ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Is HENRY CAVILL Joining the MCU? - New Leak and Potential Wolverine Casting, Explained

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

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Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. I have to ask you, are you in the running? If you put yourself out of the running, if they came a calling, would you say yes? I would definitely have a conversation. Hey, welcome back Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Erie, and an incredibly reliable leaker has just said that Henry Cavill has been signed on to join the MCU.

Now, this is potentially huge and very exciting news. Who is he playing? Dr. Doom? Captain Britain? Or, as I'll explain later, is he going to become? the new definitive MCU Wolverine. But there's already an MCU Wolverine. Hugh Jackman.

Yes, Hugh Jackman is returning for Deadpool and Wolverine, but do we really think that he's going to be around for the next 10, 15, 20 years of the MCU? Marvel's going to want to start with a younger marquee star. And I'm going to explain how they can pull it off with Henry Cavill when they inevitably reboot this entire universe with the X-Men at its core. Later, I'm going to talk to Tommy Bechtel and Brianna McClarty about this, but first, here's some background. And by the way, thank you so much for clicking this video and supporting our channel.

And if you haven't already, you could continue to support our channel by shopping our merch store at Screencrushmerch.com, where we design all the merch ourselves. Right now, we have this really fun MCU parody merch like this MCU Savior and Wade's World with Deadpool and Wolverine as Burton, Ernie and many more shirts. So, Ray, what's going on here? I thought Henry Cavill was Superman, but not anymore. It's been like a whole sordid drama. So Cavill, of course, played Superman and Man of Steel, and in this movie, Save Martha! Which made him a bonafide star, landing in roles like The Man from Unile.

uncle and the villain in Mission Impossible. But then, famously, he filmed Justice League with Zach Snyder, and then Warner Bros hired Joss Whedon to refill most of that movie and undercut Snyder, so at that point, for the reshoots, Cavill contractually could not shave his mustache, leading to monstrosities like this. After Justice League, Cavill's career in the DCEU looked like it might have been done until the Rock tried to take over the DCEU. Basically, the Rock thought that Black Adam was going to be such a huge juggernaut success

that he could use his influence as a producer to then guide the direction of the franchise, and he wanted Black Adam to go up against the most powerful hero in the DC-EU, Superman, which is why we got this post-credit scene. Black Adam, we should talk. But then, just literally days later, Cavill announced it's a new management of DC, James Gunn and Peter Safran, had other plans for Superman, and they ended up casting a different younger actor. Now, I should note that Cavill's a massive nerd, right?

He likes to build his own computers. He's a big video game fan, which is why he wanted to play Gerald and The Witcher. Great show, by the way. and he's also a huge Warhammer enthusiast. So he's, like, busy setting up a Warhammer franchise as well. But now, he's left The Witcher, freeing up some time on his schedule, which has led a lot of fans to, like, franchise fancast him.

Now, I've seen some interesting fancasts, like him is James Bond, and he's also attached to a new Highlander series. But to be honest, I never thought he would return to the world of superheroes. Like, he dreamed of playing Superman for years, and you may not like his Superman movies, but he was always great in them.

But now, according to this leaker, my time to shine hello, Cavill has been cast in the MCU, but not as Dr. Doom. So now, let's talk about who Cavill could be playing in the MCU. I do want to take a second, though, to think BetterHelp, the sponsor of this video. I have had times in my life when I was super depressed all the time, and I'm here to tell you that if you are hurting or anxious, therapy can help. Therapy can also help you to learn positive coping skills,

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Visit BetterHelp.com slash Screencrush today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P-com slash Screencrush. So the main theory for Cavill in the MCU is that he could be playing Captain. Britain. He even commented on this years ago, saying that he would love a chance to modernize this character. Here's Captain Britain. So, long story short, Captain Britain is a title passed down to heroes throughout the centuries. Their powers are given to them by an amulet that was crafted by Merlin. And Camelot, and by extension Merlin have been name checked in the MCU. Is that the Ebony Blade? Excalibur. Now, interestingly enough, all of this ties into the Eternals

and the Black Knight. In the Eternals post-credit scene, we see Dane Whitman with the Ebony blade. This is a curse sword that Merlin crafted from a meteor that had been passed down through Dane's family line four centuries. In the comics, Dane is the hero of the Black Knight, who eventually finds out that his sword was slowly actually turning him evil. Now, originally, Merlin gave Dane's ancestor a choice. You can choose the amulet of Captain Britain or the sword of the Black Knight. So these two objects have always been kind of joined together. So we could, in theory, see a Henry Cavill Captain Britain team up with Dane Whitman's Black Knight character in an eternal sequel or whatever other film. I mean, all that does sound really cool, especially if the

Secret Invasion Post credit scene pays off and Sophia Farnsworth forms a team of British heroes to combat these underground threats. But Disney CEO Bob Eiger said at their investor call that Marvel is pumping the brakes on introducing new characters, new franchises. They want to instead build up the people they've already introduced. So I doubt if they would introduce a whole new franchise, even if it's led by Henry Cavill. Now, a few other superhero names have been thrown out that include the Sentry, who has already been recast by Lewis Pullman. The only thing I think for sure is that Henry Cavill would not want to be a hero like Superman. He would want something different to play, like a villain or play an anti-hero. After all, he loved playing Gerald on The Witcher. He could

also play the ultimate anti-hero, Wolverine. Now, I'm going to explain my Wolverine theory, but first, Tommy Beck told you had a really cool villain theory for Cavill. Now, who are you thinking about? Yes, I think we may see Henry Cavill go in a different direction, a sinister direction if you will. That is the previously teased Nathan, Nathaniel, I call Nate Essex, Mr. Sinister himself. Obviously, we all saw the seminal film New Mutants and the Essex Corporation. Of course. Teased at the end of that is kind of the mastermind. Yeah. But let's be honest, that story is probably dead. That through line, although I did see it at a lovely drive-in during the pandemic, so good memories for me for New Mutants.

But let's get Sinister with it. I think this makes perfect sense for Henry. Cavill. Okay, yeah, no, I got a question. So, okay, Mr. Sinister, who I think was also teased in Deadpool 2, right. Didn't they have the Essex school in that? Oh, yes, you're right. Yes, they did. Okay, so we do, and that's in continuity now, so that all makes sense. And I love Mr. Sinister, and he's one of the, like, the marquee X-Men villains that we haven't seen. You know, we saw Apocalypse in his big mallet hands before we ever saw Mr. Sinister. And in case you guys don't know at home, Mr. Sinister is an X-Men villain. He is a geneticist who is always manipulating mutant DNAs obsessed with Scott Summers and Gene Gray.

He cloned them and he created cable, a bunch of other stuff. So with Henry Cavill as Mr. Sinister, are you seeing that because just you think Cabell be a good Mr. Sinister? Because you think Mr. Sinister makes sense to be like the big bad of the multiverse saga or something. I think Mr. Sinister ties together so many elements that have already been established in previous movies that haven't been, that it's a way of kind of tying up loose ends. I think, as well.

I mean, Mr. Sinister is basically created in the current form that he is by Apocalypse. He's made, I think Apocalypse uses, like, celestial powers to turn him into, like, basically an immortal, you know, because he's a contemporaries born in, I think the 1700s. He's a contemporary of Charles Darwin, which is where he got his obsession with genetics, as you were saying, I think it just makes sense to have this kind of, like, omnipotent, bad guy who has kind of, like, similar, doesn't believe they're bad. He's another, those are the villains that work the best for Marvel for me, are the Thanos-style villains that are like, no, I am trying to create perfect human beings, perfect humanoids, mutant humanoids. And obviously he's misguided, right? Anyone who's ever tried to make a master of pure race in real history and in cinematic universes is always horribly misguided, right? And that leads to good conflict. So, yeah. And Mr. Sinister created the legacy virus. He led them to, uh, he led them to, uh, he led them to, uh, he led them to, uh, he led them to,

the marauders, into killing a bunch of people in the sewer tunnel, into killing the Morlocks in the sewer tunnels. So there's that, but, like, he's always been more of a ground-level X-Men villain and not, like, even though he has these cosmic powers from apocalypse, he's never been that level. But you raise a good point that he's, like, into genetic manipulation. Maybe his whole deal is going to be, well, if the multiverse is going to restart, let's restart it right.

Right. Right. And if there is an opportunity, because, you know, there's going to be these vacuums, right? there's going to the multiverse is going to create these opportunities for people that mean to control and have power there's going to be so much confusion with all the incursions of people in worlds that they're not familiar with making them vulnerable to attack especially by really intelligent pragmatic science thinking brains like mr sinister i just see this as an opportunity for him to kind of create a like a legion of of like hyper intellectual hyper powerful villains

For the X-Men when they're introduced to battle, I also could see, you know, certainly Wolverine, certainly if we have Wolverine continuing on going on to... Well, I'm going to talk about in just a little bit. That's my guy, but go ahead. For Henry Cavill, the Henry Cavill of it all, it makes sense to me, coming from D.C. where he played basically D.C. Jesus, right? He's Superman. He's truth, justice in the American way. It makes sense for him to kind of break bad and play a supervillain. But even, and especially when the type of intellectual, Henry Cavill is a super nerd. He builds his own computers.

He's super into gaming. He loves fantasy. He loves lore. I feel like he could sink his teeth into a villain like Mr. Sinister that's, you know, kind of has a way with words and an interesting, I mean, I just remember that voice from the animated series. It always creeped me out, crawled under my skin. So I don't know. I just, the idea of that is very appealing to me.

All right, cool. Now, like I said, it would be a step up for him. He's not normally the guy who you would have. If he's going to be the big bad of the multiverse saga, it's not normally a role you'd see him play. But he doesn't have to be the big bad of the multiverse saga. He could just be Henry Cavill versus the X-Men. Brianna, you did have some ideas for some larger-scale cosmic villains, right? Like who do you think Cavill could play?

What are we going to see? Well, I totally agree that he should definitely be a villain. I think it's very important that he is not just another superhero because I think, at least like if you're my generation, if you think of Superman, you are thinking of Henry Cavill. Like, that movie came out when I was 13. So I feel like it's really, I know. Me too. Yeah, Gen Z.

But I think it's really important. He's a villain to differentiate himself from the DCU role he's done. I think it'd be really cool if he was Terax or Galactus, but I think Terax is probably more realistic for this film, especially because Terax worked with Dr. Doom. I really want Dr. Doom. I would love if he was Dr. Doom. I know it was like debunked.

Please give me him as Dr. Doom. think it would be so awesome. It'd be such a shift. Well, it wasn't to thunk. The same leaker who said he was cast in the MCU just also said he wasn't Dr. Doom. So continue on. If that's your dream, let's go for it. I hope. I think he'd be an awesome Dr. Doom. I think we were like really used to seeing him too as it's like, well, A, Dr. Doom is pretty buff, like looking at the comics. He's a big guy. But I know some people have wanted him to go into kind of like a smaller, a little more like creepy role. And I feel like people like forget like, Henry Cavill was not always that big. He can do kind of a smaller role. And I think he's also a really good actor. I really love the Tudors.

And I think he's really underestimated. That's a great call. Yes. It would just be awesome. And it would be kind of like, I feel like the DCU let him go very unceremoniously. And like I feel like it's kind of like, okay, well, if you don't want me to be like your big superhero, I'll go be Marvel's big villain. Like that's awesome.

That's iconic. I agree. And I agree he would be a great villain. I mean, we saw him play a batty in Mission Impossible. And then just in Batman v. Superman and in the Snyder cut, we did get to see him turn dark as dark Superman. And it is pretty horrifying to think of people like yourself who grew up with him as Superman. For my generation, it was when Superman turned evil in Superman 3.

There's something just that's nightmarish about seeing somebody who you imagine is the emblem of good becoming very evil. So I also would like to see him play a villain. You mentioned Terax, and just in case people don't know. So Galactus, it's rumored, it'll be in the Fantastic Four. They're going after Harvey or Bardem. Might happen, might not, but that would be awesome. Galactus has a herald named the Silver Surfer, who was his first herald. But in the comics, he's had, I don't know, like seven or eight by now.

And inevitably, they all end up leaving in it. Poor Galactus. Yeah, and they end up becoming usually villains, sometimes heroes. And Terax was, that's who he is, right? He was one of the villains. Terax was a herald, who then became a villain. But he also, when he came to Earth, he ended up working with Dr. Doom for a while because he fell in Latvira I believe and when he ended up working for

Doctor Doom he ended up going against a fantastic four of course and at the very end he didn't like being sort of chained to another master so he ends up actually him and the Silver Surfer I believe like straight up just kind of fall like crush him like crush him and get away and I think that would be a really cool direction to I mean I still would love Dr. Doom but I think if they're going to not do him as Doctor Doom. They're going to do a different Doctor Doom. That could be really cool. Or if he's not just Galactus. I honestly think he'd also be a very good Galactus. What do you guys think about him playing something a little more street level? Like I said, I'm going to talk about why he should

be Wolverine a little bit later. But there's, you know, we're looking at Marvel street level stuff now. We've got Punisher, Daredevil, hopefully the next Spider-Man movie is a little more street level. Maybe he could play somebody in that range, like maybe a Spider-Man villain like Hobgoblin or just any of the other myriad of like Marvel heroes who exist like purely on the street guys i can see him having a lot of fun with that too absolutely i mean there's the you know kind of the the spider-man gallery of villains has been so far a little all over the place right so i think like the ones that have worked for me have been definitely mysterious uh and uh you know some of the classics they brought back from no way home but i mean he could also play i know this

is like a uh maybe perhaps sacrilege he could play a great great Dr. Otto Octavius if they wanted to make one for the Tom Holland time. I think they should. If it's not him, it should be somebody. That's one thing like we did a video a while back where we criticize No Way Home. And the big criticism is, well, now we don't get to see Dr. Octopus in the MCU because we're doing member berries instead. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I would love that. I think he would be fabulous as Otto Octavius. I think I think he's not quite evil sounding and looking enough to be to be Norman Osborne. I think he's got

a little more of the altruism that Otto Octavius has when he's not being controlled by his tentacles. You know who I would really like to see him play in the Spider-Man villain realm? Craven. Because Craven, you know, in the Ultimates of comics, was a reality star.

He's supposed to be this good-looking, dashing, worldly guy. Not to mention he already looks like him. Like with Octavius, he's a guy who, like, he's a frumpy middle-aged man. I think that's a big part of his character. He is like the antithesis of Spider-Man. that way. Rihanna, what about you? Are there any other outlier characters you think it'd be really fun to see reinvented with him or just for the first time him portray? I mean, I think he'd be an

awesome Madam Webb because clearly they need another. Obviously, yeah. Well, no, I'm sorry, Dakota Johnson's filled that role right now. Yeah. Dakota Johnson, her press is so funny. She's not going back for a second role. It's clear that she thought she was probably being signed on for the MCU and then fired her management when she realized that she wasn't sorry I cut you off no that's it's so that whole that whole thing is so funny no um I think personally I think I'd rather see him as a more cosmic villain or like a cosmic entity mainly because I think it would be more I think like I always consider it sort of in in context of all the other roles he's done and he was he was like DC's like

main guy. So I would rather see him be like a big, bad cosmic villain, I think, rather than a street level. Unless, and this is unless he was going to be like a street level baddy kind of like the level of like Kingpin, which is because I don't think it's going to happen because there's already king. Well, yeah, and there are no others

at that level. So back to Cosmic. Let's look. We've thrown out some fun things like Terrak, stuff like that. There are villains though in Marvel. There are stories left in Marvel that have been left unfinished. We had the Eternals post-credit scene. Harry Stiles is signed on for like two or three more Marvel movies. God knows when we'll see Star Fox. We've also got the Nova Corps

has been teased and Nova is a hero. We've heard rumors for years about that. So if he is, stays a villain, I couldn't see him being like a nihilus because anilus, you don't cover up Henry Cavill's face. You don't pay Henry Cavill to look like a big bug guy. Maybe Paul Giamati is a nihilus. Who do you guys think? I mean, Brianna, who in the cosmic realm, like if we're going to go past Terax and look at the stories that Marvel might actually finish. What do you think it would be fun to see him tackle? Because I think the guy can do anything. I think he's fantastic.

I mean, I think he'd obviously be a very good Hyperion. Like that is sort of like the Marvel Superman. We know he can do Superman really well. I don't think it'd be the most interesting thing to do with him because we have seen him do that role. But do I think he'd be great at it? Yes. And you also do have the Sinisher Squadron.

And that could be really cool because at least we would still see him as a villain. And then you can bring in, I think Makari is the one who reveals that he's actually an eternal. And then you can finally bring in Harry Styles. You can get all the teen girls, they'll go. Harry Styles has a good way to follow up each other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So Hyperian is a hero. He was, oh, God, I'm not going to try to explain Hyperion's entire origin right now. Basically, he is like a version of the Marvel's Superman that they invented to show how Superman could really be done in a great series called The Squadron Supreme. And he put around before that. But that's a really fun pick. I like that a lot. Tommy, what do you think? Any other, like, grand, muscular, cosmic guys?

We'd like to see Carville take on. Well, it's not necessarily cosmic. But I'm thinking of the animated Avengers series from the 2010s. And for some reason in that series, there was a hyper fixation on Dracula. They, like, they were, Dracula was like their frenemies.

Oh, that'd be so much fun, yeah. And if they made Henry Cavill Dracula. Because Dracula kept, he kept going back and forward. Yeah, Henry Cavill and Blade. Right. Get Henry Cavill and Blade. I kept going back and forth between wanting to drink the Hulk's blood and become like a Dracula Hulk versus like we've got to stop Dr. Doom and we've got to stop what they had as Kang and that series.

That cartoon is so much more all-encompassing than I remember. I went back and re-watched some seasons of it recently. It's pretty fun. My only complaint is some of the voice actors are because it's, or not complaint. The hard thing is the Avengers don't sound like the live action Avengers. So it's like it's an adjustment. because it was around the same time period, but it's still a lot of fun. I do highly recommend if you're a fan of animation, it's a fun animated series, and it's a ton of episodes. This video brought to you by the 2010s of the series. Yeah, and it's only fan, me.

If you told me there were vampires in it, I would have watched it years ago. I didn't know Dracula was in it. Dracula is a recurring cast is in every season, I think. Oh, I love that. That would be awesome. Cable is Dracula in a blade movie or any of that horror stuff. Like if we're thinking, okay, it's Henry Cavill. He's probably not going to want to play Hyperion or characters like what he's already done.

He might go for mocap. He might say, I'll do it, but only if I can be Ultron, that kind of thing. Or Mojo. Or Mojo. Oh, my God, that'd be so funny. To get, like, the most cut guy in Hollywood. To play the most disgusting man. To play Jabba the Hut, right.

But what if he goes in that realm? If he says, no, I want to go like really dark. I want to be Dracula. I want to be Blackheart. I want to be, maybe if it's a guy. it's in the hero realm, he'd be, I mean, the guy'd be great at anything, but Ghost Rider, that'd be really fun to see him tackle that. Like, if they're going to do the Midnight Sons, and if you need a marquee star alongside, I almost said Pedro Pascal, and then I'm going to say

Oscar Isaac, then I'm trying to think of Oscar Isaac, then I think you could do a lot worse. But still, I think the biggest coup for them would be if Henry Cavill was cast as Wolverine. Thanks, Tommy and Brianna. That was great. You can find all their social links below. So now I want to tell you why I think that Henry Cavill should be the MCU Wolverine. Now, we know that Hugh Jackman is returning as Wolverine in the movie Deadpool and Wolverine. But there have been reports that this is actually a younger version of the older Logan that died in the movie Logan. So that would mean that his version of Wolverine could not be the grizzled old man living in a world without superheroes that we saw in that film. But even if that's not true, Hugh Jackman is 55 years old.

For some perspective, Wilford Brindley was only 50 when he made the movie cocoon. Marvel needs a new Wolverine, a younger Wolverine. Now, I have seen some great fan castings of Daniel Radcliffe or Jeremy Allen White, which are fun because, you know, they're both shorter like Wolverine is in the comics. But imagine they got Henry Cavill. DC's flagship actor becomes the flagship actor of the MCU. That would be a huge get. But Marvel already has a Wolverine.

Impossible to have two. Okay, hear me out. In the Deadpool trailer, we see Wade fighting in the void from Loki surrounded by objects that have been pruned from other universes, including a 20th century Fox statue. Now, this is a meta-joke about how Disney bought Fox and are proving. the Fox X-Men universe. As we've said for a while now,

it looks like the Multiverse saga is building toward a clash between universes, the Fox X-Men universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the comics, long story short, Dr. Doom takes remnants from all these different universes and create battle world, a patchwork planet filled with different variants from different universes. So instead of having one Thor, you have the Thor core, a God Corps who are the police who enforce Doom's will.

And there's also another segment of that planet that is controlled by villains that feature Old Man Logan, an older version of Wolverine, like the version that Hugh Jackman played in the movie Logan. But this is not the only version of Wolverine that's on Battleworld. There are also younger versions of him as well. So Secret Wars can feature like segments of different realities featuring Andrew and Toby Spider-Man, the Fox X-Men characters, Nick Cage Ghost Rider, Ben Affleck, Daredevil, while also introducing new versions of these same characters.

Following Secret Wars, the multiverse will likely be restored, but, you know, a bit different. Like this is something they do in comics all the time. After the giant DC crossover crisis on infinite Earths, the DC multiverse was condensed into a single planet that combined aspects of all these different universes, until DC undid this when Superboy punched a wall. Long story. Anyways, Marvel will likely reboot their universe after Secret Wars. And I think they're going to keep aspects of the Fox X-Men and aspects of the MCU that they like while tossing away elements that they want to ignore. You're weak. I hate it.

Or like Madam Webb. Don't, Madam Webb is fine. I don't care. So, Marvel could introduce. Covell as the proper MCU Universe Wolverine, the one that's actually from that timeline, the one that was actually teased in the Shehawk headline, Man with Clause and Bar Fight. And then, post-secret War's, he will become the Wolverine. I actually think he's the only actor who could fill Hugh Jackman's giant shoes.

What do you guys think? What MCU character do you want to see Henry Cavill play? Again, big shout out to Tommy Bechtel and Brianna McClarty. Their socials are below. Let us know what you think in the comments or at me on Twitter. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe and smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie. I'm going to be.