A Fluffy Fair, A Galaxy of News and Megatron Too.

Tonight! Star Trek Day News! Marvel and Star Wars news from D23 and an interview with Voice Artist David Kaye! All that and more on this episode of Multiverse Tonight!

Marvel

Deadline dot com hears that Regan Aliyah (XO, Kitty) has joined the cast of Marvel Studios’ Disney+ series Ironheart in an undisclosed role. Aliyah is an actor and rapper who will next appear in Netflix’s XO, Kitty, a spinoff of To All The Boys I Loved Before, as a series regular. Before that, she appeared in the TV miniseries Club Mickey Mouse, as well as in various shorts. The six-episode series created by Chinaka Hodge will star Dominique Thorne as Marvel character Riri Williams, a genius inventor and creator of the most advanced suit of armor since Iron Man. The previously announced cast also includes Anthony Ramos, Manny Montana, Alden Ehrenreich, Shea Couleé, and Zoe Terakes.

Ben Kingsley is returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The Oscar winner will reprise his role as actor Trevor Slattery in Marvel’s Wonder Man project at Disney+, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.

DC

Blue Beetle is still due to come out from Warner Bros as of press time. And Susan Sarandon, the villain of the movie appearing on THe Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon revealed that the film will be partially in Spanish with subtitles. Susan told Jimmy quote "What's fabulous about it is that it's the first Latin-X hero that has his own movie. Even better, all of the Mexicans, because his family is Mexican and all the actors were Mexican-American and it's in Spanish. So there's subtitles," Sarandon went on to discuss her being the villain of the movie. "I'm of course the bad guy. I'm the white military-industrial complex, so I had a fabulous time because there's nothing better than being bad."

Titus Welliver, the Bosch and Deadwood star who has also appeared on Marvel's Agents of SHIELD and Castlevania, has been cast in the role of Lex Luthor on Titans. The actor, according to the EW story, is a big DC fan, who has been waiting for a call like this for years. This is as good a time as any for him to play the role, considering that the series' upcoming fourth season will deal with the revelation that Superboy was cloned in part from Luthor's DNA, a twist introduced in the comics by writer Geoff Johns.

Star Trek

Star Trek DaY nEWS

 Strange New Worlds will be getting a new recurring character Engineer Pelia will be joining the show played by Carol Kane. Pelia is described as "highly educated and intelligent, this engineer suffers no fools. Pelia solves problems calmly and brusquely, thanks to her many years of experience." Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 is in production.

Star Trek Picard will take us to the Underworld of the 25th century. THe trailer for the new season revealed that a set of mysterious antagonists threatening Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden); with Picard now operating on his own, finding a way to investigate or fight against such a threat could take Picard and Co. to some pretty dark regions of the galaxy. We also got a look at Commander Seven of Nine on the Titan. Star Trek: Picard Season 3 will premiere on Thursday, February 16, 2023

If you need something to listen to, Star Trek film writer/director Nicholas Meyer surprised fans by announcing Star Trek: Khan -- Ceti Alpha V, the first scripted Star Trek podcast. The long-rumored story will reveal what happened to Khan and his augmented crew after Captain Kirk left them on Ceti Alpha V in the classic Star Trek episode "Space Seed" in the years leading up to the Meyer-direct movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Meyer wrote the original story for Star Trek: Khan -- Ceti Alpha V. Meyer will be an executive producer on the project. along with Kurtzman, Aaron Baiers, Trevor Roth, and Rod Roddenberry.

Star Trek Prodigy will finish out its first season starting on October 27th. A new clip from the show showed the Prodigy being joined by TNG’s Thadiun Okona from the episode The Outrageous Oona trying to outrun Janeway. Unfortunately, if Janeway catches it a trojan horse situation will happen.

A synopsis for Discovery Season Five has been released quote "Captain Burnham and the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery discover a mystery that sends them on an epic adventure across the galaxy to find an ancient power whose very existence has been deliberately hidden for centuries.  But there are others on the hunt as well… dangerous foes who are desperate to claim the prize for themselves and will stop at nothing to get it." The show is currently in production.

Gearbox’s Cryptic Studios unveiled their big bad for the next installment of Star Trek Online. Wil Wheaton’s  Emperor Wesley Crusher will debut when the next installment lands on the thirteenth. 

A new Star Trek comic from IDW is coming. This one is just titled Star Trek 

Star Trek #1 represents the first step in IDW's attempt to give its Star Trek line the same prestige enjoyed by something like Marvel Comics' Star Wars books. That includes treating the comic book as canon. Writer Jackson Lanzing said quote "This is real Star Trek," Lanzing says. "This is as close as we can, on the comic side, to being canon. We will be canon until they un-canonize us. But we are working with the shows. We are in communication with the teams. We are encyclopedic Star Trek knowledge boys, so we're on Memory-Alpha all the time, but our brains are effectively little Memory-Alphas. We're already fed by all the canon that we grew up with, that being TOS to Voyager. So all of that stuff, if it was on the show, it's canon."

Star Trek #1 begins a story set during a gap in established Star Trek continuity between Star Trek: Voyager's series finale and the film Star Trek: Nemesis. It also features an eclectic mix of new characters and established favorites from across the Star Trek franchise, taking advantage of the fact that a comic book only needs to worry about characters and not actors.

Benjamin Sisko leads the book's cast as the captain of the U.S.S. Theseus. He and his crew are on a mission to investigate the deaths of several of the godlike beings that inhabit the Star Trek universe. Star Trek #1 goes on sale on October 26th.

Nerf unveiled two  Star Trek NERF phaser blasters that were designed to celebrate the 35th anniversary of The Next Generation TV series. There’s the NERF LMTD Star Trek Starfleet Type 3 Phaser rifle, which is a motorized 1 shot blaster (internal 5-dart clip) that features light-up effects that simulate the look of being assimilated by the Borg in homage to the 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact. It also features phaser sounds and authentic First Contact movie sounds. Seven foam Nerf Elite darts are included. As your secondary blaster, there's the Starfleet Type 2 Phaser, which fires 1 dart and has a pull-back priming handle. Amazingly enough, it's not sold separately! The Type 2 phaser will be included with the Type 3 phaser rifle. The set will be available to pre-order here on Amazon priced at $119.99 at some point today, September 7th

Star Wars

Deadline reports that Squid Game star Lee Jung-jae has landed the male lead in the new Disney+ Star Wars series The Acolyte from Lucasfilm. Amandla Steinberg is set for the other lead role, with Deadline also recently breaking the news that Jodie Turner-Smith also is joining the cast. Leslye Headland was tapped as the series director, writer, exec producer, and showrunner. The Acolyte, set before the Fall of the Jedi era on the official Star Wars timeline, takes place roughly 100 years before the events of Episode I: The Phantom Menace — a time when the Sith are believed "extinct for a millenium."

D23 News

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is getting a new Galactic Edition release in November, but the more important news is the addition of 30 newly playable Star Wars characters, including Cassian Andor from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (and Star Wars: Andor), Reva from Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Captain Rex from Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Those three characters are just some of the new additions coming in six new packs in the Character Collection 2. The new collection will feature characters from the Star Wars series Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Clone Wars, Rebels, and The Book of Boba Fett, as well as the Lego Star Wars Summer Vacation TV special.

The Marvel universe is getting its own augmented reality game. Marvel World of Heroes was announced on Friday during Disney’s game showcase at its D23 2022 expo. The mobile game is being developed by Niantic, the company behind Pokémon Go, and is set for release sometime in 2023.

Black Panther and Captain America are teaming up for a new video game adventure set in the Marvel Universe’s version of World War II. On Friday, at the Disney and Marvel Games Showcase, Marvel Games and Skydance New Media — the relatively new studio led by former Naughty Dog creative director Amy Hennig — revealed a new, untitled game in which the super duo takes on the evil forces of Hydra.

Joining them will be two additional heroes, Gabriel Jones, a U.S. soldier and member of the Howling Commandos; and Nanali, leader of the fledgling Wakandan Spy Network (and what appears to be a precursor to the Dora Milaje). Those four heroes were featured in a teaser trailer for the Black Panther and Captain America game, which appears to be set in Paris and (possibly) in Wakanda.

Disney’s Tron universe is returning to video games in 2023 with Tron: Identity, a visual novel/puzzle game being developed by Mike Bithell (Thomas Was Alone, The Solitaire Conspiracy). In Tron: Identity, players will follow Query, a detective program keeping the peace on an all-new Grid. Query has been tasked with unraveling a complicated break-in and theft. According to its Steam page, “you’ll interact with a number of intriguing characters, and decide whether to ally with them, spurn them, or even de-rez them.”

Players will advance Tron: Identity’s story by defragmenting other programs’ identity discs. “The truth of the case is hidden in the Identity Discs of those around you,” the game’s description says. “Defrag their Discs to navigate the complex path to a solution in these unique puzzles.”

Marvel & Star Wars

Secret Invasion

War Machine actor Don Cheadle confirmed he will appear in Samuel L. Jackson's upcoming Disney+ series Secret Invasion. He also gave a brief overview of the plot of the show, stating it involves "Skrulls invading Earth''. 

The Marvels

Brie Larson's The Marvels was quickly shown during an MCU sizzle reel. Director Nia DaCosta asserts that the MCU sequel will be “full comic book madness” and that it “follows how these three people learn to become a team.”. It looks like something is causing the three heroes Carol, Kamala, and Monica to switch places when they use their powers. The Marvels is set to be released in theaters on July 28, 2023.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Janet Van Dyne actress Michelle Pfeiffer teased that Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania gets "a little darker" while also describing it as "epic" in a new D23 MCU sizzle reel.

Daredevil: Born Again

The first official look at the logo for Charlie Cox's return to the MCU in Daredevil: Born Again was shown off briefly in an MCU Phase 5 and Phase 6 sizzle reel.

Captain America: New World Order Got a warm welcome at D23, with several new and old MCU actors officially announced to return to the fold.

Tim Blake Nelson, who last appeared in 2008’s Incredible Hulk, will return as The Leader. Carl Lumbly is back as original super soldier Isaiah Bradley after playing him in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Danny Ramirez returns as Joaquin Torres, while MCU newcomer Shira Haas will play Israeli hero Sabra. release date of May 3, 2024

Multiple pieces of concept art images from Disney's Indiana Jones 5 were shown off for the first time. This is the first official look at Harrison Jones' fifth Indy film. The concept art includes images of the movie's many costumes, scenes, and characters.

Ahsoka

Eman Esfandi has been cast as Ezra Bridger in the upcoming Ahsoka series on Disney+. Esfandi is known for his role in King Richard and he stars in an upcoming film titled The Inspection.

Midnight Suns

Marvel's upcoming turn-based strategy game, Midnight Suns received an official release date of December 2nd, 2022. This release is sooner than expected, as Midnight Suns was initially set to release in 2023.

Inside Out 2 Tom’s Guide reports Disney's official social media accounts posted(opens in new tab) the above graphic, with the description "Oh JOY! Amy Poehler is back to star in Inside Out 2. Directed by Kelsey Mann, produced by Mark Nielsen, and written by Meg LeFauve, Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out 2 releases Summer 2024."

Some have noticed that neither Mindy Kaling nor Bil Hader have been announced for the cast, so we’ll have to keep an eye out for developments.

According to that report, it's all about money. Star Amy Poehler who is reportedly making $5 million before other bonuses got a much better offer than her co-stars from the original. Disney's initial $100,000 (with no bonuses) offer to other main voice cast was declined.

Marvel’s bad guys and anti-heroes are getting the closeup in Thunderbolts, which revealed its cast at D23 Saturday.

The super-team movie will star Florence Pugh (Yelena Belova), Sebastian Stan (The Winter Soldier), David Harbour (Red Guardian), Wyatt Russell (US Agent), Hannah John Kamen (Ghost), Olga Kurylenko (Taskmaster), and Julia Louis Dreyfus (Valentina Allegra de Fontaine). TV vet Jake Schreier is directing the film. Thunderbolts is due out July 26, 2024

Echo will see Vincent D'Onofrio return as The Kingpin.

Matt Shakman (WandaVision) is confirmed to direct Fantastic Four.

Loki Season 2 revealed some new cast members Joining  Owen Wilson's Morbius, as will Gugu Mbatha-Raw's Judge Renslayer, Sophia Di Martino's Sylvie, and Wunmi Mosaku's B-15 will be Ke Huy Quan from Everything everywhere all at once and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. 

Win or Lose is a new Pixar series coming to Disney Plus in 2023, starring Will Forte as Coach Dan. It's about a softball team called the Pickles who are trying to get to the championship game. 

Each episode of Win or Lose will focus on a specific character, such as Frank the umpire, a middle-school teacher who is trying to date again. He thinks his barista is into him, but she's not. His friends, though, are there to support him.

The live-action Snow White starring Rachel Zegler as the first Disney Princess and Gal Gadot as the wicked stepmother was announced at D23 with the stars on hand. It's due in 2024, and sounds like a theatrical release — but Disney didn't confirm that last part.

D23 also gave live audiences a first look at Disney's Peter Pan & Wendy movie, which is coming to Disney Plus in 2023. In it, Jude Law plays Captain Hook, and the trailer sees him chasing Alexander Molony's Peter Pan around.

From some of the minds that brought you, Coco, Disney, and Pixar are delivering Elio. Elio is an 11-year-old boy who is warped across the galaxy accidentally and is soon seen as the ambassador for planet Earth. Which he, obviously, is not. Elio is voiced by Yonas Kibreab (Obi-Wan Kenobi), and America Ferrara (Ugly Betty) voices his mother.

Elio is directed by screenwriter Adrian Molina (who co-helmed Coco) and produced by Mary Alice Drumm (Coco). It will be in theaters in spring 2024.

Disney's upcoming film Wish will explain how this Disney tradition started. Because, yes, even wishing stars get origin stories.

The film features the voice of Ariana DeBoise as Asha, who seems to be the first person ever to wish upon said star. She also appears to have an adorable pet goat. Wish is coming to theaters in November 2023.

Mufasa: The Lion King, Walt Disney Studios' computer-generated "live-action" sequel to The Lion King, during a panel at D23 Expo. The film, which is expected to debut in theaters in 2024 will reportedly be told in two different time frames as Timon, Pumbaa, and Rafiki tell the origin story of Mufasa while we see Mufasa rise to royalty. But while fans are excited for the film, which is more of a prequel than a true sequel, there is one bit of news that is a little disappointing. James Earl Jones, who provided the voice of Mufasa in the classic animated The Lion King, will not be returning for this film. Instead, the role of Mufasa will be played by Aaron Pierre.

Interview Time w/ David Kaye

Geek

There’s been a big shake-up inside House of the Dragon: The HBO fantasy drama’s co-showrunner and director Miguel Sapochnik is stepping down from the freshly launched hit series.

Sources say Sapochnik is exiting the show after an exhausting three years of effort into the Game of Thrones prequel. Dragon co-creator Ryan Condal will now serve as the show’s sole showrunner and continue to work closely with co-creator George R.R. Martin. Sapochnik has also entered into a first-look deal with HBO to develop new projects and will remain an executive producer for the duration of the series.

Nell Tiger Free has found her first leading role in a major studio film. Sources tell Deadline that she is set to star in 20th Century’s First Omen, a prequel to the classic horror franchise The Omen. Arkasha Stevenson will make her feature-directing debut on the pic and will also handle the rewrite alongside writing partner Tim Smith. Smith is set to executive produce, with Phantom Four producing.

Eric Jones, a cartoonist whose wide variety of work included art for DC, IDW, and First Second, has passed away. Jones's passing was first announced by Landry Q. Walker, Jones's friend, and a frequent collaborator, via social media. Popverse was the first to report the news in detail, and according to the artist's family, they believe he passed away in his sleep due to complications from sleep apnea. Jones worked on the comics adaptation of the popular Cartoon Network series Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and did some Star Wars comics for IDW Publishing. 

Jones's comic book debut was a pin-up in an issue of Mr. Monster in the 1980s, and he would go on to work on a number of indie comics in the '90s and early 2000s, including Filthy Habits from Aeon Comics; Tron, and Little Gloomy from Slave Labor Graphics; and Disney's Comic Zone. His most recognizable work came in 2008 when Jones collaborated with Walker on Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the Eighth Grade. Eric Jones was 51 years old.

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