“Avengers Assemble!” I recently sent that text out as I invited my friends to see Avengers: Age of Ultron, which opens in the U.S. on May 1st, 2015. First, I’d like to talk news from the week of April 19th in the wonderful Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Marvel has set itself up for a legacy of superhero movies in the coming years, delving deep into their library of characters. The year 2016 will see the heavily anticipated Captain America: Civil War (with a surprise guest, more on that later) and Doctor Strange, which is still shrouded in mystery and rumor. The film debut for Marvel’s resident wizard will release as the fall blockbuster event. As a side note, it is almost a certainty that Benedict Cumberbatch will play the good Stephen Strange, which I believe is a great, glove-like fit. Cumberbatch turned out amazing performances in both the BBC Sherlock and Star Trek: Into Darkness.
I’m very optimistic for Marvel’s 2017 as well, the titles coming out of that being Guardians of the Galaxy 2 in May of that year, Thor: Ragnarok in July, and Black Panther in November of that same year. The last one is what I’m really excited for. Chadwick Boseman, doing very well as Jackie Robinson in 42 and James Brown in Get On Up, is the top choice to play the warrior king of Wakanda, T’Challa. We can see from this line-up that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is getting bigger and bigger, and fans of both the comics and the movies will appreciate the level of faithfulness these films will display for the comic books. Transitioning from the MCU, Marvel’s Netflix original series Daredevil has been given the green light for a second season. In the bigger picture, Daredevil is simply the first in at least three other shows that will take place on Netflix. These shows will feature four heroes of New York City and its most infamous borough, Hell’s Kitchen. Those heroes, Daredevil not included, are Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and the Iron Fist. Together, they defend Hell’s Kitchen as the Defenders. This superhero group, despite being only street-level, is rumored to be getting a major Netflix show as well by 2018.
Spider-Man, one of the most widely recognized superheroes in history, was one of the first characters that had its film licenses sold by Marvel in order to pull themselves out from bankruptcy. Now that Marvel has been making out like bandits with their movies in recent years, Sony, who had made both the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield interpretations of the classic and iconic webslinger, has decided to collaborate with Marvel Studios to release Marvel’s Spider-Man, which of course would be included in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel has decided on a short list for the web-slinger’s actor, the options are Nat Wolff, Asa Butterfield, Tom Holland, Liam James, and Timothee Chalamet. I’ve looked up the images of these boys, who are all over 18. They look young enough to represent Peter Parker as an awkward high schooler, which I suppose we should all be happy about. However, I think that Andrew Garfield, the Peter Parker of the Amazing Spider-Man, portrayed Spidey’s wit and banter better than I’ve ever seen in Spider-Man movies or TV shows before. I will give these newcomers a chance to prove themselves to me. Well, me and the rest of the Marvel fans. Marvel is also going to be including Spider-Man into Captain America: Civil War, which is a very big deal. I will go into detail with that later.
I’d like to be giving you a review on Avengers: Age of Ultron, but that’s for next week. This is going to be a weekly thing, everybody, so until then, Hail Hydra!
