Credit: Marvel StudiosInteresting reports are emerging about the cast list of an upcoming Marvel project.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has changed a lot in the past 15 years. What started as a small, concentrated team of Avengers – with Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark/Iron Man at the forefront – has evolved into a sprawling world that now even spans different realities.
With the Infinity Saga wrapping up in 2019, today we’re in the middle of Marvel’s Multiverse Saga. This hasn’t gone down quite as well with fans or critics, with multiple projects – such as The Marvels (2023) and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) – flopping both financially and culturally.
The former now holds the title of Marvel’s biggest box office bomb to date, taking home just $206.1 million on a $274.8 million gross budget. Yikes.
Fortunately, Marvel Studios is well aware of its own shortcomings lately. Both Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige and The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger have made it clear that it will focus more on quality over quantity in coming years, with several projects (such as Daredevil: Born Again) taken back to the drawing board amid recent flops.
As it tries to reangle the franchise’s future, the studio has considerably slimmed down its release slate for 2024. For the first time since 2012, we’re only getting one Marvel film in theaters this year (we’ll exclude 2020, when zero Marvel movies made it to the big screen, for obvious reasons).
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) – the third film in the Deadpool franchise – will premiere in July, with Ryan Reynolds reprising his role of Wade Wilson/Deadpool and Hugh Jackman returning as James “Logan” Howlett/Wolverine, despite the character meeting his cinematic end in his last outing, Logan (2017).
There are high hopes for this film, which many fans predict will be a return to form for the MCU. Much of the hype stems from its rumored cast list. With the film delving deep into the concept of the multiverse, it only makes sense that we’ll get plenty of fun cameos.
Everyone from Patrick Stewart (Professor X) to Taylor Swift (as either Lady Deadpool or Dazzler) has been linked to the project (as has pretty much every actor ever connected to a superhero film, ever).
While we’re trying to temper our expectations somewhat, a new rumor has got us pretty excited about what we can expect from Deadpool & Wolverine. According to The Geeky Cast, five characters will cameo in the film as part of the Resistance Team.
Rumor has it, this team will be made up of Blade (Wesley Snipes), Gambit (Channing Tatum), Human Torch (Chris Evans), X-23 (Dafne Keen), and Elektra (Jennifer Garner).
Snipes previously played Blade (AKA Eric Brooks) in three movies from 1998 to 2004. Blade will (theoretically) be played by Mahershala Ali in future Marvel projects, if the film – which is optimistically scheduled for release in late 2025 – ever gets off the ground.
Meanwhile, Tatum was slated to play Gambit in a standalone X-Men spinoff, which was ultimately canceled. Keen portrayed X-23, Wolverine’s daughter, in Logan, while Garner starred as the assassin Elektra Natchios in both Daredevil (2003) (which starred her now-ex-husband Ben Affleck as the eponymous hero) and its spinoff, Elektra (2005). She’s already been confirmed to star in Deadpool & Wolverine.
The most interesting rumor here is, of course, Chris Evans as Human Torch. Evans previously played the character in Fantastic Four (2005) and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) before going on to play a much bigger superhero, Captain America.
Evans starred as Steve Rogers in 11 installments of the MCU between 2011 and 2019, with his character written out of the franchise in Avengers: Endgame (2019) after deciding to go back in time to grow old with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and pass on the mantle of Captain America to Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie).
Evans has previously played coy about the prospects of him returning to the MCU. In 2023, he told GQ, “I’ll never say never, just because it was such a wonderful experience. But I’m also very precious with it. It’s something that I am very proud of. And like I said, sometimes I can’t believe it even happened.”
Should he be recast from Steve Rogers to the Human Torch (again), the Captain America legacy that Evans clearly treasures so much remains intact. Of course, these are just rumors for now, but this isn’t the first time Evans has been linked to Deadpool & Wolverine. We’ll be seated in theaters on July 26 to find out the truth for ourselves.
What cameos are you hoping to see in Deadpool & Wolverine? Are you rooting for Chris Evans to star in the film? We’d love to hear your thoughts!