Disney’s big Star Wars & Marvel announcements
With no San Diego Comic-Con this year, there haven’t been the usual “big” announcements that would normally be unveiled there (although DC did have some interesting surprises at their FanDome online event back in August). But this week Disney announced an absolute bucket load of new projects and news (even if it was only at an online investor presentation).
So here are some of the highlights from the Star Wars and Marvel universes, as well as some of the other big news stories.
Star Wars:
Disney+’s excellent show Star Wars: The Mandalorian is getting two spin-off shows, set in the same era of the Star Wars universe. First is Star Wars: Ahsoka, which will see Rosario Dawson return as the (ex) Jedi Ahsoka Tano, previously seen in The Clone Wars and Rebels in animated form, before her live-action debut in The Mandalorian. Much less is known about the second spin-off show, Star Wars: Rangers of the New Republic, but we do know that all three shows will be overseen by the co-creators of The Mandalorian, Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, and that they will intersect and “culminate into a climactic story event”.
The other huge (and completely unexpected) announcement was that the next Star Wars film (and currently the only Star Wars film in active development) will be Rogue Squadron – not only that, but it will be directed by none other than Patty Jenkins (of Wonder Woman fame). Patty posted an emotional announcement video explaining that her inspiration for wanting to make this movie was her fighter pilot father.
The previously announced Disney+ show Star Wars: Andor (which will focus on the pre-Rogue One adventures of Cassian Andor, played by Diego Luna) unveiled a new behind the scenes interview, while the other previously announced show, Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi, confirmed that Hayden Christensen will return as Darth Vader, appearing alongside Ewan McGregor’s Kenobi for what was described as “the rematch of the century”. The series takes place about halfway between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, and although it may require a tiny bit of retconning, anyone who’s seen the fan-made remake of Vader’s and Obi-Wan’s duel from A New Hope knows that there’s plenty of potential in this reunion.
Joining them on Disney+ will be two other live action shows: not much is currently known about Star Wars: The Acolyte, but we do know that it will be a “mystery-thriller” set in a brand new time era, at the end of the High Republic (placing it around 100 years or so before the prequel trilogy). And although we know that Star Wars: Lando will focus on everyone’s second favourite scoundrel, Lando Calrissian, we don’t officially know which version/era it will focus on (although Donald Glover’s younger version from Solo: A Star Wars Story seems the best bet).
On the animation front, Star Wars: The Bad Batch (the previously announced spin-off from The Clone Wars) unveiled a new trailer, while new shows Star Wars: Visions (an anime-style series of shorts) and Star Wars: A Droid Story (featuring R2-D2 and C3-PO) were also announced.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe:
Chronologically, the first instalments of Phase 4 will now be WandaVision (premiering on Disney+ in January 2021) and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which was announced as premiering on Disney+ in March 2021, and which unveiled a new action-packed trailer. Also unveiling first look footage were the previously announced Loki, with a trailer that officially confirms that Tom Hiddleston is playing the 2012-version of the character (as seen in Avengers: Endgame), and the animated series What If…?, whose trailer featured alternative universes where Peggy Carter received the super-soldier serum, and where T’Challa went to space and became Star Lord. Rumour has it that Loki could air in May 2021, meaning that we’d have continuous new MCU material weekly from January to June 2021.
They also announced two new Disney+ MCU shows: Ironheart will focus on young inventor Riri Williams, who (in the comics, at least) develops her own suit of armour and inherits Tony Stark’s mantel, while Armour Wars will see Don Cheadle returning as War Machine when Tony Stark’s Iron Man tech falls into the wrong hands. The previously announced Samuel L Jackson series was also confirmed as being called Secret Invasion (a very famous comic-book storyline), and will feature Ben Mendelsohn’s return as Talos. More unexpectedly, it was also announced that James Gunn will write and direct a Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special, to be filmed alongside Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 for release at Christmas 2022.
There were also minor updates on other previously announced TV projects: a short behind-the-scenes interview was released for Ms Marvel, and it was also announced that Ms Marvel would be appearing in Captain Marvel 2; it was officially confirmed that Tatiana Maslany is playing She-Hulk, and that Tim Roth and Mark Ruffalo will also appear in that show; and Hailee Steinfeld’s casting as Clint Barton’s protégé in Hawkeye was also officially confirmed.
In terms of the MCU films, it was confirmed that Black Widow will be getting a cinematic release (despite all of the Covid-related delays), and that the character of T’Challa in Black Panther 2 will not be recast following Chadwick Boseman’s sad passing earlier this year. It was also confirmed that the third Ant-Man film will be called Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania and will feature Jonathan Major’s debut as Kang The Conqueror (a major villain in the comics), while Christian Bale will appear as the villain Gorr The God Butcher in Thor: Love and Thunder. The only completely new film to be announced was the long-rumoured MCU debut of The Fantastic Four, which will be directed by Jon Watts (who did such a wonderful job of finding the right tone for Spider-Man: Homecoming).
Other projects:
It was confirmed that Indiana Jones 5 will be the “final” Indy film. Hopefully, director James Mangold can give the character the send-off he deserves (and make up for the disappointing Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) just as he did with Logan.
The cult 80s fantasy film Willow is official getting a limited-series sequel on Disney+.
Chris Evans will voice the main character in Pixar’s Lightyear, which confusingly is a movie about the human astronaut who inspires the creation of the Buzz Lightyear toy…?
Enchanted sequel Disenchanted, and Sister Act 3, were announced as Disney+ exclusive films.
Weirdly, Noah Hawley’s (creator of the Legion and Fargo TV shows) latest TV show will be set in the Alien universe, but will take place on Earth. It’s unclear whether it will be set in the future (like the excellent Earth War trilogy of novels that were set after the events of Aliens) or on contemporary Earth (like the awful Alien vs Predator films).
Finally, it was announced that international Disney+ subscribers will also (from February 2021) have access to a new channel, Star, which will be the home to the “mature content” material owed by Disney (for example, the 20th Century Fox properties that it acquired through its merger). It’ll be interesting to see how much of the back catalogue will be made available, or whether it will just be the international home for new (mature) content TV shows produced in the US under the Hulu brand (which is only available in the US).
