Disney News

Category: X-Men

  • Marvel Takes a Stab At Their First Scripted Podcast: ‘Wolverine: The Long Night’

    Marvel Takes a Stab At Their First Scripted Podcast: ‘Wolverine: The Long Night’

    Marvel has explored plenty of territory in it’s 78-year history, from comics to computer games and from movies to TV, they’ve done it all. Well almost all… Starting in the spring of 2018, they will be headed into a whole new territory.

    Wolverine, the beloved X-Men character, will headline Marvel’s first-ever scripted podcast, Wolverine: The Long Night, a 10-episode serialized story that will debut exclusively on podcast network Stitcher Premium in Spring 2018 as part of a partnership between Marvel and Stitcher, before rolling out across all other podcast platforms in the fall.

    The show’s cast includes notable actors Richard Armitage (“The Hobbit”), Scott Adsit (“30 Rock”), Bob Balaban (“Moonrise Kingdom”) and Brian Stokes Mitchell (“Mr. Robot”).

    The “Wolverine: The Long Night” story is a captivating hybrid of mystery and the larger-scale fantasy of the Marvel Universe. It follows agents Sally Pierce (Celia Keenan-Bolger) and Tad Marshall (Ato Essandoh) as they arrive in the fictional town of Burns, Alaska, to investigate a series of murders and quickly discover the town lives in fear of a serial killer. The agents team up with deputy Bobby Reid (Andrew Keenan-Bolger) to investigate their main suspect, Logan (Richard Armitage). Their search leads them on a fox hunt through the mysterious and corrupt town.

    The process behind the making of “Wolverine: The Long Night” brings Marvel’s storytelling expertise into the podcasting world, breaking new ground for the medium. To provide listeners a sense of immersion into the story, outdoor scenes will be recorded in realistic-sounding locations including forests and a cabin. In the studio, actors will be recorded in an ambisonic — or fully surround-sound — environment, allowing them to move, interact with one another and fully inhabit their characters.

    “‘Wolverine: The Long Night’ brings our fans a whole new way to experience our iconic characters and the Marvel Universe,” said Dan Silver, vice president, head of platforms and content for Marvel New Media. “This tremendous cast will bring a thrilling level of intrigue and drama to our listeners. The character of Logan and this landscape make it the ideal premiere vehicle for us, and we’re excited to continue to explore the dynamic possibilities of the podcast medium.”

    Also cast in the series are actors Zoe Chao, Chaske Spencer, Jordan Bridges, David Call, Michael J. Burg and Lannon Killia. Chris Gethard, host of the popular “Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People” podcast, also will make a cameo appearance.

    “Podcasting is an incredible, intimate medium that’s perfect for telling stories, and I can’t think of a better partner with whom to push the boundaries of scripted podcasts than Marvel,” said Erik Diehn, CEO of Midroll Media, a podcast industry leader and the parent company of Stitcher. “They make every translation of their rich universe of characters into new media fresh and interesting while still retaining the feel and spirit of the original comics, and, as a Marvel fan, I’m proud that we’ve helped them do it again in podcasting. The arrival of Wolverine and his many fans to podcasts and Stitcher is truly a signal that this medium is a major part of the American media landscape.”

    Stitcher and Marvel have assembled a writing and production team of veterans from both the comic book world and the podcasting industry. “Wolverine: The Long Night” is written by award-winning comic book author Ben Percy (“The Wilding,” “Red Moon”) and will be directed by Brendan Baker (formerly a producer for Radiotopia’s “Love & Radio”). Chloe Prasinos (formerly a producer for Gimlet’s “Reply All”) will oversee sound design. The series is produced by Daniel Fink of Marvel and Jenny Radelet of Stitcher.

  • Disney and Fox Deal Could Come As Soon As Next Week

    Disney and Fox Deal Could Come As Soon As Next Week

    Disney and Twenty-First Century Fox are closing in on a deal, and it could come as soon as next week, according to sources familiar with the matter. While this doesn’t confirm that the deal will go through and the Federal Trade Commission could try to block it, but it is very apparent the companies are interested in the acquisition.

    While certain Fox properties may not be sold to Disney, including Fox Sports, there are a number of smaller properties where Disney could acquire stakes. Disney would get Fox’s 30 percent stake in Hulu. Disney already has a 30 percent stake in Hulu, so that arrangement would give it majority ownership of the streaming platform. Could this be the foundation for which to build the Disney streaming service?

    It would appear that the two studios are nearing a deal that might have some in Hollywood a little nervous but it would be super exciting for fans that have long waited to see both the Fantastic Four and X-Men within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

    It’s the film rights have kept the X-Men from joining the MCU as of yet, but one X-Men producer would love to see the crossover happen. A recent Vanity Fair article explained how X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner threw in her support to have the mutant icons team up with the Avengers in theaters. “Well, I wish. I would love it, I would love it. But it’s not for me to say,” she said. Too bad it’s not up to her.

    If the deal goes through, the Murdoch family will continue to maintain ownership over the sports and news divisions while Disney would get the studio rights to everything on the film side according to the report.

    There is so much more at stake here for Disney than the obvious rights to the X-Men and Fantastic Four brands. They also want distribution rights for the original Star Wars trilogy and prequel trilogy. Most of those rights revert back to Disney in 2020, but the original 1977 film’s rights will remain at Fox.

    Another bonus is the Avatar franchise. Earlier this week director James Cameron commented on how any sale of Fox’s TV and film operations would impact the Avatar sequels. He noted it probably wouldn’t affect the Avatar series and explained that “at this point in time Disney has a bigger investment” in the franchise than Fox, referring in part to Disney World’s Pandora: The World of Avatar attraction.

    Disney would love to get its hands on the FX channel. And of course they want the vast, impressive, lucrative library of Fox movies and TV series from past and present, to add to their upcoming streaming service and, probably, to deny those movies and series to Netflix, along with the Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Lucasfilm properties.

    While in the midst of negotiations Disney is really hoping that Sony doesn’t out fox them on the deal. It was recently noted that Sony Entertainment had shown interest in purchasing 21st Century Fox along with a few other companies, including Comcast and Verizon. However, if rumors are true those talks have since reverted to Disney.

    Much of this is speculative, but the talk of Disney purchasing Fox is much more than a big rumor. Deadline’s new report makes a good point that, if this deal does happen, we’ll probably find out about it in a pretty out of the blue way. We may not know when that announcement could come, but don’t be too surprised to hear that Disney has officially purchased Fox in the near future.