie Cox will return as Matt Murdock/Daredevil. According to rumours, Daredevil is searching for his former ally Jessica Jones, who has gone missing, and enlists Echo's help. However, there have been no reports of Jessica Jones actress Krysten Ritter joining the project.
Arriving on 28 July 2023, The Marvels sees Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) joining forces with Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) and Monica Rambeau/Spectrum (Teyonah Parris) to tackle a new threat related to the mysterious Nega-Bands. Samuel L. Jackson returns as Nick Fury, whilst Saagar Shaikh, Zenobia Shroff and Mohan Kapur reprise their roles as Kamala's family members Aamir, Muneeba and Yusuf respectively, from Ms. Marvel. Zawe Ashton plays a villain and Park Seo-joon has also been cast in an unrevealed role. Nia DaCosta directs.
Returning in summer 2023, Loki is the first Disney+ show to get a second season. The premise sees the Time Variance Authority having been transformed by a shift in the timeline, with the TVA now under the authority of Kang the Conqueror and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) having to navigate this transformed world. Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Ravonna), Eugene Cordero (Casey), Owen Wilson (Mobius) and Sophia Di Martino (Sylvie) also return from Season 1. Rafael Casal also joins the cast. There is no word on if Jonathan Majors will return as Kang.
Staking his way to 3 November 2023, the OG Marvel Studios character makes his debut in the MCU continuity. Mahershala Ali takes over from Wesley Snipes as the daywalking half-vampire vampire-slayer (he has a lot of backstory). According to rumour, Kit Harington will reprise his role as Dane Whitman/Black Knight. Bassam Tariq directs.
Debuting in Autumn 2023, Ironheart is a six-part TV series focusing on the character of Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), a genius inventor who, inspired by Iron Man, creates her own suit of armour. Williams is due to appear first in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Anthony Ramos, Manny Montana and Alden Ehrenreich have been cast in undisclosed roles.
A spin-off from WandaVision, Coven of Chaos is a mini-series focusing on the character of Agatha Harknesss (Kathryn Hahn), a powerful witch who was defeated in battle by the Scarlet Witch. Hahn's breakout performance and musical number attracted significant acclaim for WandaVision. The series is scheduled for winter 2023.
Captain America: New World Order sees Anthony Mackie step up as Sam Wilson, the former Falcon who is the new Captain America. Julius Onah will direct. The film is set for release on 3 May 2024.
Having briefly appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home, She-Hulk and Echo, Matt Murdock will return prominently in Daredevil: Born Again. This is the most epic Disney+ series to date, with 18 episodes planned for Spring 2024. So far, no word on the plot or if any of the other castmembers from the Netflix Daredevil show will reprise their roles.
Hitting cinemas on 26 July 2024, Thunderbolts will be the last film in Phase 5. The film sees a group of former MCU villains being recruited to undertake a dangerous mission. Jake Schreier directs.
No casting has been announced but potential candidates include Baron Zemo (Daniel Bruhl) from Avengers: Civil War and Falcon & Winter Soldier; Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) from Ant-Man and the Wasp; Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) from Black Widow and Hawkeye; Emil Blonsky/Abomination (Tim Roth) from The Incredible Hulk and She-Hulk; Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) from Doctor Strange; John Walker/US Agent (Wyatt Russell) from Falcon & Winter Soldier and Contessa Valentina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus).
The Fantastic Four join the MCU on 8 November 2024, although at the moment they don't have a director, as Jon Watts had previously signed on but then jumped ship internally to handle the Star Wars: Skeleton Crew series. Rumours have been circulating around Ant-Man director Peyton Reed being considered for the gig. No casting has been announced so far, but John Krasinski played an alternate-reality version of Reed Richards in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (and his real-life wife Emily Blunt is a popular fancasting for Sue Storm). Nothing is known about the film except it will launch Phase 6 of the MCU.
The Avengers return with a new duology, emulating the Infinity War/Endgame two-punch of 2018-19. The Kang Dynasty presumably sees Kang setting up a multiverse showdown that will lead into Secret Wars. The various Secret Wars events in the comics have seen a large number of MCU heroes and villains abducted to another planet or dimension where they are forced to do battle for various purposes. What is interesting is that these films are either falling very early in Phase 6, or Phase 6 will be the shortest phase of the entire MCU to date, suggesting they may mark more the start of a major story than necessarily its end. No directors have been attached so far and it's unclear which Avengers will be present, although it could see a mix of the remaining Avengers from the first four films (Thor, Hawkeye, Hulk, War Machine, Captain America, Winter Soldier, Ant-Man, Captain Marvel, maybe Spider-Man) and a new generation of Avengers ready to take up the mantle (Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk, Kate Bishop, Yelena Belova, Ironheart, Blade, Echo, the Fantastic Four).
What is also interesting is what is not mentioned: no mention at all of second seasons for Hawkeye, Moon Knight or Ms. Marvel, and the previously-mooted sequels for Eternals, Shang-Chi and Thor: Love & Thunder are also not mentioned. The status of Spider-Man is also in flux, despite No Way Home suggesting further adventures for the character. The X-Men, who were widely expected to debut in the MCU in an upcoming phase, are also still MIA, although there is speculation that they will cross over into the MCU during the events of Secret Wars. Also left unmentioned is Deadpool 3, although it's already in pre-production.
The release schedule moving forwards now looks like this:
Phase 4
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law - Season 1 (17 August 2022, Disney+)
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (11 November 2022, cinemas)
Phase 5
The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special (December 2022, Disney+)
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (17 February 2023, cinemas)
Secret Invasion (Spring 2023, Disney+)
Guardians of the Galaxy - Volume 3 (5 May 2023, cinemas)
Echo - Season 1 (Summer 2023, Disney+)
The Marvels (28 July 2023, cinemas)
Loki - Season 2 (Summer 2023, Disney+)
Blade (3 November 2023, cinemas)
Ironheart - Season 1 (Autumn 2023, Disney+)
Agatha - Coven of Chaos (Winter 2023, Disney+)
Captain America - New World Order (3 May 2024, cinemas)
Daredevil - Born Again - Season 1 (Spring 2024, Disney+)
Thunderbolts (26 July 2024, cinemas)
Phase 6
Fantastic Four (8 November 2024, cinemas)
Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (2 May 2025, cinemas)
Avengers: Secret Wars (7 November 2025, cinemas)
Feige did leave a lot of blank space on the Phase Six roster, with additional projects slated for autumn 2024 (two of them), winter 2024 (two), spring 2025 (two) and summer 2025 (two). That's eight untitled projects which have launch windows but no titles yet.
More information may also be revealed at the D23 Disney convention next month.
Marvel have unveiled the first trailer for their upcoming streaming series She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. The series debuts on 17 August.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law follows lawyer Jennifer Walters, the cousin of Bruce Banner, better known as the Incredible Hulk. When Walters is injured, her cousin saves her by donating some of his blood, leading her to gaining his powers of transformation, albeit at a lesser scale. Walters has to adapt to life as She-Hulk, including unwanted fame and her newfound ability to tear metal doors off their hinges (aided by somewhat questionable CGI).
The series stars Canadian actress Tatiana Maslany, who won an Emmy Award for Best Actress for playing multiple characters in the clone-based drama Orphan Black. Mark Ruffalo reprises his role as Bruce Banner/Hulk from the Marvel movies, whilst Tim Roth return as Emil Blonsky/Abomination. He previously played the character in The Incredible Hulk (2008) and briefly voiced the character in an uncredited cameo in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Five Rings (2021). Benedict Wong also returns as Wong, having played the character previously in Doctor Strange (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Five Rings (2021), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022).
Other actors announced for the project include Ginger Gonzaga as Nikki, Jameela Jamil as Titania, Renee Elise Goldsberry as Amelia, and Josh Segarra, Jon Bass, Anais Almonte, Nicholas Cirillo and David Otunga in undisclosed roles.
Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk is a popular Marvel character, having debuted in The Savage She-Hulk's first issue in 1980. She was created by Stan Lee and artist John Buscema, initially as a female version of the Hulk but with some differences, most notably retaining her personality and intelligence after her transformations. In the comics, She-Hulk has been a member of multiple organisations, including the Avengers, Defenders and SHIELD.
The season will consist of nine half-hour episodes, with a lighter and more comedic feel than some of the other Marvel projects. The show is being set up to lead into additional seasons if successful, with Kevin Feige noting that Walters' job as a lawyer for superheroes could see her showing up in other Marvel movies and series.
Kate Bishop, a young archer and Hawkeye super-fan, unexpectedly teams up with her hero when Clint Barton finds himself embroiled in a criminal conspiracy in New York City. Clint and Kate have to investigate a mystery, defeat the bad guys, take care of a dog and make sure Clint gets home in time to have Christmas with his family.
A bit like the character of Black Widow, it feels like the Marvel Cinematic Universe has sometimes undervalued Clint "Hawkeye" Barton. Hawkeye has been hanging around, helping save the world since Thor (2011) but has played second fiddle to the space gods, guys in super-powered armour and giant green monsters. Just as the film Black Widow tried to right that wrong by giving Natasha more to do, so the Hawkeye mini-series tries to show Clint Barton some appreciation, and is fortunately much more successful.
Hawkeye is pure, knock-about fun. After the weirdness of WandaVision and Loki, this show gets back to basics. A guy with a bow and arrow solving problems in New York City, helped out by a new protege. The bad guys are criminals, there's no reshaping of the space/time continuum and there's a fair few other Marvel cameos and references to keep fans happy.
The show rests on the charisma of Hailee Steinfield as Kate Bishop and this is a good thing, because she has it in spades. Stanfield is irrepressible in her role as someone who becomes a superhero and has a huge amount of fun on it. Jeremy Renner starts off by delivering his normally effective-but-quiet performance as Barton, but is soon infected by his new partner's enthusiasm. His laconic humour kicks in and he shakes the blues of having to confront the deaths of some of his best friends to embrace his new role as a mentor.
Florence Pugh drops by as Yelena Belova, reprising her role from Black Widow, and is even better here, with a line in sparkling banter with Kate Bishop that makes you want a full buddy team-up TV show featuring the two of them. The rest of the supporting cast is also great, from Kate's ambitious mother to the members of the criminal gang known as the "Tracksuit Mafia," who are surprisingly keen on gossip and oversharing. Alaqua Cox is also very promising as Maya Lopez, who is slated for her own spin-off show, Echo. Of course, the dog is an instant big hit.
The show's tone sometimes gets a bit darker, but mostly is on the light side: it's a Christmas caper in New York City which is not as twee and annoying as it sounds. The pacing is solid, the humour mostly lands and the infectious performances of the main cast make for a fun time.
The main complaint - beyond that the show might be a bit too light and frothy for its own good - is that the determination to keep the main villain a secret until the final episode means that the villain gets very little development, and because it's unclear if their previous appearances actually happened or not (since they're a transplant from the Netflix Marvel show, whose canonical status is still a bit up in the air), it's hard to work out what's going on with them. The fact they are almost immediately defeated doesn't help with that.
Still, Hawkeye's first, and for now only, season (****) is a winner. It's fun and it doesn't outstay its welcome, at the cost of feeling maybe a little disposable at times. The show is available to watch now worldwide on Disney+.
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Loki has escaped from the Battle of New York with the help of the Tesseract, which he recovered from a time-travelling band of Avengers. Loki's joy is short-lived when he is apprehended by the Time Variance Authority (TVA), which eliminates rogue elements that threaten the "Sacred Timeline." The variant Loki faces deletion until he proves his own usefulness, something that could make him a potential new agent for the TVA.
If the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe can be said to have one outstanding breakout character and actor, there's a strong chance most people would say it was Tom Hiddleston's Loki. Since his debut in 2011's Thor, Hiddleston's formidable acting jobs, superb comic timing, gravitas and ability to turn his performance on a dime has made him one of the most popular actors in the genre. It was fitting, after the length redemption arc he went through in Thor: Ragnarok (2017) that he was allowed to die heroically, fighting the evil Thanos, in Avengers: Infinity War (2018). But, Marvel being the canny exploiters of character popularity that they are, wasted no time in restoring Loki to the MCU via time travel in the following year's Avengers: Endgame. Loki lives!
Loki is the third TV show produced by Kevin Feige as part of the canonical Marvel Cinematic Universe (earlier TV shows, like those produced by Netflix, are in various stages of being retconned into the canon), following WandaVision and The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, but it is the first planned to be a multi-season TV show rather than a mini-series (a second season is in pre-production). This allows the show more time to breathe, which is good because it has a lot going on.
Loki can be best-described as "the MCU does Doctor Who." Loki and his TVA colleagues get into various hijinks in time and space, with the TVA cleaning up damage to the timeline and restoring things so they make sense again. Loki is partnered up with Mobius, played with typical laconic charisma by Owen Wilson. Disappointingly, their partnership (played up in promo material) is not as dominant as might be expected, with Loki spending most of his time allied to Sylvie, a female variant of Loki from another timeline. Played exceptionally by Sophia Di Martino, Sylvie is a worthy foil for Loki with the two sharing a nice chemistry on-screen.
The episodic appeal of an MCU Doctor Who is briefly compelling but, aware it only has six episodes to get stuff done, the show quickly pivots into being a thorough exploration and deconstruction of Loki. "This" Loki missed the events of Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War, and as such has not gone through the redemption arc the original went through. This means that we are dealing with full-on supervillain Loki, apprehended whilst he was still in the middle of trashing New York City, and he has to undergo his own redemption arc. This risks being redundant but Marvel makes it work through sheer charisma - Hiddleston is still one of the heaviest weapons in the MCU arsenal and has possibly never been better than during this show - and also by underselling this Loki's villainy a little bit. It does feel like this Loki switches from villain to hero a bit too easily considering where he started, but given we've already seen Loki's capacity for good and also the need to get on with fresh business, the rapidity of his turn to good can be borne.
The latter half of the series gets a lot weirder and more epic, with multiple Lokis, various planets exploding or crashing into each other, more shifts in the timeline and huge revelations that should have an impact on the future of the MCU.
Negatives are minor: the tight, six-episode runtime means some ideas are under-serviced. A couple more episodes with Loki as a Time Cop could have been great, and the revelations at the end of the show risk feeling a little rushed. But the negatives are fairly minor.
Great pacing, effects and performances uplift one of the oddest and most interesting slices from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date. Loki's first season (****½) is enjoyably odd. The season is available worldwide now on Disney+.
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A thousand years ago, the warlord Xu Wenwu discovered the mystical Ten Rings and gained tremendous powers, including immortality. Wenwu has guided world affairs from behind the scenes ever since, becoming wealthy and powerful. However in 1996 he met and fell in love with a skilled female warrior, Ying Li, guardian of the hidden village of Ta Lo. They had two children. More than twenty years later, after Ying Li's death, Shang-Chi and his sister are summoned back to their father for an important task: rescuing their mother's spirit.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings marks the proper start of the fourth phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Black Widow being more of an epilogue to the first three). New heroes are arising to deal with a series of threats to a world which is still recovering from the trauma of losing and regaining half its population. Twenty-five movies into a franchise, you could forgive the MCU for slowing down and smelling the roses, but Shang-Chi has no interest in conforming to cliche. Instead, it acts as a breath of fresh air in telling a complete story in its own right as well as hinting at grander things to come.
The film focuses on Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, Awkwafina as his best friend Katy and Meng'er Zhang as Shang-Chi's estranged sister, Xu Xialing. Early scenes have a buddy movie feeling, with Awkwafina stealing every single scene with her impressive comic timing and everywoman WTF responses to the general insanity that goes down, but Liu holds his own thanks to a combination of natural charisma, impressive athletic skills and his own comic timing, honed over five seasons of the TV show Kim's Convenience (seemingly alluded to in a scene where he's mistaken for being Korean).
Hong Kong legend Tony Leung plays Xu Wenwu, who is contemptuous of both the nickname "The Mandarin" (feeling bemused at being referred to as an orange) and the terrorists who used his name to inspire terror across America. Leung achieves an impressive feat by making Wenwu both understandable and sympathetic, despite his undoubted crimes, and giving him a credible motivation revolving around the death of his wife Ying Li (an outstanding Fala Chen, given the small number of scenes she's in). Ben Kingsley also reprises his role as Trevor Slattery from Iron Man 3, where he impersonated the Mandarin, and although it feels like he's basically shown up to apologise for that film, he also has some great character moments showing how prison actually worked in reforming him into a more positive person.
The film's signature attraction are the phenomenal action scenes. We've seen a lot of action in the MCU but not quite like this, with a pitch-note perfect combination of visceral, in-camera martial arts performed by actors and stuntmen at the top of their game (the opening bus fight is a masterclass in mixing tight hand-to-hand combat and more fantastical effects-driven carnage), and just the right dusting of CGI to complement but not overwhelm the action, at least until the inevitable Big Marvel Conclusion. Even that works better than most of the films, with the elaborate CGI being tactically deployed in imaginative and genuinely impressive ways. There's some particularly excellent creature work in the finale which feels impressive in its scale and mythic power.
The film is not perfect. Stepping back, the story of a semi-hidden society of more-advanced-than-they-look people who rally for an epic final battle does perhaps enjoy a few closer beats with Black Panther than was strictly necessary, and the mystical hidden city in a remote part of Asia is a trope we've seen several times in this franchise already (in both Doctor Strange and the underwhelming Iron Fist series on Netflix). However, these issues feel relatively minor.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (****½) gets the MCU back on track after the disappointing Black Widow. It has easily the best action and hand-to-hand combat scenes in the entire franchise to date, some excellent comic moments and one of the best, most human villains in the franchise. Great performances, well-handled action and impressive CGI make for an enjoyable blockbuster experience. The film is on general worldwide release now and will hit Disney+ in November.
In 1995, two Russian undercover agents in Ohio steal military secrets from SHIELD and escape to Cuba. The agents' two adopted children, Natasha and Yelena, are taken to the Red Room to train as Black Widows, elite agents. Twenty-one years later, Natasha and Yelena meet again when they discover that their former boss is trying to eliminate them. They have to reunite their family to take on an old enemy.
Black Widow is a bit of an oddball movie. It feels like a bit of an apologetic afterthought, Disney and Marvel giving Scarlett Johansson her own movie after a solid decade of playing great support to Iron Man, Captain America and the Avengers in general. However, the movie also feels a little undercooked in terms of ideas and characterisation, whilst overcooked in terms of effects.
The film picks up after Captain America: Civil War and seems to be trying to achieve the same kind of grounded realism as the prior instalment in that sub-series, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. This makes sense, as Natasha/Black Widow is one of the least-overpowered heroes in the franchise, being solely reliant on her wits, intelligence and firearms skills. These are formidable, but the movie keeps putting her in slightly ridiculous situations where she's fighting off supersoldiers or running through exploding buildings. Things that would feel perfectly acceptable in a higher-powered Avengers movie feel off here, like Marvel are wasting one of their best assets who works best when the stakes and scope are a bit more focused and less grandiose.
The film is not helped by one of the weakest villains in the franchise: Ray Winstone is a phenomenal actor, capable of comedy and dramatic intensity, but is wasted here with poor writing and motivations, and forcing him to speak with a truly terrible accent. Most of the other actors do better, although you do wonder why there's barely any Russian actors in a film where most of the cast is Russian or from the former Soviet bloc. Rachel Weisz and David Harbour both provide solid support, but it's Florence Pugh who emerges as the movie's MVP with a terrific performance, melding comedy, pathos and tragedy, with a great handling of action. If Pugh has been positioned to inherit Scarlett Johansson's mantle, the film does a pretty good job of that handover.
In other areas the film is only adequate, with a few good action setpieces (Black Widow versus Taskmaster on the bridge), some decent ones (the prison breakout) and some pretty awful ones, drowned in iffy CGI (the grand finale). It's good to see what Natasha and Clint finally did in Budapest, even if it's let down a little by Jeremy Renner not appearing on-screen, and the ending does absolve Natasha of a lot of the guilt she's been carrying around for the whole franchise. I can see why they wanted to do that to the character ahead of her fate in Endgame, but it does sand off the rough, morally ambiguous edges to one of the MCU's most (hitherto) morally compromised and interesting figures.
Black Widow (***) is sold but a little uninspired. It feels a bit too late in the day, and does not service Scarlett Johansson as well as she deserves. However, if the film is not great, it's also not offensively awful and emerges as worth watching for Florence Pugh's scene-and-movie-stealing performance. The film is available via Disney+ worldwide now.
Marvel announced the movie back in July 2019, adding it almost as an afterthought to a packed slate of TV shows and movies (which, thanks to COVID, has only just started hitting screens). Mahershala Ali had campaigned vigorously to play the character in the MCU, leveraging his Oscar win (which became two the following year) and hot profile to convince Kevin Feige to sign him up.
Wesley Snipes had previously played the character in Blade (1998), Blade 2 (2002) and Blade: Trinity (2004), as well as playing a satirical version of the character in the Season 1 finale of What We Do in the Shadows (in an episode directed by and co-starring MCU stalwart Taika Waititi) in 2019. Marvel regards the Blade trilogy fondly, considering it their first studio project and paving the way for Iron Man ten years later. Reportedly, Marvel had previously considered retaining the films in canon and having Snipes appear in the current MCU, but had ultimately decided not to go in that direction.
Development of the project was hit by the COVID pandemic but now seems on track, with screenwriter Stacy Osei-Kuffour (HBO's Watchmen) signed up earlier this year and now director Bassam Tariq (Mogul Mowgli) on board to helm the picture.
The film is likely to shoot in 2022 for a potential 2023 release date.
The Avengers have saved the world, but at a heavy cost. In the aftermath of the "Blip," life is returning to normal and those who vanished from the world for five years are having to work hard to find their way back into life, including Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes. Sam has been left the mantle of Captain America but has not felt worthy to accept it, and is conflicted when the US government asks another soldier to step up. Barnes is trying to atone for the evil he did as the super-assassin known as the Winter Soldier. When a new threat arises, Wilson and Barnes reluctantly team up to tackle it.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was originally slated as the first Disney+ original series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and actually created by the same team who worked on the movies, but COVID filming restrictions and rumoured extensive reshoots delayed it until after the debut of WandaVision. In the original plan you can see Falcon and Winter Soldier giving audiences a big, Marvel-style action spectacle before hitting them with the much weirder and more metafictional WandaVision, but circumstances reversed that order, which worked to WandaVision's benefit - a bolder, more original and stranger show than many were expecting - and unfortunately to Falcon and Winter Soldier's detriment.
That's not to say it's a terrible show. It's very competently written on a scene-by-scene basis and the cast are mostly excellent, from a returning Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan as the titular stars to the also-returning Daniel Bruhl and Emily VanCamp (both last seen in Captain America: Civil War as Baron Zemo and Sharon Carter). Wyatt Russell is splendidly annoying as the "new" Captain America, John Walker, and Erin Kellyman gives a measured, interesting performance as antagonist Karli Morgenthau.
The show's problems are mostly structural and its attempt to pack too much material into just six episodes. The series tries to be a societal commentary on Sam Wilson becoming the first black Captain America, despite his guilt when he learns what happened to other African-American members of the super-serum project after WWII, whilst exploring the psychological trauma Bucky is dealing with as a former HYDRA stooge and assassin. However, the show also tries to be a Rush Hour/48 Hours/Lethal Weapon-style buddy comedy, a villainous psychological study of both Zemo and Karli, a spy mystery about Sharon Carter and a commentary on immigration and borders. It's too much for the limited screentime and some of these plots are only dealt with briefly and not really mentioned again, like why Sam - a world-famous crime-fighting superhero who helped save the universe and is friends with people like the billionaire owner of Stark Industries - is now broke.
The series is on surer ground when the story focuses in on the two Avengers tackling enemy terrorists or dealing with off-brand WalMart Captain America's anger-management issues. The action sequences are generally quite good, and the visual effects outstanding, even if the opening set-piece of Sam taking down a helicopter sets a level the rest of the series can't really live up to (the expense of that sequence may explain why most of the other big action set-pieces happen at night).
What we're left with is a pretty solid story, but one which can lose focus for stretches of time in an attempt to tackle too many subplots and themes and ends up not really satisfyingly delivering on any them. Still, it does continue WandaVision's exploration of the Blip and how half the world's population vanishing for five years and then returning is a really huge deal rather than something to be brushed under the carpet and moved on from instantly.
Solid performances and outstanding action sequences make the one and only season of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier* (***½) worth watching, but an odd structure and rushed storytelling means it doesn't land as well as it should, and certainly not as engagingly as either of its sister shows in the first wave of MCU TV series, WandaVision and Loki. The show is available worldwide now on Disney+.
* A second season, should it materialise, would be made under the moniker Captain America and the Winter Soldier instead, apparently.
Wanda Maximoff has settled down to an idyllic life in the small, prosperous town of Westview, New Jersey, along with her husband, the synthezoid Vision. They have to navigate protecting their secret identities with the normal trials and tribulations of married and working life. However, there is one slight problem: Vision was destroyed by Thanos five years ago and Wanda is being tracked by both the FBI and SWORD. FBI agent Jimmy Woo, SWORD operative Monica Rambeau and scientist Darcy Lewis are on Wanda's trail, but when they finally find her, they realise things are much weirder than they expected.
The history of Marvel TV shows to date is one of amiable confusion when it comes to canon: shows like Agents of SHIELD, Daredevil and The Punisher were reasonably well-made series which had lots of references to the events of the movies, but little or no love was ever sent back the other way. The closest the movies came to ever acknowledging the shows was when Agent Carter's Jarvis showed up briefly in Avengers: Endgame, played by the same actor as in the show, and one feels that even that might not have happened if the writers and directors of Endgame hadn't also been the main creative force on that show as well. The narrative connection between the two entities broke down entirely in the final seasons of Agents of SHIELD, where the film team's refusal to discuss their plans for Infinity War and Endgame effectively forced the show into a parallel universe altogether.
Thanks to the power of Disney+, the Marvel Studios team can now make their own TV shows, and the power of fortuitous (ish) timing has favoured them. With millions of people stuck at home, they're more willing to pay out for Disney+ and the slate of MCU-made-and-set TV shows coming down the pipe, starring actual actors from the films (and yes, Clark Gregg, Sam Jackson and Jamie Alexander did show up in SHIELD, but with a lot of caveats), has a much wider audience than they might have previously been expecting.
WandaVision is first up in the rotation and it's a curious show to launch this phase of the MCU (and of course it wasn't first choice, being moved up when The Falcon and Winter Soldier was unable to complete its original shooting schedule due to quarantine restrictions). For the first three episodes, viewers will likely be amiably confused. Wanda Maximoff (Elisabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) are the stars of a sitcom, also called WandaVision, and have to disguise their identities as superheroes from their neighbours, friends and work colleagues. At several key moments in these opening episodes (the first two of which are even shot in black-and-white), odd things happen that indicate that something is wrong with the world, or reality itself, but it's unclear what.
The fourth episode flips the format on its head, bringing in Randall Park and Kat Dennings to reprise their movie roles as FBI agent Jimmy Woo (from Ant-Man and the Wasp) and astrophysicist Darcy Lewis (from the first two Thor movies) and teaming them with Teyonah Parris as SWORD operative Monica Rambeau (a younger version of whom appeared in Captain Marvel). It's through this surprisingly effective team - who apparently already have a spin-off show in the development stages - that we learn what's actually going on from the perspective of the outside world. This storyline also gives us a glimpse of the absolute chaos caused by the "Blip" (or "Unsnappening"), when the world's population doubles overnight as a result of the events of Endgame.
The rest of the show unfolds in both formats, mixing the sitcom-in-a-show events in Westview with the more standard MCU hijinks as SWORD tries to work out what's going on and how to defuse the situation.
For much of the show's nine-episode run, it obfuscates exactly what is going on. Has Wanda gone insane or evil? Is someone else manipulating events from behind the scenes? How is Vision back? Answers to these questions are provided, although it takes a little while to get there. WandaVision is, I suspect, a show that will improve immensely in the binge format, where hours or minutes separate questions being raised and answered, rather than weeks.
At nine episodes, the story feels a little stretched, and a couple of the later sitcom episodes do feel a bit redundant. In fact, they could probably have ditched the sitcom elements after the third episode with their narrative purpose fulfilled, as the introduction of the standard MCU elements leaves the sitcom format severely under-utilised in later episodes. The episodes riffing on Malcolm in the Middle and Modern Family in particular feel like they don't take the sitcom structural format in any particularly interesting directions, because they're sharing so much screen time with events outside Westview that are filmed more traditionally. Still, it's hard to say that the show has much filler, especially given the episodes' modest run-times (with a couple clocking in at barely 20 minutes and most around 40 minutes).
The performances are excellent, especially Elisabeth Olsen as she shoulders the majority of the screen time and gets to explore her character in a manner that the films never really afforded. We get flashbacks to her childhood and her time as a "guest" of HYDRA, and we see more of her relationships with her brother and Vision, as well as her longing for a family and something approaching a normal life. Olsen does great work, especially as the show likes to keep Wanda's motivations ambivalent. Is she a villain, a victim or a misguided hero? The show does not provide easy answers to that question, but it certainly succeeds in defining the character better than the previous films in which she appeared. Bettany also gives a flawless performance as Vision, in both his familiar robot superhero and everyday husband guises. There isn't a bum note in the cast, although Josh Stamberg doesn't have much complexity to play in his role as SWORD director Tyler Hayward. The outstanding performance probably has to go to Kathryn Hahn for her portrayal as Agnes, the nosy neighbour who is more than she seems.
In terms of production values, the show looks epic, with vfx sequences that are a match for those of the films and the town of Westview repeatedly redressed to look like everything from the 1950s to the modern day and everything between. If WandaVision is meant to draw a line under all the shows that came before it and say, "No, now we're really playing in the world of the movies," it has certainly succeeded in doing that.
On the minus side of things, some casting choices, mysteries and story points feel almost deliberately designed to provoke online discussion, only for them to turn out to be red herrings or not really matter that much in the long run. For the sake of making for some fun discussion on the initial airing, this does make some story choices and ideas that don't feel entirely logical when viewed as a whole piece. Or to put it another way, the show occasionally feels like it's trolling the audience to evoke a reaction only to go in a completely different direction. There are a few story points here you suspect that they would have not made had they known that the entire show would air in one go.
Overall, though, the first and apparently only season of WandaVision (****) is a winner, with an exemplary cast and impressive production values propping up a focused story of loss, grief and healing. The show is nicely-paced (just nine episodes, many of them under 40 minutes in length) and visually inventive, but is let down a little by some subplots that don't really go anywhere. The show is available to watch worldwide now on Disney+.
Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel Studios and creative directory of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is to collaborate with the team at Lucasfilm on a new Star Wars movie.
The news is surprising because Feige has a pretty busy slate on his hands, with numerous films and TV shows in development in the MCU. However, Feige is also a huge Star Wars fan and with an opening in his schedule (presumably related to the Sony/Marvel Spider-Man break-up), it appears he wants to help out the Lucasfilm team with their slate of upcoming TV shows and films.
There's no word yet on the nature of the project, although at the moment it sounds like a single film and that it will be part of the "new era" of Star Wars films set to follow the release of The Rise of Skywalker in December, which will conclude the story of Rey, Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron and Finn that began with The Force Awakens in 2015. The film will also reportedly end the nine-part, "trilogy of trilogies" extending back to the release of the original Star Wars in 1977.
Disney's handling of the Star Wars franchise has had mixed results, with a well-received TV show (Rebels) and movie (The Force Awakens) followed by The Last Jedi, which had very mixed results, and the animated show Resistance, which has been cancelled after just two seasons and poor reviews. Of the spin-off films, Rogue One did very well but Solo became the first-ever Star Wars film to lose money at the box office, despite a positive critical reception.
These results have led to Lucasfilm delaying the release of the next Star Wars film (after Rise) to 2022. Former Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are developing a multi-film series, whilst The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson is committed to a trilogy of films. Both series are apparently set in a new period of time and a part of the galaxy distinct from previous worlds. Rumours persist that the new wave of Star Wars films - presumably including Feige's - will be set in the Knights of the Old Republic time period, but this remains unconfirmed.
The next Star Wars project to hit the screens will the franchise's first-ever live-action TV show, The Mandalorian, which will help launch the Disney+ streaming service on 12 November this year. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker hits cinemas on 20 December.
