‘Armor Wars’: Marvel Disney Plus Series Being Redeveloped as a Feature Film
Marvel’s Armor Wars project is no longer going to be a television series, but it will instead become a feature film. The film will star Don Cheadle, who portrays Iron Man supporting character James Rhodes, better known as War Machine.
Shortly after the recent Marvel bombshells that Hugh Jackman would reprise his role as Wolverine for Deadpool 3 and that Blade would get additional time for pre-production as the film searches for a new director, comes the news that Armor Wars, which was intended to be an event series for Disney Plus, will be reconfigured to be a theatrical event film instead of a television series. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Marvel realized the story was better suited to be told as a big-screen event, with people gearing up for pre-production being informed of the change in plans earlier today. Essentially, it appears that the new project will likely serve as a spiritual successor to the Iron Man film trilogy that ran from 2008 to 2013.
The news comes as a shock to fans, as only a few weeks ago at Disney D23, it was said that the project remained a series. Now, things have changed, yet they are the same in one aspect: Yassir Lester, who was originally writing the project as a six-episode show, is still attached as the writer for the project as the show scripts are being converted into a theatrical film. The project was originally set to begin filming next year, but now it is not clear when cameras will start rolling. Release dates were not announced for neither the show nor the movie, but it appears likely that the movie will arrive later than originally planned, based on the current production schedule. No directors were attached to the series, and now the film does not have a director either.
The movie will take its basic premise from a memorable Iron Man story arc of the same name. In that story, armor schematics created by Tony Stark have fallen into the wrong hands, with a number of supervillains seizing that technology for themselves. While the comic told a narrative tied to Iron Man, the character is dead in the Marvel Cinematic Universe following a climactic battle against Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, leaving the role of the protagonist in the hands of Don Cheadle’s War Machine. It is likely that a number of tech-focused superheroes and supervillains will make appearances in the film, with Dominique Thorne’s Riri Williams, AKA Ironheart (who will debut in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever before getting an Ironheart Disney Plus series), likely being part of the ensemble.
Armor Wars is in development at Marvel Studios.
Grant Davis is a freelance writer who has covered entertainment news for more than seven years. His articles have frequently appeared in Star Wars News Net as well as as other entertainment-related websites. As someone who grew up on Star Wars and comic book movies, he’s completely thrilled with the current era of genre entertainment.
