No, Marvel Studios’ “The Marvels” didn’t have the best opening weekend at the box office. Why is that? Well, that’s something a bunch of people have been trying to analyze over the past several days. Suffice it to say, something didn’t click with the average moviegoer. That said, if you did check out “The Marvels” on opening weekend, you were gifted some seriously fun cameos that might be the best ones we’ve seen in the MCU in a while and could lead to some really great stories in the future.
READ MORE: ‘The Marvels’ Box Office Flops At $47 Million, Marvel’s Lowest Grossing Opening Film Ever
In a recent interview with EW, “The Marvels” executive producer Mary Livanos broke down the various cameos that shocked audiences during screenings of the MCU film.
Needless to say…
**Spoiler warning for ‘The Marvels.’ You’ve been warned.**
“The Marvels” tells the story of three characters, Captain Marvel (aka Carol Danvers), Monica Rambeau, and Ms. Marvel (aka Kamala Khan) being brought together through comic book-y reasons to take on another big bad villain. At the end of the film, things are resolved with Monica Rambeau, played wonderfully by Teyonah Parris, is trapped in an alternate universe. And one of the final moments (before credits) finds Ms. Marvel, played by scene-stealer Iman Vellani, beginning the work of bringing together all of the younger heroes to form their own special team.
And it’s that last bit that leads to one of the first big cameos, as we’re re-introduced to Kate Bishop, played by Hailee Steinfeld, as she is the first recruit.
“It was total fan wish fulfillment. I really wanted to start to bring the younger heroes of this universe together,” explained Livanos about Steinfeld’s cameo. “As we were trying to figure out what the tags could be or what threads we could leave at the end of this film, we remembered that amidst all the action in the Khans’ living room, Monica probably left her tablet there, where she’s tracking all these different heroes. She has information about Kamala, and we wondered who else she might have information on. And in Monica’s absence, Kamala really is the perfect person to bring folks together. She brings the Marvels together, and we’re excited to see how she may bring other heroes together moving forward.”
Clearly, Marvel Studios is exploring the idea of linking together all of the young characters that have been introduced over the years into their own project of some kind. Will it be a “Young Avengers” film or TV show? We’ll just have to wait and see.
But the most jaw-dropping cameo came in the mid-credits scene, where we catch up with Rambeau in the alternate universe. There, she runs into a variant version of her mother, played by Lashana Lynch, as well as the MCU’s first look at the X-Men character, Beast, played by Kelsey Grammar. Outside of Professor X’s inclusion in “Doctor Stranger in the Multiverse of Madness,” it’s one of the rare glimpses at an X-Men character in this franchise.
“The notion that Monica ends up in an alternate universe with the hope that it could tie in with the X-Men was something I always had on my to-do list,” the producer said. “I love how in the comics, Carol Danvers as Binary spends some time with the X-Men in space, and I love the idea that in an alternate universe, it was Maria who beat Carol Danvers to the hangar back during the events of Captain Marvel, so she won and got those powers. That was something that was always really intriguing.”
She added, “But I’m so delighted that Kevin [Feige] and folks were stoked about the idea of Binary and the fact that she does fit into the X-Men universe. As a fan, I was just absolutely floored and delighted that we got to get Beast in there and have a big old X, right behind Binary. It was bananas.”
We’ll get a ton more X-character cameos in the upcoming “Deadpool 3,” which is arriving next July. But for now, people are really excited at any peek into Marvel Studios’ plans with the character, even if it is in an alternate universe.
If you want to see these cameos, you can still do so in “The Marvels,” which is in theaters now.