As we discussed on Sunday, the Marvel presentation at the San Diego Comic Con this weekend was pretty epic. I focused on the lady-driven projects because that was what interested me the most. Marvel’s Phase 4 is definitely lady-intensive with Angelina Jolie headlining The Eternals, Natalie Portman becoming female Thor and the stand-alone Black Widow movie happening. But what of the dudes? The dudes got Blade, the Loki series and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (which will be the first Asian superhero!). And there were like a million other announcements too. Since I know ladies love Loki, here’s a taste of what’s going on with that Disney+ streaming series (SPOILERS for Endgame).
At their Comic-Con panel, Marvel officially announced their upcoming Disney+ series, Loki. Tom Hiddleston will star as the God of Mischief. While Loki died in Avengers: Infinity War after having his windpipe crushed by Thanos, the wayward god got a second lease on life due to the time-travel shenanigans in Avengers: Endgame. Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige told the crowd that Loki will pick up following the events of Endgame where Loki snatched the Space Stone and vanished to parts unknown. Here’s what Hiddlestone told the crowd in Hall H:
“You guys saw Avengers, right? He’s still that guy. And just about the last thing that happened to him was that he got Hulk-smashed, so there’s a lot of psychological evolution that hasn’t happened yet, but Kevin has generously showed me what his plans are — I can’t tell you any of them — but its is one of the most exciting creative opportunities I think I’ve ever come across.”
I didn’t really understand that but that’s because I really haven’t paid attention to the whole timeline of Avengers events. I trust that Marvel knows what it’s doing and I trust that Hiddles will give everything to the series. What else? Here are some of the other Marvel announcements:
Blad is getting a reboot, starring Mahershala Ali, who takes over the Daywalker role from Wesley Snipes. That means that Black Panther won’t be the only black superhero in Marvel. That being said, of course there was some talk about the Black Panther sequel too.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, from director Destin Daniel Cretton, will open Feb. 12, 2021. It will star Simu Liu as Marvel’s first Asian superhero, Tony Leung as the real Mandarin (Ben Kingsley played an imposter version in Iron Man 3) and Awkwafina.
Other Disney+ series were announced/confirmed, like WandaVision starring Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, What If…? With Jeffrey Wright as Watcher, and a Hawkeye series starring Jeremy Renner.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
none of the TV shows are appealing to me. I’ll probably just read the major points about them and see how they’ll connect to the movies. I’ll definitely be watching the movies.
also, maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never understood the appeal of Tom Hiddleston. someone once described him as looking like a cartoon vampire and that just seems so accurate to me.
Cartoon vampire…..FIT. Seriously, this man does it for me. Despite the Tiddlesbanging and subsequent introspective period/breakdown (I really believe he’s had to take time out.)I would still ride like a stolen bike. He was ace in ‘Betrayal’ (and hot…thighs for days, athletic, gingery, beardy…hot) and I hope he’s refinding his groove. I also hope his groove partially lies in my vajay. Thankyou and goodnight.
“I would still ride him like a stolen bike” 😂😂 amazing
Damn Arizona you hit the nail on the head
I don’t get hiddleston appeal either
Spoiler: it makes sense. At the end of Avengers I, Loki was still a scheming, angry mass murderer and he had just been smashed by the Hulk. He also had the threat of what Thanos would do to him for having lost both the Tesseract, which he was sent to retrieve, and the infinity stone that was in the staff, and the entire Chitauri army. He had a redemption arc in TDW, Ragnarok, Infinity Wars but all that is wiped away.
He got the biggest crowd reaction of anyone at SDCC and Feige bowed to him. They’re going to put a lot of effort into making this really good.
Not sure what timeline WandaVision would take place during because they didn’t transport anywhere in time and he’s dead.
Renner got a nice introduction and was allowed to dance through the crowd like RDJ did.
@Lightpurple In the comics Wanda re-creates Vision and starts messing with reality through her powers. If Shuri managed to save anything from Vision, it can start from there. And they said Dr. Strange will be a horror movie, so it’s plausible to think Wanda will create some havoc.
Elizabeth Olsen is a great actress but so uneven as Wanda. Maybe some darker material she can sink her teeth into will help her really materialize into the character. She’s one of the most powerful people in the universe and always sidelined. If we can’t see her as main hero, I’ll take major havoc.
@Eliza, even Okoye asked in Avengers infinity War why Wanda had been sent to the lab instead of on the frontline once she saw what she could do.
No matter how much I’m looking forward to the Loki series, if it ever comes to my country, I still would have liked for Tom to get his movie earlier in the MCU development/timeline. That’s why I enjoy that fan-made “Loki, Brother of Thor” montage so much.
As an aside: the way things are going for Tom, despite making that transfer to Broadway with Betrayal, which is a huge achievement in itself, he’s on a direct path of that thing Keanu feared such a long time ago – that his headstone would read “He played Ted”. “Here rests Tom who played Loki.”
Many British stage actors have long rewarding careers without ever setting foot on a movie set. Ian McKellan and Judi Dench didn’t make it in films until they were well into their careers. I don’t understand the dismissal of stage work as if it were nothing.
I feel like stage work is not big in the U.S. outside of NY and LA. I’ve noticed it’s an odd distinction too. With the exception of Idina Menzel, Kristen Chenoweth, and Bernadette Peters i guess i fail to recall another stage actress/actor who has made it really big. But I’m sure there are many-their theater work just doesn’t get talked about here as much.
@broodytrudy, my 2 cents or pence that I probably won’t articulate as well as I would like is that US theater is much stronger in musicals and that requires a particular skillset (singing and sometimes dancing ability) that many excellent actors do not possess. I’m not sure why musicals are so popular in the US over dramas but I do know that when I’ve had the chance to see a West End drama that was sold out (or close to it) in London in NYC, they did not get the same acclaim or audience numbers on Broadway that they garnered in London (e.g. Ivo van Hove’s productions of Millers A View from the Bridge with Mark Strong and The Crucible with Saoirse Ronan and Ben Whishaw–I got $50.00 tickets easily for both when they transferred to NYC). London theatre–to my mind–is much stronger in dramas and regularly has big name or at least recognizable name actors from the big and small screen who mostly trained for the stage or at least that was a major component of their education if they pursued drama school. It seems far more common there for actors to work in TV, film, on stage and even on BBC radio dramas that is not the case in the U.S.
I think this Loki show will be awesome and somehow by the end he will find his way through current timeline and Thor. There can’t be a Thor movie without Loki and what a better villain than the brother you saw die three times??
I don’t think Loki will be in the Thor movie. There seems to be some sort of bad blood between Hemsworth and Hiddleston since Ragnarok. They don’t pose together on the red carpet, or if they do, there is someone in between them, and avoid each other when they are at the same events, Some boy shit must have gone down, but exactly what is unknown.
Meh, I’m optimistic and would hope that drama or not they would be professional.
And if there was drama, I’d cut them some slack since working with the same people over and over again for years can be a unique stress and hell all unto itself.
I think they are being professional. It’s just that they used to be “brothers from another mother,” and now you realize from pictures they were at the same event, but on opposite sides of the room.
There is an entire corner of Tumblr devoted to hating on Ragnarok and Chris and Taika, which is insanely stupid. Ragnarok was the first Thor film I saw, I only knew Loki from The Avengers. I went back to see the first two and enjoyed them, could see why people preferred them, but damn, people do NOT move on.
Loki was supposed to die in Thor 2. Marvel realized people liked Loki more than Thor, but still haven’t worked out how to solve that particular problem. Look at the news of the rollout. Thor 4! The first Avenger to get four films!!! And it’s all the headlines are Natalie Portman is Lady Thor! Tessa’s Valyrkie is Bi! Tom! Tom! Tom! Chris cannot be happy this morning.
First of all, that is some real sadness for people to be hating Taika. As the saying goes, they must be digging deep or he must’ve ran over somebody’s dog.
And as for what you’re saying, thanks for clarifying. There is no controlling the public’s reactions, I guess. It’ll blow over, but it sucks. Two very different characters and men.
They weren’t together on the red carpet at Ragnarok because Marvel was promoting Valkyrie’s addition to the MCU so Chris was posing with her; Hulk and Thor team up; Cate Blanchette Cate Blanchette, Cate Blanchette; and most importantly, Feige had Tom meet with disabled kids instead of doing all the posing and he was the last one into the theater. For Infinity War, with such a large cast, they had them go out as teams made up of people from different franchises. Tom was on a team with Pom Klementieff, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Tom Holland, 4 franchises, and he seemed to have responsibility for guarding against Holland giving away the plot. They switched the teams around at some point and he was in a group with Scarlett, Dave Bautista, and Mark Ruffalo; then another switch had him doing group interviews with Letitia Wright and Sebastian Stan while Chris was doing promos with the other Avengers. He did no promotional work on Endgame because Loki died in the first five minutes of Infinity War. Who poses with whom on a red carpet isn’t necessarily an indication of much of anything.
Some of the anti-Taika backlash may be due to Taika’s own words, as opposed to anything between Chris and Tom. His commentary on the Ragnarok DVD had some jokes against Tom that seemed out of place and unprofessional.
The MCU wouldn’t put Tom in the grouping for Thor 4 now because Loki is dead in that timeline not because Chris and Tom hate each other. That doesn’t mean Loki won’t actually be in Thor 4; Feige is going to put Loki in whatever he can. Loki is magic. It also doesn’t mean Thor won’t show up in Loki or that Loki won’t visit Jane, as he threatened to do in the first Thor.
@ LP what were those jokes against Tom?
This is one of the many reasons why this site rocks! Thank-you for the background info and explaination, I just didn’t know. There are ridiculous layers to this industry that…well, that is known to be pretty damn shallow.
Super happy about the idea of having more Loki in the movies too.
I’m sorry I can’t edit my comment, but just vote (if you’re still around) to ask about Taika’s comments on the dvd-I only have Ragnarok on Netflix right now.
Sorry Tulip but I don’t under stand what you mean by just vote – where?
I’m sorry I iust can’t work technology right now:( I meant to say I’d like to cast another vote for anyone to say what was on the dvd commentary (re: Taika’s remarks about Tom). My vote was to back your inquiry:)
I asked my husband about Lady Thor. He said it was a very successful comic arch. While Natalie has always been a weird fit for the franchise… it is not something out of the blue. Someone made Thor believe he was unworthy so he couldn’t use the hammer but a cancer-struck Jane was able to wield at great cost (each time she would she had the power of thor but it would remove the chemo toxins so when she put down the hammer her cancer got worse).
He said it’ll probably be nothing like that though… the movie will be a zany Thor x Guardians caper with Thor having his new axe, and his hammer falls to Jane in his absence from Earth being more of a sub plot that comes together at the end.
I can’t say I had much interest in Natalie Portman Thor (I like her; just never liked her as Jane) … and then I heard Taika Waititi is directing this one too. Count me in.
he is so hot and camp as Loki. adore him and his bits to bits
Yay, Tom!
More Loki!
The Marvel announcements have me so excited. We already knew about the Loki show and others, obviously, but it was cool to see the actors all there! Tom looks gorgeous, per usual. THE HAIR.
I literally cannot wait for Natalie Portman as Thor. That’s a really cool comic book storyline that I never expected to see on screen — it seems like now that Endgame is done, Marvel is ready to get into some of the weirder/riskier stories. I can’t wait.
Dayum that picture of his smiling so big, I am here for the Summer of Ginger Beard.
Ryan Coogler is not a sequel director and Feige said that they are trying to get him back to do a sequel to Black Panther.
Feige says it is entirely up to Coogler. I would not be surprised if he comes back as a producer and has a say in who the writer and director is going to be ala Creed 2.
Just soo excited for the Loki show 😀
Say what you will, but Tom carried the Thor movies to the point where it survived to be taken over by Taika Waititi who finally made Thor into something. In Tom’s own interpretation of Loki as some Shakespearean character was the only watchable thing before Taika, so I am sure he will do his best and I will be there for it.
Simu Liu is the son on Kim’s Convenience! – as a fellow Canadian I am super proud and super happy!!
Until “Night Manager,” I didn’t know who he was. After NM, I’m a fan but I prefer him clean-shaven & recently barbered.