Latest Marvel News: ‘The Marvels’ claws its way to an unwanted MCU accolade as it holds the fate of Marvel’s most acclaimed Disney Plus series in its hands

Well, that was a crazy 24 hours for The Marvels news cycle. For a hot minute there, it looked like it was going to be crowned the joint-cheapest MCU movie ever made, but further intel is actually pointing to it being pretty much the exact opposite. Meanwhile, it’s not just the fate of Phase Five and the Captain Marvel franchise that’s riding on this Brie Larson sequel either, as it turns out its success will entail whether a certain Marvel streaming series will get to return for another season or not.

False alarm: The Marvels isn’t one of the cheapest Marvel movies ever… It’s one of the most expensive

In an interview with director Nia DaCosta, Vanity Fair made the shocking assertion that The Marvels had a budget of a mere $130 million, which is minuscule for a major MCU release. A bit of digging found that VF had potentially got its wires crossed with a report from Forbes stating the film cost that much after just two months in production. Sure enough, Forbes has now updated its findings to reveal that The Marvels isn’t one of the cheapest MCU flicks, but one of the absolute most expensive of the lot, with a total budget of $274.8 million. And yet we’re still looking at it being one of the shortest Marvel films in terms of runtime. Make it make sense.

Ms. Marvel season two all depends on the success of The Marvels, say directors

With such a hefty budget, as it turns out, against a surprisingly slim runtime, there’s certainly a lot riding on The Marvels. And it seems the fate of a whole other MCU property is also resting in its hands. In a recent interview with The Playlist, directors Adil el Arbi and Bilall Fallah admitted that they won’t be told if Ms. Marvel is getting a second season until after The Marvels comes out. Presumably, if the film is a hit and folks clearly want more of these characters, it’ll get the greenlight. But if it fails to make the same kind of splash as Captain Marvel, it may just mean the end of Kamala Khan’s own series. Apparently, even earning 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the most well-reviewed entry in the MCU’s Multiverse Saga to date, isn’t even enough to earn an instant renewal.

Marvel and Disney Plus are still staying silent on the Secret Invasion twist that drove a whole through MCU canon

Speaking of Disney Plus, the Mouse House’s streaming platform finally released behind-the-scenes special The Making of Secret Invasion this Sep. 20, which is well worth watching for anyone wanting some insight into how Marvel created such a, let’s be kind and say, ambitious six-part series. Sadly, the documentary totally avoids shedding any kind of light on the big mystery of how the heck Rhodey could’ve been a Skrull since Captain America: Civil War. So we may wish to take this as a big hint that Marvel’s going to dig into this in a serious way in Don Cheadle’s Armor Wars movie — which is still happening, don’t forget.

Kevin Feige is the real brains behind The Marvels, but it doesn’t take a genius to know more of the latest Marvel news is coming any second, so don’t go anywhere.