Echo's Trailer & Rating, Variety's MCU Tell-All - Multiverse News 11-8-23

Last week, Variety published an article that laid out a behind the scenes look at growing issues and long term concerns at Marvel Studios and Disney regarding the present and future of the MCU. If you follow this show, you are likely up on many of these points but here are a few that caught our eye.

This week’s new MCU entry The Marvels had several behind the scenes issues. The budget for the film was $250 million dollars and is tracking for a low opening weekend as we’ve discussed previously. Lengthy reshoots were needed to bring the film together and director Nia DaCosta also relocated and started working on another project during post-production, which is uncommon in Hollywood, especially with a film of this budget size. However, DaCosta recently responded to the article, stating that this was due to delays in The Marvels release date and was not a controversial move with the studio.

Many of the recent VFX issues are attributed to poor script writing and planning. VFX artists report that they are asked to pivot sometimes suddenly to correct or add VFX late in production due to script rewrites. For example, the first episode of She-Hulk, which was originally a later episode in the season, was flipped to the first episode and ended up costing $25 million dollars for that single episode due to the rewrite.

Blade continues to have serious script issues. The script has been rewritten multiple times and lead actor Mahershala Ali nearly left the project on multiple occasions. One rewrite of the script was described as "female-centric, Blade relegated to the fourth lead, and full of life lessons." Marvel is still looking to make the film, but "on a budget of less than $100 million dollars."

Marvel Studios has had talks about bringing back the original six Avengers actors for a new Avengers film to revive excitement in the franchise, despite the deaths of Iron Man and Black Widow. And now there are rumors that Robert Downey, Jr. has agreed to another film.

Marvel is still undecided about how to handle the future of Jonathan Majors in the MCU. Discussions have ranged from recasting him to pivoting away from Kang the Conqueror entirely to another villain such as Doctor Victor Von Doom. With Majors' case now going to trial and with the writer's strike preventing script rewrites for so long, the studio has yet to commit to a path forward. The Creative Artists Agency (CAA) dropped Majors pre-arrest due to "brutal conduct," which seems to indicate that Marvel Studios might want to move on from him, regardless of the legal situation.

There is still optimism around the future of Marvel Studios, but certain changes in the formula are clearly needed.

In more Marvel news, the franchise giant is venturing into more mature territory with Echo, which unveiled a moody and violent trailer last Friday. The new series will be the MCU’s first TV-MA rating and the first to debut simultaneously on Disney+ and sister streaming service Hulu. Both Charlie Cox and Vincent D’ONofrio will appear in the show starring as Matt Murdock/Daredevil and Wilson Fiske/Kingpin, respectively. Star Alaqua Cox will reprise her Hawkeye role as Maya Lopez/Echo. Also of note, Echo will premiere under a new banner called Marvel Spotlight; complete with a new intro scored by Oscar winning composer Michael Giacchino and a new logo. This new sub-category of Marvel will focus on standalone properties versus series and movies that connect to the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Spotlight gets its name from an anthology comic book series first introduced by Marvel in 1971, which featured new characters that readers didn’t have to fully commit to over several issues. Echo is setting the stage for a lot of potential trends with Marvel Studios…