Marvel Studios’ Phase Four is sure to be just as successful as the previous three, and will almost assuredly rake in just as much, if not more, money for the studio and legendary producer Kevin Feige. So I don’t doubt that, no matter how much bad publicity may plague Phase Four right now, everything will work out just fine for Marvel and Disney: it always does. That being said, bad publicity is so rare for the Marvel Cinematic Universe that I think we should take a moment to acknowledge that, for the time being, the studio certainly seems to be experiencing some difficulties when it comes to crafting their next big master-plan, and piecing together dozens of converging subplots and story-threads. Just recently, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness director Scott Derrickson quit the project over “creative differences” and concerns that he wouldn’t be able to meet his deadlines. Tonight, the Hawkeye series on Disney+ is the latest Marvel project to experience setbacks, as it has been put on the back-burner and shifted off the studio’s busy production schedule, despite earlier reports that it would begin filming in July.
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No official reason has been given for the series’ delay, but it looks like Disney is trying to make room for alleged star Hailee Steinfeld to fulfill her current commitments to Apple TV before joining the superhero streaming series that will (supposedly) see her suit up as Hawkeye’s young protege, archer extraordinaire Kate Bishop. According to other sources, Disney is determined to win Steinfeld, but also isn’t afraid to move on from her, if she can’t work out her own schedule to accommodate both Hawkeye and her zany historical-fiction comedy Dickinson.
It is not being reported, but some fans are already speculating that the delay is in part caused by star Jeremy Renner’s own personal scandals, which erupted into the spotlight several months ago, leading to widespread concern (or excitement, depending on how you feel about the actor) that Renner would be recast, or written off the series, with the entire focus being redirected on his younger costar. This is not something that has come up since, but it’s still worth keeping in mind.
And, if the delay drags on with no start-date in sight, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D star Adrianne Palicki already has an idea for a substitute: the actress posted on her social media that Marvel has her phone number, and should take this opportunity to contact her with the intention of writing a streaming series based around her S.H.I.E.L.D character, Bobbi Morse a.k.a Mockingbird. I’ve speculated in the past that Morse, who has a strong connection to Kate Bishop in the comics, could be a fun supporting character on the Hawkeye series, especially played by Palicki – but I have to admit, Palicki’s own suggestion sounds even cooler (I’ve never really been a fan of Hawkeye himself, to be honest).
Considering that the series premise has only had a lukewarm reception so far, even with the casting of Renner and Steinfeld, it doesn’t look like anyone is going to be biting their nails in breathless anticipation, waiting to see when the show will finally go into production – but when it does, I’ll be sure to report on it.
How do you feel about the delay, and do you think Mockingbird should get her own series instead of Hawkeye? Share your thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!
Appropriately, it was Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, a movie which celebrates a bygone era of film-making, that won big at the 77th annual Golden Globes awards last night, taking home three Globes in major categories. In many ways, the ghost of Hollywood Past was haunting the tired, slow-paced ceremony, which saw a mostly white and male ensemble of winners take the stage, during an event that felt unfocused and uninspired, barely held together by comedian Ricky Gervais, who looked bored to be hosting one of the most important events in the entertainment industry, and whose attempts to keep the audience’s attention off world politics felt sadly misguided.
Thankfully, his plea for political neutrality was steadfastly ignored by the majority of winners, many of whom took the stage to deliver impassioned speeches addressing a number of notable issues: from Best Actress In A Mini-Series Michelle Williams calling upon women to exercise their right to choose, Best Supporting Actress In A Series Patricia Arquette using her brief time onstage to demand that viewers vote in the 2020 U.S. elections, Best Actor In A Drama Motion Picture and animal-rights activist Joaquin Phoenix thanking the Golden Globes for serving an entirely plant-based dinner to the audience (a decision that was apparently met with mixed reactions), Australians Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett bringing attention to the deadly bush-fires currently raging across the country, and Best Actress In A Musical/Comedy Series Phoebe Waller-Bridge invoking the name of former U.S. President Barack Obama, who just recently included Waller-Bridge’s hit comedy Fleabag on his annual Presidential Favorites list. LGBTQ+ issues were at the forefront during Kate McKinnon and Ellen DeGeneres’ speech to honor the latter’s acceptance of the special Carol Burnett Award.
But in between these brief highlights, the ceremony still appeared outdated and backwards-thinking: outside of female-exclusive categories, women were handed a bare minimum of awards, with Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir being the exception to the rule, becoming the first solo woman to accept the award. People of color were also suspiciously absent from the proceedings, except as presenters – the exception in this case being Ramy star Ramy Youssef, and comedian Awkwafina, who became the first woman of Asian descent to win the Golden Globe for Best Actress In A Musical/Comedy. Small moments like these help to give the impression that progress is being made in Hollywood, but don’t make up for a list of nominees that is overwhelmingly representative of a long-gone period in Hollywood history – one of Gervais’ few on-point jokes was his callout of the all-male lineup of directing nominees, and his satirical suggestion that soon, Hollywood would go back to simply never hiring women directors: “problem solved”.
Anti-Disney and anti-Netflix sentiment ran strong at the ceremony, which witnessed an embarrassing turn of events for frontrunners Frozen II, The Irishman, Marriage Story and The Two Popes. Disney suffered their biggest loss of the night in the Best Animated Feature Film category, where they had not one, not two, but three nominees – all of which lost out to underdog Missing Link, a clay-mation movie from Laika Studios, in a move so shocking it even startled the Missing Link directors into near-speechlessness. Later, in the Best Original Song category, Disney was once again stunned by the surprise victory of Elton John and Bernie Taupin, who won for their work on “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” for Rocketman, beating out two Disney contenders, “Into The Unknown” and “Spirit” (both, admittedly, weak contestants). But Netflix’s film division was the biggest loser of the evening: going into the event, the main competition in both the Best Director For A Motion Picture and Best Drama Motion Picture fields had been The Irishman‘s Martin Scorsese versus Todd Phillips for Joker – but in both categories, it was neither man who took home the coveted prize, as Sam Mendes and war-drama 1917 won both times. That wouldn’t have been so humiliating if Netflix had been able to claim Best Supporting Actor In A Motion Picture (which they lost to Brad Pitt for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood), Actor In A Musical/Comedy Motion Picture (which they lost to Taron Egerton for Rocketman), Actress In A Drama Motion Picture (which they lost to Renée Zellweger for Judy, despite strong competition from Scarlett Johansson), Actor In A Drama Motion Picture (which Joker star Joaquin Phoenix easily won, beating out Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce), or Screenplay Of A Motion Picture (an award that clearly belonged to either The Irishman or Marriage Story, but went instead to Once Upon A Time In Hollywood). Ultimately, only Laura Dern was able to carve out a small victory for the streaming service, winning the award for Best Supporting Actress In A Motion Picture for her fan-favorite role as a sassy, no-nonsense divorce lawyer in Marriage Story. A small win, but a win nonetheless, and one that Netflix Film desperately needed as they continue to fight against Hollywood bias.
The event should have been high-stakes, especially with the amount of surprises, snubs and gasp-out-loud upsets that occurred, but low-energy humor from the host and presenters, coupled with slow, largely repetitive victories (winners often had to walk absurdly long distances to the stage, and a few nearly got lost weaving through the crowd, making the ceremony move even slower) made the 77th Golden Globes an unmemorable footnote in awards season history. Here’s hoping that the Oscars will repeat last year’s surprisingly effective no-host format, and give us a more rousing, entertaining, and relevant ceremony than the Globes was able to offer.
The Mandalorian has concluded its first season’s massively-hyped run, and now everybody seems to have one question, and one question only: what do we watch on Disney+ now, while we wait for the second season of the Star Wars serial?
Well, for the moment, you’re going to have to stick to whatever else you’ve been watching on Disney+ in between Mandalorian episodes: you could catch up on The World According To Jeff Goldblum, or binge-watch a gazillion old movies that you never even knew existed. You could just rewatch The Mandalorian, if that appeals to you. But don’t worry: Disney+ has some particularly exciting new content coming next year – Marvel Studios’ The Falcon And The Winter Soldier will drop on the streaming platform in the fall of 2020, and I’m here with all the latest updates and info to tell you why you should be excited for the series.
The Falcon And The Winter Soldier (or TFATWS: the series’ title is absurdly long, and I have no idea who came up with it) will follow the adventures of Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson and Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes in a post-Avengers: Endgame world crawling with villains and criminals of the worst sorts – Baron Zemo, the mastermind behind the Avengers’ downfall, will make an appearance, having apparently escaped from prison since the events of Captain America: Civil War; alongside him will be white Southern conservative John Walker, a homegrown hero turned brainwashed zealot who, in comics published during the Reagan administration, unofficially donned the Captain America moniker in response to Sam Wilson, a black man, carrying the hero’s title – just as there will be multiple Black Widows in Black Widow, TFATWS could introduce a conflict between the two Captain Americas, and explore the larger question of what it means to be the face of the USA, and who has the right to earn that honor. It’s unclear just how deeply Marvel wishes to dive into this political discussion, but if done correctly it could be a risky, important story that demands to be told at this moment in American history.
While unconfirmed, it looks like Zemo and Walker will be joined by a third villain – Arnim Zola, the disembodied conscious of the Nazi scientist who set up the foundations of the HYDRA organization after the Second World War. Zola’s functional brain/super-computer was destroyed in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but it seems that the evil genius could have found a way to live on, perhaps through the form of his children, Jet and Leo. Minor antagonists could include Battlestar and Songbird. But the biggest surprise of all, and the most recent one, is the revelation that parts of the story may take place on the fictional island of Madripoor.
comicvine.gamespot.com
Madripoor, a wealthy island paradise located off the coast of Singapore, is a crime-capital in the Marvel Comics Universe, having attracted numerous villains to its sunny beaches and seafront cities – and, thus, just as many heroes. And, interestingly, many of the characters who have visited the island in the comics are characters with upcoming Marvel movies and Disney+ shows: Hawkeye and Kate Bishop staged a daring raid on a Madripoor hotel to save Hawkeye’s reputation from being publicly ruined; Shang-Chi defeated a dragon dwelling in the ocean beneath the island; and the X-Men, including Wolverine and Magneto, have also visited on occasion. We don’t yet know who will inhabit the island in TFATWS, but it wouldn’t surprise me any if Baron Zemo had set up shop there to recruit his very own team of villains – possibly the legendary Thunderbolts, possibly a different group. Characters who could show up on Madripoor include crime lord and martial artist Tyger Tiger, who was installed as governor of the region by Tony Stark, and the mysterious vampire Sapphire Styx; both characters would provide good opportunities for Southeast Asian diversity in the Marvel roster.
Madripoor is such a fascinating location, it would also be exciting if it continued to feature in future Marvel projects – while the Hawkeye series could potentially make a stop at the island getaway, I’d love to see it as a prominent location in Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, where our hero could get into some crazy fights and action sequences amongst all the casinos, hotels, and dazzling beachfront villas and boulevards.
What do you think of Sam and Bucky shipping out to Madripoor, and what characters and comic-cameos do you expect to see there? Share your own thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!
The final episode of The Mandalorian‘s first season on Disney+ is quite appropriately titled Redemption – for not only does the title work in-universe, but it’s also an amusingly apt reflection on the fact that Redemption very literally redeems the slow-paced series’ many mishaps. The plot itself often seemed like an afterthought while Mando (Pedro Pascal) and his tiny, adorable sidekick Baby Yoda traveled the galaxy, stopping in at random planets to marvel at the visual spectacle and meet new friends – or enemies. But in the season finale, masterfully directed by Taika Waititi, the story is rich, thrilling, entertaining and emotional; the characters feel more fleshed-out than they have appeared previously; and, most importantly, Baby Yoda is the cutest we’ve seen him yet.
And that’s all I’ll say in the non-spoilers section. If you haven’t watched the episode yet, but plan to, then turn away now! SPOILERS AHEAD!
polygon.com
The finale is chock-full of plot twists and gasp-out-loud revelations, but none more bewildering than the fact that Taika Waititi, who has never directed a Star Wars property previously, is somehow able to ease into the director’s chair for Redemption with all the graceful assurance of Dave Filoni, who at first glance would seem the natural choice to bring this series home to its epic (and thankfully, only temporary) conclusion. Waititi’s work here is surprisingly understated: you’d be hard-pressed to find any clues that this episode comes from the mind that brought you crazy, colorful comedies like Thor: Ragnarok or Jojo Rabbit (though it is amusingly unsurprising that the finale stars Waititi’s own character, assassin turned nurse droid IG-11, in a particularly prominent role). Obviously, directing a single good episode of TV doesn’t warrant immediately getting a three-picture deal with Lucasfilm, but hey, why not give Waititi a shot at his very own Star Wars trilogy?
Another surprise that boggled my mind, at least, was that Mandalorians are cool – for what I feel is the first time, despite everyone else in the world idolizing the very ground that Boba Fett walks upon. And one of the coolest things about them (apart from jetpacks and flamethrowers) is that they’re not a specific race of people, as Cara Dune (Gina Carano) reveals during an emotional moment in the episode: they’re a creed. Not only does it reinforce a particularly Rian Johnson theme in Disney’s Star Wars, that anyone can be a Mandalorian without having to have been born one, but it also makes the Mandalorians seem a lot more noble – in an extended flashback sequence which haunts our protagonist’s mind, we witness a squad of the flying, armored warriors acting as human shields for wounded refugees trying to escape from brutal droid-warfare: and it is revealed that during this battle, a young orphaned boy named Din Djarin was rescued by these Mandalorians and taken to safety with them – that boy was our very own “Mando”, whom I guess we can finally call Din Djarin? We’ve actually known that name for a while (Pedro Pascal ever-so-slightly spoiled it last month), but it’s only now canon, meaning I can only now use it. Yes, the Mandalorians are still vaguely cultish, and more than a little creepy, but at least they’re not solely defined by characters like Jango and Boba Fett anymore, or even just the term of “bounty hunter”. Djarin’s other biggest secret, his face, was also finally revealed in this episode…and, well, it’s Pedro Pascal’s face. I’m not entirely sure what we were all expecting, but honestly, that reveal was a bit underwhelming. It’s not like his face was even altered in any way: he didn’t have any scars or third-degree burns to speak of, no missing eyes or other distinguishing facial features. Not even a different hair color.
forbes.com
Djarin’s secrets weren’t the only ones brought to light: IG-11 is revealed to have been entirely reformed by Kuiil’s repairs, riding in to rescue Baby Yoda from a couple of monstrous stormtroopers who amuse themselves by punching and mocking the adorable little infant – the droid then straps The Child into a baby-backpack and goes on a killing spree around Nevarro, mowing down stormtroopers. He later sacrifices himself to rescue the whole team, self-destructing and blowing an entire legion of enemies sky-high. Baby Yoda himself is given his own hero moment when he faces down a flamethrower-wielding stormtrooper and deflects the attacker’s fire back at him: there’s a couple more reveals about his character, but I need to address those separately. Then there’s Cara Dune, whose home planet is revealed to be Alderaan (Princess Leia’s planet, infamously blown to pieces by the Death Star in A New Hope), thus explaining her undying grudge against the Empire. Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) turns out to have been an ex-Imperial himself, though that big secret falls a little flat due to the fact that we barely even know Karga, and have always been on-the-fence about whether or not to trust him and his Bounty Hunters Guild, anyway.
The person doing a lot of this dramatic-revealing is none other than Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito), who is being set up to be the series’ big bad, and Din Djarin’s arch-nemesis. Gideon toys with his victims as they shelter in the burnt-out rubble of Werner Herzog’s lair, spilling their secrets to the world and promising them tantalizingly good deals if they’ll only hand over Baby Yoda. We never do find out what Gideon or Herzog wanted with The Child (and, come to think of it, we never even found out Herzog’s character name or purpose in the story, before he was unceremoniously murdered in the assault on his hideout), but considering how despicably evil Gideon is revealed to be, I’m going to assume it’s not because either of them just wanted cuddles and hugs. Gideon is also shown to have an alarmingly dangerous arsenal: not only can his tiny little handgun pierce through beskar steel, but the Moff is also a trained TIE-fighter pilot capable of handling his own in a dogfight. Oh yeah, and he just so happens to be in possession of the one black lightsaber in the entire galaxy, no biggie.
The lightsaber in question, better known as the Darksaber, has never been seen in live-action before this day, though it was seen in the animated series, Star Wars Rebels, which gave us a couple clues about the saber’s history. It was crafted by Tarre Vizsla, the first Mandalorian Jedi, during the reign of the Old Republic, and has since meandered across the universe, through the hands of a number of notable peoples and individuals, including the belligerent Mandalorian Clan Vizsla (to whose ranks Din Djarin appears to belong), the legendary Sith Lord Darth Maul, and Nite Owls leader Bo-Katan, who was the last known person to wield the blade, almost a decade before we seen Moff Gideon crawl from the wreckage of his TIE-fighter with the weapon in hand. The Darksaber is something of a mystical item, bestowing upon its wielder the title of Mand’alor, or leader of the Mandalorians – Gideon certainly has a fascination with the religious order, having been personally involved with eradicating them during the Great Purge and keeping tabs on those who survived. And now that he’s back on his feet, we can safely assume Din Djarin and Baby Yoda won’t be safe from his murderous rage anytime soon.
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But for the moment, Din has a more urgent problem to worry about: while visiting his old friend The Armorer (Emily Swallow), he was gifted a number of odds-and-ends, including his very own jetpack, a personal sigil, and custody over Baby Yoda – which, apparently, is something that The Armorer can just hand out to anybody she feels like. But there’s a catch: while she tells Djarin to protect and train the baby (and even bestows upon them a title, the “Clan of Two”, which seems to hint at Star Wars’ common theme of duality), she also instructs him to seek out the child’s people – it’s not clearly indicated whether she’s referring specifically to Baby Yoda’s birth-family, or the Jedi in general, but it’s obvious that this will be a central plot-point in the series’ second season. But honestly, as much as we all want to see a whole planet of Baby Yodas, I think I’m just as excited to see The Child training as a Mandalorian – just so long as Din Djarin doesn’t try to make him wear a ridiculous helmet of his own: Baby Yoda’s adorable, expressive little puppet-face will not be hidden from the world, not if I and the internet have anything to say about the matter.
For the record, I think there’s a decent chance that we do actually see the home-planet of The Child’s species in The Mandalorian, and that the Jedi sage Yaddle will be revealed to be his mother. I know, I know, Yaddle is presumed dead – but there’s never been any conclusive evidence that that is the case, and honestly, she deserves so much more recognition than she gets. You know what, I’m just gonna say it: I think Yaddle is a better character than Yoda. Come at me, Yoda stans!
We’ve been left with a number of pressing questions from the season finale, but a bunch of mysteries have also been resolved, and we’ve left Din Djarin and Baby Yoda in a good place, all things considered. What did you think of the finale? Are you excited for Season 2? Share your thoughts and theories in the comments below!
