It is no secret that since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been on a rocky road in its attempt to continue telling its record-breaking saga. With the highs of franchise entries such as Spiderman: No way Home, Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 3, and Loki Seasons One and Two, comes the franchise lows with Secret Invasion, The Marvels, and Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania. However, this week, fans of the franchise rejoiced when Marvel Studios dropped two huge looks to the future: The Deadpool 3 trailer, and the casting of Marvel’s first family, The Fantastic Four.
The first look at Deadpool 3 was previewed during one of the commercial breaks of Superbowl 58. This trailer gave me just enough to leave me on the edge of my seat before concluding with a message reading “Full Trailer Online Now”. Apparently, I was not the only one looking to see more either, because 24 hours later the full trailer would become the most viewed trailer in history with a staggering 365 million combined views.
This trailer was great. Plain and simple. It starts up with showing us where Wade Wilson is in his life, before immediately being pulled into MCU multiversal mayhem. The appearance of the TVA, for the first time being seen outside of the Loki series, is also rather intriguing. Though we don’t see any familiar faces from that show, their appearance does a lot of heavy lifting in explaining how Deadpool will be able to jump over to the current MCU.
One thing that is quite surprising about this trailer however is the lack of Wolverine throughout it. With the official title of the movie being revealed as Deadpool & Wolverine you would think he would be just about as present as Deadpool but that is not at all the case. In the TV spot shown during the Superbowl he is shown from the front, but blurred out, and during the full trailer he is only shown twice from behind. It has been news for well over a year now that Hugh Jackman would be reprising his role as Wolverine, so I wonder why the studio is being so secretive.
Overall, I am very much looking forward to this movie. I think it has the chance to shatter more records, and bring the MCU back to a more consistent place than it has been in recent times.
Watch the Deadpool and Wolverine Trailer here!
The second major bit of news this week was the casting announcement of the Fantastic Four. For years it has been speculated that “this year Disney, and Marvel would announce these castings at a Comic-Con, or D-23″ to no avail. Yet this year on Valentines Day, the Studios finally broke the news.
Playing the Human Torch will be Joseph Quinn, best known for his role as Eddie in Stranger Things. Playing Ben Grimm/The Thing will be Ebon Moss-Bachrach, best known for his part as Richard from The Bear. Playing The Invisible Woman will be Vanessa Kirby, best known for her role in The Crown as Princess Margaret. Finally, Mr. Fantastic will be being played by none other than Pedro Pascal, best known for his roles in… you name it: The Mandalorian, Game of Thrones, The Last of Us. Pascal is no stranger to playing leading roles in larger-than-life stories.
Personally, I think all of these choices are spot on. I really like that for the most part the cast consists of actors that aren’t quite movie stars yet. The thing that stands out to me most about this cast, however, is the choice to have Pedro Pascal play Mr. Fantastic. Although he is a phenomenal actor, like stated above, he is very prominent in the medium nowadays. I worry that Pascal may be moving towards a place where the movie star becomes more prominent than the characters he plays.
So… are these two projects enough to help Marvel back to its once former glory? Although only time will tell, I do think these are a step in the right direction. The next big step however will be when the studio finally announces their actor for Dr. Doom. However, until then I do hope that we soon find ourselves once again in theaters packed with people on opening nights cheering for our favorite heroes.
Image Credit: Marvel Studios