Marvel Is Developing A Secret Cosmic Project
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will not be the end of Marvel’s sojourns into the great beyond, apparently. According to Production Weekly (via CBR), Marvel Studios is developing something that is currently known as “Untitled Marvel Space Project.” We don’t know the heroes and we don’t know the villains. We don’t know if it’s a movie or another Disney+ series. We don’t know if the heroes will be ones already established in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or new expats from the comics. The only creative currently attached is Kevin Feige, as producer. With little solid information to go on, let the speculation begin!
Possibility 1: this new project could be Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 4. James Gunn has made it clear he won’t be making more Guardians movies after the upcoming threequel. At least one actor from the cast, Dave Bautista who plays Drax the Destroyer, has likewise said he won’t be returning after Vol. 3. That still leaves a whole bunch of actors not spoken for, not to mention any new members of the team the Guardians may pick up in Vol. 3. And while if Marvel were to greenlight a Guardians project without Gunn there would doubtless be a loud — and not necessarily wrong — contingent of fandom insisting without Gunn there would be no point, there are other directors and as long as you still have the talking raccoon, the talking tree, and the Mario nobody asked for, the tickets will sell.
Possibility 2: There’s a hero coming from the comics we haven’t seen yet, and this is doubtless a much more exciting prospect. There are enough Marvel heroes more comfortable on the spaceways to make up their own separate cinematic universe. Perhaps at the top of fans’ wish lists are Nova and Silver Surfer. We’ve seen something of a tribute to Nova in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy. The hero is a part of the Nova Corps in the comics. The Nova Corps we see in the movie isn’t super-powered, but borrowed elements of the hero’s costume. It’s always possible Marvel could use the pre-existing Nova Corps to explain a new, super-powered version. And rumors about a Nova film have been brewing for a while.
Looking at what we know about Marvel’s release schedule for the next couple of years, a Silver Surfer movie could be the most likely possibility. In the comics the Surfer, aka Norrin Radd, is a herald of the world-eating Galactus. Surfer ultimately rebels against his master for the sake of Earth. The origins of both Surfer and Galactus are tied to the Fantastic Four, and we know the Fantastic Four reboot is on the way. There isn’t a firm date for the film yet, but it’s expected to be one of the first films to follow 2023’s Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. Not to mention that Adam McKay (Don’t Look Up) said as recently as last year that he’s interested in making a Silver Surfer movie.
Possibility 3: We could be looking at an event film along the lines of Avengers: Infinity War that involves characters from multiple properties. To follow up something as massive as the Infinity Saga, Marvel will likely have to head to the stars. There’s no telling how many star-spanning Marvel Comics events they could from. There’s the original Secret Wars, Annihilation, Operation: Galactic Storm, The Kree-Skrull War, and so on.
