Recently, Agents of SHIELD actress, Chloe Bennet expressed her frustrations on Marvel Studios not following through with their Cinematic Universe thing. While the movies all give each other high-fives, and swap characters, and what not, they seem to ignore their TV shows entirely. Hell, even the shows acknowledge the movies. But it seems like a one-way street.
Well, it looks like Marvel may have listened to their television star, and is starting to buck up. According to a source close to the situation:
“Marvel Studios is considering having Vincent D’Onofrio reprise his Wilson Fisk role from Daredevil in Spider-Man: Homecoming.”
The shows on ABC are not doing so hot, which is probably why the movies haven’t referred to them yet. When asked if Phil Coulson will make a return in Avengers: Age of Ultron, letting Cap and company know he’s alive again, director Joss Whedon expressed that SHIELD left a bad taste in people’s mouths. He said that Coulson is still, and will always be, dead to the Avengers. He said that he wasn’t going to reveal it until the sixth or seventh season, but Agents of SHIELD is just a fever dream for Coulson in the last moments of his death. While I’m glad, or at least hoping, that Marvel will not go with that model, there’s still that issue of not acknowledging the show.
But while Agent Carter has been canceled, and Marvel’s Most Wanted will not be picked up, there is much clamor for the Netflix shows. Therefore, if Marvel does happen to cross someone over from the shows, then from a business standpoint, it makes sense to bring someone in from one of the Netflix series.
And who better than Wilson Fisk – in a Spider-Man movie, no less. In the ’90’s cartoon, Fisk, a.k.a. Kingpin, was the main villain. It also led to a really cool team-up between Spidey and Daredevil.
There is already rumor that one of the secondary villains of the flick will be Spencer Smythe. Roboticist, Smythe, created the Spider Slayers as a way to hunt down ol’ Web Head. His son, Alistair, took over the business, and turned himself into the Ultimate Spider Slayer. In the cartoon, Alistair was Kingpin’s assistant, paralyzed to a hovering wheelchair (much like Professor X in the X-Men cartoon of the same era), and eventually became the cyborg villain.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 had Alistair, played by B.J. Novak. He was probably set up for further installments in their planned cineverse. There are talks of a solo Venom movie. And you know, they’re still trying to hold on to that Sinister Six. I think Sony will try to pull a fast one. Andrew Garfield was reported to have been fired, even before the announcement that Spider-Man was joining the MCU. Even if he wasn’t fired, surely his contract was terminated. But I think that Garfield will still make an appearance in this Venom movie, possibly in an attempt to hold on to their cineverse with Sinister Six.
We last saw D’Onofrio’s Fisk in prison. If he is indeed in Homecoming, then chances are, he’ll just play a cameo. Either he’ll still be incarcerated, or have escaped somehow. Either way, he’ll probably be used as a way to set up for a sequel or two down the road — along with Smythe.