‘They assembling the Avengers’: After Tom Holland and Zendaya, another MCU veteran joins Christopher Nolan’s top-secret feature

Christopher Nolan sets his films up for the Oscars stage right when he begins casting. But how is he getting EVERYONE on board? And can he please sign Chris Evans too?

After proving that Oppenheimer was a masterclass in star power by casting Robert Downey Jr., Nolan decided to double down on his MCU connections for his next top-secret project. Enters Tom Holland aka MCU’s current Spider-Man and the Ultimate Rizz Master, along with his lady love Zendaya. Because who wouldn’t want to rope in extra audiences with Hollywood’s hottest couple on screen together? And we heard Holland might be circling a lead role to boot (via Deadline).

But just when we thought this casting couldn’t get any juicier, Nolan has now signed the Academy Award-winning actress and fellow MCU veteran, Lupita Nyong’o, into this top-secret cinematic gem (via The Hollywood Reporter). The actress, who most recently acted in the alien invasion thriller A Quiet Place: Day One this past summer, has previously portrayed T’Challa’s ex-lover and Wakanda’s undercover spy Nakia in 2018’s Black Panther and its 2022 sequel, Wakanda Forever.

With the film’s MCU star count going up to three with her casting, one X user joked “They assembling the Avengers for that.” But hey, Nolan’s picking the best of the lot. Nyong’o’s screen presence is such that she bagged the Academy Award for her very first feature film role as Patsey in Steve McQueen’s biopic 12 Years a Slave (2013). She was also named one of Africa’s 50 Most Powerful Women by Forbes in 2020 and has recently started her podcast, Mind Your Own, which navigates what it means to belong, told from the African perspective.

This brings us back to when we all thought “there’s no way Nolan can ever top this cast,” after he had brought together Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Rami Malek, Emily Blunt, and Florence Pugh for Oppenheimer. But look at him, never failing to prove us wrong for the good. Because just as soon as the Oppenheimer fire died down, Nolan is standing ready with a new script in hand, and an A-list cast that makes The Avengers look like a community theater production.

Nolan also previously roped in Anne Hathaway to add some more female star power to the film (via Deadline), making this her third collaboration with Nolan after 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises and 2014’s Interstellar. And one name that cannot be missing from Nolan’s cast—Matt Damon—also has his role confirmed, presumably in a lead capacity this time (via Deadline). Like Hathaway, this is also Damon’s third time working with Nolan after 2014’s Interstellar and 2023’s Oppenheimer.

Now having all that talent in one room, Nolan still hasn’t had a slip of a tongue of what the film would be about. All we know is that shooting is expected to begin in early 2025 and the film will have an Imax release on July 17, 2026. Some say the film will be Interstellar 2, but we’re not fueling the fire yet without confirmations from Universal or Nolan.