The Weekly 5 Featuring the MCU
Welcome to The Weekly 5! This week, there’s a bunch of MCU stuff to unpack so let’s dive in.
The Weekly 5
1. America Chavez Co-Creator Declines Marvel’s “Insult of an Offer” for ‘Doctor Strange 2’
Several years ago, when Casey learned Marvel intended to include America Chavez in the Doctor Strange sequel, he contacted the publisher to request paperwork that would also cover her previous appearances in animated TV episodes and video games.
Marvel publishing sent over a special character agreement for him to sign that included a cash offering. Casey ultimately declined to sign the special character agreement, and his lawyers expressed his dissatisfaction with the offer. Though Casey declined to say how much Marvel offered, the sums for other creator agreements is said to be in the $5,000 range, though a source on the Marvel side disputes that figure, saying they are generally higher. Marvel is not legally obligated to pay creators when their work is adapted; however, it is customary for them to invite creators to movie premieres and give them cash compensation for appearances.
Marvel is no stranger to royalty issues, especially as the MCU has taken off, but given how much these movies make, they can dish out more than $5k to the creators who brought those characters to life on the page before they hit the big (or small) screen. It’s not necessarily about what Marvel legally has to do, but what they should do to make sure creators want to keep working for them. Sure, there are plenty who still would, but top tier talent could walk away and do their own projects.
2. Moon Knight Episode 4 Breakdown
Eric Voss once again crushes it with a breakdown of the latest Moon Knight episode.
3. Casting the X-Men in the MCU
I haven’t watched a ton of Nando v Movies videos, but I did previously watch the Fantastic Four casting video, so I wanted to check this one out, too. It’s a long video, but give it a shot if you’re into fan-casting.
4. Paul Bettany 'assumes' he will play Vision again
"No, the honest answer to that is — well maybe it's not the honest answer, but it's the answer I'm going to give you and you'll just have to cope with it — at the end of WandaVision, you see Vision fly off and that's a loose end," he says. "And Kevin Feige (president of Marvel Studios) is a man who doesn't really allow loose ends. So I assume at some point I will be putting on my tights and cloak for another outing, but I don't know when that might be."
I don’t think I ever got the impression at the end of WandaVision that we wouldn’t see Vision again, but I am curious as to when and how they’ll do that.
5. The Comic Book Run You Need To Read Before Thor: Love And Thunder
These ideas are very cool, but in the comic that influenced the movie, they are the tip of the iceberg of a world of wonderfully zany ideas that make up one of the best superhero comic book runs. If you want something to prepare you for "Thor: Love and Thunder" that will make you appreciate not just the character, but what superhero comics, in general, can do, you owe it to yourself to read Jason Aaron's decade-long run on "Thor."
Between reading a bunch of Moon Knight comics, deciding to read the Rebirth run of Nightwing, and getting the new printing of The Sandman, I’m going to have to try to find some time to add a bunch of Thor comics into the mix. I can’t wait to see where they take Jane Foster in the MCU.
Content of the Week
Welcome to Geekdom’s latest episode was all about the Blade sequels. One is good and the other is… not.
Over on Chat Sematary, we did a quick episode on Nightmares in the Sky, a coffee table book that features a lot of gargoyle pictures.
And here’s a quick video for the week. It’s about why I signed up for DC Universe Infinite again AND you can win a Rode USB microphone if you watch until the end.
That’s it for this week!