Get ready to journey back to Hawkins to watch Eleven, Mike, Hopper, and their friends fight off the monsters that lurk in the Upside Down! The first part of the highly anticipated final season of Stranger Things is officially streaming on Netflix, and fans and critics are already hooked. Since premiering in 2016, Stranger Things has become a cultural phenomenon and one of the biggest franchises of the last 10 years. Co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer sit down with Rotten Tomatoes to give us insight into the show’s inception, their favorite moments, and what to expect in the final episodes of their landmark television series. –Bryce M.
Stranger Things: Season 5 is currently in streaming on Netflix.
On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News.
The latest: Marvel Zombies and Eyes of Wakanda
Disney+’s MCU-tied streaming series are the latest threat to the rankings of all Marvel TV shows, including What If…? and Agatha All Along, along with separate and classic shows, like X-Men ’97 and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. How do the comic book giant’s television properties currently stack up?
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(Photo by Disney/courtesy Everett Collection. THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS.)
The latest: Marvel might just be back on a hot streak with The Fantastic Four: First Steps releasing after Thunderbolts. And DC is back with the first Certified Fresh Superman movie since Returns in 2006!
Friends of the super variety, we’ve collected every Fresh and Certified Fresh superhero movie with at least 20 reviews to assemble our guide to the best superhero movies ever, ranked by Tomatometer!
It’s been a decades-long battle towards the top in pop culture for superhero movies, and we’re featuring here all the goods, the greats, and the masterpieces made along the way. Everything from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Iron Man, Avengers) to DCEU (Aquaman, Wonder Woman), animated fare (The Incredibles, Megamind) to live-action spoofs (The Toxic Avenger, Mystery Men), comedies (Deadpool) and the super serious (The Dark Knight), and then throwing in some originals made just for the big screen (The Rocketeer, Darkman, Unbreakable).
Recently, we’ve added the meta-crushing Deadpool & Wolverine and the DCU igniter Superman!
Great leaping buggaboos! This introduction is now over! Throw up the cape, slip on that cowl, and hop into the Tomatomobile: We ride for to the best superhero movies of all time!
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The latest: The Fantastic Four: First Steps is out and it’s Certified Fresh and Verified Hot! That’s it for the MCU for over a year, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day out July 31, 2026. It’ll be the longest break between films since the two-year gaps between The Incredible Hulk (2008) & Iron Man 2 (2010), and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) and Black Widow (2021). Watch this space as Spider-Man trailers and news drop, alongside Marvel anniversaries.
If you want to see the Marvel and Avengers movies in order as they happened, starting with the World War II-set Captain America: The First Avenger, we’ve listed all the MCU movies and series in chronological order, in one guide!
But first, if you just want an overview of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by release date, we have that right here, as split up by the separate Phases:
The Infinity Saga: Phase One (2008-2012)
Phase Two (2013-2015)
Phase Three (2016-2019)
The Multiverse Saga: Phase Four (2021-2022)
Phase Five (2023-2024)
Phase Six (2025-2027)
You can check out our regular feature on all upcoming Marvel movies with key details! Now, on to if you want to watch the MCU chronologically in-universe. So while Iron Man, set and released in 2008, can claim the banner as the first of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, within its story, Chris Evans has got Robert Downey Jr. beat. That’s because Evans’ origin story as Captain America in The First Avenger takes action in 1942. There, we’re also first fully introduced to the Tessarect, an energy cube that initializes the Infinity Saga, climaxing in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame.
The next movie set in the timeline is Captain Marvel, the blockbuster with a Blockbuster, set in 1995 with Brie Larson starring as the cosmic Carol Danvers. And then it’s time to hit the start with Iron Man and RDJ’s world-making turn as Tony Stark. The movies can be seen in release order after that, except for 2021’s Black Widow, which is set in the aftermath of 2016’s Captain America: Civil War.
Through the epic finale of Endgame (which essentially completed the first 3 phases of the MCU), there was a forward time jump of 5 years, placing most everything in Phase 4 and onward in the near future. Phase 4 started at the movies with Shang-Chi, and has been inviting its lineup of series to really do some heavy lifting, with Loki, Wandavision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Hawkeye pushing the story forward. Then there was the gigantic one-two Spider-Man punch with Far From Home and No Way Home. Moon Knight, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and now Thor: Love and Thunder are all set chronologically by release after that. And now, we’ve added Deadpool & Wolverine, Captain America: Brave New World, and Thunderbolts*.
So if you want to watch the MCU by release order, the list above is your guide. But if you want to take an alternate route and see the movies chronologically within its own timeline (including the TV shows), check out our guide below! (Alex Vo)
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(Photo by © Marvel / © Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection. FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS..)
Heroes don’t get any bigger: Ant-Man celebrates its 10th anniversary!
Captain America: Brave New World debuts as the 35th MCU movie, and 33rd in Tomatometer ranking. But a bounce back sounds off with Thunderbolts*, the 28th Certified Fresh movie of the MCU.
It takes a lot of effort to get audiences the world over to believe that the fate of the universe should be entrusted to a talking tree and a sarcastic raccoon. First of all, you can’t just jump straight into it – you’ve got build up to it. Begin with a story of the repentant millionaire playboy who builds an iron suit with a nuclear heart from a box of scraps in a cave. Toss in a super soldier thawed from ice after 70 years. How about a magic hammer man from space, or the turncoat Russian spy who loses her accent real quick? It’s a good start – just add a few dozen more characters, mix and match them across multiple serialized movies, and as the physics-defying superheroics pile up, all of a sudden, putting all your faith in a trigger happy trash panda makes plenty of sense in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Not a bad world to build up for Marvel Studios, which originally had to put up the rights to Captain America, the Avengers, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and more as collateral just to get the funding to make 2008’s Iron Man. Clearly, the movie bet of the century paid off, as an empire of 25 films (and counting) has flourished under Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige. The MCU has allowed generations of comic book fans to ascend to the highest throne in pop culture, while allowing millions more who have never visually connected comic page panels together to become versed in Wakandan politics as well as where to find the bathroom at the Sanctum Sanctorum. Iron Man, Guardian of the Galaxy, Captain America: The Winter Soldier are classics of the genre now, while Thor: Ragnarok, Captain Marvel, and Black Panther, and now Shang-Chi demonstrate superhero movies remain capable of reinvention for new relevancy.
The first 11 years of the MCU have spanned three so-called Phases, and the third closing after the epic battle royale of Avengers: Endgame and epilogue Spider-Man: Far From Home. The franchise barreled forward in a pandemic world with Black Widow, Eternals, Shang-Chi, and Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021 alone. In 2023, we kick off Phase 5 with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which is drawing some of the weakest reviews of the franchise. The whiplash continued with a bit of a spring-back for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, before the critical split of The Marvels.
2024 was a promised pump-breaking in the wave of interconnected movies and shows, with the entire year’s spotlight reserved for just Deadpool, who’s sucked into the MCU through the corporate wormhole created by Disney’s acquisition of Fox. And he’s bringing a guest in Deadpool & Wolverine, an R-rated meta road comedy that critics have called a bloody, hilarious good time. It’s Certified Fresh, with a Tomatometer score putting it in the thereabouts company of Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Captain Marvel.
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(Photo by Universal Studios/Courtesy Everett Collection. JURASSIC WORLD REBIRTH.)
The latest: Johansson got her professional wish and is starring in a new Jurassic movie: Jurassic World Rebirth, out three years after the closing of the initial trilogy.
From an early age, Scarlett Johansson was determined to make it as an actress, going through the classic journey of entertaining family members as a kid before moving on to progressively larger stages. Today, Johansson entertains on a global scale and holds the distinction of being the highest-grossing actress ever.
Johansson got her first starring role at 12-years-old in the dark road comedy Manny & Lo, and it was only four years later she got the indie cred double whammy with Ghost World and The Man Who Wasn’t There. Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola‘s melancholic drama of drifting romantic souls, made her a household name. Next came a brief stint as Woody Allen‘s muse in Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and Scoop.
Johansson joined the MCU as Black Widow in Iron Man 2, and has been a steady participant since, leading into Avengers: Endgame and side story Black Widow. She also received critical acclaim for Jojo Rabbit and Marriage Story. Then comes an invitation into the Wes Anderson repertory with Asteroid City and Phonecian Scheme. Take a look at every Scarlett Johansson movie ranked by Tomatometer! —Alex Vo
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(Photo by Orion Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection. ROBOCOP 2.)
Combining satire of excess consumerist culture with mega-city violence, RoboCop (1987) separated itself from other 1980s action movies with brains crunching behind its chrome dome, and the car-splattered guts to back it up. Naturally, it’s in the Criterion Collection. Directed by Paul Verhoeven (at the time revved up in his American studio era that march him through Total Recall, Basic Instinct, and Starship Troopers) and starring Peter Weller as OCP officer Alex Murphy, the original RoboCop‘s plot of a gunned-down good cop reconstituted as a cyborg creep-killer can also be viewed as an American take on the Judge Dredd comics, including the dystopic metropolis and a full-helmeted officer who dispenses fatal justice through tight lips and tighter aim. Nancy Allen co-starred as Murphy’s partner, Ronny Cox and Kurtwood Smith turn in era-iconic villain performances, ED-209 is there as the obligatory cute mascot, throw in some light existential drama about Murphy finding his humanity somewhere rooted in his chipboards, and you’ve got enough ’80s-classic stew to fill a toxic waste vat.
Sequels and merchandising were a prime directive of the decade and Weller and Allen partnered again for RoboCop 2 (1990), a war-on-drugs entry still R-rated but more comic-book in tone. Indeed, Frank Miller was a co-writer on this (taking over from original creators/scribes Michael Miner and Edward Neumeier), and attempted to be even more present as a creative force for RoboCop 3. Another RoboCop sequel with another turbulent production, but this time PG-13! And over 20 years later came the remake, a slick and sanitized 2014 production with its slight satirical focused on mass media.
On TV, there were two animated shows (self-titled in 1988, Alpha Commando in 1998) and a 1994 live-action show that helped in lowering the average age of the typical RoboCop fan. Prime Directives from 2001, another live-action series, tried making up for its low-budget with a return to the darkly comic depiction of the 1987 original.
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(Photo by A24/Courtesy Everett Collection. MATERIALISTS.)
The latest: Materialists is Evans’ 13th Certified Fresh movie!
Even if Chris Evans hadn’t played Captain America in the MCU over the last eight years, there’s all kind of evidence he’s some kind of secret comic book nerd. He played the ice-cool Human Torch in two Fantastic Four movies. He was the comic relief in The Losers. He played a jerk-ass ex-boyfriend of Ramona Flowers in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Casey Jones was his jam in the animated TMNT movie. And he was on the world’s longest train ride ever in Snowpiercer. And just what do all those movies have in common? Yep: They’re all adaptations of comic panel to the big screen.
When he’s not helping sequential art books go back into print, Evans’ other notable jobs include being in one of the few actually funny parody movies of this century (Not Another Teen Movie), reigniting the sun (Sunshine), and testing the waters of his dream career as a director (Before We Go).
But honestly, playing Steve Rogers, the dorky hot guy in the MCU (as opposed to Mark Ruffalo, who plays the hot dork), takes up so much time, it’s amazing Evans gets anything else done. And his recent films, Avengers: Endgame and Knives Out, turned out to be his best. Lately, you saw (or heard) him in Lightyear, The Gray Man, and Ghosted. And now you can see the rest as look back on Chris Evans movies ranked by Tomatometer! —Alex Vo
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[Updated August 1, 2025]
The story of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Marvel Studios itself has been a tumultuous one since the release of Avengers: Endgame. The Phase Four films and television shows left audiences wondering if there was a new saga at all. The need to generate material for Disney+ also left many feeling the studio was unfocused and overextended, something studio president Kevin Feige would partially admit in 2025. Nevertheless, at SDCC 2022, he tried to quell some of these misgivings by revealing the full calendar for Phases Five and Six, labeling the whole thing as “The Multiverse Saga.”
But almost as soon as the Multiverse calendar was made public, alterations were made. Movies shifted release dates and production schedules. Two industry strikes forced all television and movie production to grind to halt. Disney itself changed its priorities and instructed Marvel to slow its pipeline. The expected big bad of the new saga, Kang the Conqueror, proved unimpressive in his true debut appearance — Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania — while the actor who portrayed him faced criminal charges in New York. He was ultimately let go from his Marvel contract, but it was unclear if Kang would carry on or be completely replaced with a difference character. And it just so happened that Doctor Doom seemed to be the logical replacement and Robert Downey Jr. was available…
It all reveals that, despite the planning involved, Marvel Studios is malleable and ready to alter those plans if need be.
Meanwhile, back in the MCU, heroes must rise, ne’er-do-wells must do what they do, and Marvel’s First Family must finally take its moment in the spotlight. And, as we have for the last few years, we’re keeping track of it all in this comprehensive guide of every upcoming Marvel Studios film (and television show) with a handy calendar of the studio’s projects through 2027 (and beyond).
As always, we will continue to update this page frequently as new details emerge. And be careful: There are spoilers ahead. (Want to see what the other camp is up to? Check out our full breakdown of upcoming DC Studios movies.)
The SDCC 2024 presentation was full of bombast — from a Deadpool choir singing “Like A Prayer” to the Downey as Doom reveal — but was surprisingly short on words like “phase”, “Multiverse”, and “saga.” Consequently, it is unclear if that system of notation is still in place. What you can expect in lieu of phases is the end of the current saga in two upcoming Avengers films and the return of Spider-Man (Tom Holland) in his fourth MCU outing. Also, there are a few TV shows readying for release that may still matter to the ongoing threads of Marvel storytelling…
Although it remains unclear if phases remain part of the studio’s reported seven year calendar, we’re holding onto the nomenclature for all the projects set for release after First Steps until Feige offers an update on this aspect of the Marvel Method.
Premiere Date: August 6, 2025
What We Know: The anthology miniseries focuses on different protectors of Wakanda throughout its history. A clip shown at the 2024 D23 Marvel Animation presentation revealed a female Black Panther protecting her nation’s vibranium resources during the Age of Piracy, for example. Former Marvel storyboard artist Todd Harris serves as the series director and creator while Black Panther director Ryan Coogler serves as an executive producer. In July 2025, Disney released the first trailer for the series.
How It Fits in the MCU: Unlike the other animated programs, Eyes of Wakanda details the history of Wakanda within the MCU. Of course, despite the presence of Coogler as an executive producer, we imagine he reserves the right to contradict anything revealed here in a subsequent Wakanda-set project (more on that below). The series will also establish the presence of an Iron Fist in the MCU, although it is unclear if this will undo the one featured in the Netflix Iron Fist series.
Premiere Date: October 2025
What We Know: Spinning off from a season 1 What If…? episode, various Marvel characters attempt to survive a zombie apocalypse. During the D23 Marvel Animation presentation mentioned above, the audience saw an extended clip establishing the fall of San Francisco and, five years later, Shang-Chi, Katy, and Jimmy Woo driving a zombie-infested version of the Fury Road. While it is unclear if the live action actors reprise their roles here, Iman Vellani is set to voice Kamala Khan, who is said to be central to the miniseries. Other characters trying to survive include Kate Bishop, Yelena Belova, and Blade(!). What If…?‘s Bryan Andrews serves as director with Zeb Wells taking on head writer duties.
How It Fits in the MCU: By virtue of its zombie conceit, Marvel Zombies happens somewhere besides Earth-616. Although, it is always possible zombies could becoming a thing in the mainline MCU…
Premiere Date: December 2025
What We Know: Initially an untitled series tied to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton’s overall deal with Disney, news broke in June of 2022 that the project is, indeed, a Disney+ show centering on Wonder Man. At first a villain, the character saw the error of his ways (after dying, of course) and eventually joined the Avengers as a member in good standing. Also of note: his brain patterns were utilized to create Vision in the comics. Andrew Guest serves as head writer on the program with Cretton acting as an executive producer. He also directed episodes with Guest becoming the showrunner after a change in direction at Marvel towards a more traditional TV development model. In October of 2022, Aquaman‘s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II emerged as Simon Williams, the star of the series with Ben Kingsley also signing on to play in-universe actor Trevor Slattery once again. Additional cast includes Mindhunters‘ Lauren Glazier, Ed Harris (reportedly as Simon’s agent, Neal Saroyan) and Josh Gad. In February of 2023, The Photograph‘s Stella Meghie emerged as one of the program’s episode directors. That March, Demetrius Grosse joined the series as Eric Williams, Simon’s brother and eventual coma-inducing Marvel villain Grim Reaper. Production was underway when the WGA strike began and, like all other active Marvel productions, stopped filming. It resumed in November following the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike. Feige told The Official Marvel Podcast in June 2024 that the series is “extremely different” from the others. In October 2024, Marvel fans finally got their first glimpse of the series as part of an overall Marvel Disney+ preview. It featured Abdul-Mateen, as Simon, auditioning for the part of Wonder Man and Slattery claiming the role is important for them both. It’s unclear why or how it will lead to Williams becoming a hero, though. The eight episode series will debut in December. Subsequent teases suggest the program will be extremely meta with Simon hiding his powers to play Wonder Man in a TV show set within the MCU. To further this feeling, we interviewed Abdul-Mateen as Simon on the red carpet at The Fantastic Four: First Step‘s premiere.
How It Fits in the MCU: Wonder Man could help resolve the mystery of White Vision (Paul Bettany) and, perhaps, aid him in integrating all his memories. But as Wonder Man’s civilian identity is an actor, there may also be another chance to illustrate what movies look like in the MCU, especially if Wonder Man is already a fictional character within the MCU. Although, with the series positioned as “Marvel Spotlight” story, it may end up having little or no connections to the ongoing saga.
(Photo by Matt Kennedy/©Sony Pictures Releasing)
Release Date: July 31, 2026
What We Know: Mere hours into Spider-Man: No Way Home’s theatrical run, Feige confirmed Marvel Studios and Sony were already developing a fourth MCU Spider-Man film. Indeed, No Way Home producer Amy Pascal indicated in early December of 2021 that a second trilogy was in the works, but Sony Pictures CEO Tom Rothman walked that back at the film’s Los Angeles premiere. And yet, the conclusion of No Way Home makes it clear Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has a part to play in the saga to come. In the meantime, of course, he still needs to clear Spider-Man’s name and get some vestige of his life back. Also, there is that piece of Venom left behind in Mexico… In February of 2023, Feige confirmed Marvel has a story in mind for a fourth film, but offered little else, and after the release of the animated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse that June, Pascal gave Variety an interview in which she confirmed development on a number of Spider-Man-related titles, including a new Tom Holland film. Talks regarding the project were halted as the WGA went on strike. In April of 2024, Holland told Deadline the film will have to wait until all concerned parties have “cracked” the script, but by early October, he said the script was nearing a satisfying state and that he would be shooting in 2025.
Just a month earlier, reports surfaced indicating Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton was in talks to helm the picture. And by the end of October, Sony — who still controls distribution of the MCU Spider-Man movies — dated the fourth entry for July 2026 with Cretton as director. At that moment, it was the only MCU movie scheduled between the two Avengers films, but now stands as the only remain film before Doom makes his in-universe debut. In March of 2025, Stranger Things‘ Sadie Sink joined the cast in an undisclosed role. Naturally enough, pundits online quickly guessed the young actor will be the next person to play X-Man Jean Grey in live action.
Later that month, Sony revealed the film’s subtitle: Brand New Day. Taking its name from a Marvel Comics story in which Peter experiences a new status quo after making a deal with Mephisto, we expect the film will deal with the consequences of the MCU Peter’s choice at the end of No Way Home. It also offers up another character for Sink to play: the superhero known as Jackpot, who Peter mistakes for Mary Jane Watson in the comics. Other guesses include May Day Parker, Peter’s daughter from an alternate reality, and our own choice: the Mutant Firestar from the 1980s Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends animated series. In June, Jon Bernthal signed on to play The Punisher in the film, suggesting a “team up” — although fans of the comics know what sort of collabs Frank and Peter experience in their shared appearances. In July, Holland noted that the film will use more locations as No Way Home was mostly studio-bound to comply with COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. As August 2025 began, Sony teased the look of Peter’s costume to celebrate Spider-Man day and various trade papers revealed Mark Ruffalo will appear as Bruce Banner while Michael Mando will return from Spider-Man: Homecoming as the Scorpion. Additional cast includes Liza Colón-Zayas and, naturally enough, Zendaya and Jacob Batalon.
How It Fits in the MCU: While many speculate the film will continue No Way Home‘s Multiversal focus, we think it could concern itself with a hero trying to re-establish his cred in a New York filled with Punishers and Daredevils while also dealing with a more basic suit. Also, it is still possible he’ll find Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) as his new opponent.
Avengers: Doomsday (2026)
Premiere Date: December 18, 2026
What We Know: The fifth Avengers film will presumably set up the endgame of The Multiverse Saga if that term is still in use at Marvel. On July 26, 2022, word broke indicating Destin Daniel Cretton would direct the film, then titled Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. That September, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania writer Jeff Loveness signed on to craft the script. During the press tour for Quantumania, he teased the film will be a “bloodbath” and inspire the next generation of Avengers. In November of 2023, both Loveness and Cretton walked away from the project with Michael Waldron taking over scripting chores. At SDCC 2024, Feige announced Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo will return to helm the film (and its follow-up), confirming earlier reports. The pair then revealed the film’s new subtitle: “Doomsday.” The picture will introduce Downey’s Doctor Doom and, we assume, how he ends up controlling the Multiverse. Feige also mentioned many of the characters from the 2025 theatrical releases — including the Fantastic Four — will appear in the upcoming Avengers films. In late 2024, word broke indicating Chris Evans will return for the film, although is unclear if he will come back as Steve Rogers, Johnny Storm, or another character out in the Multiverse who happens to look like the actor. But with subsequent reporting suggesting Hayley Atwell is also set to return, it is possible they could be the same Steve/Peggy we saw dancing during Endgame‘s conclusion. Evans subsequently denied the reports of his return, though. In March of 2025, Marvel livestreamed an hours-long cast announcement video, in which the camera slowly progressed along a seemingly neverending line of director’s chairs with Doomsday cast members’ names on them, The list included not only returning Avengers actors like Paul Rudd, Chris Hemsworth, Sebastian Stan, and Anthony Mackie, but also the stars of Thuderbolts*, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Simu Liu, Tom Hiddleston, and several returning stars from the original X-Men films, including Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, not to mention Robert Downey Jr., who was the only one sitting in his chair and ended the video by hushing the viewers. Notably absent from the list, however, were Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, and the aforementioned Chris Evans and Hayley Atwell.
How It Fits in the MCU: As Downey’s Victor Von Doom hails from an alternate Earth — seemingly the same one as the Fantastic Four — how could such a Doom become aware of the Multiverse and the tapestry Loki (Hiddleston) now maintains? Will he have to face off against the God of Stories first? Or does their shared love of the color green indicate something else? Also, is this the real last stand for the 20th Century Studios X-Men?
Release Date: 2026
What We Know: Just ahead of Daredevil: Born Again‘s premiere in March 2025, word broke indicating a Punisher special is in development. The current plan is to release it in concert with Born Again‘s second season in 2026. Bernthal will not only reprise his role as Frank Castle, but co-write the special alongside director Reinaldo Marcus Green. Plot details are, of course, unavailable.
How It Fits in the MCU: With Frank making his proper MCU debut in Born Again‘s first season, it remains to be seen what sort of state he is in for that series or the special. But we keep wondering if Frank was Blipped. If that’s the case, making someone pay for those lost five years could fuel a 50-minute special.
Release Date: 2026
What We Know: Following the events of the first season, Matt Murdoch (Charlie Cox) reunites with fellow New York defender Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter). Shooting is currently underway with Royce Johnson reportedly set to return as Brett Mahoney.
How It Fits in the MCU: The re-emergence of Jessica Jones marks another link between the Netflix Marvel series and the current MCU. It remains to be seen, though, how much of her earlier show will be acknowledged. But, then again, neither Matt or Jessica were thrilled to be called Defenders in those series, so they may sidestep that issue entirely.
Premiere Date: 2026
What We Know: In October of 2022, reports surfaced of a potential series staring Paul Bettany as the White Vision featured in WandaVision and his struggle to regain the memories the Hex Vision imparted to him. WandaVision and Agatha head writer Jac Schaeffer reportedly supervised a writers room that Fall, but it was unclear if the project was still moving forward, particularly when Disney and Marvel were looking to slow down development of the slate and the strikes rewriting all the calendars. For a time, it seemed as though the project was one of the reported “quiet” cuts as Disney and Marvel refocused their efforts, but in late May 2024, Star Trek: Picard‘s Terry Matalas signed on to run the show and serve as executive producer. It appears his is a new take on the concept differs from the one Schaeffer was developing. But with Disney projecting a 2026 premiere, it is currently on more solid footing than some of the other projects listed below. Adding to its stability: James Spader will return to voice Ultron, the character he played all the way back in Avengers: Age of Ultron. In September of 2024, frequent Matalas collaborator Todd Stashwick reportedly joined the cast. Then, in January 2025, new reports suggested Iron Man‘s Faran Tahir would return as Raza, the Ten Rings captain who captured Tony Stark in that 2009 film, setting off the entire MCU. Production began in Spring of 2025.
How It Fits in the MCU: Even if Matalas is starting from scratch, the program still has one objective related to the saga: restore Vision in time for the fight against Doom. Then, maybe, it will be time to deal with Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), who we believe to be very much alive. Also, the reported presence of Raza may offer an opportunity to reveal what the Ten Rings looks like after the events of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Premiere Date: December 17, 2027
What We Know: The sixth Avengers film will conclude Phase 6 and The Multiverse Saga (if either term is still in play). The title also offers a few clues as Marvel Comics has published two epic stories with that name. The first saw heroes and villains transported to Battleworld so the Beyonder could watch them fight. The second saw some heroes remembering how their Mutliverse was before various incursions collapsed it and plotting against Doom, the unquestioned master of all reality, to restore the universes they loved. Also, Spider-Man Miles Morales joined the mainstream Marvel Comics Universe in the aftermath. In October 2022, Loki‘s Michael Waldron signed on to write the script, but it is unclear if his draft is the one the Russo Brothers will use. At SDCC 2024, Anthony Russo said the original Secret Wars was one of the comics that made him a reader and he hopes to bring some of its magic to the next Avengers capstone. Originally set for a May 2027 release, it is now scheduled for December of that year. In July 2025, Feige revealed the film will also offer the studio a chance for a creative and narrative reset following its conclusion.
How It Fits in the MCU: No matter what Doom does in the two Avengers films, we expect the MCU will look fairly different afterward. Oh, and the post-credit scene — if one happens — would be the perfect moment to reprise the X-Men animated series theme again. Feige has hinted the Mutants will take point in the post-Multiverse stories. Also, the original Secret Wars comics introduced Spider-Man’s black suit, so maybe that piece of Venom left in the MCU will make its way to Peter…
(Photo by © Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, © Marvel Studios)
Release Date: TBA
What We Know: According to Feige, Armor Wars will be Tony Stark’s “worst fears come to life” as bad actors get a hold of some Iron Man tech. Only Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) – a.k.a. War Machine – will be in a position to stop them. In August of 2021, Black Monday’s Yassir Lester emerged as the series’ head writer. Production was expected to start in late 2022 and as the program was not mentioned at all during the SDCC 2022, Lester took to his Instagram stories to clarify that it is still happening. Marvel and Disney subsequently announced the project would be a film instead with Lester staying on to write the script. Little has been said since about, though, so it may be one of the “quiet cuts” Marvel made in the last few years.
How It Fits in the MCU: Cheadle, of course, has played Rhodey since Iron Man 2 and survived terrible color schemes for his armor, the crushing of his legs, being replaced by a Skrull, and the Blip. So he’s well-placed to defend Tony’s technology. Also, we can’t help but think Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) will show up to offer him some aid and that Ezekiel Stane (Alden Ehrenreich) will prove to be their shared foe.
Blade (2025)
(Photo by © Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, © Marvel Studios)
Release Date: TBD
What We Know: Feige stunned the 2019 Comic-Con crowd by announcing Mahershala Ali will be the MCU’s version of Blade. Early on, Stacy Osei-Kuffour signed up to write the project with Feige admitting it will be a PG-13 affair. In July of 2021, word broke indicating Bassam Tariq will direct the picture. In November of 2021, Delroy Lindo emerged as the second person cast for the film. Although it was unclear who he might play, the internet quickly seized on the possibility of Jamal Afari, Blade’s mentor in the comics who was revamped into Whistler for the first Blade film trilogy. The following February, Aaron Pierre joined the cast in an unknown role. The departure of Tariq in the Fall of 2022 not only delayed the film, but several others down the production calendar. In late September that year, Lovecraft Country‘s Yann Demange emerged as the new director with Michael Starrbury writing a new script. In April of 2023, Mia Goth joined the cast and, later that month, True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto took on writing duties with production expected to begin in late May 2023. But with the onset of the Writers’ Guild strike on May 2 that year, it was unclear if Pizzolatto’s draft was completed or if production would commence without him. But as the actors eventually went on strike as well, Blade was once again delayed. As the strikes resolved late in the year, Disney pushed the film to a November 2025 release.
And then it all fell apart again with Demange exiting the production sometime in early 2024. The search is on again for a director, and according to reports, the supporting cast have been released from their contracts. Goth has clarified she will remain part of the film. Ali also still intends to star with Eric Pearson writing the latest draft. Additionally, other reports indicate the film was originally meant to be a period piece but will now take place in modern-day MCU.
Curiously, any mention of the film was completely absent from Marvel’s 2024 SDCC presentation (and the subsequent D23 Entertainment Showcase) with Feige only saying “three films” were set for release in 2025. Then, in October, Blade was removed from the 2025 release calendar and replaced by a new Predator movie. Currently, the film is on indefinite hold, although it appears Ali and Goth are still attached to star should the studio ever figure out what it wants to do with Blade. Or, maybe, Wesley Snipes was correct when he said “there will only ever be one Blade” in Deadpool & Wolverine (with all apologies to Sticky Fingaz, who played him in a short-lived TV show, and the various actors who have voiced the Day Walker in animated projects).
As 2024’s D23 Brazil, Feige said the studio is still committed to bringing Blade into the MCU. He reiterated that commitment during the Fantastic Four: First Steps press tour in July 2025.
How It Fits in the MCU: While the MCU is a realm of science, mysticism, cosmic entities, and traditional street crime, it lacks for genuine monsters. Emerging from Marvel Comics’ The Tomb of Dracula, Blade will no doubt be our guide into a darker corner of the MCU where one finds things that go bump in the night. Luckily, he’s pretty good with a sword and can vanquish them with relative ease. Of course, the literal demons of the Marvel Universe may present more of a challenge. In terms of a more concrete connection to the MCU, the character made a disembodied appearance in Eternals, stopping Dane Whitman (Kit Harrington) from embracing his destiny and, seemingly, adding the character to Blade’s corner of the Marvel Universe.
(Photo by ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.)
Release Date: TBA
What We Know: Early in December of 2021, reports suggested director Destin Daniel Cretton will return to helm a Shang-Chi sequel and develop other projects for Disney and Marvel. Presumably, Simu Liu and Awkwafina will return as Shang-Chi and Katy with Meng’er Zhang continuing to rebuild the Ten Rings as Xialing. We also imagine Wong (Bendict Wong) will appear in some capacity, as the signal Shang-Chi’s Ten Rings are sending into space will lead something to Earth. Of course, readers of the Gene Luen Yang-written Shang-Chi comic book may wonder if, perhaps, the Five Weapons Society will also be introduced. In November of 2023, Cretton departed development of the fifth Avengers film to focus on the Shang-Chi sequel, but this clearly changed as Cretton will now direct the next Spider-Man movie (as mentioned above). In July of 2024, Liu even quipped that the sequel keeps getting pushed back as Marvel’s long term plans change. As of that year’s SDCC presentation, it is unclear if the follow-up is still happening. One glimmer of hope: Liu attended Feige’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony the week prior to the convention. However, with Disney announcing 2028 Marvel release dates (listed in the calendar below), it is possible Shang-Chi will be back in three year’s time.
How It Fits in the MCU: The signal broadcasting into space is the big one here. Will it attract a dragon-like alien race to the epicenter of the Blip? Or is it a huge diversion while the Ten Rings organization returns to prominence in the criminal underworld? And speaking of Xialing’s future as a crime boss, she will no doubt face opponents like Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) and Kingpin in her quest to be more successful than her late father.
Release Date: TBA
What We Know: In November of 2024, Denzel Washington let slip on an Australia’s Today show that Ryan Coogler was writing a part for him in the third Black Panther movie. Though Marvel initially refused comment on the matter, they eventually confirmed a Black Panther 3 is in development, although in a roundabout way. The confirmation came as long time Marvel executive Nate Moore announced his departure from the studio to produce movies. Marvel bosses Kevin Feige and Louis D’Esposito specifically mentioned “the next Black Panther” in their statement about his exit. It is still unclear, though, if Coogler is in fact back and writing the new film. Also unknown: if Washington is indeed part of the cast, who might be returning from the previous films, or even any semblance of a plot.
How It Fits in the MCU: Presuming Shuri (Letitia Wright) is still Black Panther and ruling Wakanda, the stories could dovetail with just about any other MCU idea — from the discovery on Adamantium to the continuing tensions between Wakanda and Talocan.
Release Date: TBA
What We Know: Just days after the WGA negotiated a new contract with the AMPTP, word broke indicating Marvel was soliciting pitches from writers for an eventual X-Men feature. Considering the nature of its development, expect the film to occur in Phase 7 — provided Marvel still plans in phases, of course. In May of 2024, Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes writer Michael Lesslie emerged to adapt some of the boundless Mutant concepts into a Marvel Studios script. At present, it is unclear just what sort of roster fans can expect … although, considering the success of X-Men ’97, the early 1990s team might be a safe guess. Professor X, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm, Gambit, Beast, Morph, Jubilee, and Wolverine are a pretty great ensemble and a good cross section of abilities, history, and characters. Toward the end of 2024, Feige said The X-Men is important to the future of Marvel storytelling, but it would likely not debut until after Secret Wars and the conclusion of the current saga. In May of 2025, Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier emerged as the likely person to helm the picture. That July, Feige said the film will focus on more youthful elements and that Schreier is the perfect person to amplify that aspect of the concept.
How It Fits in the MCU: Presuming that the film will be set after Secret Wars, it will either focus on how the X-Men avoided detection all these years or how they join into the mainstream Marvel timeline. Of course, it is always possible they will also set up the next big saga. Our wild speculation? The next overarching story will be “The Apocalypse Saga.” Loosely based on the 1990s “Age of Apocalypse” event storyline, it could see the Mutants (and other heroes) working to prevent the supremacy of Apocalypse (played by Oscar Isaac in 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse) in the future.
(Photo by Matt Kennedy/Marvel Studios)
Premiere Date: TBA
What We Know: As part of an overall deal with Disney, Black Panther director Ryan Coogler will develop and produce several series set in Wakanda or focusing on Wakandan characters. Although, it is now unclear how many of them will come to fruition or if they were all different aspects of Eyes of Wakanda (the in-continuity animated series detailed above). Reports suggest one of the projects is a live action drama set in the Wakandan capital while another may be an Okoye-focues series (more on that below).
How It Fits in the MCU: It all depends on whether or not any of these ideas come to fruition, but we imagine anything set in the present day will follow the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
(Photo by Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Premiere Date: TBA
What We Know: In late May of 2021, word broke indicating Danai Gurira will lead a Disney+ spinoff detailing Okoye’s rise through the Dora Milaje ranks. This project appears to be an additional Wakanda concept beyond the others Coogler is developing. Although, little has been said about it over the last four years.
How It Fits in the MCU: A focus on Okoye – and the other Dora Milaje for that matter – offers untold possibilities for story and further exploration of Wakanda. It could also strengthen her ties to characters beyond its borders. Of course, if it tells an ongoing story following the events of Wakanda Forever, it could see the character grappling with becoming more of a traditional superhero.
Release Date: TBA
What We Know: During a November 2021 American Cinematheque award ceremony in Scarlett Johansson’s honor, Feige let slip that the Black Widow star will be producing a project for Marvel Studios. Characterizing it as “top secret,” the studio chief also said the production will have nothing to do with Black Widow.
Johansson’s involvement with Marvel is somewhat surprising, as she sued Disney over the Disney+ premiere of Black Widow earlier that year. Although such suits are not uncommon, there seemed to be an unusual level of animosity between Disney and Johansson’s team – in the press, at least. But with the matter resolved, it seems Johansson will still take part in Marvel’s future endeavors. In late June of 2023, Johansson confirmed the project was still in development. In 2025, the actor revealed she was meant to be a producer on Thunderbolts*, but as she ultimately did no work on the film, she asked for her name to be removed. It is currently unclear if this was the secret project from 2021.
How It Fits in the MCU: Since this is a “top secret” project, anything is on the table – including a film version of A-Force, the all-female Avengers team. Also, although we’re listing this as a movie project, it is also possible this will be a Disney+ series.
Release Date: TBA
What We Know: In March of 2022, Moon Knight‘s Sabir Pirzada was reportedly developing a project based on Marvel Comics’ Nova, centering on a member of the Nova Corps, the yellow-clad space cops seen in Guardians of the Galaxy. At the time of the initial report, it was unclear if Nova would be a film or Disney+ series. In either case, it would follow a human who receives enhanced abilities upon joining the corps. Some subsequent reports indicated the project was evolving into a Marvel Special Presentation like Werewolf by Night. Then things went dormant until late 2024, when new reports claimed the project was back in gear in response to the cross-town rival’s Lanterns HBO series. Criminal Minds‘ Ed Bernero will serve as showrunner, replacing Pirzada. It will also be a live action television series versus something animated, a film, or the rumored one-off special. It will reportedly focus on Richard Rider — the original Marvel character to bear the name “Nova” — as he makes his way to Nova Prime and learns how to be a member of its intergalactic police force. Little has been said since, though, so it may be another “quiet cut.”
How It Fits in the MCU: Should it truly become a reality, Nova could take the place of Guardians as the key window into Marvel’s intergalactic happenings.
July 31, 2026 – Spider-Man: Brand New Day
December 18, 2026 – Avengers: Doomsday
December 17, 2027 – Avengers: Secret Wars
February 18, 2028 — Untitled Marvel Movie 1 (Our guess: Blade)
May 5, 2028 — Untitled Marvel Movie 1 (Our guess: Black Panther 3Shang-Chi 2)
November 10, 2028 — Untitled Marvel Movie 3 (Our guess: The X-Men)
December 15, 2024 — Untitled Marvel Movie 4 (Our Guess: Shang-Chi 2)
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Although Marvel Studios will reportedly switch to longer seasons with upcoming shows, Loki is still a product of the original production method: six-episode miniseries that could continue. And has become Rotten Tomatoes’ custom, we’re taking a look at Loki season 2 at the halfway point to see what’s transpired so far, speculate on may yet transpire, and check-in with executive producer Kevin Wright, who answered a few of questions about the story so far. So join us on a journey where time becomes timeless and Timely and where Loki Laufeyson (Tom Hiddleston) starts auditioning for the lead role in Doctor Who.
Spoiler alert: The following contains plot details from the first three episodes of Loki season 2. Stop reading here if you haven’t watched the episodes and wish to avoid spoilers.
Ke Huy Quan as O.B. and Owen Wilson as Mobius in Loki season 2, episode 1 (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
One thing we find fascinating about Loki‘s world is the constant refrain that the Time Variance Authority exists outside of time and, therefore, does not experience it. That notion actually answers the season 1 cliffhanger as the statues we previously thought depicted Kang (Jonathan Majors) were, in fact, modeled after He Who Remains (also Majors), the variant of Kang who devised the TVA and the Sacred Timeline. They just exist in the distant past of the supposedly timeless TVA.
Confused? That’s OK. It may help to ignore the reminders of the TVA’s timelessness. As Loki quickly learned, the memories of its agents are regularly wiped and the timeslips he experienced proves that the seeming impossible (the progression of time) is possible in the confines of the TVA.
But according to Wright, the mind-melting nature of time within the Authority was part of an attempt to quickly resolve the first season’s shocking cliffhanger and move onto the next part of the story. “[First season head writer Michael Waldron] would always talk about story acceleration and the things that you think, ‘All right, well, that whole episode or maybe the whole season is going to be about resolving that cliffhanger,’” he explained. “And it’s like, ‘What if we figure that out in the first 10 minutes and then we can just get into the consequences of that?’”
Wilson and Tom Hiddleston as Loki in Loki season 2, episode 2 (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
So instead of Loki spending six episodes trying to restore Mobius M. Mobius’s (Owen Wilson) memories of their friendship, he discovers he is in the past of a building said to have no past. Nevertheless, as Wright noted, what are the consequences of that?
In the immediate “present” of the TVA, it means the agents learn from Loki the truth about the Time-keepers and He Who Remains, which in turn sets several things in motion – like General Dox’s (Kate Dickie) hunt for Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) and Mobius and Loki discovering the failing temporal loom.
Of course, as Wright pointed out, the increased buddy cop feel of the Loki-Mobius dynamic is intentional. “Those two have such a great rapport behind and in front of the camera, that it just gives a lot of fuel. And then we’re able to turn the tables and it isn’t just Mobius guiding Loki through things, but Loki able to help give Mobius insights into himself.”
Hiddleston and Wunmi Mosaku as Hunter B-15 in Loki season 2, episode 2 (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
Unlike the first season, Loki’s second run of episodes appears to emphasize a more solid episodic structure. A problem is identified — Loki’s timeslipping, Sylvie’s whereabouts in time, finding Victory Timely (yet again Majors) — and resolved within 48-or-so minutes. A payoff in every episode is immediately satisfying as the stakes do not linger too long. Well, the minor ones when compared to the destruction of the temporal loom. As Loki and Mobius learn, it is the key to maintaining the Sacred Time and it cannot contain the branching timelines unleashed when He Who Remains died.
Although, as Wright pointed out to us, altering the structure of the season was not a conscious effort to become more episodic. Instead, as he explained, “We wanted things to constantly be getting trickier and create more of a high-wire act as the series progresses, so it kind of came naturally out of that.”
We have to admit, the wire is pretty high at this point. The loom is on the verge of collapse and only He Who Remains can offer O.B. (Ke Huy Quan) the access needed to expand its capabilities. Luckily, they’ve tracked down Timely, the man who will become He Who Remains — granted, he could still be another variant (more on that later). But Dox, Sylvie, and even Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) present threats to Loki, Timely, and the TVA. Then there’s whatever scheme Miss Minutes (voiced by Tara Strong) might be hatching.
While Loki is still a serialized show, giving each episode a more solid structure definitely helps navigate the time-twisting nature of the larger plot. Or, at least, it seems to help.
Jonathan Majors as Victor Timely and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Ravonna Renslayer in Loki season 2, episode 3 (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
That brings us to Timely, who finally debuts in episode 3. He’s not exactly what one would expect considering the man we met at (presumably) the end of his life. Then again, he’s not exactly He Who Remains, either. Note the time indicators when Renslayer arrives in 1868 Chicago to give a young Timely the TVA manual and when Loki and Mobius arrive at the 1893 World’s Fair. The former is part of the Sacred Timeline while the latter is a branched alternate.
We’ll assume the TVA manual is the source of the branching and Timely’s exposure to O.B.’s writing jump-started at least some of his thoughts about the technology he will eventually use to mash the Multiverse down to a Sacred Timeline. But leapfrogging his theories by a few centuries also means he emerges as an variant with a fundamentally different personality. As someone absent-minded but ready to scam several deep-pocketed individuals at the Fair, he comes off as more of a flim-flam man with odd speech patterns than the person Loki and Sylvie met at the end of all things. But if there is one commonality between Timely and He Who Remains, it is in their reticence to share control.
In fact, we wonder if that common aspect is a tell indicating that Timely’s persona is as much a front as the scam he pulls on robber baron Guy Pennyman III (Ross Hatt). He may yet to prove to be as much He Who Remains as the person Sylvie killed in the season 1 finale if not the same person thanks to some timey-wimey shenanigans.
Jonathan Majors as Kang The Conqueror in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Photo by Jay Maidment/Marvel Studios)
Although, that leaves a few questions about He Who Remains, Kang, Timely, and all the other Kangs glimpsed at the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Are they all, originally, Victor Timely? Did they all grow up in the slums of 19th century Chicago? And if so, did the original Multiversal war occur in that century or early in the 20th?
We put the question to Wright and he said, “It would happen everywhere and all at once.”
“It isn’t taking place in one era or one place,” he continued. “The scary and the interesting thing about it, to me, is that it isn’t just an army coming in the way that we’ve seen in past Marvel films. This is a thing where it would be an attack of every fiber of reality across its entire existence.”
Another question: why does Timely inspire the reactions he receives from Renslayer and Miss Minutes? Both seem entranced by him, only to lose their senses when he rebuffs their advances. Also, Miss Minutes seems incensed when Renslayer and Timely experience an immediate attraction.
For Miss Minutes, an answer quickly presents itself — she’s still furthering the designs of He Who Remains. She even puts Renslayer on the path to deposit the TVA manual in Timely’s 1868 hovel. Then again, her jealousy of Timely’s rapport with Renslayer “also suggests sentience and ambitions she claims to possess are, in fact, real.
Renslayer’s behavior, meanwhile, may relate back to the deep TVA past and the mindwipes. Does she dimly recall He Who Remains and recognize him in this stranger, daffier Timely?
Wilson and Hiddleston in Loki season 2, episode 2 (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
The acceleration of the events has led to an interesting change in Loki that he has yet to really acknowledge: He’s all in as a TVA agent. Once his timeslipping is resolved, he puts on a coat we can’t help but see as one Hiddleston might wear if he starred in Doctor Who and he seems committed to fixing the loom, stopping Dox’s squad, and restoring the order Sylvie destabilized when she killed He Who Remains.
What happened to the god of mischief?
Despite some displays of his trickster powers in episode 2 and 3, it seems his journey with Sylvie across season 1 had a profound influence on him. He’s identified something worth fighting for among all the Multiversal chaos and it seems to be the TVA itself. Or, at the various least, the bonds he made with Mobius, Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku), and Casey (Eugene Cordero).
Alternatively, he found something to fight against as he took He Who Remains’ warning about a worse despot on the horizon to heart. While he’s only mentioned it a handful of time, he genuinely fears what might happen if the TVA falls and another Kang establishes a foothold in reality.
Either way, though, the investment on Loki’s part is a stark departure from where we started with this variant: Still married to his glorious purpose despite his defeat at the hands of the Avengers. Sure, he knows his adoptive mother and his prime variant both died as consequences of the Infinity Saga, but there is only so much empathy he can have for those events as, ultimately, he did not experience them. Nevertheless, Loki is emotionally at the same place his prime was at the conclusion of Thor: Ragnarok and that’s pretty remarkable — especially as the events of Loki amount to handful of days since the Battle of New York depicted in the first Avengers film.
Well, a few days as Loki perceives them, anyway. Has he had a moment to rest since the TVA picked him up?
Loki season 2 character art: Sylvie (Photo by Marvel Studios)
Of course, with all this examination of Timely as a person and Loki’s newfound commitment, Sylvie has been lost in the mix. Although, to be fair, she got what she wanted in season 1 and when Loki finds her, she seems content working at a McDonald’s in a branched timeline. The dynamic is very different this time around as she is only involved to protect her timeline. See the way she lunges for Timely in episode 3 and begrudgingly allows Loki to take him to the TVA.
Sadly, that also means her partnership with Loki takes a back seat to Loki and Mobius as the key pairing this season. Nevertheless, we hope she will still get to do something meaningful in the second half. She was one of the great additions to the Marvel Studios canon, after all.
Loki season 2 character art: O.B. (Photo by Marvel Studios)
But across the season so far, one character has stood out: O.B., or, as we learned, “Ouroboros.” The character, armed with Quan’s charm, is an immediate delight. He is the right kind of quirk for the TVA and, as it turns out, the person who best understands the underlying technology of the Authority and the temporal loom.
Presumably, like everyone else who works at the TVA, he is a variant whose prime still lives some sort of life in the Sacred Timeline. And like Mobius, he has been renamed with a term that symbolize infinity. That cannot be a coincidence.
Despite what He Who Remains told Loki and Sylvie, the Multiverse has not returned — at least, not in the way it is being experienced by some other Marvel characters — and the Sacred Timeline is still held in place by the loom. And only O.B. has any chance of altering it to accommodate the branching timelines. Is he telling the truth in that regard? And even if he is, will his fix (or Timely’s for that matter) be enough? It is possible Loki will yet reveal the mechanism for the council of Kangs to exist and their ambitions to wage war across all possibility?
Or, maybe, this is all just the long way for Mobius to get his jet ski.
82%
Loki: Season 2
(2023)
episode 3 streams on Thursday, October 19 on Disney+.
On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News.
On a time-travel jaunt to the 1800s, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and Mobius (Owen Wilson) run across wooden statues of gods Odin, Thor, and Balder, Thor and Loki’s brother of light, joy, purity, and the summer sun who, in Norse mythology, Loki is responsible for killing and who has not yet appeared in the MCU. “This has to be a joke,” Loki says, in this sneak peek at episode 3 of Loki season 2. “It’s embarrassing. It’s a crass generalization … Why’d they include Balder? No one’s even heard of him.” “Sure they have,” Mobius replies, “‘Balder the Brave.’ You know, sometimes I forget that you’re one of them. You are one of them. Blows my mind.”
82%
Loki: Season 2
(2023)
episode 3 streams on Thursday, October 19 on Disney+.
On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News.
Charlie Cox in Marvel’s Daredevil key art (Photo by Netflix)
Marvel Comics is known for its up and downs — not just in regards to the lives of its costumed characters, but also in the ways it does business. The creation of Marvel Studios and Disney’s ownership of the Avengers, for one, has its roots in one of the roughest periods Marvel — no matter its corporate name or parent company — ever faced. And, because everything is cyclical with superheroes, Marvel Studios currently faces one of its biggest challenges to date.
The head writers of the upcoming Daredevil: Born Again Disney+ series were dismissed sometime in September with the directing team also receiving pink slips in subsequent days, THR reported in the Oct. 11 issue of its magazine. The move was part of a creative reckoning Marvel President Kevin Feige and his team could no longer ignore: Marvel Studios’ way of doing television did not work.
Daredevil: Born Again title treatment (Photo by Marvel Studios)
In the short term, Born Again will be re-conceived as something closer to Netflix’s Daredevil series (both star Charlie Cox as the title character and Vincent D’Onofrio as his key nemesis, Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin), but the reported changes occurring on the series also indicate a major rethink regarding production methods and the studio’s way of providing television to its corporate parent’s streaming service, Disney+.
We also think it is, in its way, an acknowledgment that something was going wrong at Marvel — real superhero fatigue as Marvel executives and creatives overextended themselves in an attempt to both reinvent the TV wheel and maintain the momentum of the cinematic Infinity Saga. Here’s how it happened and a few ideas about why the shake-up on Daredevil may be, ultimately, a positive development for MCU shows.
Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in 2008’s Iron Man (Photo by Paramount Pictures)
Marvel Comics utilized an interesting way of creating stories known as “the Marvel Method.” In its earliest form, writer Stan Lee — who also served as an editor — provided artists with a written outline of events. The artists would then go off and produce pages. Once approved by editorial, Lee would write the final dialogue to marry whatever ideas the artists added to his own original plans. It more or less worked and writers who joined the company in Lee’s wake used it as well. Guided, of course, by the editorial team.
A similar method emerged as Feige became the de facto chief creative officer when Marvel Studios formalized and Iron Man went into production. Eventually, a grand tapestry of 23 interconnected movies emerged; all leading up to a grand climax. It was unprecedented in film, although fairly common in comics, and it worked unlike anything the business had ever seen.
Credit went to Feige as the mastermind behind diverse strands of the tapestry, from the Oscar-worthy Black Panther to the surprising crowd-pleaser Guardians of the Galaxy. Although the individual creative talents built those films into what they became, Feige’s acumen for managing all the moving parts while orchestrating a larger story won him acclaim and creative control of not just the films, but Marvel’s television slate with the expressed purpose of creating programs of the scale and quality the MCU was known for on Disney’s upcoming streaming service. The mandate was clear: keep the material coming while designing the next big saga and producing a full film slate of tentpole motion pictures.
The first move, though, was to dismantle what remained of the previous TV unit, Marvel Television, putting creative oversight on Feige and a few other executives while also instituting a new sort of Marvel Method.
Instead of a creative executive producer who typically serves as the head writer — known in the industry informally as a showrunner — being the ultimate authority responsible to deliver a television show, Marvel executives held onto the chief authority while passing on the particulars to a head writer and a pilot director who either stayed on as an EP or directed all the episodes of a given series. It is still unclear why Marvel believed emulating the hierarchies of film production under the constraints and time pressures of television was more desirable than utilizing tried-and-true TV production methods, but the results were initially encouraging.
Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff in WandaVision (Photo by Marvel Studios)
Phase Four of the MCU began in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic on January 15, 2021, with WandaVision. Jac Schaeffer, who remains at Marvel, served as head writer, while Matt Shakman directed all nine of the episodes, although it was originally announced as 10-part series. The program, starring Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany as their Avengers character Wanda Maximoff and Vision, was creatively successful (91% on the Tomatometer) and credited with helping the still fledgling Disney+ find subscribers.
Of course, there were some hiccups. WandaVision’s 10th episode was abandoned due to the pandemic, which would impact several subsequent productions. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, for example, was shooting in the Czech Republic when Covid arrived there, derailing the final weeks of production and reportedly causing the removal of a planned virus storyline for the antagonists — although series director Kari Skogland told Rotten Tomatoes in 2021 that no such plot was ever part of the series.
But with two shows on the service, things continued apace at Marvel, with new characters debuting in films like Black Widow, Eternals, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and popping up in series like Hawkeye and Ms. Marvel.
Among all the character introductions, though, a sensation began to creep in that it all felt directionless and underbaked. Sequel films like Thor: Love and Thunder failed to wow like their predecessors. Nonetheless, the studio pressed on, announcing The Multiverse Saga for Phases Four, Five, and Six at the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con: 17 films in total, all of the existing Disney+ TV shows and an additional five programs (another two are said to be in development), including Born Again. The presentation was emotional and overwhelming — and a glimpse, it seems, into what was about to happen.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania poster (Photo by Walt Disney Pictures)
Phase Five opened with a critical ravaging of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (46% on the Tomatometer), the film which introduced the saga’s antagonist, Kang (played by embattled actor Jonathan Majors). It was followed up by a change to the TV release schedule. Secret Invasion, originally meant to run in the spring, shifted to summer.
Reportedly, the change was made to accommodate The Marvels’ move to a November theatrical release date, but other reports indicated it also happened in response to a crisis on the set of Echo, the Hawkeye spin-off starring Alqua Cox and featuring Charlie Cox and D’Onofrio as their Daredevil characters. That series was meant to debut in its entirety on November 29, but that plan has been postponed to January in response to the strike actions over the summer and shake-ups at Disney, Disney+, and Marvel.
And that’s all before you factor in the shockingly negative response to Secret Invasion (54% on the Tomatometer) once it premiered, a series now said to have fallen into dysfunction during production without a proper showrunner or oversight. The head writer quit, THR reported, leading to a power struggle among the directors. When one emerged as the de facto showrunner, what was meant to be a taught spy thriller was received as prime evidence that the audience was tiring of superheroes.
Oh, and then there’s Ironheart, a program featuring Dominique Thorne’s character from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Although shot in 2022, it has not been scheduled for release and the last time it was referenced by Marvel, it was on the Comic-Con Phase 5 calendar that same year. One report suggests it may not surface until 2025.
Charlie Cox as Daredevil/Matt Murdock and Tatiana Maslany as She-Hulk/Jennifer “Jen” Walters in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (Photo by Marvel Studios)
Which brings us back to Daredevil: Born Again. Announced at that Comic-Con presentation as Marvel’s first 18-episode program, it boasted Arrowverse veterans on the writing team and stars from the Netflix iteration. But according to The Hollywood Reporter’s account of the matter, head writers Matt Corman and Chris Ord built the program in the vein of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law instead of the Netflix Daredevil. Going for something more like an episodic lawyer show, Cox’s Matt Murdoch allegedly did not put on his Daredevil costume until Born Again’s fourth episode. The amended series will feature more serialization while retaining some of the material shot before production ceased during the Writers Guild strike.
The situation with Born Again also seemingly brought to a head the problem with the Marvel Studios method. It doesn’t work for the TV format and reportedly led to creative tensions on Echo, Secret Invasion, Moon Knight, and She-Hulk. Additionally, the studios reliance on post-production fixes led to dissatisfaction among directors working on the shows and their key visual effects group to unionize after years of crunch and, according to Vulture, an unhealthy work environment caused by former Marvel executive Victoria Alonso, who left the studio earlier this year.
But the bottlenecks and creative issues along the Phase 5 programs point to a certain fatigue at the top of Marvel leadership. The attempt to produce 30-or-so hours of television per year plus the full slate of movies seemingly left them overextended and, if the disappointing critical and fan response to certain titles are any indication, unable to manage it all successfully.
Oscar Isaac in Moon Knight poster (Photo by Marvel Studios)
The TV unit is about to be born again, according to the THR report, with an understanding that a showrunner became a key part of television production for a reason: it works. While not every showrunner is a superstar name, they are key to a functioning series. The studio will also reportedly bring on a number of executives with more extensive knowledge of how TV should be made, up to and including the use of the pilot process to determine if an idea has the bones for multiple episodes. The moves suggest the era of the Marvel Method is ending and for shows in the early stages of development, a brighter future may be ahead.
Instead of miniseries or shows like Moon Knight, that only suggest a possible follow-up story, newer shows will be set up to continue for multiple seasons, including Born Again. They will also be more focused on creating a long-term viewership and eschew the sensation that they are meant to set up the Next Big Thing.
Ironically, all of this was once in place when Marvel Television was producing shows like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Marvel’s Runaways. But just as Marvel Comics put itself into a perilous situation by trying to become a distributor in the mid-1990s — a situation that led to a precipitous market implosion and the company’s bankruptcy — it seems Marvel Studios had to learn these lessons the hard way. The end result, though, should be shows that feel more vital and, well, like television shows. One will probably emerge that creates an enduring fandom like Supernatural or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Also, it is worth mentioning that the films, which also suffered as Marvel overextended itself, will also benefit from an overhaul in how the studio makes television.
Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness in WandaVision (Photo by Marvel Studios)
Of course, the results of the pivot are still in the distance. Following Echo and Ironheart, the next two shows are Agatha: Darkhold Diaries, with Kathryn Hahn reprising her fan-favorite WandaVision role, and Wonder Man, starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Watchmen). Both were in production when the actors went on strike and are on hold until that contract dispute is resolved, although the former may only need some reshoots. But both were developed under the old method and, presumably, still function as miniseries. Reportedly, shows focused on interstellar peacekeeper Nova and the White Vision from WandaVision are in the works, as are a program focused on Black Panther standout Okoye (Danai Gurira) and a Wakanda-set series from Black Panther director Ryan Coogler. Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton is also said to be developing TV projects for Marvel, although development of a Shang-Chi sequel and the penultimate Multiverse Saga film, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, are also on his dance card.
But beyond the willingness to rethink its television initiative, the changes to Daredevil: Born Again also indicate a newfound ability within Marvel to change course; something they never had to reckon with before. Perhaps that newfound agility will lead to a stronger second saga and the next great chapter at Marvel.
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Leave it to the god of mischief to liven up the Disney+ schedule. As portrayed by Tom Hiddleston, he first announced that Wednesdays were the new Fridays when the first season of Loki debuted in the summer of 2021. Then the series surprised everyone by announcing a second season — the program was previously believed to be a miniseries — only to disappear for the better part of two years while the season filmed and completed post-production work.
But the wait is nearly over. Thursday is the new Friday as Loki returns October 4 to dazzle viewers with its mind-bending, time-looping sci-fi drama. But as it has been some time since Loki returned to a Time Variance Authority, featuring the presumed face of the enemy all around him and hard-won friends unaware of just who Loki Laufeyson is, let’s get primed to return to the mid-century confines of the TVA. Here are five things to know before you sit down to watch the premiere of Loki’s Certified Fresh second season.
While two years might seem like a long time for a television show — it’s also the time fans of House of the Dragon, The Sandman, and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power have to wait until those programs return — Loki is part of the interlocking Marvel Cinematic Universe. So, naturally, enough, one might wonder if films like Thor: Love & Thunder and shows like Secret Invasion will matter to Loki’s ongoing adventure outside the confines of ordinary time.
As far as we can tell, much like the TVA itself, Loki’s story continues to take place away from current events within the MCU itself. Loki is oblivious to the events of subsequent films — Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Eternals, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 — and all of the Disney+ shows following Loki, which includes Hawkeye, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Secret Invasion.
But to make things even more extreme, this variant of Loki is pulled from the aftermath of the Battle of New York featured in Avengers: Endgame. He never went through the growth his prime variant experienced in the middle two Thor films. He is aware his prime died at the hands of Thanos, though.
So, if a viewer is a little behind on Marvel happenings, Loki only requires a memory of the first season and, perhaps, an understanding of who he was in the first Thor and Avengers films. All of that material is, as of now, within easy reach on Disney+.
So where did Loki leave things off two years ago?
Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), a female variant of Loki, succeeded in her glorious purpose — killing the man responsible for her troubles at the TVA. It just so happened that man was He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), the architect of the TVA and, as he explained to Sylvie and Loki, the only will in the whole of creation preventing a Multiverse war between his other variants. He also told them a much more menacing and terrible version of himself would emerge if Sylvie did away with him and ended his stranglehold over the Sacred Timeline.
Wait, what’s the Sacred Timeline?
It is, as explained in Loki’s first season, a proscribed flow of time the TVA manages from a position outside of time. When variants, like the title character or Sylvie, are detected, a strike team “prunes” them and essentially rewinds events so their actions cannot give rise to a divergent branch of the timeline. As it happens, “pruning” is an apt term even if it describes murder on a scale that is inconceivable. But also complicating matters: He Who Remains staffed the TVA with variants of people on the timeline. Their memories erased, they have no idea they once had lives outside of He Who Remains’ version of events.
The time-twistyness of the series is one of its great assets, even if it is awash in strange terms and largely set in a place outside of time: a concept that will bake anyone’s noodle with just a few moments of contemplation.
Meanwhile, the Sacred Timeline is the bulwark against that all-out war in the Multiverse. Although, the only skirmish seen elsewhere in the MCU is a variant of He Who Remains called Kang (also Majors), who appeared in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. But according to Marvel, Kang is the big bad of the current Multiverse Saga, which will eventually tie the events of Loki closer to the rest of the films and shows.
All that said, we’ll argue the show is quite enjoyable in its own right thanks to Hiddleston’s dedication to the part and a strong cast of characters, including Owen Wilson’s TVA agent Mobius M. Mobius, Wunmi Mosaku’s Hunter B-15, Eugene Cordero’s Casey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Ravonna Renslayer, and the TVA’s central AI, Miss Minutes (voiced by Tara Strong).
Back in our reality, Loki had a monumental shift of its own with season 1 director Kate Herron departing the show just as its second season was announced and head writer Michael Waldron moving on to write other Marvel projects, including the final Multiverse Saga film, Avengers: Secret Wars.
Rotten Tomatoes caught up with Loki executive producer Kevin Wright to ask about the sense of continuity as Moon Knight directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead — along with a small group of other directors — and Eric Martin took over the roles vacated by Herron and Waldron.
“It was a pretty easy handoff, which sounds crazy when you lose your lead writer and director,” Wright told us. Both he and Hiddleston, who also serves as an executive producer, were there from the start and had, he said, a “real sense of continuity between ourselves and the team” going into the second season.
Martin, for one thing, was part of the season 1 writing staff and co-wrote that season’s finale with Waldron. Additionally, Wright said Martin was the “writer throughout production” of season 1 as Waldron was already deep into scripting Multiverse of Madness.
“By the time we were doing additional photography for season 1, we were already starting to build these scripts and stories for season 2,” Wright added. So, on the that front, the transition was already baked in.
Switching from one director to a group fulfilled something Herron always desired for the show: “She wanted this to be a little bit like a series like Doctor Who, where different filmmakers could come in, take the reins, drive it in a stylistic direction that they wanted to do, but that it was [also] like an institution,” he said.
“So much of what Tom and I had to do was build that base, build the continuity in between, and then other people could come in and play in our playground,” Wright continued.
That base includes returning crew like the entire editorial team, VFX Supervisor Dan DeLeeuw — who also helms an episode this season — and production designer Kasra Farahani, who maintains the TVA’s intoxicating mid-20th century aesthetic, but also adds writer and director to his season 2 contributions.
And as for Benson and Moorhead?
“Justin and Aaron just hit the ground running,” Wright said.
Owen Wilson as Mobius and Tom Hiddleston as Loki in season 2 of Loki (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
And despite the two years between seasons, Loki wastes no time getting viewers back up to speed. Loki must still deal with the fact Mobius and B-15 do not recognize him. He also has to contend with all of the statues of He Who Remains littered around the TVA. So don’t expect a cozy reintroduction to the ideas or characters. Loki literally has no time for a piece of pie as the action speeds up from moment one.
“This is something that Waldron would talk a lot about in the writers’ room,” Wright said. “I think then I carried over just in my thinking of these things, he would always talk about story acceleration.”
Instead of allowing a certain plot point to dominate the season, it could end up being 10 minutes of story and then exploring the consequences of resolving it quickly.
“As the series progresses, it was always that, ‘How can we condense this? How can we speed it up?’” he added. “And Justin and Aaron are huge advocates of that: ‘All right, we’re going to write the [page-long] version of this exposition. How do we get it down to two lines and a visual so that we can just move, move, move?’”
That sense of acceleration is definitely on display in the season 2 premiere.
Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Ke Huy Quan as O.B., and Owen Wilson as Mobius in Loki season 2 (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
As various previews and trailers have revealed, Everything Everywhere All at Once Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan joins the program as a mysterious character called Ouroboros (aka “O.B.”). You won’t have to wait too long to meet the character, though, and he immediately makes sense in the altered, Brazil-esque world of the TVA. And while we can’t say if his other Multiversal experience will come into play on Loki, the actor’s charming demeanor immediately meshes with Loki and the other TVA agents.
But is there more to him? Like a full name? Maybe. But consider we’ve gone all this time with no clues about Mobius beyond his love of Jet Skis. OB may have his own quirks and links back to a life in the Sacred Timeline.
82%
Loki: Season 2
(2023)
premieres on Thursday, October 5 on Disney+.
On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News.
The MCU’s God of Mischief returns in season 2 of Loki, and some critics are lamenting the loss of the character’s sinister strain. With 48 reviews counted, however, the new season was quickly Certified Fresh at 81% on the Tomatometer.
Star Tom Hiddleston returns along with Sophia Di Martino, Owen Wilson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Wunmi Mosaku. Joining the cast are Ke Huy Quan, Rafael Casal, and Kate Dickie. Actor Jonathan Majors again appears as film-to-TV spanning MCU villain He Who Remains, though possibly in a reduced role following the actor’s legal trouble.
Here’s what critics are saying about Loki season 2:
With the multiverse teetering all around it, Loki is one strand of the timeline that is sustaining its originality and intention — and actually thriving. It’s about time.
—John Nugent, Empire Magazine
It has taken Tom Hiddleston’s trickster god and stripped him of his devilish guile. The character is reduced to a bloodless cover version of the anti-hero audiences have come to adore. Welcome to hokey Loki karaoke.
—Ed Power, Daily Telegraph (UK)
Sometimes you feel like you need a theoretical physics degree to understand it all. Strong character work makes up for some of that, as does a knowing sense of humor.
—Brian Truitt, USA Today
“Loki” season 2 positions itself as the rare streaming show to learn some important lessons from its predecessor and take the next step.
—Jeremy Mathai, Slashfilm
This show is still whip smart, fun, funny, ambitious, geeky, and compelling as hell.
—Trent Moore, Paste Magazine
Tom Hiddleston’s Loki is back for more multiversal shenanigans, but the absence of director Kate Herron seems to have sapped the wily fun from his Disney+ spinoff.
—Jarrod Jones, IGN Movies
Season 2 definitely doesn’t suffer from the pitfalls that would make people continue to question if superhero fatigue is real or not, but through characterizations, pacing, and too much self-awareness, it definitely feels like a very different show.
—Nicole Drum, ComicBook.com
Instead of digging into what makes Loki fun, the show’s second season doubles down on Season 1’s worst tendencies… It’s a drag when it should be thrilling, an exposition-filled trudge when it should be an exciting romp.
—Belen Edwards, Mashable
Even better than Season 1, Marvel delivers their best storytelling since Endgame. Thrilling, epic, dark but also still funny, this new season makes Loki one of the best MCU characters.
—Grace Randolph, Beyond the Trailer
Loki Season 2 feels like a return to form for Marvel and their Disney+ series. It’s expanding on a foundation that was already built within the first season without trying to surprise fans with unnecessary cameos or gotcha moments.
—Paul McGuire Grimes, Paul’s Trip to the Movies
Ke Huy Quan as O.B., Wunmi Mosaku as Hunter B-15, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, and Owen Wilson as Mobius in Loki season 2 (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
Characters with compelling issues, high existential drama, quirky comedy and world-threatening action are blended better than in any other Disney+ show to date.
—Bob Strauss, TheWrap
It’s the best Disney Plus original from Marvel Studios since … “Loki.”
—David Betancourt, Washington Post
Season 1 was well-loved, and with a fan-favorite character like Hiddleston’s God of Mischief at the helm, Season 2 proves that the series not only hasn’t lost its touch but remains one of the stronger pillars of the MCU as a whole.
—Therese Lacson, Collider
With Tenet levels of timeline layering to try and unpick, Loki season two wades deep in the weeds of the MCU even as it pokes fun at its own earnestness
—Paul M. Bradshaw, NME (New Musical Express)
Season 2 of Loki is written and delivered in a way that avoids being plagued by the recent issues pertaining to franchise fatigue.
—Danielle Solzman, Solzy at the Movies
Its convolutions overwhelming its charming personalities and freewheeling spirit of paradox-laden adventure, it’s another indication that the once-mighty franchise has lost its direction.
—Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
Between the underlying existential tensions, the humorous asides and the eerie retro-futurism of the TVA, Loki seems to have more in common with ingenious sci-fi series Severance than recent uninspired Marvel outings.
—Dan Einav, Financial Times
The plot is so convoluted that the sense of fun rarely breaks through, but thanks to the sterling cast and some of the best production design on TV, there’s almost always something to hold your attention — if not to trigger any emotional investment.
—Dan Fienberg, Hollywood Reporter
The enviable cast clicks, yet they’re largely squandered. The story never stops moving, yet it’s going in circles.
—Ben Travers, indieWire
A masterclass in imaginative storytelling, Loki season 2 is the MCU at its best and a riveting new chapter in the Multiverse Saga that’s mind-bending, monumental, and utterly marvellous. And as a bonus, Ke Huy Quan is a scene-stealing delight!
—Josh Wilding, ComicBookMovie.com
While there’s less time for emotional reflection in this batch of episodes, Hiddleston does well with what he has.
—Fay Watson, Total Film
Quan is a fantastic addition while Wilson continues to deliver.
—Grace Randolph, Beyond the Trailer
Ke Huy Quan is the perfect addition to the cast, bringing with him loads of humor and fun. So great to be back at the TVA!
—Tessa Smith, Mama’s Geeky
Tom Hiddleston has never been better.
—Eric Marchen, Untitled Movie Podcast
Jonathan Majors in a scene from the Loki season 2 trailer (Photo by Marvel Studios)
As flat as the rest of the season can frequently be, the big problem is Jonathan Majors, who returns as yet another Kang variant. It’s not his performance, which remains a weirdly compelling live-wire act, full of odd, halting line deliveries and twitchy physicality. Instead, it’s the ugly real-world circumstances surrounding him. After the season was filmed, Majors was arrested and charged with domestic violence against his romantic partner, which led to Rolling Stone uncovering a pattern of alleged abusive behavior going back a decade. Majors was set to play the big bad for the next few phases of the MCU. Instead, it’s impossible to imagine him ever appearing in a Marvel project after this one.
—Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone
There are things I liked about this season, and it is worth watching for Jonathan Majors and Ke Huy Quan, but it is another underwhelming entry in the once-flawless Marvel Cinematic Universe.
—Alex Maidy, JoBlo’s Movie Network
The sole individual provided with an opportunity to act is Majors, playing a nascent nineteenth-century He Who Remains named Victor Timely who speaks and acts like an excessively eccentric genius. It’s not a particularly compelling turn and it feels too minor for a figure destined to be the Avengers’ titanic adversary. Yet it’s still better than the bland nothing that Wilson, Mbatha-Raw, and Di Martino are tasked with turning into something.
—Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
Loki season 2 key art (Photo by Marvel Studios)
It’s all a bit wearying.
—Vicky Jessop, London Evening Standard
There’s so much to like here you almost forget it’s a Marvel show.
—Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
Building upon the groundwork laid in the first season, this new installment takes us on an even wilder ride through the multiverse, and it doesn’t disappoint, for the most part.
—Neil Soans, The Times of India
Even while the God of Mischief has exchanged his prankster togs for a heroic skin (he does admit to throwing Tony Stark off a building), the second season of Loki is fun all round.
—Mini Anthikad-Chhibber, The Hindu
More than anything, Loki has started to resemble what it truly is: an ill-advised spinoff in the old tradition. A too-bright spotlight for a side character who was never best suited to lead. A dinner comprising only hors d’oeuvres.
—Louis Chilton, Independent (UK)
Loki season two is a jaw-dropping magical experience that will ultimately leave you clamoring for more, with high stakes twists and turns that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat!
—Rohan Patel, ComicBookMovie.com
82%
Loki: Season 2
(2023)
premieres on Thursday, October 5 on Disney+.
On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News.
When Marvel Studios first announced its collaboration with Disney+ to produce television shows, the first three projects — WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Loki — were all proposed as limited series. The proposal certainly made sense as each program featured major Marvel Cinematic Universe stars who needed the most flexible commitments. The first two shows stuck to this plan as their stories continued (or will continue) in Marvel films, but Loki surprised viewers when it announced in the closing of moments of what turned out to be season 1 that it would return. And considering where Loki Laufeyson (Tom Hiddleston) ended up, the story definitely needed to continue.
And then, of course, things went quiet for a time. Key creatives moved on, other Marvel films and television shows grabbed fans’ attention, and Loki quietly soldiered on. But with the news in mid-May that the program will be back this October, we began sifting through our Time Variance Authority files to take a look at everything we know about Loki’s second season and how it ties to the grander MCU tapestry. Join us as we take stock of Loki’s current predicament, the likelihood of his adversary being someone new despite being familiar, and what it means for everyone’s favorite mischief-maker to start again.
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In the first season, the variant Loki from Avengers: Endgame who absconded from the Battle of New York with the Tesseract soon found himself scooped up by the Time Variance Authority, an organization that operated outside of time to make sure such aberrations to the Sacred Timeline were stamped out or, as it turned out, made to work for their cause. But just as Loki became their guest, another variant Loki — known as Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) — was also causing trouble for the TVA. One middle-level caseworker, Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson), decided the best way to catch a Loki was to use another Loki, even one still burdened by his “glorious purpose.”
Jonathan Majors as He Who Remains in Loki season 1 (Photo by Marvel Studios)
And then everything collapsed as it turned out the TVA was a front for He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), a supergenius who developed the Sacred Timeline to prevent devastating war between the various realities of the Multiverse. That it left him in charge was merely a by-product, of course. But when Sophie recommitted to her original purpose, He Who Remains lived no longer and the Sacred Timeline reconfigured back into the Multiverse giving characters like Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Spider-Man (Tom Holland), and She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany) so many problems.
For Loki, though, it meant a return to a TVA where former friends like Mobius now regarded him as a stranger and the organization was more closely affiliated with someone who looks an awful lot like He Who Remains. Or, at least, the statues strewn about the office sure seemed to suggest that notion.
Ke Huy Quan as O.B., Wunmi Mosaku as Hunter B-15, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, and Owen Wilson as Mobius in Loki season 2 (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
The second season will see Loki attempting to reignite his friendship with Mobius while also trying to convince him that the TVA’s new boss is both the old boss and something much worse. Both elements are part of what Hiddleston called a fight for the TVA’s very soul. But then, what does the appearance of a Victorian inventor named Victor Timely — as teased in the final Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania stinger — have to do with Loki’s new battle?
In addition to all of that, a trailer released at the end of July (embedded at the top of the page) introduced a new problem for the title character: He is now timeslipping, which should be impossible within the TVA. It is unclear if the slipping is an immediate bodily threat to Loki, but it has allowed him to see that “this world” is headed for an untimely end. Whether or not they become friends again, Loki and Mobius begin a hunt through time for the threat Loki saw in his timeslip. But will it be Kang, the presumed main antagonist of the Multiverse Saga, or one of his many, many variants?
Meanwhile, Sylvie and other TVA agents have missions and agendas all their own…
Hiddleston in Loki season 2 (Photo by Marvel Studios)
The main setting of the series will continue to be the TVA, although it is yet to be seen just how different it will be under the stewardship of a different He Who Remains variant. One thing that will stay the same is its cool mid-20th Century aesthetic with partially analogue technology, luxurious seating, and main thoroughfares anyone who has ever visited the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Atlanta will recognize on sight.
And just as the first season visited various time periods and doomed civilizations, it’s safe to assume Loki, Mobius, and the rest of the TVA will enjoy free travel throughout the Multiverse. That possibility could lead to some interesting settings and, perhaps, a few unexpected cameos.
(Photo by Marvel Studios)
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But as this is still Loki’s show, expect these locales to have something personal for him. We might even see a universe where he grew up as Laufey’s son in Jotunheim. One place we definitely know Loki is headed thanks to Quantumania and the July trailer: Victorian England to convince Mobius that Victor Timely is the big bad they’ve been looking for.
Meanwhile, one wonders if a newfound opportunity to travel that widely means Loki will finally reveal himself to Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and seek his aid in the trouble to come. As it turns out, the program is a crucial part of the overall Multiverse Saga and, at some point, Loki needs to share what he knows with the heroes. Whether or not they believe him will be up for debate, though.
Sophia Di Martino as Sylvie in Loki season 2 (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
Hiddleston returns as the new favorite Loki; in fact, despite the existence of variants who look different, it would be hard for the show to continue without him. Also returning is Wilson as jet ski enthusiast Mobius. Their dynamic was one of the great surprises of the first season and though circumstances reset their relationship, we expect Loki’s attempts to get his friend back will prove entertaining.
And though the star is the favorite Loki, the other favorite Loki, Di Martino’s Sylvie, will also be back. It’s unclear what she’ll be up to this season, though, as she fulfilled her purpose in killing He Who Remains. The July trailer sees her in various time periods and outfits. And it appears she will once again team up with her male variant. She also mentions, at one point, that their actions will see them “acting like gods.” According to Hiddleston, Loki and Sylvie have had some discussion about her actions in the season 1 finale, but it is currently unclear when or how this transpired.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Ravonna Renslayer in Loki season 2 (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
Other returning cast include Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Ravonna Renslayer — the TVA judge who fled for parts unknown when her understanding of the universe unraveled — Wunmi Mosaku as Hunter B-15, Tara Strong as the voice of Miss Minutes (glimpsed in the new trailer menacing Victorian England), and Eugene Cordero as lovable TVA staffer Casey/Hunter K-5E. Richard E. Grant will also reportedly make another appearance as the comic book inspired “Classic Loki.”
Additionally, Majors also returns; this time as Victor Timely. It was unclear for some time which of He Who Remains’ variants or even how many he would play. As season 1 drew to a close, many presumed the statues suddenly adorning the TVA indicated Kang, but as Quantumania revealed, there are many Kangs in the Multiverse and not all of them go by that name. A further wrinkle: the July trailer appears to suggest that only Loki can see the many deceptions of Kang strewn about the TVA complex. Well, assuming the statues and murals are of Kang. It could also be one of the other variants like Immortus, Rama-Tut, or even Timely himself.
Majors in a scene from the Loki season 2 trailer (Photo by Marvel Studios)
The last identity, thanks to his brief appearance in the Quantumania stinger pulled directly from Loki’s second season, is the one confirmed variant we know we’ll be seeing. But even in that, there are questions: Is Victor Timely Kang’s original identity? Is it another cover for a different variant? Is it the Kang seemingly killed in Quantumania hiding out? Or is it one of the multitudes glimpsed in that film’s mid-credit stinger? Although embattled with legal troubles that may end his future as Marvel’s current principal antagonist, Majors’ great strength as the Kangs seen so far was his ability to give them different personalities. Presumably, Victor Timely will also differentiate himself until a key moment of revelation or evolution.
Hiddleston, Quan and Wilson in Loki season 2 (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
A few new people will also join the cast: Ke Huy Quan, Rafael Casal, and Kate Dickie. Quan — who knows a thing or two about Multiverses — plays a TVA archivist addressed in the July trailer as “OB.” The roles of the latter two are, naturally enough, obscured in the mists of Marvel’s tendency to deny everything until a time they consider the most opportune. Casal’s role is said to be major, while Dickie is rumored to take on a villainous part. The former appears in a handful of shots throughout the trailer, and is even menaced by Loki at one point, but his connection to the TVA’s current woes remain unclear.
Directors Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson at the Hollywood premiere of Moon Knight in March 2022 (Photo by Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)
Lending further credence to Loki’s original purpose as a limited series were the departures of season 1 head writer Michael Waldron and director Kate Herron shortly after the second season was confirmed. Herron stated her intention was to only be involved in the program for one season, while Waldron’s commitments to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, a now-defunct Star Wars project Lucasfilm denies ever existed, and Avengers: Secret Wars (the Avengers film said to cap off the Multiverse Saga) meant new writing leadership was needed. Eric Martin, a writer on the first season, soon emerged as Waldron’s replacement.
Taking Herron’s place are the director duo of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. The pair helmed the middle chapters of Moon Knight and are also known for The Endless and the VHS: Viral segment called “Bonestorm.” Before shooting the season in the summer and fall of 2022, they were said to be excited to explore another of Marvel’s outcasts.
Executive producers include Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige and Waldron. In other production roles are director of photography Isaac Bauma (a veteran of Channel Zero and Servant), and the first season’s editor Paul Zucker and composer Natalie Holt.
Hiddleston in Loki season 2 (Photo by Marvel Studios)
Loki returns on Friday, October 6 for a second six-episode run. It is, of course, unclear if the series will return for a third year, but we expect that to be spelled out in the final moments of the last season 2 episode, scheduled to stream on Friday, November 10. The finale will be closely followed by the premiere of Hawkeye spin-off Echo on Wednesday, November 29.
Season 1 of Loki is Certified Fresh at 92% on the Tomatometer. The review embargo lifts for season 2 of Loki is still to be announced, but reviews for season 1 did not begin appearing until one day before the June 9, 2021, series premiere.
82%
Loki: Season 2
(2023)
premieres on October 6 on Disney+.
On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News.
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Although Secret Invasion debuted as one Marvel Studios’ less well-received ventures into television, it is still part of the ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe saga — or sagas as the story took elements from both the previous Infinity Saga and the current Multiverse Saga. And like Thor: The Dark World before it, key details could still emerge from the program and, as the Multiverse Saga approaches its end in a few years, we could eventually see Secret Invasion in a different light.
But in the interim, what was the point of Nick Fury’s (Samuel L. Jackson) return to Earth? Or his absence for that matter? How do the geopolitics seen in this series sync up with what we saw in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier? And, considering the indefinite end of the tale, how will the fallout from Secret Invasion impact upcoming shows or features like The Marvels and Armor Wars? Let’s do a Secret Invasion debriefing and see what we can find under its skin.
Spoiler alert: The following contains plot details about the season 1 finale of Secret Invasion, “Home.” Stop reading here if you have not watched the episode and want to avoid spoilers.
(Photo by Marvel Studios)
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Although the program took its name from one of the most bombastic Marvel Comics crossovers ever published, Secret Invasion ended up a more low-key affair more concerned with an aging Fury than the possibility of, say, key heroes being replaced by shape-shifting Skrulls looking to invade the Earth. And while more personal interactions took the focus, it is interesting to note that the overall plot was a rumination on blowback.
The term, which simply means the negative and unintended consequences of an action, is quite specific when dealing with spies, secret operations, and geopolitics. In this context, blowback is the result of a highly financed security operation losing control of an insurgency it trained and backed. Across the series’ many flashbacks, we can see this is the root of Gravik’s (Kingsley Ben-Adir) desire to wipe humanity off the face of the Earth. Sure, claiming the planet for Skrulls is his stated intent, but considering Fury took a personal interest in his development, trained him to be part of his covert spy network, and put him in charge of collecting the Avengers DNA following the Battle of Earth, his disappointment in his mentor led to the blowback seen throughout the series.
In fact, it is easy to sympathize with the Skrull insurgency when you consider they waited 30+ years for Fury and Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) to find them a new homeworld, and Fury used their abilities to assemble an undetectable spy network/execution squad in the interim.
Even if Gravik’s methods proved inadequate (and often seemed an afterthought in the grand scheme of things), he personifies an interesting idea for the MCU: What if Fury created his own greatest monster for the sake of his country?
This rumination on blowback is marred, of course, in the execution. Since Fury and Gravik never really have a conversation through the duration of the series, he never truly owns up to the damage he caused. Even his phone call with Gravik in the finale is more about laying the groundwork for a ruse than any sort of culpability. The late revelation that he is attempting peace talks with the Kree — the alien empire that made refugees and warriors of the Skrulls in the first place — also rings a little hollow as he never really takes responsibility for the crisis at hand.
But perhaps G’iah understood Fury better than anyone realizes when she, as Fury, told Gravik that it’s easier to save the world than change the hearts and minds of its inhabitants. Fury will always accept the win before he answers to the fact he designed the game in the first place.
Like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier before it, Secret Invasion’s main plot is an interesting idea, but perhaps too interesting for a six-episode limited series. Especially when you consider President Ritson’s (Dermot Mulroney) response to the Skrulls at the end.
Charlayne Woodard as Priscilla Davis/Tarna and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in a scene from Secret Invasion episode 4, “Beloved” (Photo by Marvel Studios)
One of the show’s most curious quirks is the way any scene between two people — particularly if sat opposite from one other — proved more riveting than Gravik’s world-altering scheme. It’s true of the scene in which he’s promoted to Skrull General in episode 2, it’s also true of the scene between Fury and the Skrull posing as Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) in the same episode.
And it also charges the scene in which Fury and his wife, Varra (Charlayne Woodard), point guns at one another in episode 4. Of course, that one is potentially more charged than the others as Secret Invasion is also about the secret love of Nicholas J. Fury.
Told in flashback across several episodes, we learn Varra was another of the Skrulls willing to join Fury’s network. But in doing missions, she started to develop feelings for him and, after several years and faces, Fury started to feel likewise. But upon returning to their home at the start of the series, we learn something different occurred with his most recent absence and it threatens to break what they had together.
Varra is saint for putting up with his crap and disappearances for over two decades — did she even know if he was alive after his publicly announced death in Captain America: The Winter Soldier? — but as she states, his distance after the return Snap is something new they must confront. On top of that, the Skrull insurgency, and her part in it, refreshed the doubt she always felt in their marriage: Does Fury love her, Varra the Skrull, or “Priscilla,” the human face she wears?
Thankfully, Secret Invasion gives us enough time with them as a couple that we can conclude he isn’t lying when he says he loves her “as she is” before taking her to the S.A.B.E.R. space station. Visually, his truthfulness is backed up by the kiss between them after she assumes her true form. See also the moment when he says he is better with her and that she is the diplomat he needs for the Kree peace talks. While it may not reconcile with the actions that led to Gravik and the blowback, Fury’s personal life is one of the series’ more successful aspects.
Dermot Mulroney as President Ritson and Don Cheadle as James “Rhodey” Rhodes in a scene from Secret Invasion episode 5, “Harvest” (Photo by Marvel Studios)
In the program’s final moments, President Ritson tells the American public that he intends to declare all off world–born life as enemy combatants. Fury refers to the action as both hate-filled and the choice of a one-term president. Whether or not it means Fury will take it upon himself to ensure Ritson is not re-elected — we already know a new president will appear in the July 2024 theatrical film Captain America: Brave New World — it reflects Marvel’s attempts, shaky or otherwise, to engage with geopolitics.
Consider this unintended fallout from Ritson’s decree: Will any Asgardians living in the U.S. be forced to leave as the wording of his order makes them the enemy in a conflict they had no part in? Will he attempt to take this up with the UN in order to remove New Asgard from the map? Will Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) still be allowed to crash on his grandfather’s couch as he is half alien?
Like the geopolitical implications of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, we doubt subsequent productions will follow up on most of these questions. Note the complete lack of the Global Repatriation Council as an ongoing concern here in Secret Invasion. See also the return of S.H.I.E.L.D., which was seemingly teased at the end of TFATWS. At the moment, it appears Marvel wants to seed these ideas in viewers minds without exploring them too deeply. Otherwise, the series really should’ve been about Fury’s ability to build a space station and armada in secret with unlimited resources.
Then again, it is possible much of this will come to bear in Brave New World. That subtitle alone implies a great deal.
Cheadle in a scene from Secret Invasion episode 2, “Promises” (Photo by Marvel Studios)
Despite Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige declaring Secret Invasion an event too big to contain in one feature, it ultimately felt apart from the ongoing stories and in a world of its own. Is it possible the whole thing took place elsewhere in the Multiverse? It’s unlikely, but not something we can completely dismiss as the Multiverse Saga continues through 2027. But like the Infinity Saga before it, not every discrete story ties back to the overarching metaplot.
Armor Wars will tie back to Secret Invasion, however. Initially announced as another Disney+ series, it will ultimately arrive as a feature following Rhodey (now freed from Skrull captivity) as enemy agents obtain some of Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) Iron Man technology. Presumably, Rhodey’s abduction will factor into the story as a character beat. How long ago was he abducted? Will he still work for the president, whoever that person happens to be? Will he be back as War Machine? Or will the film dramatize that journey back to being an Avenger?
Come to think of it, will any of these Marvel projects declare if the Avengers still exist in some form?
And considering the Iron Man armor, we expect Ironheart (Dominique Thorne), who appeared in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and will headline her own Disney+ show next year, will be part of that war as well.
Jackson as Nick Fury in November theatrical film release The Marvels (Photo by Laura Radford/Marvel Studios)
Fury, meanwhile, will return in just a few months for the November 10 release of The Marvels. As glimpsed in its various trailers, he seems more his old self than the broken man featured in Secret Invasion. Hopefully, the film will answer the most pertinent question the series presented: Why did Carol Danvers fail to find the Skrulls a new homeworld? Also, we expect Carol’s opponent in the film, Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), will hamper Fury’s attempt to negotiate a Kree-Skrull peace.
The film may also address the real purpose of S.A.B.E.R. and the armada Fury has been building. We always assumed it was in anticipation of Secret Invasion, but now — who knows? Similarly, as Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) is a featured character in The Marvels, we hope the film will address her absence throughout Secret Invasion. Was she aboard S.A.B.E.R the whole time? Her last moment in WandaVision saw her being approached by a Skrull, so is the space station mainly staffed by the aliens?
Back in the Disney+ realm, the next two programs, Loki season 2 and Echo, will likely not refer back to any events in Secret Invasion. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) will have his hands full befriending Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson) again and convincing him their true enemy is hiding in plain sight when that series returns in October. November 29’s Echo, meanwhile, returns to the street-level storytelling of Daredevil and Hawkeye with its title character (Alaqua Cox) going home and trying to evade the pursuit of her uncle, Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio).
Clarke in Secret Invasion (Photo by Marvel Studios)
Further afield, though, the fallout of Secret Invasion could set up some interesting introductions. The alliance between Sonya Farnsworth (Olivia Colman) and G’iah, the only remaining Super Skrull, might lead, perhaps, to a UK-based superteam or a means of establishing Captain Britain and his psychically-charged sister. With Ms. Marvel already utilizing Marvel UK’s ClanDestine, could we really see Excalibur or even Death’s Head in the future?
Of course, that’s just wild speculation. Marvel has plenty on its plate just with announced projects and the current work stoppage. Avengers: Secret Wars, due in 2027, is both far away and too close for comfort, but like Avengers: Endgame before it, we may find in five-years’ time that Secret Invasion, warts and all, was secretly important.
53%
Secret Invasion: Season 1
(2023)
is now streaming in its entirety on Disney+.
On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News.
(Photo by Universal/ courtesy Everett Collection)
Before he became synonymous with playing playboy millionaire rascal Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr. was…a playboy millionaire rascal, but with an Oscar nomination! Born into minor Hollywood royalty, Downey spent his formative ’80s career as a Brat Pack honorary in films like Weird Science and The Pick-Up Artist. An Oscar nomination for playing the titular silent-era legend in Chaplin suggested a watershed moment for Downey and his future career.
Instead, he spent the rest of the ’90s in a maelstrom of wild parties and tabloid headlines as he publicly battled addiction. Early 2000s work in A Scanner Darkly, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Zodiac told the world he was still capable of intriguing work, though, and the marked the early stages of a career comeback.
His tumultuous decades seem like a lifetime ago, simply a precursor to his role today as the Man in the Iron Mark IV. Director Jon Favreau fought hard to get Downey in as star of the first Iron Man, with Marvel Studios literally put up as collateral, and the rest is modern history. Across nearly a dozen appearances in Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, Downey has utterly owned the Tony Stark role, whose redemption arc mirrors the actor’s own in real life. Now, we ranking Robert Downey Jr. movies by Tomatometer! —Alex Vo
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Charlayne Woodard’s Priscilla defends her home with Nick Fury from Skrull invaders with some expert help from Emilia Clarke’s G’iah in a scene from Secret Invasion episode 5, the penultimate episode of season 1.
Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Olivia Colman as Special Agent Sonya Falsworth in Secret Invasion (Photo by Marvel Studios)
45%
Harvest
premieres on Wednesday, July 19.
On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News.
Skrull revolutionary leader Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) turns the temperature up to a boil in this exclusive clip from episode 3 of Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion.
“You’re going to take our people to the edge of extinction with a war with the humans,” Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) warns him.
But Gravik has a solution to Earth’s human problem: “I’m going to murder them all.”
Could Emilia Clarke’s G’iah really keep her change of heart a secret from diabolical Gravik?
Kingsley Ben-Adir as Gravik and Emilia Clarke as G’iah in an exclusive photo from Marvel’s Secret Invasion (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
53%
Secret Invasion: Season 1
(2023)
is streaming on Disney+.
On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News.
After a long pause in Marvel Studios’ television initiative, Secret Invasion premieres this week on Disney+. Starring Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, it sees the former S.H.I.E.L.D. director back on Earth as years of blowback from a failed promise he made decades ago comes back to haunt him.
Unlike the full-tilt superhero comic book brawl that inspired it, the series goes for something more grounded and character-focused. It is no surprise, then, that Jackson and some of the cast had a lot to say about the series during a recent press conference. Rotten Tomatoes was there to add their comments to our Secret Invasion dossier, and here are the key takeaways to know before watching the show.
Ben Mendelsohn in Secret Invasion (Photo by Marvel Studios)
“We’re finding Talos in a difficult time,” actor Ben Mendelsohn, who returns as the sympathetic Skrull Talos (from Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Far From Home), said of where his character begins in the program.
Indeed, as the previews and clips made available online have revealed, Secret Invasion is in a much darker place than many of the previous Disney+ shows, like the out-and-out comedy of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and the stakes have worldwide implications.
And the security of the world means a fair amount of espionage operative will be involved, like Olivia Colman’s Sonya Falsworth. She Is an MI6 agent with a curious interrogation manner. “She likes wearing red,” Colman teased. “She’s quite funny. And she’s potentially a little bit not that nice sometimes.”
The actor also said Falsworth and Fury have “history” if not a friendship. “They trust each other, which is … Maybe they don’t?” she said.
Jackson added, “As much as one spy can trust another spy, yeah.”
The emphasis on spies came from executive producer Jonathan Schwartz, who pitched Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige on what the studio chief called a “darker, grittier spy show” based around the bombastic Secret Invasion comic book storyline. The key commonality? Skrulls have invaded every echelon of human society with plans to weaken planetary defense as a prelude to an open invasion.
“We love to do different genres for everything,” Feige continued. “And this was an attempt to really dive back into things we touched upon in The Winter Soldier, Captain America 2, but hadn’t in a while, and really delving into the tone of a spy show.”
According to Schwartz, the program is keeping forward momentum on the timeline. “[It’s] post-She-Hulk, post-Blip right at this exact, present day in the MCU,” he said.
There is still some imprecision there. As fans may recall, Endgame initiated a five-year time jump from 2019 to 2023, with every subsequent film and television series (except Black Widow) taking place afterward. But with shows like WandaVision taking place weeks after Endgame and Hawkeye seemingly taking the timeline into 2025 — to say nothing of She-Hulk spanning all of that time — the when of Secret Invasion may leave fans stumped.
“It’s present day MCU,” Schwartz reaffirmed and, at least for the moment, that means the show’s events are the most current. Everything prior to it has occurred and that could lead to just about anything in terms of cameos, as long as they stay on the ground, of course.
Series director Ali Selim felt the story is also very human. “It’s the Nick Fury story. He’s a human. He does have his own version of superpowers, but they’re not like superhero superpowers,” he said. “It’s a story about him putting his feet back on the ground once again after some time.” But is he the same man?
Jackson is now the longest serving actor in the MCU with 14 appearances across its 15 years of existence.
“I was in there a year and didn’t do anything?” the actor quipped in regard to missing a year’s worth of film and TV shows.
But that absence underscores one of the program’s key questions: Where has Nick Fury been since the Blip? At least part of it will be answered almost immediately, but the underlying puzzle will remain.
“This is my second appearance post-Snap,” Jackson noted. Fury is glimpsed during Tony Stark’s funeral in Endgame, and he is seen, at least briefly, in Far From Home assembling something out in space while Talos subbed in for him during most of the film.
“I did the whole of Spider-Man,” Mendelsohn quipped. “That was a really tough job.” In actuality, Jackson played Talos as Fury for most of that film.
But as Fury returns to Earth in Secret Invasion, he is a changed man.
“He’s a little tired, a little vulnerable, but coming back to Earth because he’s been summoned,” Jackson explained. “[He’s] got a bad knee now. Not so happy.”
Samuel L. Jackson in Secret Invasion (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
The physical impairments also underscore an emotional change in the character which will be explored alongside the overarching Skrull plot. For one thing, he’s still dealing with being Blipped.
“It definitely has a mental health effect on you, and it causes a different kind of rift between you and the people that you’ve been around or people that you’re supposed to be close to,” Jackson said. “The more you find out about him, then the more you’re gonna like him — the more I like him. It’s peeling the onion and having a good time.”
That deeper layer even includes an actual Fury home!
“You got to watch to find out if I live in a condo or a real house,” Jackson teased. “Does he have an island in his kitchen? Can he cook? Is he a CD or a turntable man?”
But will the onion be enough to explain his absence? As Mendelson noted, “By the way, [Fury], you know, up there [in space]? Like, coulda used him. Like, I’m just sayin’.”
While Fury, Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders), and Talos form a family unit of sorts — and Talos has his own family with wife Soren (Sharon Blynn) and daughter G’iah (Emilia Clarke) — those bonds are under a great strain even before Fury makes planetfall.
“I think the relationship is quite strained because she’s been calling, and he hasn’t been answering,” Smulders said of Hill’s regard for Fury as events begin. Although, she was quick to add that “working with Sam is my favorite thing.”
Mendelsohn, meanwhile, denied that that Fury and Talos’s friendship is under as much tension, instead calling it an “evolution.”
Jackson added, “He’s like my green brother.”
Emilia Clarke and Ben Mendelsohn in Secret Invasion (Photo by Marvel Studios)
Feige also added that viewers will be seeing a “very different dynamic between Fury and Talos than we had seen in sort of our ’90s buddy action movie, Captain Marvel.”
One relationship that is definitely on the rocks is the one between Talos and G’iah. She’s joined the revolutionary cause — even if she still answers Talos’ phone calls from time to time. This was one of the relationships the group were less willing to comment on, but it is another major aspect of the show. It remains to be seen, though, if it will be one resolved within the show’s six episodes or carry on into other stories.
Don Cheadle in Secret Invasion (Photo by Marvel Studios)
One of the Marvel threads the series is picking up is Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), who trades in his Avenger War Machine armor to become advisor to the US president in the series. The change was teased ever so slightly in the first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Solider, but becomes major text with Seceret Invasion.
“We see him as more a political animal than we have in the past,” Cheadle explained. “He’s been more of a military man, but now he’s, in some ways, a right hand of the president and this special envoy.”
And because everything in the MCU is connected, Rhodey’s White House tenure will “relate” to Armor Wars, the former series turned upcoming film set to star Cheadle in the next few years. Of course, both he and Feige were quite mute on the topic, other than to reiterate that the two projects will interconnect in some fashion.
In the interim, Secret Invasion is an opportunity to “get under the hood of who [Rhodey] is.” Cheadle also admitted that he is most excited to see “how this relationship, not only with Nick Fury — but the other cast members — evolves.”
“I never had an in-depth scene with Don [before this],” Jackson said. “So that was, like, you know, manna. We’ve been waiting to do this for, like, years and years and years, you know?” Some of that interaction can be seen in the early trailer, which featured Fury and Rhodey in the midst of a tense dinner table conversation. According to Jackson, that interaction will be informed by a lot of “presumed” dynamics and we can say the conversation is not one you will expect.
Kingsley Ben-Adir in Secret Invasion (Photo by Gareth Gatrell/Marvel Studios)
Of course, a proper spy story needs to identify a clear enemy to fight and Secret Invasion’s threat is a Skrull revolutionary named Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir). Describing him both as not “too fond of anyone” and a mix of “self-hatred,” the character organizes a sect of the Skrull refugees disgruntled after 30 years without Fury or Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) making good on their promise to find them a new homeworld.
Ben-Adir said he was really inspired by the tone of the script and sought to make Gravik as “unsentimental” as possible, even “in his hatred.”
“There’s something about how much he hated Nick and how much he hated G’iah that was like, ‘God, this feels really enticing,'” he said. Of course, how his regard for the latter informs her work within his band of Skrulls remains to be fully unveiled, but the pragmatism of having someone so close to the source of ire says something about the character, who has the potential to be as memorable a Marvel antagonist as Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), or the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji).
Kingsley Ben-Adir in Secret Invasion (Photo by Marvel Studios)
Jackson added that as much as Secret Invasion is a Nick Fury story, it is also the story of Gravik, Talos, G’iah, Rhodey, and Falsworth.
“It’s all these people that they’re being introduced to that make you want to say, well, sh*t, I want to go home with them too, see what’s happening,” he said.
Continuing the thought, he considered something that always been true for his character and, it seems, underscored in Secret Invasion. “He leads you to all these other people that are really, really, really, really interesting.”
53%
Secret Invasion: Season 1
(2023)
debuts July 21 on Disney+.
On an Apple device? Follow Rotten Tomatoes on Apple News.
(Photo by Marvel Studios)
Going into the second week of the summer movie season, studios did not offer much of note to challenge its inaugural contender to become the top grosser. Instead, the look ahead to this weekend was a journey to see what labels were going to be appropriate for Marvel’s latest after last week’s numbers were branded as somewhat disappointing. What would its second frame hold for analysts looking for another angle to gloat about moviegoers’ comic book fatigue? The jury is not completely in yet but based on the figures we told you to watch last week, there is perhaps a bit more optimism in the Guardians’ long-term goals.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 wanted to avoid at all costs the 60 percent drop that other Marvel titles had been seeing in their second weekend since the pandemic began. That was its first victory, as it grossed $60.5 million, for now just the smallest pandemic era drop for the MCU of just 48.9 percent, but it also became one of just five MCU films to drop less than 50 percent, joining Black Panther (44.7 percent), Thor (47.2 percent), Iron Man (48.1 percent), and Doctor Strange (49.5 percent). The second victory was getting its total to over $213 million after 10 days, which significantly increases its odds to reach $300 million domestic at least, as only six films (out of 71) have failed to achieve that after hitting $200 million in that period, and no films have missed after a $55 million-plus second weekend. Of course, these numbers are meaningless if the international grosses fail to get the film to $750 million, which is the magic number to keep Vol. 3 in the black.
As of right now, the film sits at $529 million worldwide. The first two films had international grosses of $441 million and $473.9 million. Every dollar counts for Vol. 3, especially on the domestic front. Guardians’ $60.5 million second weekend is ahead of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which had a $54.7 million second frame and $201 million after seven days. It finished with just $290 million, after a massive drop to under $20 million in its third weekend.
Fast X is going to strip away audiences from Guardians next week, and if it does fall below the $25 million region, its estimate may only be landing in the $310 million–$325 million range. That would be low end for the franchise and keep the burden on the global crowd to not also be on the low side under $441 million. Despite the optimism for an unchallenged film after 10 days, right now Guardians is looking like neither a big disappointment nor a big success and that has to be troubling for some of the later entries coming down the pike in the MCU.
Robert Rodriguez’s first theatrical release since Alita: Battle Angel joins a string of high-price failures from the director that began his career with just $7,000 and a little indie calling card named El Mariachi. His latest film, Hypnotic, stars Ben Affleck and Alice Braga, premiered as a “work-in-progress” at SXSW this year, was not well-received — then or now (39%) — and opened to just $2.3 million in 2,118 theaters. The numbers could be dismissed as a failing of distributor Ketchup Entertainment, not known for theatrical efforts, but with a $65 million–$80 million price tag, the film is likely a loser under any studio banner and is set to be the costliest effort for Rodriguez ever. The director has not had a film out of the red since 2005’s Sin City.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie continues to wave bye-bye to every film on the summer movie schedule. Only 20 films prior had grossed $13 million or more in their sixth weekend (including E.T.) and only 12 of those are from the year 2000-present. Mario just missed that list as its weekend totals fell to $12.6 million bringing its total to $535.5 million. At over $1.21 billion worldwide, it is already one of the 25 highest-grossing films of all time and is going to be in the top 10 until at least mid-June.
Paramount opened Book Club on the third weekend of May in 2018 — behind the opening of Deadpool 2 and the fourth week of Avengers: Infinity War — to $13.5 million. It spent five weeks in the top 10 and went on to gross over $68 million. Now, Focus Features releases the sequel, Book Club: The Next Chapter — behind the second week of Guardians 3 and the sixth weekend of Super Mario Bros. — to $6.5 million. Focus has not had a $10 million opening since last May when Downton Abbey: A New Era began with $16 million. It is also the second worst per-theater average ($1,852) they have had opening a film in over 3,000 theaters ahead of only this year’s Champions ($1,699). Their previous low in that arena was 2007’s Balls of Fury ($2,728). The $20 million production may be able to stretch itself over $20 million domestic but will need twice that internationally to turn a profit. The original Book Club grossed another $35.8 million overseas.
Evil Dead Rise, once set for a streaming premiere on HBO MAX, now sees itself passing $60 million this week. With $3.7 million this weekend, it is now outpacing 2005’s The Amityville Horror, which finished with $65 million after a $3.3 million fourth weekend. Somewhere between $65 million–$68 million looks to be its final landing place domestically and with another $61 million internationally, this is a solid hit for Warner Bros. Unfortunately, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. is not for Lionsgate. Another $2.5 million in its third weekend only brings its total to $16.4 million. John Wick: Chapter 4, on the other hand has grossed over $419 million worldwide with nearly $183 million of that domestically after its 8th week in the top 10. That is more than double Paramount’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which has crossed $92 million domestic and just $203 million worldwide.
As mentioned, Fast X opens and will take the top spot at the box office next weekend. The once-penultimate film in the Fast & Furious series now appears to be the beginning of a concluding trilogy of films. Despite declining grosses on this series since the heights of Furious 7, Universal looks to milk every last dollar out of one of the most successful franchises in their history. The studio even seemed to allow — unless its justified displeasure was expressed privately — online news outlet The Wrap to post a big spoiler ahead of the release of Fast X reviews to tease the final chapters. Also in limited release is a new thriller from Paul Schrader and starring Joel Edgerton and Sigourney Weaver, Master Gardener, which was chosen as part of this year’s Chicago Critics Film Festival.
82%
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
(2023)
59%
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
(2023)
46%
Book Club: The Next Chapter
(2023)
85%
Evil Dead Rise
(2023)
99%
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
(2023)
32%
Hypnotic
(2023)
94%
John Wick: Chapter 4
(2023)
30%
Love Again
(2023)
93%
Air
(2023)
91%
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
(2023)
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast.
[box office figures via Box Office Mojo]
Thumbnail image by ©Marvel Studios
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While Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 concludes the story of Peter Quill’s (Chris Pratt) team, the Guardians of the comics, whose members boast a collection of characters from Earth and across the cosmos, have never been as permanent as, say, the Fantastic Four – and even that team’s roster has been known to change. People filter in and out of the Guardians all the time, and the now-classic lineup we know from the films did not assemble until the 2000s, decades after the first Guardians comic was published.
(Photo by ©Disney+)
In a far-flung Marvel Studios future after the Multiverse Saga, this means another Guardians film could emerge without the guidance of writer/director James Gunn, who now departs from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to build a coherent film universe for the crosstown rivals at DC Studios. It also means the existing characters could appear in their own projects, too. Spin-offs are the bread and butter of Marvel Studios’ comic book publishing cousin, after all. But what would such adventures possibly look like, and how feasible would they be, really? Join us on a brain experiment across the breadth of the MCU’s cosmos to guess at what could happen next to the Guardians of the Galaxy and their allies.
[WARNING: Spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 ahead.]
(Photo by ©Marvel Studios)
Format: TV Series
Premise: After nearly 35 years in space, Peter Quill returns to the Southern US. Crashing on his grandfather Jason’s (Gregg Henry) couch, Peter must learn how to operate in a world less deadly, but equally as cutthroat as the galaxy he once guarded. Also, can he become a functional adult by the rules and terms of planet Earth?
Feasibility: Admittedly, this idea is teased in the final Vol. 3 stinger scene and, therefore, the most likely to be viable. It’s easy to imagine Pratt seeing this as another feature film vehicle rather than the lower-stakes story it begs to be via a Disney+ TV series. In the latter format, a Star-Lord story has a chance to dig deeper into the character’s trauma and still be funny. The addition of Henry as a well-meaning but slightly out-of-touch father figure also means Pratt would not be required to do all the heavy lifting. Also, as we still want more stories about people dealing with the aftereffects of the Blip, Jason Quill and the people in his neighborhood could be a spring board for a look at that traumatic event. But, just as easily, a film version of Star-Lord could take the character right back out into space as Peter continues to deny the reality of his abduction as a child.
(Photo by ©Marvel Studios)
Format: Feature Film
Premise: Inspired by the Credence Clearwater touring band without songwriter John Fogerty — which also briefly went by the name Cosmo’s Factory — GGR would see Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper), Kraglin (Sean Gunn), Groot (Vin Diesel), Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), Cosmo (Maria Bakalova), and the other new recruits fulfilling Peter’s dream of freelance heroes saving the galaxy one mission at a time. Such a format would also be the perfect opportunity for Black Knight Dane Whitman (Kit Harrington) to hire the Guardians for their toughest mission yet: rescuing the Eternals from Celestial Arishem the Judge!
Feasibility: Since Rocket’s team debuts in Vol. 3‘s closing moments, it’s pretty much a given they will appear again, maybe even as soon as The Marvels or Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. But using a fourth Guardians film to pay off Eternals‘ dangling story beat would also be a good way to reframe those characters in the poppier sensibility of the MCU cosmos that Gunn established. Also, despite any misgivings some may have about the Eternals feature, who wouldn’t want to see Starfox (Harry Styles) as a temporary Guardian? No matter the premise, it feels likely that Rocket’s Guardians will get their moment in the spotlight. But can Sean Gunn pull off being Rocket’s on-set reference actor and Kraglin at the same time?
(Photo by ©Marvel/©Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Format: Limited Series
Premise: Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Drax (Dave Bautista) face internal struggles building their new society in the skull of a dead Celestial and battling an invasion from a force looking for both revenge and an item lost in the recesses of Knowhere’s unused space.
Feasibility: While we think Gillan would be game for the blue paint and a further exploration of Nebula’s recovery from years of trauma – to say nothing of fighting whatever external threat comes to Knowhere – Bautista has made it clear he is both done with Drax and uninterested in continuing to do the makeup process. Many also assume he will follow James Gunn to the emerging DC Universe. So this one is less likely. Nevertheless, Nebula’s stated goal at the end of Vol. 3 to make Knowhere the home she never had feels like a good hook for a story, even if Drax is always just off-screen teaching the High Evolutionary’s (Chukwudi Iwuji) “perfect” species to be good-hearted people.
(Photo by ©Marvel Studios)
Format: Feature Film
Premise: Taking inspiration from her comic book counterpart, Mantis (Pom Klementieff) begins the most unique journey of any former Guardian: becoming a trained counselor. Along the way, she discovers more family out in the cosmos as Ego (Kurt Russell) was a, ahem, prodigious founder of dynasties. But will a critical mass of his progeny allow his master plan to still be fulfilled?
Feasibility: Klementieff has said she can’t imagine anyone but Gunn writing Mantis (despite appearing in films as Mantis written by other people). But it is always possible she could be lured back to the antennae with a strong enough story. Also, her Vol. 3 decision to go on a solitary journey of discovery feels like the setup for the character to more closely align with the one featured in Marvel comics. And, let’s face it, the MCU heroes need a good counselor in their corner.
(Photo by ©Marvel Studios)
Format: Feature Film
Premise: Gamora’s (Zoe Saldana) treasure hunting with the Ravagers finally leads back to her home planet, Zen-Whoberi, where she must face up to Thanos’s (Josh Brolin) actions there years earlier. Was he truthful about the world becoming a paradise in the wake of his massacre? Meanwhile, the last believer in his grim calculus attempts to finish what the Mad Titan could not.
Feasibility: Like Bautista, Saldana has made it clear she does not want to be painted green for another action movie. In fact, Gunn revealed in recent days that he almost killed Gamora off in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Curiously, Marvel talked him out of it, only for that version of the character to die in Avengers: Infinity War and usher in an earlier Gamora who did not experience the early two Guardians films into the current timeline. The result, though, is an oddly more self-possessed Gamora than the one we knew previously. That’s something worth exploring, even if Gamora needs to be recast. That said, though, this feels like the least likely spin-off of the bunch. Perhaps its best to leave her smiling with the Ravagers.
Of course, never say never. As these examples prove, just about any Marvel character can headline their own film or show. Also, it is a tired actor’s prerogative to change their mind about sitting in a make-up chair. Over in the Star Trek realm, Micheal Dorn came back to Worf after decades of being relieved not to put on the Klingon forehead.
And, for that matter, even Gunn could conceivably come back some day. Over in the comic book realm, writers, artists, colorists, letterers, and editors (sometimes even executives) switch between DC Comics and the House of Ideas on the regular. Why should a filmmaker, even one who now adds “co-CEO, DC Studios” to his list of titles, be any different?
As long as there is some interest in the Guardians, whether separate or together, the wish to see them grow (or fight) while Andy Kim’s “Rock Me Gently” plays in the background is something that will, one day, be fulfilled.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is currently in theaters.
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The day is finally here! The much anticipated Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is officially in theaters and fans couldn’t be more excited, but the Guardians have been through a lot since they writer-director James Gunn introduced them back in 2015. So if you need to get up to speed before watching, don’t worry; we’ve got you covered. This is the official history of the Guardians of the Galaxy as told by Chris Pratt and James Gunn.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is currently in theaters.
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Here’s what critics are saying about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3:
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has everything you would expect from James Gunn and Marvel Studios.
– Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 achieves what it sets out to do, which is provide a stirring and audience-pleasing finale.
– Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 offers a rare thing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: a satisfying ending to a trilogy.
– Joshua Yehl, IGN Movies
I didn’t expect to feel so sad while watching this movie.
– Mike Ryan, Uproxx
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the weirdest, grimmest, most emotional entry in Gunn’s MCU franchise, but it’s also the strongest.
– Molly Freeman, Screen Rant
This edition largely succeeds like the other ones, thanks to the chemistry of the main ensemble.
– Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
Like its two predecessors, the film is refreshing in the context of its own cinematic universe.
– Greg Nussen, Slant Magazine
Given how almost the entirety of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 feels like a superficial, snarky, and sarcastic deviation, Vol. 3 will evoke similar frustrations.
– Patrick Cavanagh, ComicBook.com
(Photo by ©Marvel/©Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Leave it to James Gunn to rescue Marvel from its self-inflicted woes with the best MCU film since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame.
– David Gonzalez, The Cinematic Reel
It’s the best MCU film in years, and a reminder of how much fun and moving the Marvel Cinematic Universe can actually be.
– Ross Bonaime, Collider
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 feels ripped out of an older phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe… a return to form.
– Sheraz Farooqi, Cinema Debate
A blockbuster that is perfectly suited to its time, and offers a much-needed win for the MCU.
– Molly Freeman, Screen Rant
The impact of Rocket’s emotional arc is one of the most powerful we’ve seen in the entire MCU.
– Patrick Cavanagh, ComicBook.com
James Gunn’s soulful style remain unlike anything else in the MCU.
– Joshua Yehl, IGN Movies
In a funny way, it makes sense that Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 is more grounded than the other Phase Four movies.
– William Bibbiani, The Wrap
(Photo by ©Marvel/©Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has some of the most stunning visuals of any Marvel Studios film.
– Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire
So bizarrely trippy at times it’s as if Gunn is aiming to create a midnight cult classic rather than a blockbuster superhero film.
– Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
Gunn ushers us into uncharted new realms of wackadoo production design and outlandish costumes, reminding us that he’s never been shy about letting his stylistic freak flag fly.
– Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
This insane adventure looks so good… Gunn and his team deliver a real sense of place to his various environments.
– Kate Erbland, IndieWire
A breath of fresh air following multiple MCU productions full of muted tones.
– Patrick Cavanagh, ComicBook.com
One major aspect where Guardians 3 sets itself apart from Quantumania is the visual effects, which are vivid and spectacular.
– Joshua Yehl, IGN Movies
Gunn’s preferred aesthetic is stomach-churning.
– Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post
The action sequences are also stunners, especially an epic climactic battle accompanied by the propulsive Beastie Boys classic “No Sleep Till Brooklyn.”
– Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
The action sequences feel experimental but never showy, as Gunn aimed to showcase these characters in new and compelling ways.
– Patrick Cavanagh, ComicBook.com
Unlike many contemporary action films… [it] allows audiences to take in the fight choreography in all its glory.
– Caitlin Chappell, CBR.com
There is a hallway fight scene that will no doubt wow audiences.
– Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire
(Photo by ©Marvel/©Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Often funny… The scene stealer turns out to be the good-natured, beefy Drax, with Bautista showing us his comedy chops.
– Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
I’m still chuckling at the ridiculous exchange among the Guardians over which buttons to press on their spacesuits to properly communicate with each other.
– Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
The misfit team’s constant punchlines and I’m-just-busting-your-chops dynamic have grown exhausting.
– Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post
Vol. 3 is perhaps also the darkest Marvel Studios has gone… There are some moments that are not for the faint of heart.
– Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire
The darkest contained MCU entry, Gunn’s examination of exploration, PTSD, and family bonds is fully engaging and tear-inducing.
– David Gonzalez, The Cinematic Reel
At times, Vol. 3 can be unsettling… Abounds in intense depictions of animal torture.
– Greg Nussen, Slant Magazine
This will be a difficult watch for some viewers.
– Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post
This is a movie that will probably traumatize some kids and maybe a few adults.
– William Bibbiani, The Wrap
(Photo by ©Marvel/©Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
The soundtrack is once again top-notch.
– Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire
Gunn, who might be the master of the needle drop for his perfect soundtracks, is at the top of his game here… His use of songs from Radiohead, Earth Wind & Fire, Rainbow, and The Beastie Boys creates a beautiful goodbye anthem.
– Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics
Songs like The Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize?” and Faith No More’s “We Care a Lot” feel more like an opportunity for Gunn to showcase his own musical taste than elevating a sequence.
– Patrick Cavanagh, ComicBook.com
One of the MCU’s most memorable and twisted villains.
– Caitlin Chappell, CBR.com
Chukwudi Iwuji is great as the High Evolutionary… His outbursts are terrifying, and Iwuji wonderfully captures the ferocity and anger of a man who is committed to his beliefs.
– Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire
It is refreshing to face off with a Marvel villain whose existence doesn’t threaten literally every other being in the MCU.
– Kate Erbland, IndieWire
Iwuji is also perhaps the strongest of the Guardians movie villains, turning in a multifaceted performance as the High Evolutionary.
– Molly Freeman, Screen Rant
The High Evolutionary is an especially effective villain during the flashbacks… but he feels far less threatening in the present.
– Joshua Yehl, IGN Movies
The High Evolutionary’s machinations, despite an intense, shout-to-the-sky performance of the old school from Iwuji, are all extremely melodramatic and Iowa-flat.
– Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post
Iwuji bellows in a performance of Al Pacino-level over-the-top-itude.
– Peter Debruge, Variety
The High Evolutionary’s inclusion is as forgettable as a majority of other Marvel villains.
– Patrick Cavanagh, ComicBook.com
(Photo by ©Marvel/©Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Poulter is extremely funny as the character.
– Kate Erbland, IndieWire
Poulter does a good job with the material he is given, but it isn’t much, unfortunately.
– Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire
He ultimately fails to make a lasting impression.
– Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
He never quite meshes with the rest of the narrative in a practical way.
– Ross Bonaime, Collider
His scenes regularly grind the narrative momentum to a halt, and we can’t help but wish his entire plot was excised.
– Patrick Cavanagh, ComicBook.com
Unfortunately, he feels like he’s only in this film out of obligation, and it’s sad to say Volume 3 wouldn’t have been much different if he were cut out.
– Joshua Yehl, IGN Movies
It’s wildly self-indulgent.
– Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post
At a jam-packed, planet-hopping 150 minutes, it also feels less like a conventional moviegoing experience than the endorphin rush that comes from waiting years for the next season of your favorite TV series, then binge-watching all the new episodes in a single sitting.
– Peter Debruge, Variety
This one is too damn long — but I’ll confess you likely won’t notice the bloated runtime simply because Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 almost never slows down.
– Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm
(Photo by ©Marvel/©Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
Gunn has to juggle a lot with this finale, but once again, he shows he’s a master at knowing exactly how to work with a large ensemble.
– Ross Bonaime, Collider
The story is a bit messy, though. Gunn has a lot of story he wants to tell and he tells every bit of it.
– Travis Hopson, Punch Drunk Critics
There are simply too many characters here, and while they all get their own mini-arcs, most of them feel hollow.
– Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm
The success of Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 proves that it’s still possible for Marvel movies to hit and hit hard after more than 30 films.
– William Bibbiani, The Wrap
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is a reminder that with the right cast, crew, and story, superheroes can still deliver.
– Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire
When I think of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and the MCU, I think of Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”
– David Gonzalez, The Cinematic Reel
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 opens in theaters everywhere on May 5, 2023.
