The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had some peaks and valleys in recent years, but it continues to release new content in theaters and streaming with a Disney+ subscription. Without a doubt the most anticipated upcoming Marvel movie is Avengers: Doomsday, which will feature multiple teams of superheroes. After The Fantastic Four: First Steps arrived in theaters, we got an update about Pedro Pascal’s role that might be a relief.
What we know about Avengers: Doomsday is super limited, as the studio has been keeping its cards close to the chest. Filming is underway, and rumors are swirling about what the Russo Brothers’ movie might entail. There were rumors that Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards/ Mr. Fantastic was the lead character of Doomsday, Variety is refuting them. Instead, this new report claims that he plays an “integral” role, but isn’t the “centerpiece” of the blockbuster. Color me intrigued.
Doomsday’s cast announcement, it sounds like Red Richards won’t be leading The Avengers when that movie hits theaters next December. But given the mid-credits scene for The Fantastic Four that seemingly debuted Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom, I have to assume that they will heavily factor into the story.
Pedro Pascal has been named the internet’s daddy, and he’s got tons of fans thanks to his acclaimed roles in The Last Of Us, The Mandalorian, and Game of Thrones. He’s already crushing it as Reed Richards, but some fans who spent years watching the Marvel movies in order didn’t want to see him leading The Avengers so soon after his debut.
(Image credit: Marvel Studios)
As previously mentioned, multiple teams of superheroes are expected to factor into the action of Avengers: Doomsday. Aside from Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, we’ll also see the Thunderbolts aka the New Avengers, The Fantastic Four, and the X-Men. And with the multiverse in play, it seems like just about anything could happen in The Russo Brothers’ next to Marvel projects.
The Thunderbolts+ credits scene showed the Fantastic Four’s ship appearing in the main MCU timeline, which will presumably be the first of these team crossovers. First Steps was a strong first outing for the quartet of heroes (as well as the scene stealer H.E.R.B.I.E.). And I’m eager to see how this family unit ends up interacting with more scrappy groups like the New Avengers. I also can’t wait to see Mister Fantastic and company reacting to the tech in the main timeline, after living in retro futuristic alternate universe.
Pedro Pascal and company are just starting their tenures in the MCU, but they’ve gotten off to a great start. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is in theaters now as part of the 2025 movie release list. And Avengers: Doomsday will follow suit on December 18th, 2026.
Prime Video’s Countdown has passed the halfway point of its first season in the 2025 TV schedule, and the action certainly isn’t slowing down for Jensen Ackles’ Mark Meachum. The show seems to be generating plenty of buzz, and Ackles has certainly proven himself as a leading man who can carry a project for multiple seasons. (See: a decade and a half of Supernatural with Jared Padalecki.) Season 2 has yet to be guaranteed, however, and I recall what creator/showrunner/executive producer Derek Haas shared with CinemaBlend about writing Season 1 and looking ahead to the future.
Haas came to Countdown with plenty of experience on long-running shows as well, as he was the showrunner on NBC’s Chicago Fire for more than a decade, and the hard work that he (and Jensen Ackles) put in for stunts in fact reflects some of his comments about Fire often getting snubbed for stunts on the awards circuit. When I spoke with Haas for Countdown during Prime Video’s press day, I had to ask: what benefits were there for him to have written all ten episodes of Countdown himself instead of sharing that load? He shared:
I’d never done that before on a TV show. I used to write novels, and this show almost lent itself to being like chapters in a book, of a novel. So I just wanted to try to do it that way and see what would happen. And so it was almost like a challenge, but it was really fun to do it. I felt very close to it all the way through, and then I got to hire this amazing cast to bring it to life, because it really is just words on a page until it gets three-dimensional, once you get this embarrassment of riches of a cast that I got to work with.
Grey’s Anatomy‘s Eric Dane as FBI SAC Nathan Blythe in addition to Jensen Ackles as LAPD Detective Mark Meachum. (This Is Us vet Milo Ventimiglia was very briefly part of the cast.)
confirming a return to Tracker to hype the latest episode.
For now, keep checking out new episodes of Countdown on Wednesdays with a Prime Video subscription. At the very least, adding to the view count for the series can’t hurt its renewal chances, and I for one would love the relief of an official order for Season 2 coming before the Season 1 finale. Most ideally, that Season 2 wouldn’t take much longer than the year that Derek Haas mentioned!
Full disclosure, I tuned out of the DC Extended Universe before Peacemaker Season 1 dropped, so I didn’t rush to watch it with my HBO Max subscription. That lack of enthusiasm persisted until I had kind of forgotten about the show. After seeing Superman, the first DC Universe movie, last month and catching John Cena’s cameo, I finally sat down to watch it. I have mixed thoughts on the show, but not the character.
(Image credit: HBO Max)
I Didn’t Love The Show, But I Don’t Love Any Superhero Shows
If I’m honest, Peacemaker wasn’t my favorite show. In fact, despite loving a ton of the superhero movies, I don’t tend to get all that into any of the shows, be they DCU shows or MCU shows. Peacemaker was much the same way. It’s like a different kind of superhero fatigue. I’m not sick of the movies, but I do get bored with the shows.
Curb Your Enthusiasm. Shows with that much uncomfortableness and second-hand embarrassment really start to grate on me. It doesn’t mean I don’t find Larry David or Peacemaker funny, I just can only take so much of that kind of humor before I need a break.
Deadpool, but without the actual superpowers. He’s pretty great as a character. Cena was born to play the role, and I genuinely got excited when I saw him pop up in Superman.
Like Ryan Reynolds and Deadpool, Peacemaker is a role that no other actor would play nearly as well as Cena. A month ago, I would have said I didn’t care one way or another if he continued into the newly revamped and rebooted DCU, but now I’m finding myself yearning to find where were he will fit in.
Peacemaker Season 2 is dropping as part of the 2025 TV schedule in a few weeks, and I’m determined to watch as the episodes become available so I don’t find myself getting burned out like I did with Season 1. Maybe that will help me embrace the show like I’ve embraced the character. I really can’t wait to see how James Gunn works the character into more upcoming superhero movies, which is where I know I love him the most.
Animated blockbusters are a tried and true genre, one that moviegoers can bring the whole family to. And aside from Disney animated features, other studios are bringing their own titles, such as Universal’s burgeoning The Bad Guys franchise. Critics have seen the Sam Rockwell sequel, and their split about which of the movies is the superior installment. Let’s break it all down.
CinemaBlend’s The Bad Guys review was mixed, but the 2022 animated movie was a success. The Bad Guys crushed at the box office, and a sequel was quickly greenlit. And now we know what journalists who got early screenings thought of the follow-up. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman praised the sequel’s action sequences, writing:
It’s not until halfway through the movie that the rocket ship blasts off, at which point our heroes attempt to board the ship by flying next to it…on a helicopter. They leap aboard the surface of the speeding rocket, even as it’s casting off stages. I confess that this sequence stunned me, because up until then I thought “The Bad Guys 2” was mild and cutely comic and not much more, and suddenly we’re watching animated characters act as if they’re in the middle of their own Tom Cruise stunt.
The Bad Guys 2’s marketing referenced Tom Cruise and his impending space movie while promoting the animated sequel. But how does the new movie compare to the original (which was a big hit in the midst of the pandemic)?
The Associated Press’ Mark Kennedy seems to think that the second film failed to hit the same beats as its predecessor. What’s more, he even pokes fun at some of the dialogue from the sequel. He wrote:
The joy of The Bad Guys was that it was a respectful send-up of the movies of Quentin Tarantino and caper flicks like Ocean’s 11. This time, the Fast & Furious series gets mocked, as does Silence of the Lambs, Men in Black and maybe Moonraker, which is now 46 years old. But the subversion is painfully flat now: The first film in the franchise would have laughed at one climactic line in the second: ‘We’ve got one shot to save the world. Let’s make it count!’
On the other side of the coin, MovieWeb’s Julian Roman actually thinks The Bad Guys 2 “surpasses” the original movie. He praised the movie’s plot and the way it utilizes the Bad Guys cast, and how each of the characters was served. He also wrote about the visuals of the follow-up, saying:
The Bad Guys 2 has eye-popping animation that builds to a truly impressive finale. The opening scene is spectacular, as Perifel sets his own bar high and then joyfully hurdles it with a climax that’s literally out of this world. The slick blend of sharp CGI and 2D hand-drawn animation is enhanced by stunning camerawork and editing.
It certainly seems like there are some thrilling action sequences in the sequel, which are visually pulled off by the animation teams. Although its story is getting criticism from some folks online.
For instance, The Seattle Times’ review by Hayden Mears said the sequel was not as fun as the OG. He wrote about why the two movies feel so different from each other, offering:
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The Bad Guys 2 is a parade of flipped priorities. Where its predecessor made sure its humor never strayed from service to its heart, this sequel, as amusing as it can be, is gunning for the opposite. The first film had a tight handle on its many moving parts, but the follow-up loosens its grip, crowding out meaningful takeaways to make space for new characters who won’t leave an impression. The result is a sporadically fun but ultimately hollow return to a world that didn’t need more than one movie.
The discrepancy between The Bad Guys 2‘s visuals and script is also at the center of the response from Roger Ebert’s Christy Lemire. She took shots at the franchise as a whole, saying:
Thankfully, the film’s look is always wondrous, from the haunting, spare lighting of a phone booth in the desert at night to the lustrous lowriders bopping up and down outside a stadium. When there’s a Bad Guys 3–and the ending very much suggests there will be a Bad Guys 3–at least it will be pretty, if not necessarily good.
Ouch. Clearly, critics have mixed feelings about The Bad Guys 2, so it should be interesting to see how moviegoing audiences react when it arrives on August 1st. We’ve seen some projects feature a juxtaposition between audience ratings and critical response, so we’ll have to see if this happens with Pierre Perifel’s animated sequel.
The Bad Guys 2 hits theaters on August 1st as part of the 2025 movie schedule. And yes, a third movie is already being planned.
If there’s one thing that fans who’ve enjoyed the Marvel movies in order have known for a long time now, it’s that the studio behind 2025 movies like Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, and recent hit The Fantastic Four: First Steps always has lots of creative irons in the fire. As such, there are several films that were announced as being in the planning stages years ago, but which have been slow to take root. Now, though, we’ve gotten an update on the Blade reboot, Black Panther, and Deadpool, as superhero franchises experience a “pullback.”
What’s Been Said About The Current Plans For Blade, Deadpool And Black Panther?
It was roughly six years ago (during San Diego Comic-Con 2019) that a Blade reboot starring Oscar winner Mahershala Ali was announced with much fanfare. Numerous delays have hit the upcoming Marvel movie since then (even with some potential good news about the story involving Wesley Snipes, as well), and we still don’t have any idea when things will get rolling.
major hits in the studio’s rearview like Deadpool and Wolverine and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, many are wondering where things stand with the long-awaited reboot and new appearances for old faves like Deadpool and Black Panther. According to a report from Variety, fans should be prepared to wait even longer in at least two cases, as the outlet notes:
look forward to Spider-Man: Brand New Day on the 2026 movies schedule, as well as the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday (with both currently filming), those two will be exceptions to the new rule of doing everything possible to “keep the cost down,” which includes not loading up casts with A-list talent who command major salaries. Because of that, the Ryan Reynolds starring Deadpool franchise, as well as the Ali-led Blade update are still in a holding pattern for now.
However, with Ryan Coogler still riding the high of Sinners, his early 2025 horror hit starring Marvel favorite Michael B. Jordan, things are percolating at a much higher level for a third Black Panther film, particularly with Denzel Washington rebelling against MCU secrecy and revealing he’s going to be in the movie.
Obviously, lots of folks will be disappointed by this update, but remember that some good news is better than none.
Spoilers below for anyone who hasn’t yet watched the first episode of Twisted Metal’s second season with a Peacock subscription, so be warned!
The tournament is coming, drivers! Now that Twisted Metal Season 2 has finally arrived on the 2025 TV schedule, it’s time for Anthony Mackie’s John Doe to get serious. Wait, no, that would probably go against the entire concept of the loosely connected video game adaptation. Though in the very first episode, John does get serious about reading through a bunch of Baby-Sitters Club novels, and while it might have started out as desperation, it seemingly became a true obsession.
critically acclaimed live-action Netflix series years ago, though it made for one of the more disappointing cancellations in 2022 when the streaming service pulled the plug. Sadly, attempts to further the show went unfulfilled as well.
One has to wonder if John Doe would have been as invested in the TV series as he was in the novels. I have to think he’d have made himself just as comfortable on the couch with his feet swinging behind him. And that dichotomy between the two is part of the fun for the showrunner, who continued:
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I think it was just also just funny that this badass milkman who kills people would be like so taken by these five girls who love to babysit. . . . Also, it’s about community, you know, and that’s what our show is about.
I wonder if John could talk Sweet Tooth and Stu into spending an afternoon speed-reading through a bunch of Baby-Sitters Club books instead of murdering anyone with a deadlier reputation. Probably not. Sweet Tooth would likely just burn all the books eventually anyway.
Find out if John Doe will ever finish the series — could he even stand the little sisters? — when Twisted Metal Season 2 drops new episodes on Thursdays on Peacock.
