Marvel Studios Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

This July, Marvel Studios’ first and only feature film release of 2024, “Deadpool & Wolverine.” In the latest installment in The Multiverse Saga, Ryan Reynolds’ merc-with-a-mouth, Wade Wilson, is on the cusp of joining Earth-616 (teased in the first trailer), with Deadpool finally getting paired up with Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in yet another adventure on the big screen. However, director Shawn Levy (“The Adam Project”) cautions that his new sequels are different from the previous two installments during the Fox era of the franchise, which is not so much a solo outing.

While he’d only shot a few films up to that point, thanks to his compelling turn in season four of “Stranger Things,” British actor Joseph Quinn quickly shot into the stratosphere and became a much-in-demand up-and-comer. Following that series, he promptly booked roles in “Gladiator II,” “A Quiet Place: Day One,” and, of course, the much-coveted role of Johnny Storm in Marvel’s upcoming “The Fantastic Four” movie, arriving in the summer of 2025.

Michael Douglas has a death wish. Or at least he does when it comes to his character Hank Pym, the original Ant-Man in the Marvel Studios “Ant-Man” films.

After last year, Marvel Studios finds themselves sitting where they’ve never sat before: the hot seat. “Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania” kicked off the MCU‘s Phase 5 with a thud, “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.

While the Marvel Studios narrative generally goes: an unimpeachable run at the box-office and with critics until 2023’s flop “The Marvels,” a closer inspection of the whole story arguably shows chinks starting to show in the armor during the pandemic. While it’s unfair to compare the box office of pandemic-era movies like “Shang Chi” and “Black Widow” to their non-pandemic counterparts, one film that seemed to take it in the teeth, regardless, was Chloe Zhao’s “Eternals” (read our review here).

Last month, Robert Downey Jr. finally earned an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor thanks to his critically acclaimed performance in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.” And while he’ll next be seen on the small screen in the HBO series “The Sympathizer,” the Oscar-winner, who seemed content to leave Marvel behind in recent years, is now potentially open to returning to the Tony Stark/Iron Man role that helped resurrect his acting career back in 2008. Continue reading Robert Downey Jr.

You’d probably never think that Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley would use promotional time on the period black comedy indie “Wicked Little Letters” to talk about Marvel, but hey, it’s a podcast conversation with lots of room for topics, so here we are. The Academy Award winner (Colman) and Academy Award nominee (Buckley) were on the Happy Sad Confused podcast to promote their aforementioned Sony Pictures Classics comedy that comes out on March 29.

With Marvel’s “The Fantastic Four” leading quartet of heroes cast, Marvel Studios is moving on to some of the adversaries and supporting characters who will appear in the film. The first of them will be Shalla-Bal, a female version of the Silver Surfer.

We’re still a little surprised director Sam Raimi decided to return to the world of Marvel Comics for “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness.” Having already directed a trilogy of “Spider-Man” films and walking away from a fourth film, it had seemed that Raimi had exhausted himself with the genre. But Raimi apparently had a great time making the ‘Doctor Strange’ sequel, and he apparently is willing to do more in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Due in theaters April 12, Zoe Saldana’s next movie is the harrowing immigration drama, “The Absence of Eden,” directed by Marco Perego and starring opposite Garrett Hedlund and Adria Arjona. In the film, Hedlund plays an ICE Agent struggling with the moral dilemmas of border security, and Saldana stars as an undocumented woman fighting to escape a ruthless cartel.

While we await official announcements concerning Marvel and Sony’s fourth “Spider-Man,” the rumor mill keeps churning and delivering what could be an early head’s up to real news. The latest round of rumblings online comes via a report from The Insneider that claims the studio hopes to shoot the fourth installment in the fall, either September or October.

Following the faceplant and failure of “The Marvels” last November—Marvel’s lowest-grossing film of all time and their first big bomb—pundits were seemingly writing an early epitaph for Marvel Studios. But three Marvel cycles later, the super-well-received “What If…?” season two in December, the much-better-than-anticipated reception to the live-action “Echo” series in January, and the glowing reviews of “X-Men ’97 (currently sitting at 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes currently, read our review), things definitely appear to be on the upswing for Marvel.

Marvel Studios/Marvel Animation’s “X-Men ‘97” is out in the world now—it has a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes currently (read our review)—and the face of the series, given that the showrunner was fired just days before release, has been Marvel Executive Brad Winderbaum who is the Head of Streaming, Television, and Animation at Marvel Studios. Winderbaum has done all the press for the series, has been everywhere, and, in a new Men’s Health magazine interview, has shed more light on all things animated in the Marvel universe.

Marvel Studios feels like it’s at a crossroads moment. Between the Sony Pictures yesteryear greatest hits franchise elements of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and the 20th Century Fox-era cameo expectations of “Deadpool & Wolverine,” Marvel is really steeped in the full throws of nostalgia right now as it regroups in the post-“Avengers: Endgame” landscape, rediscovering who they are and where they want to go.

For years, questions have plagued Marvel Studios about their relationship with their TV offshoots. Were those series canon? And if so, why did the movies generally ignore their existence, while the shows were always so thirsty to connect to the movies? The answer to these questions of canon—are they all connected or not canonically— seemed to arrive a few months ago when Disney+ added all of its Netflix series to the official Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline around the release of “Echo,” a series with close ties to Netflix’s “Daredevil.” Fans immediately assumed this meant all the Netflix shows and heroes were now part of the MCU proper, and it turns out they were right.

Recently, actors such as Steven Yeun (“Beef”) and Ayo Edebiri (“The Bear”) exited Marvel’s “Thunderbolts” movie ahead of filming due to scheduling conflicts and multiple production delays, but “Blade” has also lost a cast member exit, too. Actor Aaron Pierre (“Underground Railroad”), who had landed an unnamed part in the studio’s reboot of “Blade,” has revealed to Variety on the red carpet of the 55th NAACP Image Awards that due to the creative changes on the project, he’s “no longer part of that.” “Early on, there were conversations.

Marvel Animation’s “X-Men ’97” is just days away from premiering on Disney+. In the run-up to the series, Marvel exec Brad Winderbaum, a production & development executive at Marvel Studios, is making the press rounds and revealing some fascinating tidbits about how things are changing at Marvel.

“The Marvels” may have been Marvel Studios biggest flop—grossing only $207 million worldwide, the lowest of any Marvel film ever— but now that it’s available on Disney+ and DVD, its co-star Teyonah Parris is urging fans who never saw it in theaters to give it a chance and make up their own minds. Released during the actor’s strike on November 10, which only ended just as the film was opening up, Parris, who plays Captain Monica Rambeau and the rest of the cast— Brie Larson as Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel, and Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan / Ms.

Given all the paparazzi photos out there, which obviously spoil a lot of movie secrets and thus we try and avoid them, it’s probably the worst kept secret in the world for Marvel, but yes, Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson are returning for the Marvel series, “Daredevil: Born Again” which has been shooting for most of this year. Charlie Cox, who stars as Matt Murdoch and the superhero Daredevil, recently confirmed the news to Collider, but again, fans who are eagle-eyed on social media probably know this as ancient news.

Is everyone and their mother in “Deadpool & Wolverine”? Filmmaker Shawn Levy has hinted at cameos several times (as has filmmaker Matthew Vaughn), and so has ‘Deadpool’ actor Karan Soni. The expectation, in general, seems to be: expect a ton, with many speculating that the upcoming third ‘Deadpool’ movie will be a goodbye to the 20th Century Studios era of Marvel movie-making.

There is a large, nostalgic fanbase that has been waiting breathlessly for the return of the “animated” X-Men. The original “X-Men: The Animated Series” ran from 1992-1997 on Fox’s Fox Kids programming block on Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons.

Promoting his new “A Nice Indian Boy” film at SXSW, actor Karan Soni—who plays Wade Wilson’s loyal pal and cab driver Dopinder in the “Deadpool” movies—dished some fun details about “Deadpool & Wolverine,” and previous iterations of the film. While speaking to Screen Rant, the actor reminded everyone that, at one point, “Deadpool 3” was meant to be a Christmas movie.

Katy O’Brian likely hit everyone’s radar after head-turning supporting roles in Disney projects like “The Mandalorian” and “Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania.” The actress is now promoting her new A24 erotic crime thriller “Love Lies Bleeding,” which co-stars Kristen Stewart, and reflected on her time shooting that MCU sequel in a new interview with Entertainment Weekly. O’Brian called the Marvel Studios production “absolutely “chaotic” and said new scenes, rewritten by scribes like Jeff Loveness, were delivered at the last minute.

As we all know by now, “Deadpool & Wolverine,” set for July 26, is Marvel Studios only film for 2024. Speaking at a Morgan Stanley event yesterday, Disney Chief Bob Iger predicted the film will be “one of the most successful Marvel movies we’ve had in a long time.” Clearly, the hype for the film is rising.

Disney CEO Bob Iger remains committed to turning the ship around, but in doing so, admits the company has had to make some hard choices and cancel projects the studio didn’t have 100% belief in. “You have to kill things you no longer believe in, and that’s not easy in this business,” Iger said, speaking at a conference hosted by Morgan Stanley in San Francisco on Tuesday (via THR).

The movies of Marvel may have a sliding scale of entertainment value and quality, but it’s hard to argue that “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” isn’t one of their strongest efforts to date. Chris Evans, recently speaking at The Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle (via Variety), agrees.

Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen major hiccups and pivots across the world of superhero moviemaking. Warner Bros.

Actor Ray Winstone has two Netflix projects on the way: Guy Ritchie’s crime comedy series, “The Gentlemen” (read our review), and “Damsel” opposite Millie Bobbie Brown. But of course, as is custom these days, the actor was asked about his appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Thanks to the growing popularity of his Amazon Prime Video action thriller series “Reacher,” based on the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child, Alan Ritchson’s is starting to really take off. It’s only been on for two seasons but seemingly taken off in the last year and is quickly turning the 6 ft 2 actor into a star.

“Dune: Part Two” is about to open in theaters worldwide on March 1, so most of the cast is out there pounding the pavement of press and getting the word out. One of them is Dave Bautista, who plays Glossu Rabban Harkonnen, nephew of Baron Harkonnen, and one of the baddies in the film who is seemingly usurped by his even more vicious family member Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler).