There’s no better way to devalue a story than with unexplained resurrections of dead characters. Star Wars crashed into this hurdle with Palpatine in the dreadful The Rise of Skywalker, and now the Disney stablemate MCU may be about to do the same.
A new article from Variety titled “Crisis at Marvel: Jonathan Majors Back-Up Plans, ‘The Marvels’ reshoots, Reviving Original Avengers and More Issues Revealed” claims to have the inside scoop into behind-the-scenes trouble at Marvel Studios.
Its biggest concern is apparently Jonathan Majors, who plays core villain Kang and is also facing a high-profile trial on domestic violence charges. One “dealmaker” spoken to sums it up by saying: “Marvel is truly f**ked with the whole Kang angle.” Well, quite.
So if they ditch Kang, what replaces him? As per Variety:
Sources say there have been talks to bring back the original gang for an “Avengers” movie. This would include reviving Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, both of whom were killed off in “Endgame.”
This is apparently a route they’re seriously considering, though it comes with a hefty price tag:
“But the studio hasn’t yet committed to the idea — if it were able to bring those actors back, it wouldn’t come cheap. Sources say Downey Jr.’s upfront salary for “Iron Man 3” was around $25 million.”
Bringing Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff back would inevitably generate enormous publicity and hype, though it’s also going to completely undercut their emotional send-offs in Avengers: Endgame. Marvel Studios loves to position itself as the “House of Ideas”, but if it actually went through with this it’d be safe to conclude that well has run dry.
There are still vast swathes of Marvel heroes who haven’t yet appeared in the MCU. Why dig up old graves when you could be accelerating plans to bring in the X-Men?