Things are not progressing smoothly for Avengers 5, as a new report suggests that yet another writer has exited the project.
Losing a key creative member of your team can happen to any film production and for all sorts of reasons. However, losing a string of creative personnel in the fashion that Marvel Studios currently has with Avengers 5 (formerly Avengers: The Kang Dynasty until it lost its title too) and you begin to wonder just what’s going on.
To recap: The original version of the film was set to be directed by Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings’ Destin Daniel-Cretton, with a script by Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania’s Jeff Loveness and star Jonathan Majors as Kang, the main villain. For one reason or another, all of those creatives have now departed, which in itself is not unusual: Marvel is significantly overhauling Avengers 5 with a new story and a new title so it’s not unreasonable to expect some wholesale changes.
The shift from the norm seems to be with the apparent struggles the studio is having replacing those departed personnel.
We covered a story doing the rounds a few weeks ago that claimed Deadpool & Wolverine's Shawn Levy might be drafted in to direct Avengers 5, but that’s yet to be confirmed. A report was floating around which claimed the filmmaker had declined the studio’s overtures anyway.
What we do know for sure is that it’s been almost nine months since Cretton’s departure was made public and as far as we know, Marvel still doesn’t have a director in place.
And now, according to World Of Reel, the project has lost another writer. Following Loveness’ departure (when it was decided to move away from a Kang-centric plot), Michael Waldron was brought in to pen the new version of Avengers 5.
According to the outlet, Waldron has now left, and that’s notable for a couple of reasons. The Loki scribe is one of MCU boss Kevin Feige’s most trusted writers. Waldron is (as far as we know) still in place to write the sixth Avengers film, Secret Wars. He was also the writer that Kevin Feige turned to when the latter had a crack at developing a Star Wars film back in 2021. Waldron has been on Avengers 5 since last November but now it looks like Marvel may well be looking for somebody else if this report is accurate.
The already-delayed project is set to start a six month shoot in March, and we’d imagine that there’s plenty of pre-production work to be done ahead of that date. Right now, though, getting a new writer and getting a script that Kevin Feige is happy with is a pressing concern. More on this one as we hear it.
