Zachary Levi Says Kevin Feige Lied To Him About His Marvel Role?
President of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, allegedly lied to Zachary Levi about how big a role the Warriors Three would play in the Thor movies.
Most people are aware that Zachary Levi has his own superhero movie franchise in Shazam!, but what they may not know (or remember) is that he also appeared in another superhero movie franchise: Marvel’s Thor. He was cast as Fandral, one of the Warriors Three from Asgard in the original Thor, but had to pull out due to scheduling contracts. He was then asked to come back and give it another try in Thor: The Dark World, which he agreed to… only to find that Marvel’s President Kevin Feige lied about how big the role would be, according to ScreenRant.
“I insisted on talking to Kevin about it for two reasons. One, I saw the first movie, and I didn’t really feel like the Warriors Three were utilized in that great of a way. And I was like, ‘Is that going to be the case again, because if it is, I don’t really want to do that, you know?’ And he’s like, ‘No, no, no, it’s gonna be a huge part of this movie.’ Not so much, as it turned out.”
Zachary Levi on his role in the Thor franchise
Zachary Levi’s concerns were clearly justified, as the Warriors Three weren’t a very big part of the franchise at all in the grand scheme of things. It seems clear that either Kevin Feige purposely misled him just to get the role cast or to get a big-name actor or that the role changed greatly between the time Feige explained the role to Levi and the time the movie finished production.
Regardless, Zachary Levi returned in Thor: Ragnarok in 2017 but was killed off as a part of Taika Waititi’s plan to try to light a new fire under the series that had lost its spark. To add insult to injury, though, Levi’s final line as Fandral was cut out of the movie entirely, so his turn as the mythical character was even more underwhelming than he thought.
ScreenRant’s article goes on to ponder whether Zachary Levi could ever expect his character to be resurrected in some way in the MCU. They posit that the Multiverse Saga that is ramping up could potentially involve a different version of Fandral from another timeline, but this seems highly unlikely. The Warriors Three aren’t very big or important characters, and they don’t have legions of fans clamoring for them to appear because they were in the comic books, so it would be a bit strange for them to make a big return to the franchise.
It also seems unlikely that Zachary Levi would even want to return as Fandral after having been lied to about his role (and having presumably his most important line cut), so the chances of this happening seem pretty low.
However, Zachary Levi’s own superhero franchise isn’t doing so hot at the moment either. Shazam! Fury of the Gods didn’t do very well at the box office and is said to be a lackluster sequel in general (which is very bad news in James Gunn and Peter Safran’s new cutthroat DC Studios regime), so, sadly, it could very well be possible that Zachary Levi’s time as a superhero is coming to an end.
