Dave Callaham is one of the most in-demand screenwriters in Hollywood right now. After penning the first ‘Expendables’, he created and wrote the series ‘Jean Claude Van Johnson’ for Amazon and has been tapped to work on the scripts for ‘Wonder Woman 1984’, ‘Zombieland 2’ and ‘Mortal Kombat’. Now he has signed on to work on a script for Marvel Studios.
Callaham contributed to the script for ‘Ant-Man’, although he didn’t receive credit. Now he is returning, but for what film? Marvel is remaining mum on its upcoming film slate. That is mainly due to the secrecy surrounding ‘Avengers 4’. ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ is scheduled to follow that, but it has already been filmed.
And of the movies that are known to follow, all already have writers assigned to them. ‘Black Widow’ was or is being written by Jac Schaeffer. ‘The Eternals’ is being penned by brothers Matthew K. Firpo and Ryan Firpo. ‘Black Panther’ was written by director Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole and it is believed that as much of the creative team from the first movie is being kept to work the same magic on the sequel. And while there has been no news regarding it, star Benedict Wong hinted that ‘Doctor Strange 2’ would begin filming soon, so presumably there is a script for that. (Unless Wong was either joking or mistaken.)
So what is Callaham writing? The least exciting answer is that he is coming on board to help with an existing script. He does tend to work with other writers on his projects, so maybe he is just there to punch up one of the existing scripts for an upcoming movie.
Or he could be working on a movie that hasn’t been confirmed. It was recently rumored that a script was being written for ‘Dark Avengers’, which, in the comics, were a bunch of villains including Norman Osborn, Venom, Bullseye and Moonstone among others, masquerading as heroes. In August, rumors surfaced that Marvel had cinematic plans for Iron Heart, a.k.a. Riri Williams. Kevin Feige has mentioned the ‘Young Avengers’, with one of them, Cassie Lang, already part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So far, she has been depicted as a child, played by Abby Ryder Fortson, but an older actor Emma Fuhrmann will play her in ‘Avengers 4’ and that film is expected to make a sizable time jump from the end of ‘Infinity War’, which could see the introduction of a new, younger class of heroes. Feige has also stated that Marvel is eyeing ‘Power Pack’ as a potential film, confirmed that ‘Moon Knight’ may appear at some point, and that the studio has plans for ‘Ms. Marvel’ (Kamala Khan) and ‘Nova’. And last fall, he informally agreed to an all-female team-up, an idea that the Marvel actors and fans have reacted favorably to.
Also, keep in mind that Disney is in the process of acquiring 20th Century Fox, which introduces the ‘X-Men’ and ‘Fantastic Four’ franchises. Even though the buyout is still in the process, it may be possible that Marvel is beginning preliminary work on bringing them over to the MCU.
The only characters that appear to be off the table are ‘The Hulk’ due to a licensing snag with Universal Pictures and ‘Namor the Sub-Mariner’ due to a similar situation with Legendary.
What do you hope to see from the future of the Marvel Universe? Would any of these pique your interest?
Source: That Hashtag Show
