Welcome to another roundup of Marvel news! There's a lot out there to cover, but rather than writing up every single piece of fresh intel in separate articles, we've collected it for you in one place.
In today's roundup, we have an update on the Marvel movies missing from Disney+, concept art and details on unfilmed scenes for
Avengers: Endgame, Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson's response to Martin Scorsese's recent comments, and a fascination factoid about Kevin Feige and Wolverine.
The highlight, however, has to be seeing Chadwick Boseman's audition for Drax the Destroyer!
There's lots of great content here for fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and beyond), so all you have to do to check it out is click on the "View List" button down below...
Nebula Was Nearly Killed Off In Avengers: Endgame
There's a lot of very interesting concept art in the "Art of" book for
Avengers: Endgame, including a shot of Nebula (the version from the past) wielding the Infinity Gauntlet in front of Rocket.
In an early draft, "she was able to intercept the Stark gauntlet during the massive game of keepaway in the final battle. Wanting to prove to her father Thanos that she is a capable and strong warrior, Nebula tries to use the glove herself– a nod to the 1991 comic book series Infinity Gauntlet by Jim Starlin. This Nebula learns she is not powerful enough to use the Stones and survive."
This would have been cool to see but it may have somewhat lessened the impact of Iron Man's death.
WandaVision May Be Filmed In Front Of A Live Audience
Here's a weird rumour for you. According to
Murphy's Multiverse (Charles Murphy has dropped quite a few Marvel scoops in the past), parts of
WandaVision will be filmed in front of a live, studio audience. As this is a homage to I Love Lucy, that does make sense, and it also lines up with what we've heard about Wanda and Vision living in an idyllic, sitcom-style "fantasy" world.
Needless to say, those in attendance will more than likely be extras or people forced to sign strict NDAs so don't expect any plot spoilers to be revealed once these rumoured filmings happen.
Marvel Studios Honours Stan Lee
Yesterday marked the launch of Disney+ but it was also the first year anniversary of legendary comic book creator Stan "The Man" Lee's death. As you can see above, Marvel Studios honoured the co-creator of characters like Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the X-Men with an amazing piece of artwork.
With Disney+'s focus on Marvel, the service is definitely helping to ensure his legacy lives on.
Spider-Man's MCU Movies Aren't Coming To Disney+
Due to complicated licensing issues, a number of Marvel Studios movies won't be available on Disney+ for quite some time. Unfortunately, both
Spider-Man: Homecoming and
Spider-Man: Far From Home may
never find their way on to the streaming service based on recent comments from Ricky Strauss, head of content and marketing for Disney+, via
The Verge.
"We love our friends at Sony, but we don’t have any plans to have the live-action Spider-Man movies on Disney+," he confirmed. "We will have all the Spider-Man animated shows that we did so they’ll be on there under the Marvel banner. But who knows what can happen in the future?"
A New Shang-Chi Casting Call
A few weeks back, we heard that
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was looking to cast Steel Claw, Moving Shadow, Razor-Fist, and Ghostmaker. Now,
POC Culture has shared more details, revealing that Steel Claw is described as
"a 20s-40s male with an intimidating presence." The site adds that it
"Sounded like they were looking for someone big and tall."
The site reveals that Marvel Studios is also looking for six child actors of Asian descent, including one who is described as a "computer hacker" and the rest who need to know martial arts.
Chris Evans And Scarlett Johansson Talk Superhero "Cinema"
During a recent interview with
Variety, Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson talked about their new movies
Knives Out and
Marriage Story. Both are a far cry from the MCU and, as you might expect, they both had some thoughts on whether superhero movies are "cinema" (something acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese recently made clear they are not while promoting
The Irishman).
Here's their exchange in full:
Evans: Original content, it’s not there very often. That is one of the best things about Knives Out. It was something that I read that felt fresh and new. I think this weird chicken-and-the-egg thing, who started it? Did audiences only start going to lowbrow stuff, so that’s what we started making? Or is it that we made it first, and now that’s all we’re offered?
Johansson: Hey, speak for yourself. It’s interesting because a couple of people in the past couple of days have mentioned to me that a couple of extremely esteemed directors have been really vocal about how the whole Marvel universe and big blockbusters are really, like, despicable and the death of cinema. At first, I thought that seems kind of old-fashioned, and somebody had to explain to me because it seemed so disappointing and sad in a way. They said, I think what these people are saying is that at the actual theater, there’s not a lot of room for different kinds of movies, or smaller movies, because the theater is taken up by huge blockbusters.
Evans: I think original content inspires creative content. I think new stuff is what keeps the creative wheel rolling. I just believe there’s room at the table for all of it. It’s like saying a certain type of music isn’t music. Who are you to say that?
You Can Thank Kevin Feige For Wolverine's Hair
Kevin Feige served as a producer on
X-Men but we have him to thank for Hugh Jackman sporting Wolverine's classic comic book appearance in the film...well, in terms of the hero's hair at least!
"The very first day that he came out on set and his hair was...not Wolverine hair," he tells
The Hollywood Reporter.
"In later movies, it almost didn't matter because Hugh Jackman was Wolverine. Just the same way in the first Thor movie, we wanted Chris Hemsworth to have that long blonde hair; by Ragnarok, Chris Hemsworth is Thor so cut the hair; it doesn't matter."
"I even think that Avi [Arad] happened to call and say it was going good but the hair wasn't great," Feige continues. "So I said let's check it out and we came down and looked at it and Bryan [Singer, director] and we went in the hair and makeup trailer and kept going and going and going over it. You can tell now that it was of a time but it was unquestionably Wolverine's hair."
Iron Man And Doctor Strange Swap Suits
We almost got Strange in Iron Man armor and Tony in the Cloak of Levitation (Endgame Concept Art) from r/marvelstudios
We'll have much better quality
Avengers: Endgame concept art for you soon but in these leaked images, we see that there was a time in the movie when Iron Man and Doctor Strange would have swapped costumes! The Sorcerer Supreme was going to don the Armoured Avenger's suit, while Tony Stark would have found himself getting to know the Cloak Levitation. Looks pretty cool, right?
Chadwick Boseman Auditioned To Play Drax
On Disney+, there are a wealth of new special features for the Marvel movies, including one focusing on casting director Sarah Finn. In the video above, she reveals that
Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman once auditioned for the role of Drax the Destroyer in
Guardians of the Galaxy and there's even footage of that showing that he would have delivered a very different take on the hero.