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lokitvsource · 2 years

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EXCLUSIVE: COMPOSER NATALIE HOLT WILL RETURN FOR LOKI SEASON 2

NATALIE HOLT IS the sound of fandom. The composer has developed a bit of a cult following after creating the ethereal, theremin-heavy score of Loki. The project was so successful, that she was tapped to score fellow Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi, becoming the first female composer entrusted with a Star Wars property. Next, she’s moving to another fandom by scoring Batgirl’s upcoming movie for the DC Universe. And after that? Inverse can reveal that it’s right back to work on Loki Season 2, which is now filming.

“I spoke to Tom Hiddleston and said ‘I hope they're not like expecting a new theme for Loki Season 2,’” Holt tells Inverse. “And he was like, ‘Oh, I think there would be outrage if we didn't use your themes you've established in Season 2.’”

2022 HCA TV Nominations

Best Writing in a Streaming Series, Drama

Chris Mundy, Ozark “A Hard Way to Go” (Netflix)

Dan Erickson, Severance “The We We Are” (Apple TV+)

David E. Kelly, Nine Perfect Strangers “Ever After” (Prime Video)

Hwang Dong-hyuk, Squid Game “One Lucky Day” (Netflix)

Kerry Ehrin & Scott Troy, The Morning Show “La Amara Vita” (Apple TV+)

Michael Waldron, Loki “Glorious Purpose” (Disney+)

Soo Hugh, Pachinko “Chapter One” (Apple TV+)

The Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things “Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab” (Netflix)

Best Directing in a Streaming Series, Drama

Aoife McArdle, Severance “The You You Are” (Apple TV+)

Ben Stiller, Severance “The We We Are” (Apple TV+)

Hwang Dong-hyuk, Squid Game “Red Light, Green Light” (Netflix)

Jason Bateman, Ozark “A Hard Way to Go”(Netflix)

Kate Herron, Loki “Journey into Mystery” (Disney+)

Night Shyamalan, Servant “Donkey” (Apple TV+)

Shawn Levy, Stranger Things “Chapter Four: Dear Billy” (Netflix)

The Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things “Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab” (Netflix)

Best Supporting Actress in a Streaming Series, Drama

Dichen Lachman, Severance (Apple TV+)

Julia Garner, Ozark (Netflix)

Jung Ho-yeon, Squid Game (Netflix)

Maya Hawke, Stranger Things (Netflix)

Millie Bobby Brown, Stranger Things (Netflix)

Patricia Arquette, Severance (Apple TV+)

Sadie Sink, Stranger Things (Netflix)

Sophia Di Martino, Loki (Disney+)

Best Supporting Actor in a Streaming Series, Drama

Billy Crudup, The Morning Show (Apple TV+)

Christopher Walken, Severance (Apple TV+)

Joe Keery, Stranger Things (Netflix)

John Turturro, Severance (Apple TV+)

Owen Wilson, Loki (Disney+)

Park Hae-soo, Squid Game (Netflix)

Tramell Tillman, Severance (Apple TV+)

Zach Cherry, Severance (Apple TV+)

Best Actor in a Streaming Series, Drama

Adam Scott, Severance (Apple TV+)

Gary Oldman, Slow Horses (Apple TV+)

Henry Cavill, The Witcher (Netflix)

Jason Bateman, Ozark (Netflix)

Lee Jung-jae, Squid Game (Netflix)

Penn Badgley, You (Netflix)

Tom Ellis, Lucifer (Netflix)

Tom Hiddleston, Loki (Disney+)

Best Streaming Series, Drama

Loki (Disney+)

Ozark (Netflix)

Pachinko (Apple TV+)

Severance (Apple TV+)

Squid Game (Netflix)

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+)

Stranger Things (Netflix)

The Morning Show (Apple TV+)

Taika Waititi REVEALS his original plans behind Chris Hemsworth's 'huge' Loki tattoo in Thor: Love and Thunder

During the interview with Marvel, director Taika Waititi opened up about his intentions behind the tattoo. He revealed that his initial thought was to add a tattoo on his last film with the studio, Thor: Ragnarok. Waititi shared that the tattoo was originally planned to be unveiled in the third Thor film when he and Loki are on a busy street in the beginning minutes of the film. However, he continued, that eventually plans were made to remove the ink. He also disclosed that Kevin Feige, the President of Marvel, wanted the tattoo to be big as he added, "Kevin was like it should be huge."

#loki tv #loki series #loki #marvel #news #article #interview

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unofferable-fic · 2 years

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“You’re just annoyed that your personal headcanon isn’t canon!”

Or; my personal thoughts (ranting) about the Loki series and its surrounding toxic discourse.

First of all, I’m going to preface this with the following: whether you loved or hated the Loki series, or you fall somewhere in between, your opinion is valid and if anyone tells you that you can’t express that in a critical manner, then they need to kindly go away. I should also mention the obvious which most people understand — death threats directed at anyone involved in making the series is disgusting and if you do so you’re fucking deluded.

Now that that’s out of the way…

I’m someone who wasn’t overly fond of the series in the end. I went in surprisingly hopeful after enjoying Wandavision and TFATWS. For the most part I really enjoyed the first 3 episodes (episode 3 being the best imo) but I found myself quickly disillusioned by how the narrative seemed to fall apart in terms of cohesiveness. Keeping it short and sweet, I feel like a lot of the relationships (whether platonic or otherwise) were rushed. I found Loki’d dynamic with both Mobius and Sylvie to be confusing, unbelievable, and all around not earned. It feels as though they had a start point and an end point (ie. Loki needs a genuine friend) but we didn’t see any of the journey in between to show how the relationship developed. The quote “after all this time…” in episode 6 sent me over. Like Loki pls you’ve known this woman for max two days or something… No, I’m not salty because he didn’t end up with Mobius. No, I’m not salty because of “selfcest”. I’m salty because I don’t think the relationships were done as well as they could have been. Also, even though no one asked, Loki x therapy is the only ship I give a rats about.

Other points include the following:

Loki felt more like a side character with little impact on the events in his own show.

Sylvie sometimes teeters into Mary-Sue territory, and at times appears to be valued only because she is a woman.

Mobius’ relationship with Loki seems inherently toxic and he is not his therapist. As someone who regularly attends therapy sessions, if your therapist ever talks to you like Mobius talks to Loki — get a new goddamn therapist, Jesus Christ…

In my opinion, the show explores very little of Loki’s character and what makes him tick, especially considering this is post-Avengers 2012 Loki. I’m aware there were only six episodes and I’m not expecting everything to be crammed in, but where Loki was in Thor 1 and the Avengers seems so disconnected from where he is in the series. It seems to portray him as someone hellbent on power and ruling, as opposed to someone desperate for respect and the love of his family/people.

But I digress, the real point of this post was to tell certain people to feck off. Obviously there’s going to be discourse around the series, but I’m starting to get really sick of one side telling the other “you put your personal headcanons on Loki”, “he’s not your character”, “you’re just annoyed because canon didn’t go how you wanted”, “you’re projecting your own abuse on him”, blah blah blah. And here was me thinking the discourse around Ragnarok was bad, but this is another level, lads.

Here’s an idea, how about people who liked the show stop acting like those who didn’t just pulled their opinion on Loki right out of their own ass? All I know is that every opinion I’ve ever formed on him was based on the first three films he appeared in. That’s it — nothing made up because I love to project as someone who went through similar shit to him.

Discuss the show, but don’t be a massive bellend about it.

In summary, Tom Hiddleston I am free next Saturday if you are free next Saturday and I’ll buy all the rounds of Jameson you need while we talk about Loki and how he — no matter what happens to him within the MCU from here on out — will always be one of favourite characters to grace the big screen.

(Anyway who cares what I think, people are just going to call me a whiny Loki apologist regardless.)

#loki #me saying shit #loki series #loki season one #loki show spoilers #anti loki series #anti loki show #found this in my drafts #and never posted idk why #so here you’s go lmao #Loki show discourse #tom hiddleston #loki series negativity

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lisztful · 9 months

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GO Season 2 and fandom history ramblings

Spoilers for Good Omens season 2 to follow:

I've watched the second season of Good Omens twice by now, and several days later I am still thinking about it. I know many people are delighted, pained, moved, and excited by the storyline, but that's not the only thing that I keep coming back to. For me, it's the novel experience of seeing the subtext become text, after countless years of existing in fandom without any possibility of that occurring.

For context, I've been in fandom for about 15 years, which is certainly not as long as many other folks I know. There are friends in my circle who collected Kirk/Spock zines back in the old days of fandom, who watched Starsky and Hutch as it was airing and read in it the love that dared not speak its name. Personally, I was one of many people of my generation who entered slash fandom via Harry Potter and LiveJournal, and began writing in the Merlin fandom.

From the beginning of my time in fandom, it was exceedingly clear to me that slash pairings for these shows were never, ever going to be canon. Articles about the Merlin tv series touted the parallels between magic and gay identity as early as the first season, but the show included straight romances for just about every main character. I tend to characterize fandom from around this era in the following buckets:

Deny, create straight pairings.

Token queer rep.

Cultivate queer subtext

Queer story arcs

Good Omens season two, apparently a category of its own

***often one show can be in more than one bucket at once, or moves between them as discourse evolves.

(More below the cut)

Deny the subtext, create straight canon pairings to dispel slash undertones, express discomfort with the very idea of slash pairings, and sometimes downright mock the idea:

The paired actors from Stargate Atlantis, Supernatural, LOTR, and Sherlock did this, repeatedly denying, expressing discomfort, and sometimes even mocking slash at conventions and in interviews. So too Merlin, the Harry Potter films, etc. Hugh Dancy of Hannibal expressed this discomfort in a number of interviews, though notably Misha Collins and Mads Mikkelson, speaking about Supernatural and Hannibal respectively, were more open to the possibility of homoeroticism. All of these pairings were given heterosexual romance arcs.

In many examples, as the writers became aware of the subtext, the characters were actually separated to try to prevent any potential subtext from being read into their interactions. In Teen Wolf, Hannibal, Supernatural, Captain America, and the Witcher, character arcs separated pairings who previously spent a lot of screen-time together, physically distancing them to reduce any opportunity for subtext.

2. In the next category, there are the creators who write in minor gay characters in the hopes of appeasing fandom or shifting their focus from the main slash pairing. See JK Rowling making Dumbledore gay, Felicia Day's character in Supernatural, Jaskier in the Witcher, etc. This kind of redirection is often an attempt to say, see, we're not homophobic, but also we have no interest in alienating middle-America cable viewers by asserting that a traditionally masculine lead could in fact be queer. See Watson's queer sister in Sherlock, even while the writers denied any queer subtext between the leads.

A more contemporary subcategory of this category involves giving a character a backstory that hints at or includes queerness, but doesn't show it on screen or allow it for the character's present day arc. I think the Loki tv show is an example of this, as is Valkyrie in the Thor films, although I haven't seen Loki and I think there was a cut scene with Valkyrie that made her bisexuality canon for the film verse. WWDITS does this a little as well, though I think it's much more self aware and also, is an unfinished story arc. The main characters are revealed to be queer but the pairing is not thus far canonical, though both Nandor and Guillermo are shown having on-screen queer relationships with other (or in fact the same) people.

3. The next category, which I believe begins to push the boundaries of fandom, are those shows that purposefully wrote in or allowed subtext to flourish, likely for financial reasons. Again, there was no chance the writing teams were going to make a slash pairing canon, but they would certainly wink and nod at it to appease fandom. And, largely, this worked. Fans noticed it, we liked it, we worked it into fic. Did we also feel mocked and disrespected by it? Certainly. But those liminal spaces were where our identities were allowed to live, and so we took those seeds and turned them into the vibrant culture of fandom.

One particularly egregious example of this comes from the Teen Wolf television show, which produced a viral video featuring the members of the slash pairing. The video showed the actors cuddled close on a boat, and opened with one of the actors saying, "We're on a ship, pun intended." The ad was intended to garner votes for an award for the show, and purposefully capitalized upon slash fandom to that end. However, the show also simultaneously wrote out the possibility of these characters having a romantic arc.

Some subtler examples have surfaced often during unscripted Q&A sessions with actors, for example Hannibal's Mads Mikkelson reacting humorously during a panel discussion in which Hugh Dancy describes Hannibal and Will's love as platonic, indicating that he disagrees. See also Misha Collins saying, "Also, Cas is gay" in an instagram post, after a canonical declaration of unrequited love from Castiel to Dean in Supernatural (or requited if you believe the Spanish subtitles, though there's still plausible deniability for this to be platonic love).

Hannibal I think begins to push the boundaries here, and some fans will say that the Hannibal/Will slash pairing is canon. While there is a ton of space to read that in the show, especially in season three and in creator Brian Fuller's statements since the end of the show, the show utilizes ambiguity both for artistic effect and (in my opinion) to avoid ever making the subtext into text. See for example this much quoted line from the second last episode of season 3:

Will Graham : "Is Hannibal in love with me?" Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier : "Could he daily feel a stab of hunger for you and find nourishment at the very sight of you? Yes. But do you... ache for him?"

We quote this scene all the time and say, it's canon! Hannibal loves Will! I am personally a gigantic Hannibal fan and I love the room for subtext in this writing, but note that while it certainly SEEMS like Bedelia is saying Hannibal is in love with Will, she does not explicitly say that it is romantic love. Also, Will doesn't reply! We can read many emotions into his facial expression, but we don't have explicit canonical confirmation.

Similarly, the show's climactic ending is often touted as a romantic embrace, but I would say it is not undeniably, explicitly romantic. I feel it has strong romantic undertones, but the writers chose not to make the subtext into explicit text. It's important to mention that this show aired on cable, and as such was beholden to network censorship and the need to target cable audience for ratings. The next category of shows is different.

4. As television production has moved into the realm of streaming services, there has of course been a rise of well-received queer television and film, Orange is the New Black being one of the early examples. There is of course a financial market for this stuff, and it's easier to tailor content to sympathetic audiences. I do think this stuff is also just becoming vastly more visible in general (in politics, on tiktok, etc.) and as such we've seen more and more representation from TV shows. These shows were all, from their inception, intended as queer stories. This category includes Heartstopper (a show much beloved by me), Gentleman Jack, and notably OFMD. I think Our Flag Means Death stands out because it took pains to dispel many of the characteristic elements of fandom queerbaiting, which while evidently unintentional on the part of creator and writer David Jenkins, was almost certainly an intentional choice from the overwhelmingly queer writer's room for the show. But again, though many fans were surprised to see the pairing made canon, it was intended from the original arc of the show. I think the remake of Interview with the Vampire also falls into this category of more fandom-aware, intentional queer stories.

5. And then there's Good Omens. In season one, I think the show fit into categories 2 and 3, containing queer and nonbinary representation and allowing a lot of space for subtext. Michael Sheen stated in interviews that he was playing Aziraphale as a person who was trying not to show someone that he loved them, but never explicitly stated this to be a romantic love. I know fandom read it that way, including myself, but technically it was never explicitly stated as romantic love. It seemed reasonably clear in the landscape of season one, and the other shows that were being made at the same time, that slash pairings do not become canon. Much was made of a line from the Good Omens book, reiterated by Neil Gaiman on tumblr that angels are agender. Several of the characters are in show canon only referred to by gender neutral pronouns, though not Aziraphale or Crowley. Much more still was made of Gaiman's references to conversations in which he and Terry Pratchett joked? discussed? the pairing living in a cottage in the South Downs together after the events of the book. There was a great deal of room left by Sheen and Gaiman's comments, and by the subtext of the show, in which to imagine a queer romance.

As I prepared to watch season two, I remarked to a friend that I was curious to see what, if any, impact fandoms like Hannibal and OFMD might have had on the series. Hannibal fandom seems to have largely convinced Brian Fuller of the viability of a queer romance, though he has been cagey about if it would happen in a hypothetical season 4 of Hannibal (I've seen several interviews in which Fuller states that it might not happen in season 4 because "Hannibal would want Will to be able to consent, and he would not be able to in the planned storyline for season 4").

OFMD's success seems to have paved the way for story-lines containing queer representation and romance that are not in fact centered around the experience of being queer. OFMD, in addition to showcasing many different kinds of queer relationships, worked hard to write a story that was not a Heartstopper style coming out story. So too, Hannibal and Good Omens season one are compelling as stories that happen to contain possible queer pairings, not as stories framed around the experience of being queer.

Additionally, through each of his recent television series but most notably with Sandman, Neil Gaiman made an explicit statement about including substantial queer representation in his work. He did not seem to be overly burdened with the requirements from the Terry Pratchett estate, or with any personal fear of writing queer narratives. If ever there was a moment to make a slash pairing canon, it seemed to be now.

As I watched season two, I felt much as I had watching OFMD - filled with a sense of disbelief that after countless fandoms in which there was no eventual queer arc, the subtext seemed suspiciously close to becoming text. I kept reminding myself not to get my hopes up, because that has basically never paid off in the past! I assumed the show would hint heavily but leave some room for ambiguity.

But it didn't! And not only did it deliberately and explicitly state that the arc was a romantic one, it also referenced and validated subtext from season one, which I suspect was before anyone had a serious intention of making this pairing explicitly canonical. I cannot think of any other example of a fandom that began a story without an intended queer romantic arc for its main characters, and ended up writing one in. If there are any other shows out there I would love to know, but for now Good Omens stands alone as the first fandom I know of in history to do this. What a time to be alive, and part of fandom! I can't wait to see what happens next!

#meta #ramblings #GOSeason2Spoilers #Good omens meta #Hannigram #OFMD #this is exceedingly long

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thedrunkenreadersreviews · 4 months

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Beginnings & Endings: MCU Edition

Happy New Year's Eve friends! This evening, I thought it suitable to crack open some honey mead as I wiped the tears from my friend's face, watching her slip into a restless slumber.

I made her watch Loki and requested her to not watch the series finale on her own. Well, she listened. She came over. She watched and now I'm dealing with the aftermath as well as once again, facing my own demons. However, I find this oddly serendipitous given that it is New Year's Eve and we watched Loki.

Let me explain.

*Sip, sip*

This holiday season, I took it upon myself to rewatch the entire MCU leading up to Endgame. Mission accomplished, I finished up today with the Loki series finale, and after tending to my friend, taking a few sips of this beverage, and watching as the clock slowly ticks into the New Year, I take a breath.

*Sip, sip*

Marvel's Loki, in the comics, is very special to me. Not only did I start studying the Norse Pantheon at a young age and became fascinated by the God of Mischief, but when I discovered him in Marvel comics and quite enjoyed their take on him, I became hooked. Following the character's success, especially because of the phenomenal performance of Tom Hiddleston in all the movies, Loki seriously upgraded in the Marvel comics. He is now one of, if not the, most powerful characters in the comics, has an incredible redemption arch, and continues to be such an entertaining character.

*Sip, sip*

Simply put, Marvel's Loki was my discovery for my love of comic books. It started with Loki and expanded into something so much more.

*Sip, sip*

I had mentioned previously that when Thor (2011) came out, I did not go to see it in theaters---which I immensely regret---because I did not know who the hell Tom Hiddleston was and did not trust him with my favorite, my first comic book character. And I distinctly remember watching the Thor panel during the SDCC and noticed that Tom did not get asked a single question from the audience. Not one.

How foolish.

*Sip, sip*

Fast forward to after the release of Thor, the Avengers movie is creeping close. You have the entire Marvel cast on Hall H's stage: RDJ, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, and so many more. And then, there is Tom. And just as distinctly as I remember Tom not getting asked one question at the Thor panel, it came to the point that the host of the Avengers panel had to request that the audience STOPS asking Tom questions and address some of their queries to the rest of the cast.

*Smiles*

*Sip, sip*

You see, a nice chunk of the Avengers meet each other for the first time in the movie. The build-up to it, this idea of an intertwined MCU is found in Iron Man and Captain America: The First Avenger, The Incredible Hulk and Thor, but they are all sort of just ghosts to each other. Brief mentions like whispered easter eggs for the audience to catch. And then something changes. Something big changes.

Loki lets go.

Loki, distraught and heartbroken and so incredibly lost, allows himself to plummet into the abyss, uncertain of what is next. His entire life, a twisted lie. He, a monster that probably gave him nightmares in his youth, whispered to him by the tongue of his own father and brother.

So Loki lets go and he comes across a titan and they strike up a deal.

And the Avengers make that super awesome pose where they all stand back to back in a circle, getting ready to fight off the alien army that invaded New York at Loki's behest.

And so, Loki started the tying of the branches, the impossibility of an MCU now possible. Seeing all of these heroes, together, in one film all because Loki let go.

And I truly think that the writers, the producers, they don't understand just how much of an impact that single choice for that character had. Yes, it is Loki who serves as the Avengers' first villain in the comics as well. The one they have to all rally against. And I do appreciate the beauty in keeping the original villain the same, especially for a group of heroes so grand as this. But still, I get the sense of a lack of appreciation for the character (not the actor) that they may have inadvertently written into such an important role.

In essence, the 2012 Avengers film was a groundbreaking film, something unheard, unseen, and certainly not imagined before.

All brought together, all possible because of Loki. He started the MCU, he started the Infinity Saga, he started the Avengers storyline.

*Sip, sip*

And then, there's this. The new saga in the MCU: the Multiverse.

Loki started that too.

*Sip, sip*

Marvel never did favor releasing their films/shows in timeline order. Which is fair; some are in development, some are done before another, some were planned first, and so on. There are a plethora of reasons as to why it is not "in order." But the multiverse, as has been confirmed by several writers, producers, and in the timeline order of the MCU starts with, that's right, Loki.

Sylvie may have slain He Who Remains, but Loki had ways out: kill Sylvie, take He Who Remains' place, maybe keep time slipping. There were options. Not good ones, but available ones.

But he chose to let that go, too.

*Sip, sip*

The reason why I did not care for his end in Infinity War, I realized after having watched the show and now revisiting Infinity War, is because good writing is not giving a character who has lacked happiness for so long just a glimpse of it before ripping it away. It is not allowing that character to be so close that they might graze it with their fingertips just to be denied it moments later. No, good writing is letting them enjoy it.

Loki was so close ... and then his neck got snapped.

But the reason it works in the show as opposed to Infinity War is because Infinity War feels like such a cheap trick. It felt like such a typical case of "okay, we have this character, they served their purpose, we're not sure what to do with them anymore, so let's just kill them off." Talk about lazy writing. This character who built your MCU, who brought the Avengers together, who knows just how much of a threat Thanos is, who has such incredible powers ... and you have him killed within the first twenty minutes by having his neck snapped when he tried to stab said titan with a dagger?

*Sip, sip*

Pathetic.

*Sip, sip*

In the show, Loki is once more so close to happiness. He has friends. A purpose for once. He's not alone and there are people there who believe in him, who see something in him. And for a moment---just a moment---he is allowed to be happy. Having O.B. help him learn to control his time slipping, reaching out to Casey upon his return, sharing pieces of pie and pep talks with Mobius, and Verity (oh, Verity) on his side and helping him through it all. Loki is allowed to smile and laugh and lean on his friends. He is allowed, if only for a moment, to be happy.

And then he chooses to let that go to save them. And it is not in a cheap trick "kill them because we don't know what to do with him now" type way.

Loki knows how important it is to his friends that those timelines, those universes get to live. And it even becomes important to him too. So he lets go of the possibility of happiness. He lets go of everything he ever wanted, finally within his reach. He lets go not to die but to do something far more tragic than that.

To be alone. Forever. To give the universes a chance. To make sure that every story gets told.

So that the universes can survive. So that the variants get a chance. So that the "what ifs?" become possible.

And so, Loki created the multiverse.

*Sip, sip*

It is an incredible thing what good storytelling and true character development can emotionally elicit from the audience. I still feel immense sorrow and joy. But ... I've only felt this once before.

*Sip, sip*

No matter how many times I rewatch Revenge of the Sith, I, like many others, think, "Maybe he won't, this time. Maybe he won't change."

But he does. He always does.

Anakin falls.

Loki lets go.

I always said that Anakin Skywalker had the best character story in the history of character stories. He was such a well-written character with incredible arcs, both good and bad. So tragic and heartbreaking yet hopeful. And if you had asked me last year who is the best-written character I would have said Anakin Skywalker without hesitation.

This year ... moving on ... the answer is no longer so simple. Because now, the answer isn't one.

The answer is two.

Anakin Skywalker, no doubt.

And Loki.

*Sip, sip*

The Chosen One who needed to be saved.

The villain who became the ultimate hero.

If anything good came out of 2023, it was these two.

Anakin giving Ahsoka one last lesson.

Loki creating a saga for the MCU one last time.

*Lifts glass*

Here's to your end, 2023. On to a new beginning, a new lesson, a new saga.

Excelsior!

#loki #god of stories #god of mischief #loki season 2 #loki series #loki spoilers #mcu loki #marvel #tom hiddleston #loki laufeyson #anakin skywalker #star wars #ahsoka #the avengers #thor #infinity war #marvel mcu #marvel cinematic universe #marvel avengers

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storywonker · 1 year

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I chucked the first Avengers film on, just intending to watch the final battle and ended up watching the whole thing, which I think speaks to how watchable a film it is. There's a reason it broke all the box-office records and that is that, in addition to all the marketing and hype and interconnectedness, it's just a very solid piece of entertainment with good character arcs, well-shot action, and just a general fun factor that means it really works.

The MCU's flaws are there, but mostly latent - the bathos is pitched pretty much perfectly here but it's easy to see how it grew to be overexaggerated, same with the quippy dialogue. The film's interconnected with previous stuff but, as I'll say below, not so much you can't follow it if you've not seen the previous films. It really does hold up.

One of the things I found particularly interesting from a writing perspective is how much weight is given to each Avenger's backstory. Widow and Hawkeye are essentially entirely established as characters in this film, having basically acted as plot devices in their previous outings. Stark gets essentially no exposition as to who he is - clearly Iron Man was enough of a hit Whedon felt it wasn't needed. Thor and Loki get a bit but less than you'd think, which is interesting - all the plot really needs you to get is "norse god alien". Cap gets very little, only a series of quick flashbacks to his movie. Thor and First Avenger were the two most recent films, so I guess that makes sense.

What interests me is the treatment of the Hulk. I guess Incredible Hulk wasn't that much of a hit, and it was in 2008, so four years prior, so the movie spends a lot of time building up the Hulk prior to Banner's transformation. Right from Banner's first scene we've got his threat building, with Natasha going from being completely calm and collected in the middle of an interrogation to being on a hair trigger and needing massive backup just to talk to Banner in the literal next scene. There's a lot of dialogue on the Helicarrier about the Hulk - I particularly like Banner's "I put a bullet in my mouth and the Other Guy spat it out" line - and we see Fury's precautions regarding him before we see him. It means that when he does show up we really do get that, yeah, this is something we should really worry about.

It's just a quite effective bit of writing and I think the lessons in the film can probably be turned to other ensemble casts.

#joel liveblogs #or I guess retrospectives?

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valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn · 2 years

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I actually like the idea of secret wars rebooting the MCU. Goodbye stupid love and thunder

I was reading about Secret Wars this morning and it gave me a headache: variants galore, an infinite number of universes, lots of powers here and there that are going to end up as CGI battles for the most part of the movie.... and I'm so uninterested in the whole thing.

Sorry for talking about myself here but the first MCU movie I ever watched was Thor, and it was years after release, I believe around 2014. I didn't even know it was a superhero movie so I didn't like it very much (funny, considering now I love it lol) but I fell in love with Loki immediately. A while later I watched The Avengers hoping Loki would be there (he was, yay!) and I liked it so much I went to the theatre for AoU (hoping he'd show up.. he did not but I loved it anyway).

At that point the only thing I cared about: Loki, Thor and Steve. I didn't even know about the MCU and all the other films and the grand story they were all leading to, I just wanted to see those 3 and their shenanigans. Once I was caught up I followed the whole thing and sure, it had its faults but it was pretty good (except for EG).

Nowadays not even the love for my favourite characters can salvage this nonsense.

If you make me go to the theatre to see a bunch of characters making fun of Stephen or belittling him the only thing you're gonna get from me is to never go see that movie again (I used to go to the theatres several times for MCU movies, not anymore). If you make me pay for a subscription so that I can see someone abusing and mistreating and beating Loki the only thing you're gonna get is me talking shit about it online and never paying for the subscription again.

Feige has completely forgotten what made the MCU good in the first place. A lot of us who had never read comics didn't know a damn thing about any of this, I knew Spidey and a bunch of DC heroes, I had no idea who Captain America was! The only reason I stayed is that I loved the characters. What's the incentive now? The next film. The next series. Keep on coming back, pay the ticket, pay the subscription, there's more, there's always more and the only way is to consume the hell out of everything, it's a damn chore at this point!

Steve is gone and they won't tell us what happened to him, Loki is a caricature of who he used to be and his only use is to introduce other characters and story points, Thor has been completely destroyed and all the Asgardians turned into comedic relief, magic is not taken seriously and is ridiculed time and time again, Stephen's own story is utterly disregarded in favour of other characters and the overall grand story of the multiverse, Sam has been Cap for a year and ever since TFATWS Marvel doesn't give a damn about him and we haven't seen him since, Bucky is blamed for stuff he didn't do and made to atone for crimes that were never his responsibility..... tell me, why would I want to watch that?

It's not entertaining anymore, at least not to me. I'm watching Black Panther and GoTG3 because I trust Coogler and Gunn but after those two... I don't know. Maybe there's another Moon Knight in the future and I might change my mind but the new phase has to be completely different to Phase Four or I'm out.

Sorry for dumping all my frustration on your ask, dear anon 🤦‍♀️🙊😂

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iamanartichoke · 2 years

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Cut for Dr Strange spoilers?/negativity + MCU negativity + images/screenshots

Sharing this here not bc I have any particularly strong feelings one way or the other about Dr. Strange 2 (I don't), but bc I found this post really interesting, in that the person who posted it is a published author, but while she's got sort of a cult following (of which I am part), her books were published in the 80s/early 90s and are mostly out of print, and I don't believe she writes anymore (or, at least, if she does, she's not publishing/advertising) - which is also why I blocked her name out, to be on the safe side.

Regardless of the success, or lack thereof, of her books, though, I've always admired her writing style. And I found this discussion interesting bc she and her commenters touched on a lot of things that I also feel about the MCU as a whole and why it's been nearly impossible for me to work up any interest/enthusiasm in anything Phase-4 related (aside from Loki and Thor 4) - mainly, that the story has gotten so convoluted that you need so much background information and context and prior knowledge to even understand what's happening at this point, and it doesn't show any signs of slowing down.

I'm already lost at this point, tbh. My friend wants me to go with him to see Dr. Strange next weekend, and I'm just like, ugh, if I must, I guess. He's already seen it once, and I told him, all I care about is if Loki shows up or not, feel free to spoil me (and apparently Loki does not show up, which I was expecting, but at the same time, how you gonna make an entire tv series to set up the multiverse, the rules, the TVA, the concept of "variants," etc, and then not include any of that in the big multiverse movie asdhjdsahj like could you just not afford Tom Hiddleston or ). But I'm lost, and I'm not invested in any characters outside of the Loki 'verse (ie, the characters from the series + Thor and whatever Thor gets up to), so it's like - I'll see it but I don't expect to get anything out of it.

And it just makes me sad bc it didn't used to be that way, I used to get so excited about the films and have all the feels, and I liked crossovers but that was because I was invested in the characters individually, so I was interested in how they'd all interact with one another, and it never felt gratuitous the way it all does now. I guess it just doesn't feel like there's stakes anymore - like, as a viewer, it's just ... why should I care about any of this? What's at stake here? Where's the heart?

So, yeah, idk, I'm just venting at this point but yeah, seeing this post from someone whose writing I admire made me feel some kind of way, I guess? I'm not saying this person's opinion is the be-all/end-all or anything (re: whether or not DS2 is a good film), as I think she's a bit more scathing about it than perhaps is warranted, but at the same time, it's very easy to get caught up in the tumblr echo chamber, so it was interesting to me to see a discussion "in the wild" that echoed my own sentiments about the MCU in general.

Edit: I'm sorry if the screenshots are obnoxiously big, in my draft of this post I have the second/third ones side-by-side but when I save the post, they're not like that, so fml just more shit wrong with my post editor.

#dr strange mom spoilers #dr strange multiverse of madness spoilers #ds2 spoilers #not sure what tags people are using #mcu negativity #mcu critical

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britesparc · 2 years

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Weekend Top Ten #541

Top Ten Marvel Studios Predictions for SDCC 2022

Okay, bit of a fun one this week. In the past I’ve liked to do big predictions for what announcements might come out of San Diego Comic Con. This is because, in recent years (decades?!), SDCC is the hotbed for all kinds of freaky genre entertainment. Huge studio movies, exciting TV shows, videogames, and – yes – comics have used SDCC, and often its legendary Hall H, to make major announcements. Marvel Studios in particular has become famous for its SDCC panels, including the first appearance of all the Avengers live on stage, or Tom Hiddleston in character as Loki calling the audience mewling quims, or the roadmap of various MCU Phases that introduced us to “Avengers: Infinity War, Part I & II”.

As the years have gone by my interests have shifted slightly. I’m not really following mainstream comic book continuity anywhere near as much as I once did, so Marvel and DC’s big announcements don’t really resonate as much. And, to be honest, I’m quite happy with the drip-feed of info from other sources regarding what big movies are in the works, or what’s happening with my favourite genre TV shows (in fact, I’d rather not know, short of the fact that they’re still making them, if that makes sense). This has been exacerbated by the fact that DC’s films have grown increasingly disparate and less connected as time’s gone on, so there isn’t that sense of “this is what’s next for the universe” that you get with Marvel.

No, at the end of the day, the only ongoing series that I really want to know about – in terms of announcements of what’s round the corner – is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And it really, really feels like this is going to be a big presentation from them. I hope I’m not getting too hyped or setting myself up for a fall, but it would make perfect sense if they chose this moment to make some pretty big announcements on the future of the MCU. Phase 4 has been a bit of an odd duck as they’ve introduced new characters, allowed established directors more free reign, played around with the multiverse, and made more TV than you’d think was humanly possible. I’d argue that maybe this has lead to more variable quality than we saw in Phase 3, but I would argue that, so far, the threshold is comparable with the first two Phases (Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, and Thor: The Dark World are all far from stellar). Also, despite many balls being in the air – Kang, incursions, the Scarlet Witch, Elaine from Seinfeld – we don’t actually know where this Phase is going. Phase 1, we all assumed, would lead to the Avengers teaming up; after that, we knew Thanos was the Big Bad and, eventually, we discovered the whole gist was following the Infinity Stones which led to Infinity War and Endgame. This gave the interconnected MCU something of a throughline; each film would lead to the next, often teased in post-credit stings. With this Phase, all we seem to be getting is celebrity cameos revealing new characters who – for the most part – remain unexplained or unconnected to the wider universe. What I’m saying is things are a bit woolly, stuff undefined; and that’s all fine, but at the same time, it’ll be nice if we can see some kind of destination ahead. After all, that’s one of the joys of following a shared universe: knowing that various individual stories are going to coalesce in the future.

So today all I’m doing is making some predictions for what Marvel will announce. A roadmap of Phases 4 and 5; and endgame, if you will, or at least a middlegame. This is my own rampant speculation corner and personal mini wish fulfilment centre. I’ve tried not to go overboard or be too silly, which is why there’s no Death’s Head movie; this is all stuff that I genuinely could see them announce at SDCC, or at least something very much like this. Will I be right? Probably not, but that’s half the fun.

Footage from Wakanda Forever, The Marvels, What If…? and more: I think audiences in the hall will be shown footage from a bunch of upcoming MCU projects, but I also think they’ll release – to the public – teaser for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and What If…? season 2. They might even do a sizzle reel of loads of upcoming films and TV shows (including Secret Invasion, Ironheart, and Quantumania), but I doubt that will make it to the wider world short of dodgy phone videos of the presentation. What I do think we’ll see is the first footage from both the Halloween special – Werewolf By Night, presumably – and the Guardians Holiday special.

Blade, Thunderbolts, Fantastic Four, and Deadpool 3 all get release dates as we round out Phase 4: so I’m making a big assumption here which is that the announced films – and Thunderbolts – all form part of Phase 4. I might be really wrong here, and only the films that currently have dates – which takes up to The Marvels next summer – are Phase 4, and after that we might be onto Phase 5. But for what it’s worth, I’m gonna match up films to release dates and say that November 3rd 2023 will be Blade, February 16th 2024 will be Thunderbolts, May 3rd 2024 will be Fantastic Four, and July 26th 2024 will be Deadpool 3.

Fantastic Four cast on stage for the epic finale of Phase 3: so at the moment I think Phase 4 is building up to Fantastic Four as being the big “Avengers” moment; the climax of this Phase. I think it’ll be called something like Fantastic Four: Incursion or Return of the Fantastic Four, and it’ll be about a multiversal incursion that ends up with the Four on our Earth (and Doom, natch). Whilst I think this is “the big film”, I actually think Deadpool 3 – which’ll be called, I dunno, Deadpool versus the MCU or something – will be the final film, offering an Ant-Man-style palette cleanser. And, yes, I think this will be when they announce the cast, director, and release date of FF, with the First Family up on stage. Who will that be? Gah, I dunno. I don’t think Krasinksi, actually. Let’s say they’re skewing a bit younger, Reed and Sue don’t have kids yet, so I’ll pick Dev Patel (Reed), Anya Taylor-Joy (Sue), Finn Wolfhard (Johnny), and Seth Rogen (Ben). None of those will be correct, by the way. Oh, and as I write this Twitter is getting silly over the concept of Steven Spielberg possibly directing the movie; as this would just make me far too excited, I’m choosing not to believe it. I totally believe it. Help.

Phase 5 begins with Captain America: I’ve just read that they’ve hired a director, which actually adds fuel to the fire of my theory that Sam Wilson: Captain America (or whatever it’ll be called) will be announced, its plot bouncing off not only The Falcon and the Winter Soldier but also Thunderbolts. And this will be one of the threads of Phase 5: Sam Wilson putting together the next Avengers team in the face of a dodgy government-sponsored group, youngsters getting in on the act, increasing multiversal weirdness, and of course muta – hey, what’s that over there?

Taika Waititi will complete his Thor trilogy: I’ll try to avoid spoilers for Thor: Love and Thunder, except to say that it definitely teases more from the character. It seems to me that Waititi wants yet another crack at it, and so I think we’ll get an announcement of a fifth Thor film, completing Waititi’s trilogy. And whilst I don’t imagine it’ll be stated outright, I would have thought that would be it for the character – although Chris Hemsworth has said he’s open to keep playing him for a while, so who knows?

Spin-off TV series detailed for Shang-Chi, Black Panther – and Eternals: we already know that Shang-Chi and Black Panther are getting Disney+ spin-off series – I think they’ll be about the Ten Rings and the Dora Milaje, but I might be totally off-base; they could be about Trevor Slattery and Everett Ross. Anyway, I think we’ll also get an announcement of a sequel/spin-off for Eternals on D+ too, with Chloe Zhao involved in some capacity. Whether it’ll follow the Eternals abducted by Arishem or those who met up with Harry Styles – or something else – I don’t know, but I think the languid pace of the movie would be well-served by a TV series.

Sequels confirmed for Shang-Chi and Doctor Strange: yeah, Phase 5 will have sequels to some of the more recent hits, specifically Shang-Chi learning more about the Ten Rings and just exactly what they are (maybe tying into stuff we’ve seen in Ms. Marvel?) and Doctor Strange’s adventures with Charlize Theron (The Nightmare of Doctor Strange?). Given that I’ve predicted an incursion-based FF movie, and that’s what Theron’s Clea mentions in her post-credit scene, maybe the two films will be related?

New seasons announced for Loki and Moon Knight: we know Loki season 2 is coming, and I think we’ll see/hear a lot more about it, with both Loki and Sylvie present on stage (hey, maybe Sophia Di Martino will call everyone names this time?). but despite it not being something originally announced or, seemingly, planned for, I think the success of Moon Knight will bring Oscar Isaac back (and on stage!) to announce there will be further adventures for Steven and Marc and Jake. And hopefully hippos.

Brand new TV series include Captain Britain, Young Avengers, and Power Pack: as is there wont, Marvel will be announcing some new stuff. There’ll probably be new films – debuting new heroes on the big screen – but seeing as so much of their focus is on Disney+, I think we’ll see more TV series. Big characters and teams that I think will make their bow on the small screen will include Captain Britain – bringing the world of Marvel UK into the MCU – and Young Avengers, the latter teaming up many of the heroes we’ve already encountered. Maybe there’ll be something skewing older and grittier, too (Daredevil?!), but I also think we’ll go young with Power Pack, a kid-focused show that’ll be aimed at an even younger audience than the teen-centric Ms. Marvel. Amidst all this, I also wonder if we’ll get something with the Agents of SHIELD characters; I’d love to see Daisy and May in the MCU.

It all leads up to X-Men: this has been a very good year for the X-Men ‘97 theme (and, incidentally, I reckon we’re due a trailer for that show too). Anyway, we know where this is heading; Kevin Feige said so himself, that we’re leading up to the introduction of mutants in the MCU. We know they exist elsewhere in the multiverse because we saw one in Multiverse of Madness. And, er, they probably exist on the prime 616-Earth of the MCU, too. Yeah? Ahem. So I think this is really where we’re going at the moment: confirmation of mutants, who they are and how they came to be, and we’ll see a big, proper announcement of it all at SDCC. Or at least some kind of roadmap through Phase 5. My personal prediction? Mutants will generally be seeded through the films and shows, although I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s, say, an Xavier series or something that’s not explicitly about the X-Men yet. Will we get casting? Ewan McGregor as Professor X? Taron Edgerton as Logan? Anyway, whilst I still don’t think it’s the final destination – whether that’s Kang or Galactus or Doom or Secret Wars or something else entirely – I think one stop on the road is going to be, essentially, Avengers vs. X-Men. And that’s the next Avengers movie, and that’s the film that closes out Phase 5, and that’s the biggie at the end of the presentation.

So I’ve done all this pussyfooting around making bold and ridiculous predictions, but what actually will be announced? Like, everything? Well, I’m glad you asked, imaginary reader, because I’m going to round things off by listing literally everything I think will be mentioned in one way or another by Marvel Studios at SDCC this year, whether it’s just a name on a screen or James Gunn and the entire cast up on stage making dick jokes. Enjoy!

Films and shows we know about: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Marvels, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, the Halloween special (Werewolf By Night?), Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, Secret Invasion, Ironheart, Armor Wars, Loki season 2, What If…? season 2, Echo, Marvel Zombies (if that counts as MCU?).

Films and shows that we know they’re making but we don’t know exactly when: Fantastic Four, Blade, Deadpool 3, Thunderbolts, Captain America 4, Shang-Chi 2, Black Panther spin-off, Shang-Chi spin-off, Agatha: House of Harkness, Wonder Man, Daredevil, Nova, Spider-Man: Freshman Year (which I think is supposed to be in the MCU?), whatever it is that Scarlett Johansson’s supposed to be working on, the next Spider-Man movie that probably won’t be announced here because Sony will want to do that I guess.

Stuff that I’ve just made up: Thor 5, Doctor Strange 3, Eternals TV spin-off, Moon Knight season 2, Captain Britain, Power Pack, Young Avengers, something with characters from Agents of SHIELD, something with mutant characters that’s not really an X-Men movie, Avengers vs. X-Men.

See, that’s a lot, even before I started pulling stuff out of my arse. Feige’s gonna need a really big whiteboard to write it all down.

#top ten #marvel #movies #comics #mcu #kevin feige #sdcc #comicon #ms marvel #mutation #fantastic four #x-men

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tygerbug · 2 years

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THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER - A pleasant enough mid-level Marvel movie which is just good enough to serve as a trailer for the better movie it could have and should have been. Even so, it's worth the time.

2011's Thor, as directed by Kenneth Branagh, was a weaker early effort for Marvel, although it introduced Tom Hiddleston as the fan-favorite Loki, and an interesting cast that the series hasn't done enough with since (including Kat Dennings, Stellan Skarsgård, Idris Elba, and Jaimie Alexander, who make token appearances here). And at least it's not The Incredible Hulk (2008), which remains in a strange quasi-canon state in the MCU, referenced recently in What If?, Shang-Chi and the upcoming She-Hulk. There was also trouble in the air on 2013's Thor: The Dark World, when Patty Jenkins left the film, apparently unimpressed by what the movie was becoming, and was replaced as director by Alan Taylor. Jenkins went on to direct the well-regarded Wonder Woman (2017), and its less successful sequel. Loki's entire role was reportedly added in rewrites and beefed up during reshoots, and Christopher Eccleston seems wasted as the villain, leading to talk (at the time) that Marvel couldn't deliver an interesting villain (Loki aside). The result is acceptable but also inessential. Alan Taylor has said he was locked out of editing and had no control over how the movie turned out. This included a small Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in shot by James Gunn, and a prologue by Tim Miller. Jamie Alexander was injured for a month, and Christopher Eccleston was unhappy with the seven-hour makeup requirements for his role. Idris Elba referred to the constant reshoots as torture, and Natalie Portman tried to quit the film when Patty Jenkins left. Portman is noticeably absent when Thor kisses "Jane Foster" at the end of this film, and from all the Marvel movies that followed. Even in this film, Portman had insisted on slapping Thor for abandoning her. Old footage from this film was used in Avengers: Endgame, but Portman didn't return until the animated What If? in 2021, for an almost embarrassingly lightweight and silly comedic Thor episode. The movie she had actually returned for was this one, clearly having been promised a much juicier role for Dr. Jane Foster. Thor says in this film that he hasn't seen her for over eight years. Thor Odinson, God of Thunder, played by Chris Hemsworth, did not arrive on the screen fully formed. He is almost unrecognizable in that first film, with a short, bleached-looking beard and eyebrows and long blond wig. His look as a character was defined better gradually over the next few films, and the way he played the character also changed with time. 2017's Thor Ragnarok, directed by comedian Taiki Waititi, was a very purposeful departure from the more serious previous Thor films. Thor, in that film, seems a lot more like Chris Hemsworth, even resembling his comedic persona from 2016's Ghostbusters to an extent. There is more comedic improvisation and a more casual feel to the proceedings. You could explain it by saying that Thor's time on earth loosened him up a bit. It was a strange time for it- Thor has a pretty dark arc in this film and the Avengers films surrounding it, losing pretty much everything and everyone he cares about. This led to Thor's borderline-offensive weight gain in Endgame. While it's easy to mourn the more serious third Thor film that is hinted at here and elsewhere, that we never actually get to see, Hemsworth is very charming here and it feels like he's really found an onscreen persona that works for him. It was also, low-key, another Loki film, and even to an extent a Mark Ruffalo Hulk film, which Marvel isn't really allowed to make without working something out with Universal. Thor: Love and Thunder is the fourth Thor film and tenth appearance by Chris Hemsworth's Thor, or thereabouts. Thor is, at this point, the biggest name among the original Avengers to still be standing. Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow and others have already departed, so the only other contenders would be the likes of Hawkeye, Nick Fury and Maria Hill. Loki, as this movie reminds us, has already died multiple times (with an alternate-universe version getting his own TV series, pulled from a timestream before his death in 2018's Avengers Infinity War). Hemsworth has grown into the role and remains one of Marvel's biggest stars, as the beefy, likeable, well-meaning but often childish and careless Asgardian God of Thunder. Director Taika Waititi mostly knows how to play to Hemsworth's strengths as an actor, and leans on the idea that this veteran Avenger ought to be every little kid's best friend, especially since he's childish himself. While the response to this installment was muted in a packed theater, a handful of people applauded during the credits at the card reading "Thor will return." As Jane Foster, this time round, Natalie Portman seems engaged and interested in what she's doing, although one can question the script's choice on what exactly to do with her. After over eight years, I wasn't sure what to expect from her, but for most of this film Jane Foster is basically telling a joke that doesn't land, and that's a pretty good summation of this entire movie. It spends a lot of time trying to be funny, but the funny parts aren't funny enough and the serious parts aren't nearly serious enough. Moments that should have some emotional weight look and feel like a sitcom. There's trouble in the air from the beginning, as we're introduced to Christian Bale's Gorr the God Butcher, a villain who steals the entire show by being the only one taking his role completely seriously. In his opening scenes, as he's introduced to the god he'd been praying to, he's the only part of the scene which isn't ridiculous, and despite some interesting visual ideas it's pretty clear that the scene called for a more serious treatment overall. The film basically works, but there are a lot of moments like that, which seem to expose the shortcomings of Waititi's style as a director. Too much of the film feels weightless because the drama and comedy are blending together into a mush. I am not giving all the blame to Waititi for this, as the film shows some signs of being messed around with in the editing room. One trailer has a joke with Thor gazing lovingly into the eyes of Chris Pratt's Star-Lord, from the Guardians of the Galaxy films. This moment is actually longer in the trailer than it is in the film, where the moment - or what's left of it - seems to come out of nowhere and vanish just as quickly. To name the elephant in the room, it feels like Waititi had intended a lot of gay content in the film, and had to negotiate at length with Disney about just how much of that would actually make it into the final product. There are more overt gay references here than in any previous Marvel film, and just as many moments where scenes seem to suddenly be missing something along those lines. Waititi's previous film, Thor Ragnarok, lost some scenes confirming the bisexuality of Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie character. She returns here as one of the leads, and there are several overt references to her sexuality (mostly restating stuff that was implied in the previous film). But there's also something missing whenever she interacts with Natalie Portman's Jane Foster, and I can't quite put my finger on what it might have been. I doubt that any romance was intended but their friendship also seems to be edited around, and at one point Valkyrie teases Thor that they're both on "Team Jane." Korg, the rock creature voiced by Waititi, also returns, slightly wearing out his welcome (after an accident involving Zeus) but also confirming his homosexuality. Chris Pratt is known to be very right-wing and religious, and when the trailer came out people were surprised he'd been involved in a joke like that at all. I don't know what kind of pressure was going on behind the scenes. Maybe he was a good sport about it. But the result in the final film is a real nothing of a scene, and the entire appearance of the Guardians of the Galaxy feels underdeveloped. As Korg narrates, it plays out exactly like a trailer for a movie we didn't get to see, interspersed with moments from movies we did see. Pratt has aged noticeably and the Guardians have no real chemistry with Thor here, making this feel like just an extended cameo, of which the film already has many. Storywise this makes some sense. As in Ragnarok, Waititi wants to jettison the baggage of the previous films as quickly as possible to do what he's doing, even if it means skipping half a movie's worth of plot. And just like in any Iron Man movie, Thor's old character flaws have come back, carelessly causing destruction all around him, just so that he can look more heroic when he finally focuses at the end of the film. But it's yet another way that the movie suggests missed opportunities. Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy have had a movie's worth of adventures together, which we see in trailer-like form, but don't particularly like each other by the end of it, and the relationship seems to only bring out the most surface-level version of Thor, basically a parody of himself. And it's always a shame to not do much with Drax, Nebula, Mantis, et al. Meanwhile there's a very serious storyline with Jane Foster during which Jane Foster can't stop doing schtick, like trying out catchphrases. Eventually this is referenced in one of the film's most affecting serious scenes. It is nice that Jane Foster has a personality that's a bit different than you'd expect - this was also true in What If? - and it's intentional that her humor doesn't really land. Her character ends up being a mix of stuff which does and doesn't work, ending up somewhere in the middle. That's true of the movie itself. It's good to see Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie again, but the film doesn't exactly know what to do with her, beyond have her along for the ride. Thor: Ragnarok had strong themes about colonialism and it seemed that Valkyrie was a metaphor for indigenous people, something personal for Taiki Waititi whose father was Maori. This seems like a much less personal film, and perhaps Valkyrie's character reflects that once again. It's shown that she's sold out and become corporate, doing advertisements for Old Spice, and is generally bored with her duties as King of New Asgard. Perhaps Waititi feels that way too, although if you're looking for any more explanation for all of this than is present in the trailers, you won't get any. Visually, at least in theory, the film is going for an extremely colorful retro-80s vaporwave look. Which is not how the 80s actually were, but is something people like to evoke in design. The end credits are done in an exaggerated album-cover way, and the more fantasy-based scenes often look like something out of a Heavy Metal comic - although that does remind us of how sexless these movies are by comparison. It's not an especially stylish film, though, so the actual result of this is usually just mush. It's trying to be awesome in a way which doesn't always work, although it comes close enough often enough to get partial credit. There is a long, evocative sequence where the movie shuts the color off entirely, except for reflected light from weapons and eyes. It seems to come on very suddenly out of nowhere, but also works a lot better visually than the scenes immediately surrounding it. It's making a stronger visual choice, and one in keeping with the villain, the very colorless Gorr, whose scenes have a horror-movie aesthetic throughout, although one apparently intended to scare children. Christian Bale makes a big impact because there's nothing funny about his character. The moments where you see his playful side are his most horrific. It almost feels like Bale doesn't know what movie he's in, and the movie is better for it. Chris Hemsworth seems to know exactly what movie he's in, and mostly gets away with it because he's the star. There are, however, some scenes which come off as suspiciously bland. Russell Crowe tries out what is probably intended as a comedic Greek accent as Zeus. While Gladiator this ain't, he does actually flesh out a reasonably funny and complex character in a short amount of screen time, not unlike Jeff Goldblum in Ragnarok. It does all have a whiff of "jokes that aren't quite working" though. There is a moment where Crowe forcibly disrobes Thor, and the nudity is played for laughs. A lot of people questioned this as sexual assault, although the script later specifies that Thor enjoyed the moment. This is a good example of how the movie is tough to read and doesn't commit enough to anything, one way or the other. The last Marvel movie before this was "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." About halfway through we're introduced to a sort of alternate Avengers, full of cameos from characters who hadn't been seen in the MCU in this form. These scenes also seemed to reveal exactly who would be playing one of Marvel's biggest-name heroes. I was underwhelmed by this reveal, feeling he wasn't quite the right type ... although he'd been rumored for the part for years. There's also a quick cameo at the end by - presumably - one of the leads of the next Doctor Strange movie. Anyway, we get one of those moments in the mid-credits scene. A Marvel hero we haven't seen before is revealed, played by a known actor, and yes, I'm a little disappointed in the casting. I'd need a whole movie to get used to casting like this, and to know what Marvel intends to do with the character. A few seconds isn't really enough. Then there's another cameo, in another movie which didn't do enough with the Thor franchise's supporting cast. I wonder if there was a version where they did a final joke about an arm. Judging from reviews, Thor: Love and Thunder has been a divisive movie for Marvel, and something of a letdown after the better-regarded Ragnarok. It's not a bad effort, and maybe a movie with this basic plot and setup would never have been top-tier Marvel, or very different from what we get here. But it's the kind of movie that makes you think about tone, and the different ways that this material could have been handled which might have worked better. Maybe that's illusory, but I found myself thinking about missed opportunities and roads not taken. Maybe it's just because the movie has a comedic tone for so much of its runtime when the jokes don't really land and it's cutting into the drama. The movie is fine, and better than other Thor efforts, but it's not hard to become a backseat driver and wonder what was left on the cutting room floor. It's hard to answer what this movie is about, exactly, and why it should be about that. For the most part it works, and sticks the landing, and that's impressive enough for a Thor movie which doesn't feature Loki, and which writes Valkyrie out of the last act. Hemsworth has to carry the movie himself, for the most part, and he's up to the task enough that the biggest reaction in the theater was to the card: "Thor will return." That's good.

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agivins10 · 2 years

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Everything There Is to Know About Thor: Love and Thunder – Marvel’s Next Big Title

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) continues to grow and will release its next piece of content on July 8, 2022: Thor: Love and Thunder. From what fans have been able to gather thus far, the story will follow Thor’s journey of recovering from the events that took place in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which both left him absolute shambles. He was seen as a powerful god when we last saw him on screen in the final battle against Thanos, but there is still a great amount of work for him to do. The trailers have revealed his intense workout sessions which will ultimately result in him getting back into shape and obtaining the physique of the god that he is.

The trailers also revealed the return of another major character, Jane Foster played by Natalie Portman, and the introduction of the next big bad villain, Gorr the God Butcher, played by Christian Bale. It has been revealed that Jane Foster will be returning to the series to find herself to be in a very similar position to that of her character in the comics. Jane will develop some sort of cancer during her time spent away from Thor, and the use of Thor’s might hammer, Mjolnir, keeps her from being sick while wielding it. Unfortunately, her illness gets worse every time she does use the hammer to turn in Thor. It will be interesting to see how Gorr the God Butcher will deal with her character, as well as the original Thor, as he seeks out to find and kill all living gods within the universe after those that he loved suffered by their hands. There are fan favorites of Valkyrie, Korg, and the members of The Guardians of The Galaxy also set to return to the screen. It is still unknown if Tom Hiddleston’s Loki will be making an appearance. There are even rumors of Ryan Reynold’s Deadpool making his MCU debut in this movie. These cast members paired with director Taika Waititi will undoubtedly produce another Marvel masterpiece.

Although Thor has always been my personal favorite, many other Marvel fans have not showed the same admiration for Chris Hemsworth and his character until recently, specifically with the release of Thor: Ragnarok. This is largely due to what most fans refer to as the “Taikification” of the Thor series. The original two movies that were produced by Marvel are quite frankly not good. Most fans consider those two movies to be some of the worst in the entire MCU. Taika Waititi came along though, and completely changed that. The third film in the Thor series, Thor: Ragnarok, is considered by many fans to be one of the best in the entire MCU, and fans have hope for the upcoming title as it seems to possess a similar identity. With the first two being dark, gloomy, and at most points boring, Waititi finds a way to make the movies colorful, bright, and witty without discarding the sadness and dread that the character of Thor carries with him. There is never a dull moment in his take on the movies. His pairing with his casting superstar, Chris Hemsworth, makes for an amazing theatrical experience.

The superstar himself, Hemsworth, recently stated in an interview that he really enjoys playing the character of Thor and will come back for as many movies as he is asked to come back for. He also goes on to say this character has really made his career what it is, and he will always be grateful for that. As a major fan of both Thor and Chris Hemsworth, that is music to my ears. It is exciting to see what Marvel has already done with Phase Four of their franchise which makes the future more difficult to wait for.

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thoughts-of-alaina · 3 years

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I had this theory for awhile. It's the only theory I have for the Loki series. It's the only one I'm going to make as well. (The Mobius "Woah" moment doesn't count.) Is that kid Loki might appear in the main MCU universe/universe (19999999).

That's it. I have no explanation of how. Just that he might reappear as a kid or maybe teen Loki/Ikol. Who knows.

#loki mcu #loki series #loki series theory #loki series spoilers #maybe?#I won't be disappointed if it dosen't happen #I would however be if some Loki dosen't see MCU Thor again #not in the loki series but in the next following films with Thor

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jazzythursday · 3 years

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I’m about to go into another very long Marvel rant/dissertation here— mostly for myself— that I started writing soon after the Loki Series finale so please feel free to just scroll past this, because honestly I think I kinda overdid this one. It’s jaded and overly dramatic even for me. You have been warned:

The last 4 Marvel movies/shows I’ve watched left me feeling so completely depressed and unsatisfied and hopeless about the future of popular entertainment and story telling in general, and I know I’m not the only one. The fact that fans are going into these experiences hoping for a good story and character arcs that make sense with prior characterization, and leaving feeling… empty is a very clear sign that their approach leaves a lot to be desired.

Infinite War had some valid reasons to end the way it did, because by having our heroes fall so much harder than ever before, it built up the tension and high stakes for the next film. But what does that do when Endgame leaves us feeling even worse? I wanted them to triumph and finally come together to be better. I expected there would be losses of course but not enough to negate the wins. Instead the characters were subjugated for plot, characterization was watered down, and we lost all the original Avengers besides Thor and Bruce (who was no longer even Bruce). Peter loses Tony, Thor’s previous loses are permanent, and so many other things that, in spite of loving a lot of the movie, mean I haven’t been able to stop being sad about it for literal years. And the amount of thoughtless destruction that seems to be at an all time high when it comes to character’s lives and disregard for properly exploring emotions just doesn’t leave much to be expected at this point. Far From Home was good. It was. I liked it a lot. The acting was wonderful and there were some really interesting themes they grappled with but I still walked out of the theater feeling like there was still so much detachment surrounding a lot of the decisions, a little too much thoughtlessness (that, and the gaping hole of Tony). I’m not going to talk about WandaVistion but I’ll say that I was invested until the start of episode 8, and finished episode 9 feeling drained and tired and sad.

Then we get to Loki, a show which has plagued far too many of my thoughts since I started watching it, and has crushed my hopes for ever truly being happy with a Marvel project ever again. Loki is a character who’s ostensibly felt alienated and unseen for most of his life, and that’s before finding out about his parentage. His first movie ends with his suicide attempt and subsequent fall into the void. His second takes place a year into working under Thanos and ends with him being taken away in chains (yes I know he’s the villain he’s done bad things etc. etc. but for the purposes of this I’m only focusing on his pov). Then his third involves his solitary imprisonment, his mother’s death, and his near-death (considering the likelihood that he was actually stabbed), although it does end on a lighter note with his acquisition of the throne. Then we get his redemption and reconciliation with Thor in Ragnarok, immediately followed by the utter tragedy that is the first 10 minutes of Infinite War, which I don’t think I need to explain.

So what I suppose I’m saying here (very very inadequately) is that after all of that, I can’t believe the proper story to tell in his first chance at being a main protagonist was one where he’s constantly degraded and beat up, convicted of things he didn’t actually do, given no focus on backstory or implied/established motivations, and labeled as a clown and a narcissist! His powers are weakened, he displays almost no recognizable mannerisms or competence, he’s held to a higher moral standard than every other character, shown no respect, and ultimately loses EVEN MORE. We’ve seen him lose and lose and lose and lose again. We’ve seen him die THREE TIMES, we’ve seen him redeemed TWICE. So who in their right mind thinks that the most compelling story to tell after all of that was to see him LOSE AGAIN?! And not only lose, but lose without any real triumph, dignity, or acknowledgment beforehand. Death to the author aside, reading the utter nonsense the team behind it have spread, it’s so clear that it wasn’t made in good faith. Whether in ignorance or true maliciousness, they just don’t care. They didn’t research. They didn’t try and see things from his point of view. They didn’t truly sympathize with him as a person while writing. They didn’t understand. And they truly, truly wanted him to fail.

I’m tired of feeling hopeless at the end of everything, of leaving the theater or turning off the TV wondering why I even bothered, why I even care when I’m just being strung along with as little consideration as an audience as my favorite characters. I wanted to actively see him strive to be better, not just be told he could be. I wanted to see him triumph over his demons, not forget them. I wanted to see him be the “master of magic” that every other damn movie has alluded to, and to use his powers effectively. I wanted him to be powerful. I wanted him to, if not win, then win on a personal level at least. I wanted to see him take agency in his life and PROVE EVERYONE WRONG! And, though it’s now bafflingly controversial to say, I wanted it to be told by an experienced and competent writing and directing team that knew and understood his character and were passionate about telling his story.

I would ascribe to the notion of “don’t like it, don’t watch” if I could but I care to much to not be affected by this obvious decline in quality and awareness. And I’m a relatively recent fan. I haven’t been waiting for Loki to get his moment in the sun for 10 years. I’M NEW HERE, and my heart breaks so much for fans of the original movies who have lost their love of Marvel or Loki because of the way it’s been handled. No one should fall further than they can climb up from, and I’m tired of watching loss after loss and never getting the release of gaining enough of it back. What’s the point of caring about these characters if the writers won’t? Of investing in a connecting cinematic universe if it lacks continuity? Of looking for clues and foreshadowing when there isn’t any and the only twists are random and pander to shock value? The way these pieces/characters are being created and interpreted is reductive and incompetent, and for once I’d like to watch something that feels crafted, inspiring, and gratifying to see to the end.

If some people like the Loki show we got, I have no argument against that, because my own opinion is just as subjective as theirs. Though, I’d like to think that if what I want is for the show to be better out of love for the same character, then what they enjoyed from the show can coexist in that. If anyone’s actually read up to this point, I have to admit I’ve forgotten mine. Mostly I just wanted to express my frustrations over how unfeeling and stale most entertainment, specifically from Marvel as of late, has been.

TL;DR: I care too much, waaay too much, Marvel cares too little, Disney doesn’t care at all, and I don’t know how to accept that.

#jazzy’s thinking too much again #marvel thoughts #marvel critical #loki series critical #loki series negativity #marvel #loki series thoughts #Loki series #why am i like this??#loki

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viviennes-tears · 3 years

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Making him blush (Tom Hiddleston & x reader one shot)

18+ blog: It is YOUR responsibility, as a reader, to think about the content that you consume at your own discretion.

Requested by Anonymous: Heyy hope you're good :).Can you write a prompt about Tom being asked on interviews about his relationship with reader, where the host makes him blush and Tom is nervous and everything? Pls 🥺

Summary: After the successful West-End run of Betrayal the cast have been invited to bring it over to Broadway. Just like any other performance it needed promoting and Tom got an invite to The Tonight Show staring Jimmy Fallon. During his appearance on the show he is as charming as ever and plays along with the jokes. He even teaches Jimmy how to cry. However, when the questions turn the tables and are about Tom's private life, he cannot seem to stop blushing, especially when you are brought up in the conversation.

Warnings: None

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Tom was waiting out in the wings as Jimmy Fallon was introducing him, when he felt his phone vibrate in his suit jacket pocket. He quickly took it out and peered at the notification that lit up on the screen. It was a text from you.

"Good luck with the show! Love you x" However, Tom didn't have time to reply. The house band the Roots began to play and he was being ushered out of the wings. He managed to only safely tuck his phone away in time.

As soon as Tom was on stage, after emerging out from behind the blue curtain he smiled. Then he raised his hand politely to acknowledge his fans and the audience. Followed by him taking only a few short paces over towards Jimmy, who came around his desk to greet Tom. Both men extended out their hands and shook, as well going in for a hug at the same time. Once they made themselves comfortable the Roots wrapped up their entrance music for Tom.

"You're on Broadway and er...congrats on the great reviews for this play. I wanna get to talking about that, but, you had to walk through Times Square to get to the Theatre. And you ran into some of your Avenger friends." Jimmy said with some hints of delight in his eyes.

"Yes, they resembled some of my Avenger friends." The audience laughed along with Tom, as he straightened out his jacket.

"So this really isn't them?" Jimmy asked as he reached for the photo from behind his desk. He then presented the photo of Tom with the people in Times Square, who were dressed as Avengers. "Wait let me see. It might really be them!" Tom chuckled while Jimmy asked for a close up for the viewers at home.

"That's definitely Tom Holland. I think that's definitely Tom Holland." Tom says as he points to Spiderman.

"I can tell by his exposed thumb that was coming through his glove there." Jimmy joked along.

"You know he travels with that suit." Tom chuckled. Everyone seemed to poke fun at the other T.H a lot, but all was taken lightly.

"That's cool that they came out to support you." Jimmy chuckled too as he returned the photo behind his desk.

Jimmy then went onto Marvel, despite knowing full well that Tom couldn't say anything about the new and upcoming Loki Disney+ series, he had to at least mention it anyway. Of course Tom expressed how excited he was about the show, and to start filming next year. He loves Loki as much, if not more than anyone else did. What Tom was thankful about was the fact Jimmy was respectful about not pressing for information, due to knowing how Marvel works, and how they prefer to keep things on the down low. Although, the Marvel aspect of the conversation diverged down the path of Tom auditioning for Thor originally. Which actually gave the audience a chance to see Tom audition in a short clip, causing them to cheer and applaud him. Despite Tom's embarrassment growing a little from the clip being shown. Following the clip Jimmy went on about Betrayal, the main reason why Tom was there, but Tom found it a rather brief moment. It did consist of the usual questions, with the added request of wanting a lesson in how to cry, Jimmy thought it was amazing how Tom could cry during every show. They used Baby Yoda as the key to start up the water works, everyone went ballistic seeing Tom cry over Baby Yoda.

"Welcome back, I'm still here with Tom Hiddleston!" Jimmy said cheerfully when they came back from an ad break. The audience cheered and wooed. "I asked Tom to stick around because..." Jimmy trailed off as he picked up another photo from behind his desk, then he held it up on the desk. "You, sir, were seen out only two days ago with this beautiful lady." He added and smirked.

Tom bit his lip nervously as he looked at the photo of you and him with Bobby. You were spending the afternoon together as there wasn't a matinee show. Also, neither yourself or Tom knew that anyone was photographing you.

"Humm..." Tom hummed with a slight nod. He was worried about what the next question was going to be, despite having an idea.

"Who is she, Tom? Who?" Jimmy had a teasing and urgent tone in his voice. The audience clearly was interested too.

"(Y/N)." Tom said your full name and began to blush a little. (Idk, what the insert shorthand is for that. Lol) "She's a friend." He rushed to add.

"Really? Because here you seem to be holding hands." Jimmy then replaced the photo with another.

"Friends can hold hands." Tom tried to steer away from your relationship, albeit his efforts were futile.

"Do friends kiss, like this?" Jimmy replaced the photo again with a third one.

In a way Tom could see it coming, although deep down he hoped it wouldn't have been shown. Neither you or Tom were ready for your relationship to be public yet. You both just enjoyed your privacy too much, and both of you were happy the fact it had stayed that way, and for as long as it did. But now clearly it was public knowledge, especially because it was clear something was going on between you both in the photo. Tom had his tongue in your mouth, one arm wrapped around you, and he had hold of Bobby's lead in his other hand. You had pressed your chest up firmly against him during that moment, and massaged his nape, as you weren't able to run your fingers through his hair. Due to him wearing his black cap that day which kept his curls down.

"Er...ehehe, well Jimmy the thing is..." Tom's cheeks reddened and he pinched the bridge of his nose, as he tried to find the right words. "The thing is-is we erm...ok yes we're dating." He finally admits and hopes you don't kill him later.

"I knew it! How long have you been dating for?" Jimmy put the photos down behind his desk, and edged a little closer towards Tom's direction.

"Three and a half months." Tom said grinning although still blushing a lot.

"Wait what?!" Jimmy had only thought it was an even more recent kind of relationship.

"Ehehe, yep. We're happy and we weren't going to say anything. We enjoy our privacy. But I will say she's no longer here in New York, she has work obligations. So we'll see each other when I get back just before Christmas." Tom explained. You had managed to get some time off work for a week to spend with Tom, as you hadn't seen each other since he left for New York. Which means most of your relationship has been spent apart, but you knew he had a lot planned for Christmas to make up for lost time. Also, while you were with Tom that was when you both admitted your love for each other, or rather the same day the photos were taken in Central Park.

"How can you not? She looks like a keeper to me. So how'd you two meet?"

"We met at a bar not long after Benedict Cumberbatch..." the audience screamed. "His lovely wife, Sophie and I decided to have a couple of drinks, after the Wimbledon tennis match. I saw (Y/N) across the bar when I went to order, and she instantly took my breath away." Tom smiled fondly at the memory.

"Awh, did she also attend the match?" Jimmy asked.

"Yes, she had attended with a few of her friends. I bought their drinks and I asked for her phone number after chatting her up for a bit." Tom added rather easily. It was like once the floodgate was open he didn't want to shut up about you.

"Can you give us an example of a famous Hiddleston chat-up line?" Jimmy asked while wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Tom mock pondered over the question before answering, "no...ehehehe." The audience groaned with disappointment. Jimmy did try a couple more times but Tom wasn't budging. "A gentleman doesn't reveal his tricks." Tom eventually added with a wink. Which undoubtedly made a few female audience members giddy, and possibly moistened some knickers too from the wink.

"Well I tried!" Jimmy said also a little disappointed. "Anyway, Tom Hiddleston everybody!" Jimmy said and patted Tom's shoulder just before they went for another ad break.

Once on the break Tom and Jimmy said their goodbyes then Tom was picked up by his driver. During the drive Tom took the time to text you that he was on his way back to the hotel. Adding that he hoped you were free to FaceTime when he got back, because he missed you and said there was something important he wanted to say.

Tom Hiddleston Masterlist

Source: @viviennes-tears

#making him blush #prompt request #requested by anonymous #tom hiddleston #fanfiction #one shot #tom hiddelston x reader #viviennes-tears

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the-essex-serpent-tv · 3 years

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Tom Hiddleston and Claire Danes appeared in great spirits as they laughed on the set of their new TV show The Essex Serpent in the county’s town of Maldon on Tuesday.

The actor, 40, stepped into the role of hot priest Will Ransome in traditional attire, while his on-screen love interest, 41, wore a blonde wig.

In the six-part series being filmed for Apple TV+, Claire’s character Cora Seaborne – released from an abusive marriage – develops an intense relationship with the minister.

Screen star Tom cut a sharp figure in a white clerical shirt, tied in with a waist coat and blazer, while his co-star looked equally smart for the upcoming project – set during the Victorian era.

The American thespian was dressed in a turtleneck jumper and a wool coat, which featured balloon-style shoulder padding.

For the scenes, crew transformed the bay of Hythe Quay with the addition of fishing boxes and baskets. In a post on Facebook, Topsail Charters said: ‘Our barges are taking centre stage behind the filming props today. The quayside is being transformed as we speak ready for filming this Thursday.

Plot: In the six-part series being filmed for Apple TV+, Claire’s character Cora Seaborne – released from an abusive marriage – develops an intense relationship with the minister

The programme follows Cora, a widow who moves from London to the Essex village of Aldwinter in search of a mythical sea creature.

Homeland star Claire replaced Keira Knightley in the role when the British actress had to withdraw for ‘family reasons’.

The Old Etonian won rave reviews for his performance as a hotel worker recruited to spy on a ruthless arms dealer in the BBC’s Night Manager in 2016, not least for his steamy sex session with Elizabeth Debicki.

The release date for The Essex Serpent, directed by Clio Barnard, is likely to be next year.

‘Who’s excited to see The Essex Serpent? I know we are… be great advertising for Maldon & our barges hopefully.’

Maldon District Council also confirmed that filming would be taking place in the area, telling Essex Live in a statement: ‘We are delighted that the production company has chosen the Maldon District as one of their locations for a new six-part drama.

‘They have a sizeable base on Promenade Park, and they will minimise any disruption during their filming and ensure safety can be maintained at all times.

‘We would remind everyone that while this is clearly exciting, social distancing must still be maintained at all times.’

Clio Bernard is directing the series while writer Anna Symon is adapting Sarah Perry’s novel of the same name for the screen.

TV star Tom will next be seen as his Marvel character Loki in an upcoming spin-off series which sees him travel through time and alter human history after stealing the Tesseract during the events of Avengers: Endgame.

Tom’s Loki has been one of the longest-running recurring castmembers in Marvel’s connected film universe, starting with Thor in 2011.

#tom hiddleston #claire danes #the essex serpet #set photos #bts

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insanityclause · 3 years

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There’s a moment that every child who aspires to movie stardom dreams about. They practise it in front of the mirror: graciously thanking their parents, their first drama teacher, their favourite hamster; smiling; waving; trying valiantly to cry. No, it’s not an Oscar’s acceptance speech – at least, not anymore; it’s the moment that super-producer Kevin Feige offers you his hand across a conference table and tells you you’ve landed a Marvel movie.

Yesterday came the first reports that Olivia Colman is in talks to slip into full-body lycra and join the MCU, via the studio’s next small-screen series Secret Invasion. The news follows a recent clutch of arrivals of actresses of a similar age and calibre to Colman to other Marvel projects, including Kathryn Hahn’s show-stealing turn in WandaVision, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ surprise appearance in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Such casting choices may once have sounded insane. Why would the woman who just two years ago won an Academy Award for her grief-stricken, crumbling performance as Queen Anne in The Favourite, and who is up for another one this weekend for The Father, choose to submerge her pristine brand as the reigning monarch of British acting, both on-screen and off-, in a barrel of brightly-coloured, pop-sountracked, quippy-scripted comic bookery?

Secret Invasion sounds even more deranged than the average Marvel project: it will likely focus on the race of green, reptilian aliens called Skrulls (Ben Mendelsohn will reprise his role as Skrull commander Talos from Captain Marvel), as they invade earth by shapeshifting to imitate superheroes. Colman as an alien reptile? It’s hard to think of a more unlikely piece of casting since Judi Dench dressed up in a catsuit.

But over the last decade, a foundational piece of Marvel’s strategy has been signing-on not just fresh-faced stars like Chris Evans and Tom Holland, but some of the world’s most serious performers: inde darlings (Mark Ruffalo, Tilda Swinton, Brie Larson), BBC-drama-grown Brits (Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch) and awards-laden powerhouses (Annette Bening, Scarlett Johansson, and even Anthony Hopkins, Colman’s co-star in The Father, who is also up for an Oscar) have all rocked up in the MCU. Much as the Harry Potter franchise once was, the films have become a who’s who of Oscar after-party invite lists.

So why would the great and good of Hollywood acting willingly attach themselves to a franchise that one of the greatest directors of all time not so long ago declared to bear a greater resemblance to theme park rides than cinema? Marvel films are delightful but they are also frequently silly (inevitably, in the transition from cartoon comic book drawings to full-sized, three-dimensional adults leaping around on-camera dressed in skin-tight lycra suits and capes, some space for ridicule is opened up).

The studio is fully aware of this, which is why these films are comedies, but that does not make them any more obvious as vehicles for artists interested in rendering psychological depth on-screen. In 2012, Kiwi wunderkind director Taika Watiti told Interview magazine that he was suspicious of the way feature films can often “turn into commodities”. Yet five years later, his own Marvel movie, Thor: Ragnarok, hit cinemas.

The financial incentives to any actor are obvious and no doubt play a part but there is something even more valuable to someone like Benedict Cumberbatch – not exactly strapped-for-cash following Sherlock, The Imitation Game, and The Hobbit films – inextricably wound-up with those mega pay packages. That something is audience size. Avengers: Endgame, the highest-grossing film of all time until Avatar’s re-release in China in March last year, took $357 million at the domestic box office on its opening weekend.

In America, the average price of a cinema ticket that year was about $9 – that means, by the roughest of calculations, that within 48 hours of the film’s release, 12% of the population, or some 40 million people, had seen the film. An actress like Colman has not exactly been confined to niche audiences – The Crown is not a small show – but even so, the prospect of such unparalleled exposure must be seductive.

The dream of a Marvel movie has not replaced the dream of an Oscar – it all but guarantees it. A symbiotic relationship is emerging between the franchise and the Academy, as the popular reach of one feeds and is elevated by the prestige of the other. There is no better example of this than the tragically-curtailed career of the late Chadwick Boseman.

From a handful of critically-lauded but quietly received biopics (42, Get on Up), he was propelled overnight to global stardom by his MCU roles as Black Panther, Marvel’s first black superhero, culminating in the Black Panther film in 2018. Now, just months after his death from cancer, he is a shoo-in to win a Best Actor award this week for his role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. The opposite of a Marvel film in almost every sense – it’s claustrophobic, literary (it’s based on an August Wilson play), and tragic – it was Black Panther nonetheless that secured him the part.

This give-and-take between superhero flicks and prestige dramas extends beyond actors: Watiti, who has just wrapped shooting on another Thor film, was nominated for an Oscar in 2019 for his German Resistance drama Jojo Rabbit, while Chloé Zhao, who is sure to win Best Director this weekend for Nomadland, has just wrapped her own Marvel movie, Eternals, which is slated for release in November.

Kathryn Hahn, meanwhile, was brought into WandaVision by director Matt Shakman, better known for directing prestige shows like Mad Men and Succession. His vision, in collaboration with the writer Jac Schaeffer, led to a formally wildly innovative show, providing the opportunity for Hahn and the show’s pair of stars Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany – both outstanding actors – to flex their comic and creative muscles. Such starpower behind the camera is itself an attraction for actors of Colman’s calibre, and while there is as yet no word on who will direct Secret Invasion, there are many exciting possible names in the mix.

A few powerhouse industry figures were instrumental in fostering this mutually-beneficial relationship. The first was Robert Downey Jr, the original posterboy of the franchise. When he agreed to star in the first film, 2008’s Iron Man, it was a huge gamble – director Jon Favreau had to battle the studio to accept him – as he emerged from a wilderness decade marred by drug addiction, but it was also a huge coup. Downey Jr had just been nominated for an Oscar for Ben Stiller’s comedy Tropic Thunder and had recently starred in David Fincher’s instant cult-classic Zodiac; his personal reputation may have been in tatters, but as a serious actor, he brought chops.

His Iron Man would become the emotional and dramatic heart of the franchise over its next three phases. Kenneth Branagh, who directed the 2011 film Thor, also bridged the gap between the big flashy studio and his own thespy circle: he brought his protégé Tom Hiddleston, who at that point was best known for his British TV and theatre work, onboard to play Loki, a decision that Feige apparently described as the most important the studio would ever make. Hiddleston capitalised on rather than abandoned his roots: he approached the character like “a comic book version of Edmund in King Lear, but nastier.” It paid off: Hiddleston is a global superstar, frequently touted as the next James Bond, and his dedicated Loki spin-off show is the Marvel TV release of the summer.

Of course, there’s one thing that Marvel offers its actors that money simply can’t buy: a bit of fun. “If my actors aren’t having a good time on set, then I’m doing something wrong,” Waititi told Polygon in 2016. Reflecting on her playfully heightened performance in the early episodes of WandaVision in a recent interview with the New York Times, Hahn said that her husband said her performance had reminded him of her younger self in her college days. “I haven’t seen that part of you in so long – just you, hamboning it,” he told her. Colman, who is by all accounts is a mischievous on a film set, may simply want to bust out of those period costumes, slip into a bodysuit, and have a good time.

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