Given that Marvel’s whole approach to the MCU was to cast non-movie stars, because they saw the characters as the draw, not the actors, it’s strange that Marvel seems to have become extremely committed to not recasting characters. (Except in extreme emergencies - you know, actors wanting more money than Disney is willing to pay them. [cough Terrence Howard cough] Though even that was early in the MCU.). I’m not quite sure why the change - they’re casting more “movie stars” in the roles, which seems to indicate something, but it seems like they feel audiences become attached to particular actors in particular roles. Given that it’s such a large series of movies, they must be paying a huge number of actors what add up to enormous sums just to guarantee availability - actor consistency is obviously a priority. To have a movie series this big and still managing to maintain the same actors across all the movies to this degree is pretty much unprecedented.
Presumably, if superhero movies continue to make money, they’ll eventually recast characters, but I suspect it won’t be in the context of the MCU, but as part of a serious reboot. (And in non-MCU series, such as animated series. Though the non-MCU-continuity tv shows all seem to have disappeared and the Disney animated series are in MCU continuity to some degree, even their “what if” stories. They even seem to be revamping the comics to be more in line with their MCU counterparts.)
In this case, they were willing to honor the actor over the character - but I’m guessing that, actor consistency issues aside, it was only because Disney saw Wakanda and the Black Panther as being more important than T’Challa himself. I do wonder how much of the audience feels that way.
Since when?? Maybe for some of the characters but quite a few of the actors were very well known before their marvel roles. For example Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L Jackson, Natalie Portman, Don Cheadle, Idris Elba and Benedict Cumberbatch were already household names.
RDJ was more of an ex movie star, but Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner and Chris Hemsworth were not exactly A-listers. (Scarlett wasn’t exactly, either, I don’t think.) I mean, they were familiar names, but not exactly Tom Cruise types who could bring in international audiences, which was who you’d normally cast for action movies with these kinds of budgets.
Who seems like a bigger actor than Mark Ruffalo, his replacement in an actual MCU film.
Edit: “Marvel casts from lesser-known actors” was very much a discussion that was being had for many years. I’m honestly surprised anyone’s taking issue with it.
Come on, they even hired Vin Diesel and paid him tens of millions of dollars to say the same three words over and over again. They didn’t exactly cheap out on the talent.
Marvel ditched the plan when Norton jumped ship. Originally the Avengers was supposed to be an all star cast. When the plans changed, they switched gears to rush the flick into production.
I don’t know if you remember, but Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger were a gamble for the MCU at the time. When they cleared their budget, it was all systems go for Marvel Studios.
Here’s a New York Times review of The First Avenger before the MCU became a consistent critical darling. Becore Avengers solidified the franchise, the MCU needed all the star power it could get because it was seen as inconsistent. Thor, Iron Man 2, and Incredible Hulk were not guaranteed box office and critical juggernauts.
I’m excited for Namor. This was a direction I didn’t expect them to take, and I thought the character’s film rights are all tied up elsewhere. This is an awesome development!
I’m of two minds about T’challa, however. On the one hand, it’s upsetting to see the legacy of the film’s character end like it did. He essentially goes on to die after having been dusted for 5 years. On the other hand, Boseman’s death hit the news big time and pretty much solidified that fans view him as T’challa. Recasting could be a potential misstep for the wider audience right now, and, other recasts aside, would potentially make people think Disney’s belief is that a Black man, no matter how important the role, can easily be replaced by someone else. I’m not sure what’s really more important right now, the character or the public’s association of the man with the character.
Confounding all of this now is that we’ve now had multiple instances of different actors playing the same characters from multiple universes. You bring in another performer as T’challa now and you potentially cause confusion. But who’s to say that won’t be happening anyway, either now or after the next set of Avengers films?
Well, to Vin Diesel’s credit he did have to say those three words over and over again….in 16 different languages. (For every language the films had voices done in.)
“forgotten” requires that people watched until that point in the series. Let’s not forget the horrible disservice done to it by forcing the story to stagnate until the release date of The Winter Soldier in the first season, which is when most people I knew dropped the series. For many who stuck around after that, the whole Hive thing was another dropping off point.
Missed out on some truly cool stuff, though. Ghost Rider was just one of those things.
The filmmakers have no good options for how to handle it, just some options that are less bad than others. We know that they didn’t re-cast the role because there’s an image of Boseman’s T’Challa on a mural in the teaser:
So if he does appear onscreen they’d have to either re-use leftover footage of him from earlier films (which felt quite forced to me in Rise of Skywalker) or do a creepy digital face swap or just keep him masked. We’ll soon see which way they went with this.
The production has ruled that out. They apparently feel it’s disrespectful.
And related to what I posted upthread. They mostly talk about their personal feelings around Boseman when it’s come up. He does seem to have been a very good person, and made some pretty big impressions on everyone he worked with.
this is a really good point. given the loki show, the spiderman and strange movies… they could have easily recast t’challa and allowed a new actor to still have their own unique take on him no problem
it’s such a simple obvious solution - and one that would have furthered their multiverse story line - that it seems really odd now they didn’t do that
I very much like this idea. Because Killmonger was my favorite kind of villain: he’s not wrong. He’s not a good guy, but he’s also not wrong. And honestly Jordan was far too good an actor to only get one shot.
But don’t mind me because I’m just here as a SCREAMING NAMOR FANGIRL
Yeah, he had every right to be angry, a legitimate claim to the throne and now a convincing reason for remorse, reform and commitment to his nation. The struggle between his killer instincts and the needs of steady leadership is a built-in story in an of itself. All of the things that make Bucky a great character but without the ability to stay in the shadows and slowly heal himself.
