Is Marvel going to use the multiverse to recast certain characters?

[Uzumaki Goku]

I was discussing this with a friend last night, with Marvel opening the multiverse doors, or by simply changing reality. They can just recast actors who are getting too old to play their characters.

One idea I remember proposing was bringing in a T'Challa from another universe where Wakanda was destroyed, so that way, you don't technically recast Chadwick Boseman but also keep the character T'Challa around. But they don't seem to want to do that. (Very unfortunate situation. Was there really a "right" answer?)

But I do see inevitably, Marvel would do an in-universe reboot to start over from scratch.

But what do you think of this idea? Good or bad?

 

[IDontBeatGames]

It's probably gonna happen inevitably in the far off future if need be but I doubt that it'll happen anytime soon (at least with the upcoming MCU projects).

As for if it's good a idea or not, it's not awful but it's not great either. Marvel has shown us, at least now, that they've been able to properly pass down mantles to new characters with their own stories. We've seen it with Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye and we're now likely seeing it with She-Hulk as well. There really isn't a need, at this very moment at least, to use the multiverse to bring in new people playing old characters. Marvel can just continue pass down mantles by introducing new people to us because that's far more interesting to do. However, if they ever need to do so, I assume it's because it's the best option in a worse case scenario.

 

[deimosmasque]

Bad idea.

And I doubt it will happen.

 

[Slayven]

it is a good tool to have in your kit

 

[Poeton]

Yeah, I expected them to use multiverse shenanigans to recast major characters.
But I am not sure why they don't just recast and move on. These actors don't own the characters they portray regardless of their popularity.

 

[Qikz]

The best thing is there's so many characters for the time being they don't need to recast. Recasting I definitely want to happen so we don't lose characters forever just because an actor got fed up of the role/was too expensive to recontract like Stark/RDJ but I want them to expand the characters as much as possible before casting again.

 

[Tace]

it is a good tool to have in your kit

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This. They'll use it on a case by case basis

 

[PlanetSmasher]

I don't think they'll do it willy-nilly. Once you START doing it it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle, so they probably won't do it unless they absolutely have to.

 

[spyroflame0487]

I had a similar feeling as soon as they started teasing the multiverse; its the only way they can go "up" post End Game. Like how do you continue making more and more epic stories when you've already led up to Thanos? (Although I'm sure Galactus is probably on their mind still)

It not only gives them an out of bringing in characters to replace other actors, but it also affords them a unique storytelling perspective. DC really shines with its "spinoff" movies that don't seem to be part of their main DCEU, Marvel here should be able to do the same, and THEN have those characters tie in by cameos or other appearances.

 

[SilentSoldier]

Since it looks like we're headed for Hickman's Secret Wars as the big Avengers set piece movie, I can see them using that as a means to bring everything into one shared universe. That's probably how we'll get our mutants and F4 into the MCU.

 

[jph139]

If they wanted to recast someone, they'd just recast them. The barrier to T'Challa coming back isn't "hey, he won't look like he did in the first Black Panther!"

Will they use it to bring characters back from the dead? Maybe, here and there, now and then. Fully expect to see AU Iron Man and AU Captain America in the near future as part of the whole Secret Wars buildup. Whether they're played by RDJ and Evans is a coinflip.

 

[Ripcord]

They should.

 

[IDontBeatGames]

I don't think they'll do it willy-nilly. Once you START doing it it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle, so they probably won't do it unless they absolutely have to.

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Agreed. I think their strategy of bringing in new characters to take on old mantles in a new fashion like they've done recently is far more interesting and it's a much safer route to go down because once you do the whole "same character from a different multiverse!" it's hard to come back from it. Plus, it makes us care less about characters cause that thought will always be in the back of our heads. So I think they'll keep playing it safe and keep going down this safer route until a moment hits and they're like okay this is an emergency we need to do this in order to make a quick fix now.

 

[Bear and bird]

I hope they don't. Black Panther / T'Challa is a special case, but I hope characters like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers stay dead. Outside of event stories like Secret Wars, that is.

I never liked the idea of using the multiverse to bring the X-Men to the main MCU universe either.

 

[KtotheRoc]

I'm expecting a full on reboot before they do this for one or two characters.

 

[RedVejigante]

In mean, its definitely a possibility at their disposal, but personally I'd much prefer if they'd use such shenanigans for characters who have a narrative reason for such a convoluted return, rather than just replacing those who get too old/their contract ran out.

I'm still waiting for the re-introduction of the Red Skull into the modern MCU. Like, who cares if Hugo doesnt want to come back to the role? Multiverse that shit or recast him. Hes too good a villain to lose.

 

[Zeliard]

They will 100% do this and then in like 20 years they'll bring back the original actor and everyone will go "yooooo it's that guy!" or however they talk in the future.

It's totally fool-proof. They have a built in mechanic to recast anyone at any time and then they can literally have the original actor and new actor side by side to build on massive nostalgia and it can still be seen as vaguely coherent, narratively.

 

[Uzumaki Goku]

In mean, its definitely a possibility at their disposal, but personally I'd much prefer if they'd use such shenanigans for characters who have a narrative reason for such a convoluted return, rather than just replacing those who get too old/their contract ran out.

I'm still waiting for the re-introduction of the Red Skull into the modern MCU. Like, who cares if Hugo doesnt want to come back to the role? Multiverse that shit or recast him. Hes too good a villain to lose.

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Y'know, when he showed up in Infinity War, I didn't even know that was him at first.

 

[jackie daytona]

I don't see them doing it anytime soon, but it's an easy way to reboot certain characters without erasing their history.

Doing it with T'challa so soon would be distasteful, so I'm happy Feige ruled it out.

 

[The Namekian]

I don't know. We'll see. If sales at any point dip I expect this to be the go to remedy

 

[Ottaro]

I could see them doing it for one character and making their displacement part of their entire deal. Instead of the man out of time they'll be the man out of space-time, and their whole thing will be coming to grips with filling new shoes and losing the universe they left. They'd almost be foolish not to at least try it considering how that quality made Cap so endearing.

But I can't see them doing it for more than one character.

 

[RedVejigante]

Y'know, when he showed up in Infinity War, I didn't even know that was him at first.

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That scene was actually super frustrating to me, because when I originally saw First Avenger, I saw Red Skull's "death" and was instantly like: "that's how they'll bring him into modern day MCU, there's no way they'll ditch such an iconic and important Marvel villain!"

And then how many years later he just shows up as a rando spooky helpful NPC ghost and I'm like; that's it? That's all you do with the Red-fucking-Skull?

 

[Uzumaki Goku]

That scene was actually super frustrating to me, because when I originally saw First Avenger, I saw Red Skull's "death" and was instantly like: "that's how they'll bring him into modern day MCU, there's no way they'll ditch such an iconic and important Marvel villain!"

And then how many years later he just shows up as a rando spooky helpful NPC ghost and I'm like; that's it? That's all you do with the Red-fucking-Skull?

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MCU really doesn't do most of their villains justice.

 

[SamAlbro]

That will be their "Avengers vs X-Men," since it doesn't make sense to do it otherwise with all the A-List Avengers retiring before the X-Men are introduced. It will be the X-Men defending against evil Avengers variants.

 

[Keldroc]

it is a good tool to have in your kit

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Yup, this. NWH establishing the same character from another universe can be a different actor is going to come in very handy in the future. They don't have to use it every time, but there are situations in which they will. And yes, I believe T'Challa will be one of those cases eventually. He's too important to leave dormant forever.

 

[RedVejigante]

MCU really doesn't do most of their villains justice.

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Its bizarrely all or nothing, right? Like, Loki gets multiple films and a limited TV series, yet the Red Skull, the physical embodiment of human hatred and cruelty, the monster that has chased and haunted Steve Roger's across multiple nations and multiple decades, is treated as some villain of the week and then relegated to an easter egg where most folks didnt even realize who the hell he was supposed to be? Baffling.

 

[BasilZero]

I hope so

We need a new iron man

 

[famicorpse]

After Secret Wars, we'll probably see a new Iron Man.

 

[RedVejigante]

I hope so

We need a new iron man

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Nah, bring in Ironheart maybe with support from an AI holographic Tony Stark. Iron Man is done.

 

[Zeliard]

Its bizarrely all or nothing, right? Like, Loki gets multiple films and a limited TV series, yet the Red Skull, the physical embodiment of human hatred and cruelty, the monster that has chased and haunted Steve Roger's across multiple nations and multiple decades, is treated as some villain of the week and then relegated to an easter egg where most folks didnt even realize who the hell he was supposed to be? Baffling.

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The literal Nazi who looks like the personification of Death painted red is probably not an easy commercial sell.

Loki is cute and quippy. That one is just easy.

 

[Uzumaki Goku]

Its bizarrely all or nothing, right? Like, Loki gets multiple films and a limited TV series, yet the Red Skull, the physical embodiment of human hatred and cruelty, the monster that has chased and haunted Steve Roger's across multiple nations and multiple decades, is treated as some villain of the week and then relegated to an easter egg where most folks didnt even realize who the hell he was supposed to be? Baffling.

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Or how they reduced Iron Man's arch enemy to a punchline.

 

[Charred Knight]

The comics tried that with Iron Man, by having him be revealed to be under the control of Immortus, then killed him off, and replaced him with a time displace teenage version of him

It was a massive flop and they brought the old iron man back by Franklin Richards

Obviously I could see using different actors for different variants for one of movies like the previously mentioned Evil Avengers vs X-men idea but I dont see them going "Hey we just brought in a 25 year old Tony Stark from a different universe for no real reason, his the new leader of the Avengers"

 

[Joe]

I think using the multiverse to recast characters is the dumbest, most over-engineered idea there is. I can't believe how many people think it's a good idea. There doesn't need to be an in-universe explanation of why a character was re-cast! We're not morons! Chadwick Boseman died! There's already been a handful of re-cast characters in the universe, and the idea that there needs to be even a single breath of explanation in one of these movies explaining why it happened again is just so insulting to the audience. It's the "who inflates the Batmobile's tires" problem taken to the next degree.

 

[RedVejigante]

The literal Nazi who looks like the personification of Death painted red is probably not an easy commercial sell.

Loki is cute and quippy. That one is just easy.

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Oh, dont get me wrong, I genuinely love the MCU Loki and I totally get why Red Skull doesnt really fly with a lot of modern international audiences, but they already went so far out of their way to dissacociate Skull from Nazis and emphasize him as HYDRA that I guess I was still kind of hoping that they'd bring him back for at least one more Cap movie, rather than relegating him whatever it was we got in Infinity War.

 

[MasterYoshi]

I was discussing this with a friend last night, with Marvel opening the multiverse doors, or by simply changing reality. They can just recast actors who are getting too old to play their characters.

One idea I remember proposing was bringing in a T'Challa from another universe where Wakanda was destroyed, so that way, you don't technically recast Chadwick Boseman but also keep the character T'Challa around. But they don't seem to want to do that. (Very unfortunate situation. Was there really a "right" answer?)

But I do see inevitably, Marvel would do an in-universe reboot to start over from scratch.

But what do you think of this idea? Good or bad?

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Recasting would have made the most sense, but I will wait and see what they actually do in the sequel.

 

[Tomacco]

Its bizarrely all or nothing, right? Like, Loki gets multiple films and a limited TV series, yet the Red Skull, the physical embodiment of human hatred and cruelty, the monster that has chased and haunted Steve Roger's across multiple nations and multiple decades, is treated as some villain of the week and then relegated to an easter egg where most folks didnt even realize who the hell he was supposed to be? Baffling.

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Wasn't that more Hugo Weaving not wanting to return?

 

[RedVejigante]

Wasn't that more Hugo Weaving not wanting to return?

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I believe so, but that's kind of my point...when you're dealing with a character who has been canonically cloned, and now that you've introduced the mutliverse, there's really no narrative excuse not to bring him back now.

 

[ZeoVGM]

You don't need the multiverse to recast.

You can just... recast.

Much like the whole "it won't be the Daredevil and Fisk from the Netflix shows, it'll be variants because multiverse" thing that was thrown around sometimes, some people are making the introduction of the multiverse more convoluted than it needs to be.

 

[RedVejigante]

Or how they reduced Iron Man's arch enemy to a punchline.

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So I dont want to get too off-topic here, but while I definitely have mixed feelings about Iron Man 3's treatment of its villains, I also certainly get where you're coming from.

 

[BringBackSonics]

I mean its nice to have, if something happens to someone which is untimely. I know people were not ok with Multi-Verse Killmonger being good. But I'm 100% on board with Multi-Verse T'Challa with a different actor. T'Challa story shouldn't be finished yet.

and didn't Boseman's relative say that T'Challa should continue?

Edit: yup he did.

I know many people were against the recast, because they didn't know of the Families wishes.

Chadwick Boseman Would Want Black Panther Role Recast, Says Brother

Chadwick Boseman’s brother Derrick tells TMZ the late actor would want the role of T’Challa to be recast.

www.tmz.com

 

[Emperor_El]

Probably not, there's more than enough legacy characters and long forgotten siblings/children they could use. We're more likely to get Arno Stark as the next Iron Man than Tony from another universe.

 

[Deleted member 13798]

Everything post Endgame has in someway been about passing the mantle, legacy, that sort of theme, so no. I don't really think the intention is to bring in a different actor to play the same character in any permanent capacity when they seem to be all about having new successors take on those roles.

You'll probably continue to see cameo type appearances of different actors playing certain roles but don't expect them to be permanent into the MCU proper.

 

[Cuburger]

I could see them doing it with T'Challa down the road, probably not even for Black Panther 3 but after that (which bringing him back for a Secret Wars or another Illuminati story really isn't too far away) since it is a tough thing to replace the actor after a tragic death but it does make sense to revisit the character beyond just in "What If?" episodes. Maybe they do it for Cap or Tony, but I think it's even further in the future since there are more places they can go with their successors and alternate Captain Carter types (or even old man Steve can return at some point), that while there is stories that can be told with the characters, there are so many other stories to potentially tell, even without them that the desire for "rebooting" a character like the way superhero movie have often been handled doesn't really apply to the MCU. Even if they bring back an alternate recasted version of the character, I don't think it will ever be done to create a straight reboot of a series where we see Tony Stark or Steve Rogers in a film that starts fresh from square one.

 

[Charred Knight]

I believe so, but that's kind of my point...when you're dealing with a character who has been canonically cloned, and now that you've introduced the mutliverse, there's really no narrative excuse not to bring him back now.

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The entire reason why people loved the Age of Apocalypse storyline was that you got entirely new takes on characters, like Sabretooth was a hero was basically had raised Blink as his adoptive daughter. I dont see the point of bringing in younger versions of those characters and then pretend like its still the Robert Downey Jr version.

 

[Zeliard]

T'Challa is the one character I don't ever see them recasting in live-action, ever, because of the circumstances around Chadwick Boseman's death, particularly the suddenness of it to those outside his immediate circle.

I expect a poignant tribute in the next movie. I don't expect to ever see that character played by anyone else again in a movie. Maybe 100 years from now. Comics are a different story obviously.

 

[Mesoian]

Yes, but not any time soon.

 

[Otheradam]

Yes. They recast Batman every few years. This is no different.

 

[mrmoose]

I had a similar feeling as soon as they started teasing the multiverse; its the only way they can go "up" post End Game. Like how do you continue making more and more epic stories when you've already led up to Thanos? (Although I'm sure Galactus is probably on their mind still)

It not only gives them an out of bringing in characters to replace other actors, but it also affords them a unique storytelling perspective. DC really shines with its "spinoff" movies that don't seem to be part of their main DCEU, Marvel here should be able to do the same, and THEN have those characters tie in by cameos or other appearances.

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To me, the addition of X-men and FF are enough to go a different direction.

The only reason I can see for recasting is if they do a complete reset of the universe, otherwise I think people are more enamored of the actor than the role and you can put the mantle of whatever role on someone else.