MCU Megathread

[CaptHayfever]

Also also also: Tatiana Maslany has been cast as Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk, & rumor has it that Songbird will appear in Falcon & Winter Soldier.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[MeowMan]

the first actual WandaVision trailer is here!

[CaptHayfever]

Along with this cool poster & this reconfirmation of its December release!
While we're at it, Falcon & Winter Soldier is officially a 2021 release.
No updates yet on Black Widow.

Present known release schedule for the rest of 2020:
Helstrom - less than 4 weeks
Black Widow - less than 7 weeks
WandaVision - 2.5 to 3 months

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[CaptHayfever]

Update on Black Widow: It's been moved all the way to May 7th, with Shang-Chi going from that date to July 9th....& Eternals getting bumped to next November 5th.

The films past those haven't moved again yet:
Untitled Spidey 3 - 17 Dec 2021
Love & Thunder - 11 Feb 2022
Multiverse of Madness - 25 Mar 2022
Black Panther 2 - 6 May 2022
Captain Marvel 2 - 8 July 2022

This Helstrom poster just came out, too. And a 2nd trailer:

Spoiler.

GRAPHIC CONTENT IN THE TRAILER.
IT IS GORY.
THIS SHOW IS RATED TV-MA, & THE TRAILER DOES NOT HIDE THE REASON WHY.
YOU HAVE BEEN DISCLAIMED.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[CaptHayfever]

Variety reported a rumor on an upcoming D+ series featuring Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in a major/starring role. No corroboration on that yet, though.
Marvel also announced newcomer Iman Vellani to play Kamala Khan in Ms. Marvel, which is scheduled to begin filming in November.
Meanwhile, a bunch of rumors (some credible, some bald-faced lies) are flying around about characters being added to Hawkeye, which is scheduled to begin filming in October.

Edit: ...This one is......weird.........Hollywood Reporter just said Jamie Foxx is in talks to reprise Electro in Spidey 3............bloody hell, Sony.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[CaptHayfever]

In more "bloody hell, Sony" news from Hollywood Reporter, Benedict Cumberbatch will appear as Dr. Strange in Spidey 3, because clearly that movie needed another plotline shoved into it, especially featuring a character who is going to be in another movie filming AT THE EXACT SAME TIME.

Anyway, the virtual Helstrom NYCC panel is tomorrow evening, & then the show drops next weekend.
And Falcon & Winter Soldier has officially resumed the Prague filming that will complete its principal photography.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[CaptHayfever]

Here's the Helstrom NYCC video, including the first 10 minutes of the premiere & a cast interview:

Spoiler.

Once again spoiler-tagged for disturbing imagery.
(To skip the sneak peek if you wanna avoid spoilers, the interview starts at 12:50.)

Reviews for the first 5 episodes are starting to drop: Most are either positive or middle-ground. Only one that I've seen so far (CBR) was negative.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[CaptHayfever]

Helstrom showrunner Paul Zbyszeweski gave an interview with Looper a few days ago in which he officially declared that this show (& only this show) is not in the MCU.
....But I had already started liveblogging it, so here's part NAN:


Helstrom:

#1 "Mother's Little Helpers":
--Huh, no page-flip logo. Guess we don't wanna scare the kinderlach.
--You've heard of touch-typing; well, here's NO-touch typing. All work & no play makes Jack a dull boy.
--This opening sequence is simply brilliant.
--Never seen a fake possession before; that's an interesting take. And responding to fake fire with hellfire is pretty cool, too.
--Frisco? Uh-oh, cue the whiners asking why Ana doesn't ask for Ant-Man's help.
--076-2 died in the 80s in Afterlife, but here's SCP-076-1. Also, gross.
--Ladies & gentlemen, Elizabeth *Marvel*.
--Solid Hannibal Lecter reference.
--Don't take the freaky demon orb whispering to you; have you not seen Shazam!?
--Daimon & Louise have a really interesting relationship.
--College professors don't get their own lecture halls; they have separate (& much smaller) offices, & they share the lecture halls.
--I always like it when a demon acknowledges that they've already lost the overall war.
--GORE WARNING: Guy with a chunk of his face missing.
--I hate this teaser at the end of the episode. I hope they don't keep doing that.

#2 "Viaticum":
--Biscuits are the universal equalizer.
--TIL who Patrick Nagel is.
--Ok, the general gist is everyone hates Daimon, & Ana hates everyone.
--Backstory time (though we kinda got the gist of it from the opening credits anyway). Gabby's (& the Vatican's) assessment is wrong; Victoria is not the source of Daimon & Ana's powers.
--Don't take the freaky demon orb whispering to you; have you not seen Shazam!?
--Nuns do a ton of work fighting human trafficking IRL; Daimon should've known that.
--The dying demon guy is pretty darn interesting.
--Louise is really cool, & I'm gonna be pissed if she dies.
--Daimon should be able to put out this fire.
**[A Lenovo touchpad error & Notepad's inability to undo more than once cost me several of my comments on the 2nd half of this episode. I have recreated what I could from memory.]**

#3 "The One That Got Away":
**[A Lenovo touchpad error & Notepad's inability to undo more than once cost me several of my comments on the 1st half of this episode. I have recreated what I could from memory.]**
--GORE ALERT: A pile of frat boys with mutilated corpses.
--Seeing Ana disheveled is unusual.
--The real Victoria is completely different from "Mother." Eliabeth Marvel is fantastic.
--Hooray for demons weaponizing the mentally ill again!
--Like Daimon, I also hate when people put words in my mouth. Like Ana, I also hate when people falsely accuse me of lying.
--Yay. A club scene. My favorite. :-|
--Did she actually just kill that guy?
--It is incredibly effed up what this woman's sister did to her, though not as much as what Papa Helstrom did to her originally, or what he did to her sister right now.

#4 "Containment":
--Father Lantom, this guy is not.
--Gabby, how is it immoral to capture a demon? Jesus literally does that in the Bible & tasks the Apostles to do the same.
--"...send cars into space for fun." Finally, a date reference! It's sometime after February 2018.
--Ana telekinetically folding a corpse for easier disposal is pretty funny.
--Kthara is unusually calm for such a malevolent.
--Yen's boyfriend is unusually understanding for a cop.
--Ana's got kind of a "Code of Harry" deal.
--Yen's not actually possessed yet, but he needs to stop playing with Skull.
--Crud, Kthara *did* do it.
--So, this group is called "The Blood", & Caretaker is a 7th-generation member? As long as we don't also have a "The Crip" that Louise was born into, I won't call this racist...yet.
--Are those Dormammu eyes?
--This freaky permanent coma hotel is very Minority Report, in a very bad way.
--Telekinesis fight! Very smart of Daimon not to trust Magoth's deal. I like that they do this without hand gestures, too; it really emphasizes that it's a psychic power.

#5 "Committed":
--Flashback time! Victoria was committed in a year in which October 1st was a Monday. **calculate**
--GORE ALERT: Victoria clawing up her own shoulder before Baby Daimon calls the hospital. (It will recur as the scene repeats throughout the episode.)
--The theme song reminds me a lot of the opening to Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters.
--So Daimon does have a normal office.
--Bryce, you weren't even possessed yet when that all happened; your fingerprints won't even be on it.
--Terrified Baby Ana is a huge contrast from the emotionless adult she'd become...except for when she faced off against her dad's new host.
--Fun fact: Gateway University was in St. Louis in the comics.
--Gabby's taking a smart proactive approach, trying to prevent possessions instead of just cure or contain them.
--"I don't wanna be your errand boy!" Yen, right now you're the skull's errand boy, so...
--Kthara's a lot more interesting than you'd expect....oh, & now a lot deader than you'd expect.
--I thought we'd get Daimon facing off against The Blood, but it looks like somebody beat him to it.

#6 "Leviathan":
--GORE ALERT: Spivey's demon biting his host's wife's lip off.
--Daimon & Gabby doing Last Rites is genuinely touching. We kinda glossed over that one in my high school Sacraments class, us all being teenagers, none of whom particularly interested in the priesthood.
--Sane Victoria is totally different from Crazy Victoria. Elizabeth Marvel is amazing.
--Abusive people often completely hide their activities from those other than their victims. A rapist doesn't brag about what they've done to friends. A murderer doesn't advertise. Victoria is not to blame for not knowing what her husband did.
--Don't drive on a spare tire any longer than it takes to buy a new tire. They aren't designed to take the strain.
--Daimon's delivery of "coffee" reminds me of a long but hilarious story from my high school theater days. I won't detail it here, but I'll tell you if you ask me.
--Ana has a weird definition of "small talk."
--Poor mechanic. He got screwed.
--Demon guy though opening all the cells would help him, but he didn't know that Yen wants to *ax* him a question.
--Yay, positive portrayal of how most mentally ill people aren't violent!
--Did they use this set for Legion?
--Daimon tries to Silver-the-Hedgehog his way through this, but it's no use.
--Wait, that wasn't him!?

#7 "Scars":
--Yet another repeat episode title.
--Flashback time: "20 years ago" is shortly after Ana & Daimon were taken in. Combine that with the October 1st Monday & the Elon Musk joke earlier, and Victoria was most likely committed in 2001, so it is currently 2021. The Snap happened 3 years ago; the Blip is 2 years away.
--Daimon's got a brand like the Immortal Iron Fist, protector of K'un-Lun & sworn enemy of the Hand.
--GORE ALERT: Maggots swarming through flesh. Also, Spivey's mutilated body.
--"What kind of organization would call itself [The Blood]?" Did you seriously just ask that question?
--The Blood's entire MO seems to be "find the least helpful thing to do at any given moment."
--Cool to see Yen bouncing back.
--Ana couldn't wait until Derrick was off work to use his login?
--Gabby, nuns are allowed to hold people's hands to comfort them.
--Aw, look at Ana doing the right thing by her buddy!
--Aw, look at Baby Ana stabbing her evil dad!
--Oof, I hope Daimon doesn't blame Caretaker for this.

#8 "Underneath":
--The demon blade has shown up just in time to replace the Keeper skull.
--GORE ALERT: More of Spivey's mutilated body.
--Louise, "superstition" doesn't really apply when you have literal demons to fight.
--"What we're fighting for"? Don't invoke the AoS finale like that.
--Very convenient open-house timing.
--Wow, these Blood guys are stupid. Daimon's play was really obvious.
--And now we're invoking Hope's death scene from Jessica Jones. This is pretty cool, though.
--Ana thinks herself more vicious than she really is.
--Victoria's a tough ol' bird.
--"What do the kids say now?" They say shacking up.
--Well, dang. This is disgusting. This is really effed up. Holy crap.

#9 "Vessels":
--Gabby, you know you were possessed; you just don't know what happened after that.
--Just think, if the Blood had stayed the hell out of the way, Daimon & Gabby probably wouldn't have gotten possessed. (While we're on the subject, though, how can Daimon even BE possessed!?)
--Louise & Caretaker's special moment is really out of place right now.
--Gabby shares my reaction to the fake declaration of love.
--Ana with the save!
--Crud, I thought that thing was done with Yen when it, y'know, dissolved 3 episodes ago.
--Victoria taking Basar to task is pretty epic.
--Gabby showing up Kthara is pretty freaking sweet too.
--Me watching the eye pop up in Yen's throat. (language warning, & stop at 3:30)
--"This is not our decision to make." Louise, Victoria isn't saying that it is; she's accurately predicting what Gabby's decision will be. Gabriella's Baby has gotta go.
--Self-exorcism is not easy.

#10 "Hell Storm":
--Flashback time! It's a wonderful life, Baby Daimon.
--Neither the Archbishop nor The Blood are taking Gabby seriously, even though she witnessed everything firsthand & they've all been hiding. Idiots.
--I thought Keepers had to take a blood oath? Yen never did that.
--The "Oppressors" in a war that demons lost are clearly God & the angels. The perspective that they hate humans because we carry the spark of the creator is actually interesting.
--Austen's accent is slipping a bit.
--The haunted house is a bit much. Honestly, they're basically just jump scares, & I freaking hate jump scares.
--Wait, what the hell with the flaming sword?
--Guys, the baby is literally Kthara incarnate. It will have all of her memories. Gabby is right; kill it.
--"Wrong" and "normal" are not mutually exclusive; we just want them to be.
--Wait, Gabby, you're seriously joining the people who kneecapped your every attempt to fix things?
--Ugh, this kid grew that much in a month? Get out of here with that Twilight crap.
--Well, crap. Marduk Helstrom is on this show.

Executive summary: This started off quite good through the first 8 episodes. The ending started to unravel, though, especially the last few scenes, which were pretty insulting. Some parts were VERY hard to watch because of how grisly they were; I'm not kidding with the gore warnings. Even if this show hadn't been decanonized, there's no major connections to the outside world, just minor set dressings like the existence of Roxxon & a couple of made-up newspapers.


And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[CaptHayfever]

In good-news news, The Falcon & the Winter Soldier and Shang-Chi & the Legend of the Ten Rings have both just wrapped principal photography, & WandaVision debuts in ~2 months.
Also, Tom Holland has just arrived in Atlanta to quarantine & learn the script for Spidey 3, and Oscar Isaac will be our Moon Knight.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[CaptHayfever]

Robert Wisdom, who played Caretaker, liked my tweet linking to the Helstrom liveblog post.

News:
--Untitled Spidey 3 is now filming in Atlanta.
--Loki has been pre-emptively renewed for a 2nd season.
--Marvel Studios has officially registered "Solve Everything Productions" as an imprint company, most likely to begin pre-production on Fantastic Four.
--The contractual cooldown periods for each of the Netflix shows are ending. Marvel can now legally begin development of new live-action Iron Fist (as of 10/12) & Luke Cage (as of 10/19) content. Daredevil will revert at the end of this month, and Punisher & Jessica Jones should both revert in February.

Still no official premiere date for WandaVision, but it'll likely be mid-late December, after Mandalorian's season finale.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[CaptHayfever]

Guess what isn't in December 2020? January 15th. Now guess when WandaVision is premiering?

In better news, Ms. Marvel is now filming.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Booyakasha]

^...'Ms. Marvel' is good biz.

Hopefully I can see it in-theatre. I'll pay to see something if I don't have to worry about pandemics or violent protests or...you know, uzi-wielding howler monkeys on hoverbikes or whatever.

[Deku Tree]

[CaptHayfever]

^...'Ms. Marvel' is good biz.

Hopefully I can see it in-theatre. I'll pay to see something if I don't have to worry about pandemics or violent protests or...you know, uzi-wielding howler monkeys on hoverbikes or whatever.

The bad news is, you won't see it in theaters regardless, because it's a D+ series.
The good news is, as long as production doesn't get shut down again, you won't have to worry about pandemics or protests or Deku's Taliban monkeys, because it's a D+ series.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Booyakasha]

^Ooh, plus if it's a D+ series, that increases the likelihood that we'll get to see some of Marvel's other kooky offbeat second-stringers, like Squirrel Girl and Beta Ray Bill and Man-Thing and Howard the Duck and Frog-Man and all. Heck yeah.

Deku's Taliban monkeys

Now there's a band name.

[CaptHayfever]

We officially have leaked set photos from Ms. Marvel!
The first batch shows Kamala (Iman Vellani) biking around with Bruno (believed to be played by Matt Lintz), as well as Vellani & her stunt double in what's probably the finished Ms. Marvel costume (but they're wearing thermal blankets over it between takes, so we can't see for sure).
The second batch shows Kamala dressed as Captain Marvel, *probably* just as a Halloween costume, given that she's also carrying around her distinctive bike helmet.
And here is the Circle Q convenience store, Bruno's place of employment.

In other news, filming of Black Panther II has only been bumped to July, which suggests that a plan is already in place for how to accommodate Chadwick Boseman's passing.
And in other other news, screenwriters have been hired for Deadpool 3!

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[CaptHayfever]

With WandaVision not premiering until January, we're officially done with new MCU content for the year, so I've gone ahead & updated my timeline infographic: Behold, version 2!

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[CaptHayfever]

After several months of rumors, Hailee Steinfeld is finally confirmed to be playing Kate Bishop in Hawkeye...because somebody leaked a video from the set with her in it. Also present: Lucky the Pizza Dog.

[Edit: Clearer pictures.]

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[CaptHayfever]

In even further "why, Sony, why" news from Variety, Alfred Molina will appear in Spidey 3 as Doctor Octopus.

Oh, & Disney has an investor meeting coming up where they'll be announcing some stuff.

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

[Deku Tree]

Molina was great, but Marvel needs to give us more Olivia Octavius.