Credit: NetflixThe Marvel Cinematic Universe is the biggest franchise in the world. Stars from around the globe like Chris Hemsworth, Tom Holland, Simu Liu, and Iman Vellani have flocked to join the Marvel Universe. Now rumors suggest the next star coming to the MCU will be Netflix’s Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae (Seong Gi-hun).
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The South Korean survival drama television series Squid Game created by Hwang Dong-hyuk, took over Netflix when it was released in September 2021. It beat Stranger Things in the most content by hours viewed in the first 28 days, which is how Netflix ranks its content. Its cast includes Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo, Wi Ha-joon, HoYeon Jung, O Yeong-su, Heo Sung-tae, Anupam Tripathi, and Kim Joo-ryoung.
Squid Games revolves around a contest where 456 players risk their lives to play a series of deadly children’s games for the chance to win $38 million. And even though most American viewers do not speak Korean, they were enthralled, particularly by Lee Jung-jae’s performance as player 456, Seong Gi-hun.
So naturally, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige would be interested in capturing that star power for the MCU. First reported by insider DanielRPK, Lee Jung-jae is currently in talks with Marvel.
Who could Lee Jung-jae be in the MCU?
As twitter fans rejoiced that Lee Jung-jae could join the Marvel Universe soon, Marvel fans began to speculate who he could play. One of the most famous Korean Marvel Comics characters is Amadeus Cho, whose name is circulated anytime a male Asian actor joins the MCU, like when K-Pop star Park Seo Joon joined the cast of The Marvels.
Amadeus Cho is one of the smartest characters in the Marvel Universe, first introduced in Amazing Fantasy (Vol. 2) #15 by Greg Pak and Takeshi Miyazawa when he was awarded the title of Mastermind Excello and the position of “7th Smartest Man in the World”. He would become the Totally Awesome Hulk in 2015 but now goes by Brawn and is on the Champions team with Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan.
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Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that Lee Jung-jae will play Amadeus, who is usually depicted as a younger superhero. He could be playing Amadeus’s father, Philip Cho. Marvel Studios has used big-name actors in minor roles in the past. Matt Damon famously played Actor Loki in Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022).
Or, if Lee Jung-jae is looking to take a leading role in a Marvel movie, he could play Tae-Won/Taegukgi, the national hero of South Korea and the heart of Tiger Division, the government-sanctioned superhuman response team. Tae-Won is a new character in Marvel Comics, first introduced in Taskmaster #3 (2021) by Jed MacKay and Alessandro Vitti.
Tae-Won has superhuman strength, flight, invulnerability, and can fire energy beams from his eyes. Tiger Division is full of Korean superheroes like White Fox, The General, Mr. Enigma, Luna Snow, Gun-R II, and Auntie Ante, so there are plenty of characters for Lee Jung-jae to pick from.
Let us know in the comments who you think Lee Jung-jae could be in the MCU?
You can stream Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Simu Liu’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and the seven series in Marvel’s Phase Four so far — Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany’s WandaVision, Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, Marvel’s What If…?, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, Oscar Isaac’s Moon Knight, and Iman Vellani’s Ms. Marvel — on Disney+ anytime