WIRE Buzz: Black Widow delay won't impact Phase 4; Helstrom wraps S1; more

When news broke that Black Widow, the upcoming Marvel film giving Scarlett Johnansonn’s super-spy her very own solo film, was delayed due to the coronavirus, it was a blow to genre fans. Another blockbuster bumped is no fun, but for those devoted to the MCU, there were even higher stakes. The Marvel movies are all linked; all meticulously planned and scheduled. If one domino falls, how will the rest of Phase 4 react? Reportedly, it won’t.

According to Variety, delaying Black Widow is the one film in the upcoming MCU slate that won’t actually be that impactful. It “affects nothing on the MCU timeline,” which could either be taken as not affecting the goings-on of the future films (since it’s a flashback to an earlier, pre-Endgame time in Black Widow’s life) or that Marvel is confident it’ll still be released before any of its other films drop.

Either situation works out for MCU fans, since the line of progression will still be intact and nothing will have gotten screwed up in the mighty march towards whatever next giant crossover event the powers that be have in store for those looking for superhero fun.

Black Widow was scheduled to debut on May 1, but now has no release date. It has until Nov. 6, when The Eternals drops, to still fit in the slot as the latest Marvel movie.

As many releases and productions are delayed, it’s heartening to see one actually complete before needing to shut down for health reasons. That’s what happened with an upcoming Hulu addition to the Marvel family: Helstrom.

Helstrom star Tom Austen confirmed that principal production on the live-action, horror-esque Marvel series (one of only two of those not appearing on Disney+) has completed. The actor plays Daimon Helstrom in the show, protecting the world from demons as someone whose background is perhaps a bit closer to evil than one would prefer, so it makes sense that his Instagram post confirming the news was a classic comic panel.

Take a look:

“And the Son of Satan stalks the Earth once more!!” the OG Helstrom shouts in the panel. The flesh-and-blood version of the character simply wrote, “Season One. Done. Blood, sweat, tears, and more blood.” Helstrom sees Austen join a cast including Sydney Lemmon, Elizabeth Marvel, Robert Wisdom, June Carryl, Ariana Guerra, and Alain Uy.

Helstrom doesn’t yet have a release date on Hulu, but if Austen is to be believed, fans will get the live-action Marvel show “very soon.”

Finally, first images from the set of the Bruce Willis sci-fi film Cosmic Sin have emerged from a source that’s almost science-fictional itself in its strangeness. Posting a vlog on her personal YouTube channel, CJ Perry (who wrestles with the WWE under the mononym Lana), showed off plenty of behind-the-scenes features of the film, including costumes, sets, and character descriptions.

Take a look:

Perry is seen wearing brightly colored, Halo Spartan-like space marine armor alongside Willis, and describes her character Sol as “the baddest assassin in the galaxy."

"I am fighting for humankind. I am the best warrior, the best sniper, the best assassin, and I'm fighting for humans to survive in the galaxy against aliens," she said. She claims that her role (“like Han Solo meets Princess Leia”) was originally written for a man, but that it was changed for her. The Star Wars references don’t seem to be apropos of nothing — one of the sets she shows off looks a lot like a cantina from a galaxy far, far away.

Cosmic Sin is about a team of scientists and warriors looking to drive back aliens and their infectious powers. Co-writers and directors Corey Large and Edward Drake (the Willis film Breach) have not yet set a release date for their film.