After teasing her return in last month’s first-look preview, Marvel has fully unveiled Natalie Portman’s Mighty Thor, Goddess of Thunder in the first trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder. Debuted during Game 4 of the NBA’s Eastern Conference finals, the new trailer reveals far more of the upcoming fourquel (a first for a Marvel Cinematic Universe solo series) from Taika Waititi. Picking up after the Avengers: Endgame, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is on a quest to find peace within himself, going from “dad bod to God bod) and joining the Guardians of the Galaxy (Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord, Karen Gillan’s Nebula, Dave Bautista’s Drax, Pom Klementieff’s Mantis, et al). While he’s away, Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) is serving as Queen of New Asgard, a role she finds isn’t as exciting as it might have s...
A new Daredevil series may be coming to Disney+. While neither Marvel nor the House of Mouse’s streaming service have yet to make any kind of official announcement, Variety is reporting that Matt Corman and Chris Ord — best known for co-creating USA spy drama Covert Affairs — have signed on to write and executive produce the forthcoming show. The news comes on the heels of two main characters from the Netflix Daredevil show entering the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe world in recent months. Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock made a surprise cameo as Peter Parker’s “really good lawyer” in 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, while Vincent D’Onofrio’s villainous Kingpin served as the shadowy big bad in Disney+’s Hawkeye last December. However, no casting has been announced as of yet, and so neithe...
Marvel has unleashed the first trailer for its next Disney+ series, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Starring Tatiana Maslany, the show is set to premiere on August 17th. Maslany plays Jennifer Walters, a lawyer who specializes in superhuman law. She also happens to be the cousin of an Avenger, one Bruce “The Hulk” Banner (a returning Mark Ruffalo). In the comic books, Walters’ need for an emergency blood transfusion from her dear relative leads to her gaining the same gamma-induced superpowers, transforming her into the sensational She-Hulk. While it’s not clear exactly what causes her to gain the green skin and about five feet of height in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s clear her new look will cause some of the same issues. When Banner warns her that her powers are “triggered by ange...
Elizabeth Olsen, who has played Wanda Maximoff in Marvel entries ranging from 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier to 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, told The Independent that while she personally doesn’t enjoy the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she thinks prominent critics like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola are disrespecting the crew who bring the MCU to life. “Honestly, the Marvel movie magic is lost on me now, which is too bad,” she said. “I have to get my kicks elsewhere.” But when Olsen was asked about comments made by Scorsese (he said superhero movies are “theme parks” and “not cinema”) or Coppola (he claimed the flicks are “one prototype made over and over and over again to look different”), she pushed back, saying she gets frustrated when...
There’s an argument to be made that Joss Whedon’s The Avengers is the most important superhero movie of the 21st century. The reasons are numerous, from its proof of concept that a crossover event on this scale could work, to its staggering box office success, to the now-vast media empire which would not exist had this one film fallen apart. The MCU began with Marvel literally using its entire catalog of characters to secure a massive loan to produce its own films, and while the early success of Iron Man and the other Phase 1 films was promising, that huge gamble was still largely dependent on The Avengers succeeding. And that wasn’t necessarily the safest of bets, given that despite Whedon being nerd royalty and an established screenwriter, script doctor, and TV director, the film was onl...
Mjölnir is back in the first teaser trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder, but it’s not the Odinson wielding it. Chris Hemsworth may still technically be Thor, but it’s Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster whom the teaser reveals as the new Goddess of Thunder. Taika Waititi’s upcoming sequel to his series-altering smash Thor: Ragnarok picks up where Avengers: Endgame last left the mightiest Avenger. With New Asgard in the capable hands of its Queen, Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Thor has chosen to go galavanting about the universe with the Guardians of the Galaxy (Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord, Karen Gillan’s Nebula, Dave Bautista’s Drax, Pom Klementieff’s Mantis, et al). Determined to find out “exactly who I am,” Thor decides to put down Stormbreaker, give up the superhero life, and go on a j...
If there’s one thing we know about Paul Verhoeven, it’s that he’s certainly not shy of putting sex at the center of his films. In an interview with The Sunday Times, the Basic Instinct and Showgirls director criticized No Time to Die, the latest film in the James Bond franchise, for scrapping any sex scenes involving 007 himself. While 2006’s Casino Royale — which marked Daniel Craig’s first portrayal as Bond — didn’t include any explicitly sexual content, Verhoeven commended the film for at least alluding to some more salacious behavior. Now, he says, Hollywood blockbusters are “scared of sex.” “Sex is the essence of existence!” Verhoeven said. “There was always sex in Bond! They did not show a breast, or whatever. But they had some sex.” Advertisement Related Video As Craig ret...
Superhero movies have come to make a few enemies in the world’s more sophisticated cinephiles, but Nicolas Cage doesn’t mind the big-budget flicks. In a recent interview, the actor defended Marvel’s industry domination from vocal critics like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, saying, “I don’t see what the issue is.” Back in 2019, Scorsese proclaimed that Marvel movies were more like theme parks than cinema, while this year, Coppola — Cage’s uncle, for those unaware — described the franchise’s films as “one prototype movie that is made over and over and over and over and over again to look different.” When GQ asked Cage to comment on these theories, he didn’t understand the beef. “Yeah, why do they do that?” Cage said. “I don’t understand the conflict. I don’t agree with t...
Disney+ recently announced the onboarding of Netflix’s TV-MA Marvel shows, which is great news for fans of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and more, but an unaccountable tragedy for the humorless scolds at the Parents Television and Media Council. In a new open letter, the PTC said the decision “violates the trust of families” and suggested carrying such content is a slippery slope to “adding live striptease performances in Fantasyland at Disney World.” The House of Mouse’s streaming platform is adding new parental controls for this more mature content in hopes of heading off criticisms like this. On March 16th, when Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, The Punisher, Iron Fist, and The Defenders become available to watch, subscribers signing in to Disney+ ...
When news broke in February that Netflix’s live-action Marvel series would be moving to Disney+, one major concern was how the House of Mouse would handle the decidedly non-PG content of The Defenders franchise. Today (March 1st) Disney has answered that question by announcing a new update to parental controls that will go into effect when the shows hit the streamer on March 16th. When subscribers open Disney+ for the first time on or after March 16th, they will be offered the granular ability to select content ratings restrictions and create a PIN for each profile. According to a press release, any profile without the parental controls in place “will continue to enjoy Disney+ as they always have within a TV-14 content rating environment.” IMDb lists Daredevil, Jessica Jones...