The Marvels actress Lashana Lynch recently revealed that Marvel Studios seemingly does not have a plan and has been doing everything “play-by-play” with her character.
Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Marvel Studios
Lynch recently spoke to ScreenRant while promoting her upcoming film Bob Marley: One Love about the Marvel Cinematic Universe and her cameo in The Marvels that sees her as Binary in an alternate dimension alongside the X-Men’s Beast.
The actress revealed, “I did know going into the movie. I didn’t know what would happen next. I don’t know anything, literally. Every single increment of the character has been play-by-play, so I knew about Captain Marvel, then I knew about Doctor Strange, and then I knew about The Marvels.”
She added, “I didn’t even get the script for that, I just had those moments. I know what you know, and that’s it.”
Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau and Brie Larson as Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Studios
Lynch’s comments about Marvel Studios doing things play-by-play is not out of the ordinary. Secret Invasion director Ali Selim revealed he was cobbling together the entire series in the editing room after they released the first episode of the series.
Selim was asked by Olivia Singh at Insider, “From what other Marvel directors and actors have said, sometimes things in the scripts change at the last minute or the day of filming. What was your experience like for Secret Invasion? How closely did it follow all the scripts and how much room was there for improvisation or adjustments?”
He responded, “I don’t wanna play semantic games, but I think of it as an evolution. As you hunt down story, everything is constantly evolving. And it’s a fascinating process.”
He went on to elaborate, “I guess there are moments of improv, like between Sam and Don, between Sam and Ben. There are really rich moments of improv. There are actors who rely more on the script.”
Emilia Clarke as G’iah in Marvel Studios’ SECRET INVASION, exclusively on Disney+. Photo by Gareth Gatrell. © 2023 MARVEL.
He then revealed, “And I think as we are editing, we’re still finding the story. We were finding the story on episode six up until episode one had already aired.”
“That’s part of the beauty of it, is that Marvel just keeps hunting it down and using the resources they have to come up with the best story possible, and that quest never ends,” Selim added.
(L-R): Emilia Clarke as G’iah and Charlayne Woodard as Priscilla Davis/Tarna in Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2023 MARVEL.
There’s also a report from Tatiana Siegel at Variety that Marvel Studios was planning on pivoting away from having Kang the Conqueror being their next primary foe.
Siegel shared, “At the gathering in Palm Springs, executives discussed backup plans, including pivoting to another comic book adversary, like Dr. Doom.”
She also reported, “Sources say there have been talks to bring back the original gang for an Avengers movie. This would include reviving Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, both of whom were killed off in Endgame.”
Chris Hemsworth as Thor. Chris Evans as Captain America, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, and Mark Ruffalo as Hulk in The Avengers (2012), Marvel Entertainment
Marvel also completely scrapped their Daredevil: Born Again Disney+ series and are in the process of creatively rebooting it.
In October, The Hollywood Reporter’s Borys Kit reported the company was planning a “significant creative reboot of the series. To that end they removed writers Chris Ord and Matt Corman from creative duties and let go of the show’s directors.
As part of the creative reboot, the company has brought back Deborah Ann Woll to play Karen Page as well as Elden Henson to play Foggy Nelson.
Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, and Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock in Daredevil (2015), Marvel Entertainment
Vincent D’Onofrio, who returns as Kingpin, also stated that the new show is indeed connected to the previous three seasons of Netflix, “During our restart of all the creative on Daredevil: Born Again, all the creatives got together and said, ‘Look, this is how we’ve got to do it now.’ So we are for sure only speaking about it in terms of being directly connected to the original Daredevil, and that’s a great thing.”
He added, “It brings in a lot of cool stories and all the collateral story that happened in those original three seasons. So we now get to start this Born Again situation with all of that history behind us and the outcome of all that history. So we’re all talking about Daredevil: Born Again in those terms now.”
Fra Fee as Kazi and Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin in Marvel Studios’ HAWKEYE. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
D’Onofrio previously claimed that his version of Kingpin from the Netflix series and the one seen in Hawkeye were not connected. He told ScreenRant, “I think from my point of view, like a lot of the Avengers stuff, a lot of the MCU stuff, they tried to connect as many dots to the original canon as they can, and some dots are just not possible to connect.
“And that’s what we’ve done with connecting to Daredevil and vice versa. There’s some dots [that] are connected,” he said.
Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin in Marvel Studios’ ECHO, releasing on Hulu and Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2023 MARVEL.
What do you make of Lynch’s comments about Marvel just doing everything play-by-play?
NEXT: Rumor: Wilson Bethel To Reprise Role As Bullseye In ‘Daredevil: Born Again’
“it’s an evolution”
“it’s a hunt for the best story possible and the quest never ends”
That’s such a red flag to describe the writing process.