Charlize Theron inadvertently sums up Marvel’s irritating habit of recruiting big stars for pointless cameos

While Kevin Feige takes a lot of credit – and deservedly so – from turning an upstart movies studio into the biggest game in town bar none, the disappointing reception to the Multiverse Saga so far has led many to question the company’s omnipotent chief creative officer and his long-term strategy.

There have of course been several success stories to emerge since Avengers: Endgame drew a line under the Infinity Saga, but it would also be fair to suggest that fans of the superhero franchise don’t often tend to focus on the positives when the negatives are staring them straight in the face.

Should the MCU carry on for as long as Feige likes, then virtually every A-list superstar in Hollywood is going to make an appearance at one stage or another, with Academy Award winner Charlize Theron one of the most recent after debuting as Clea during the mid-credits of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

You’d have thought recruiting a major name for a blatant tease of things to come would at least have some sort of plan in mind for what comes next, but when asked about what’s happening with Clea by Josh Horowitz at the recent premiere of Fast X, the proven action icon could only say “I haven’t gotten a call. Is that bad?”

The obvious assumption is that Clea and the good doctor will be teaming up to infiltrate the Dark Dimension, but seeing as Doctor Strange 3 has yet to be officially announced, it was a tease for the sake of a tease that doesn’t have a concrete foundation, a sentiment that can also be applied to Brett Goldstein’s one-shot introduction as Hercules at the end of Thor: Love and Thunder.