Fantastic Four Archives - The Wide Screen

October 7, 2021

Agatha Harkness Is Getting A Series? Say No More, I’m Sold

What would any good sitcom be without a spin-off series or two? I Love Lucy had The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, The Mary Tyler Moore Show had Lou Grant, Rhoda, and Phyllis, Full House had Fuller House, Roseanne has The Conners, and so on. It’s only right that Marvel’s WandaVision, a quirky twist on classic sitcoms with macabre undertones, should live on through a spin-off focused on a fan-favorite supporting character, seeing as everybody behind-the-scenes seems pretty adamant that the original series won’t and was never planned to get a second season.

And it would be hard to name a WandaVision character more deserving of their own spin-off series than “Agnes”, a.k.a. immortal evil sorceress Agatha Harkness. Wanda herself is already going to be a major part of Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, and it’s high time she got her own movie anyway; White Vision might return in Armor Wars, and he’s frankly not interesting enough to carry his own series; Monica Rambeau will co-star in The Marvels and she’ll probably be in Secret Invasion. But until today, Marvel’s future plans for Agatha Harkness were rather unclear.

Now, Variety and other Hollywood trades are reporting that Kathryn Hahn will return to reprise the role in a Disney+ series. WandaVision head writer Jac Schaeffer will write and executive produce the series, which is being tentatively described as a “dark comedy” – befitting of Hahn’s high camp performance, and the character’s flair for extravagance. What’s more, Hahn has finalized a deal to appear in other MCU movies and series’ as Agatha Harkness. Although there’s no word on where and when exactly that would happen, the decision to give her a spin-off series suggests that Agatha will play a pivotal role going forward.

The main question on everyone’s minds is whether the spin-off will be set before or after the events of WandaVision. A historical prequel could help fill in the gaps in our knowledge regarding Agatha Harkness’ long and presumably eventful backstory, and would be a perfect opportunity to introduce more characters from the mystic side of Marvel Comics. The one flashback to Agatha’s dark past in WandaVision could be the show’s starting-point – on the run from Salem in 1693 after massacring her entire coven of witches in her quest to accumulate more power, we could see her form the community of New Salem in modern-day Colorado as a haven for other maverick sorcerers like her.

Alternatively, the series could take place after WandaVision. Agatha Harkness failed in her attempt to steal Wanda’s chaos magic, and Wanda trapped her in Westview, laying a curse on her so that Agatha alone of all the town’s residents is still stuck in a sitcom-inspired fantasy, being remotely brainwashed by Wanda to think and act like the 1950’s-era comedic relief character she first pretended to be. That being said, we know that the curse isn’t foolproof – Vision realized that he was living in a simulation, and a witch of Agatha’s power and prestige shouldn’t take too long to figure it out either.

Personally, I think it will be a bit of both. Trapped in Westview all by herself (Agatha All Alone?) but painfully self-aware, Agatha will have plenty of time to reminisce on better days, allowing us to transition seamlessly into flashbacks before the series becomes too much like a rip-off of WandaVision‘s unique premise. By the end of the series, something – or someone – from her past will pop up in Westview, giving Agatha the means to escape. What happens then is anyone’s guess, but personally I think the sorceress would make a great fit with whatever team of Dark Avengers or Thunderbolts is being assembled by Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, as the evil version of Scarlet Witch that Agatha so desperately wants to be.

There’s also a Fantastic Four connection in Agatha Harkness’ comics history that can’t be ignored, given that the superhero team will be entering the MCU soon(ish). Agatha was employed by Reed Richards and Sue Storm to be a nanny for their son Franklin, a decision which went about as well as you’d expect. Long story short, the Fantastic Four persuade her to help them out on multiple occasions, usually when Franklin’s reality-warping powers are involved. She never stops being an antihero, but her desire to meld Franklin into a more powerful hero gives her an accidental emotional conflict that could be very interesting onscreen.

And of course, the Fantastic Four are still in Agatha’s near-but-not-quite-near-enough-to-worry-about-yet future. For the moment, she’s still bad to the bone, and that’s the Agatha Harkness we all want to see front and center in her spin-off series. Leaving aside Loki, because Loki has always been more of a trickster and a con-man than a straight-up villain, Agatha will be the first Marvel villain to star in a solo property, and I hope she’s not instantly redeemed because Disney needs her to be a lead now.

Before I finish, there’s one more thing we need to talk about – Mephisto. Now I know that all our theories about him were disproven in the WandaVision finale, but that’s because ultimately Mephisto had no place in Wanda’s story, and that made sense. An Agatha show, on the other hand, ought to have plenty of space to organically introduce the character without overshadowing anyone else, and with a really good veteran comedic actor in the role he’d be an excellent foil for Kathryn Hahn’s wicked sass and dark humor.

So what’s your reaction to this news, and which characters and actors do you want to fill out the cast alongside Hahn? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

May 3, 2021

Marvel Offers 1st Look At Eternals And Upcoming Film Slate

What will it take to get moviegoers back into theaters? Hollywood has been asking themselves that question a lot recently: things were looking up for a moment with the success of Godzilla Vs Kong, but Mortal Kombat‘s limited mainstream appeal made it a poor successor to the Monsterverse epic. All eyes are turning towards Marvel’s Black Widow to make or break the box-office, and just this morning Marvel has released a teaser of their upcoming film slate that’s supposed to work as a little…incentive, to get people hyped up about their theatrical releases after a few months of Disney+ series’ (and streaming in general) dominating the conversation.

Marvel Eternals — The Eternals | comicbook.com

Granted, at least one of these movies will be available to purchase on Disney+ while it plays in theaters, and that happens to be Black Widow, so…we’ll see whether this ends up revitalizing the box-office like it’s supposed to, but either way this teaser gave me all the feels, and a first fleeting look at the upcoming film Eternals, my most-anticipated Marvel feature and the one best positioned to be a serious contender at next year’s Academy Awards race.

When I say fleeting, I’m not kidding – we only get a mere thirteen seconds to admire Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao’s stunning cinematography, and a range of what will presumably be outstanding performances from an all-star cast including Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Salma Hayek, and Angelina Jolie. But thirteen seconds is all it takes to sell me on the film’s premise, and Zhao’s stunning vision for her first MCU project, one to which she has committed herself with the same clear passion as her critically-acclaimed A24 drama, Nomadland.

Spanning time and space, Eternals follows a group of celestial beings (not to be confused with the literal Celestials, who created the Eternals) who have roamed the earth since prehistoric times, subtly guiding the forward flow of human civilization. Thirteen seconds isn’t much, but it allows us to see the Eternals in their ancient guise as godlike superheroes defending the city of Babylon outside the famous Gate of Ishtar (once considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World)…before showing them in their modern forms, revisiting the site of the Mesopotamian city as archaeologists.

We see a little bit of how they’ve each adapted to life coexisting alongside the human race; with some of them, like Salma Hayek’s Ajak, distancing themselves from civilization (Hayek appears to be riding on horseback through what could be the American Southwest or even the Pampas of Argentina), while others, like Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo, have become celebrities among the humans (I love that he’s brought his own personal camera crew along with him to meet the other Eternals). Angelina Jolie’s Thena is the only character we see fighting in the clip (and I could be wrong, but I think she’s only sparring with her fellow Eternal, Gilgamesh), but the choreography looks good and her golden sword is both beautiful and cool.

Perhaps my biggest fear was that the Eternals’ costumes wouldn’t look great in live-action, since up until now all we’ve really seen of them is some concept art…which, with all due respect to the artist, wasn’t quite as visually striking as some fans had been hoping. But this clip lets us see a few of the suits in action (not all, though, and not the ones that looked worst in the concept art), and they seem practical, well-made, and simply gorgeous – with Jolie’s Thena making a particularly strong impression, dressed from head to toe in white with gold accents. Her regal, even haughty, stride indicates that she’s not going to allow any opponent to get a speck of dirt or blood on her pristine outfit – and I respect that power move.

While the rest of the teaser does feature some new footage from Black Widow and Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, the two major talking points besides the never-before-seen Eternals footage were both title reveals – Black Panther 2 officially receiving the emotional subtitle Wakanda Forever (that movie is gonna make me cry: I just know it), and Captain Marvel 2 rather unusually being retitled and rebranded entirely as The Marvels.

I’m a bit conflicted on how I feel about the latter title: firstly, because when I got the notification on my phone about this announcement, I honestly thought The Marvels was going to be an MCU sitcom. Of course, the title is supposed to reference the film’s holy trinity of heroines – Brie Larson as Carol Danvers’ Captain Marvel, Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau (who also goes by Captain Marvel in the comics), and Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel – but it’s a bit too much of a cheeky pun on the company’s name, and slightly undermines what I feel should be more of an epic and awe-inspiring moment. Some fans are upset that the Captain Marvel solo franchise is now dropping Captain Marvel’s name, and I get that – though I also understand and appreciate that the new title celebrates more inclusivity, and puts the three women on equal status, rather than elevating Carol above her costars.

The teaser is very focused on release dates, some of which we already knew, some of which are a bit of a surprise. Black Widow and Eternals are both set in stone and unlikely to shift around on the calendar – the former is comfortably anchored by a Disney+ simultaneous release, and the latter is being positioned for awards season. Shang-Chi will still release in September, between the two films, while Spider-Man: No Way Home will close out the year on a bang, by all accounts setting up a Multiverse saga that will escalate in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, arriving March 25th, 2022. Thor: Love And Thunder and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will be the big summer event-movies of that year, and The Marvels will premiere on November 11th.

So far, only Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 are confirmed for 2023 (the former in February, the latter in May) but Mahershala Ali’s Blade will likely end up there too, along with Fantastic Four – the electric-blue logo for which pops up again in the final moments of this teaser, as if to remind us that we never know the full extent of Marvel’s plans for the future. Remember, these are just the upcoming movies.

But how do you feel about the studio’s slate of films, and which is your most anticipated? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

December 12, 2020

The Fantastic Four Are Finally Coming To The MCU!

Probably (no, definitely) among the biggest reveals from the Disney Investors Meeting on Thursday night was the announcement that the Fantastic Four – Marvel’s “first family” – will finally make their debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe at some point in the near future. Whether this is to be the final installment of Phase 4, or the first film of Phase 5 is hard to tell, because the lines between phases are starting to blur now that COVID-19 has messed up the entire release date calendar. Marvel President Kevin Feige offered no details: which makes me wonder if, for the time being, we might not hear as much about separate “phases”, just to give Marvel a little more freedom as they maneuver around the pandemic.

A first logo for the film was revealed: a sharp, angular four in electric blue. And Feige also announced that his Fantastic Four will be directed by Jon Watts, who has been very successful at bridging the gap between Marvel and Sony, directing their Spider-Man films. He is currently at work on Spider-Man 3, which Feige also confirmed on Thursday will feature Multiverse elements: it’s been widely reported (and become something of a joke online) that Spider-Man 3 will include virtually everybody – Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange, Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane, Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy, Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock, Jamie Foxx’s Electro, and probably Charlie Cox’s Daredevil. If Watts is showing onset that he’s capable of masterfully handling all these different characters and their individual storylines, he may be the perfect fit for Fantastic Four, which will almost certainly deal with the Multiverse in some way or another.

Watts isn’t, perhaps, the most exciting choice on paper: especially since many still feel that Brad Bird, director of The Incredibles and The Incredibles 2, is the only director who’s shown any success with a similar concept – without even trying, Bird basically designed the blueprint for how a Fantastic Four film should feel. I understand why there would be dissatisfaction. But Watts’ Spider-Man films have been good (at least in my opinion: I know they have their extremely vocal haters), and some of the best scenes were those that dealt with the villain Mysterio, who supposedly came from the Multiverse until it turned out he was just a disgruntled Stark Industries employee. If Watts can do wonders with a fake Multiverse, imagine what he’ll do with the real deal.

That being said, a Fantastic Four film can’t be all Multiverse shenanigans and confusing time loops and paradoxes. At its core, it has to be the story of a superpowered family facing challenges and overcoming struggles together, or fans will be rightfully angry. The closest thing we’ve got to this in the MCU already is the dynamic between Ant-Man and his immediate and extended family: but where those films generally have low stakes and slightly comedic action, the Fantastic Four is big, and epic, and dramatic. Downright melodramatic, at times. It’s still unknown if the MCU’s Fantastic Four will introduce us to a fully established team, or set up a proper origin story. Fox has tried and failed at that twice, both times bungling it by trying to rush the team’s biggest villains to the forefront: I think a new origin story is necessary to show that Marvel cares deeply about these characters, and that they’re committed to getting them right before we even start thinking about things like Galactus, or Silver Surfer, or Doctor Doom. Luckily, the MCU is currently setting up Kang the Conqueror, who seems like the perfect first-film villain for the Fantastic Four, if you ask me. He’ll already have been introduced in Loki or Ant-Man 3 by that point, so the film won’t need to waste any time revealing his backstory to audiences.

As for what a proper origin story would entail, well…I’ve always felt that the Fantastic Four should be time-travelers from the 1960’s, and that’s a pretty popular theory, but they don’t necessarily have to be. In the comics, they obtain their individualized superpowers after exposure to cosmic rays during a scientific space mission gone wrong: Reed Richards, the team’s leader, becomes a super-stretchy human rubberband (a similar powerset to that of Kamala Khan, whom we’ll see in Ms. Marvel prior to Richards’ own appearance); Sue Storm, who I hope is more than just “Reed’s girlfriend” this time around, is able to turn herself invisible and create force-shields; Johnny Storm, Sue’s hotheaded teenage brother, gains the ability to set himself on fire and fly; while Ben Grimm, Richards’ best friend, is permanently transformed into a massive, self-loathing rock-monster. In the comics, they were among the first superheroes not to wear disguises, preferring to use their newfound celebrity status as a way of bringing attention to scientific breakthroughs – something that is admittedly a cool idea, but not that fresh in the MCU anymore.

Thanks to Reed Richards’ obsession with time travel, quantum physics, and world-hopping, the Fantastic Four are intricately tied up with all the biggest villains in the Marvel Universe: particularly those who threaten the timeline, like Kang the Conqueror and Doctor Doom, or those who threaten to devour the world itself, like the cosmic being Galactus. But the fact that they have such epic enemies and high-stakes battles makes it all the more crucial that their first film in the MCU is smaller and more personal, with a strong focus on family.

So what do you think? How would you recommend Marvel proceed with this long-awaited adaptation? And who’s your favorite Fantastic Four character? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

September 14, 2020

Jonathan Majors Cast As Kang The Conqueror In Ant-Man 3!

I did not expect to suddenly have Ant-Man 3 on my radar as one of my most anticipated upcoming Marvel films, but that’s what casting Jonathan Majors in a lead role will do: especially when that lead role is – probably – none other than Kang the Conqueror, one of Marvel Comics’ most notable villains. The Da 5 Bloods and Lovecraft Country star is on his way to becoming a prominent and perhaps even permanent fixture of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s next couple of phases.

Ant-Man and its sequel Ant-Man And The Wasp are both perfectly decent, fun films, the former slightly more so than the latter, but Ant-Man 3 is apparently going to cap off the trilogy with an epic finale that raises the stakes dramatically: something I would not have suspected was possible, until now. But now, couple the rumors of a Young Avengers subplot with director Peyton Reed’s comments about making the third film “bigger” and “more sprawling” with “a very different visual template”, and then throw in this extra bombshell of a news story, and you have officially piqued my interest. Kang is a villain that many of us have been hoping would make his MCU debut sooner rather than later, and Jonathan Majors is about to get the breakout role of his career: he’s already made a mark on audiences in the first few audiences of HBO’s horror-fantasy anthology Lovecraft Story, and he made an impression on me in Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, where he plays the troubled son of a Vietnam War veteran who is funny, endearing, and surprisingly resilient when put to the test.

The character of Kang, luckily, comes equipped with a complex and fascinating story (all of which is, of course, subject to change depending on how Marvel decides to utilize him) that will give Majors a lot more to do than some other MCU villain actors. In the comics, Kang starts out as a 31st-Century history buff named Nathaniel Richards who discovers time travel technology and uses it to begin manipulating time and conquering entire planets and alternate universes. Wearing his iconic green and purple armor (which, in my humble opinion, is actually one of the most ridiculous comics outfits of all time, but that can easily be fixed for the movies), Kang battles the Avengers and a number of other heroes, and has interactions with several more: including Thor, the Grandmaster, Black Knight, Mantis, etc. He later messes up the timeline so drastically that a younger version of himself (who goes by the name of Iron Lad) ends up turning on him and forming the Young Avengers team to try and put an end to his evil. It’s a lot to try and explain in a single movie that is already going to be balancing a number of other subplots, so expect to see some of the backstory simplified: one thing I believe will remain, however, is Kang’s origins in another timeline. He doesn’t even necessarily need to be from the future – in Avengers: Endgame, the team’s time-heist created a number of alternate universes, from almost any one of which Nathaniel Richards could emerge. With the upcoming Loki Disney+ series set to explore these new universes in depth, I imagine Marvel could start laying the groundwork for Kang’s dramatic entrance early. It’s possible he’ll even cameo in Loki before showing up on the big screen, though I feel like this news would have broken earlier, if that were the case, considering Loki has been in production for a while now (albeit halted due to coronavirus). But it’s definitely not too late to sneak him in for a cameo or small supporting role now.

Kang showing up in Ant-Man 3 means the rumors of the Young Avengers showing up now feel a lot more plausible, not that they weren’t already: the team is quickly being assembled across the Marvel universe, with characters like Stature (Ant-Man’s daughter) having already been introduced, and Wiccan, Hulkling, Speed, Kate Bishop and America Chavez on their way. There’s a good chance now that Iron Lad will show up too.

Kang also has a bunch of other aliases that he picks up during his adventures through time, including that of an Egyptian pharaoh named Rama-Tut. While this is a wild guess on my part, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of seeing a hint of this character in Eternals, which will also deal with the Marvel universe’s ancient history. As for where Kang will end up in the future of the MCU, there’s plenty of options: he could become the next big bad; he might set the stage for the Fantastic Four to appear, as they too travel through time and space quite often; it’s theoretically possible he’s a one-and-done villain, but that’s just laughable. You don’t just use Kang once, and you certainly don’t just use Jonathan Majors once, especially not right now as he’s enjoying a swift rise to stardom and mainstream appeal.

One last thing: remember that it’s still not technically confirmed that Majors is playing Kang. Deadline, however, is reporting it as being extremely likely, which is a good sign for all of us who have been waiting to see this villain on the big screen. The only downside to all of this is that it means M.O.D.O.K. and A.I.M. might not be the main villains of Ant-Man 3, as was rumored, although I’m ready to move past that small loss if it means we’re getting Jonathan Majors as a supervillain instead. Who knows? Perhaps M.O.D.O.K. will also appear, and this film is about to become a lot more sprawling than we would have ever guessed.

What do you think of the news that Jonathan Majors is joining the MCU, and how do you feel about Kang? Share your own thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!