The Marvel Cinematic Universe is pulling out all of the stops when it comes to the franchise’s roster of episodic Disney Plus exclusives, and as well as handing them blockbuster-sized budgets that run anywhere up to $25 million per episode, Kevin Feige and his team are sparing no expense in regards to hiring onscreen talent.
We might be getting Tatiana Maslany as She-Hulk, Oscar Isaac as Moon Knight and a whole host of big name stars filling out the various supporting roles across the streaming lineup, but Secret Invasion is shaping up to boast a stacked cast comparable to any of the MCU’s feature films. The intergalactic six-episode miniseries may be designed as a showcase for Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, but the rest of the big players are nothing to be sniffed at.
Ben Mendelsohn takes second billing as Captain Marvel‘s Talos, and One Night in Miami‘s Kingsley Ben-Adir joined the cast not too long ago. However, in the last few days alone, both Academy Award winner Olivia Colman and former Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke have boarded the ensemble, with tipster Mikey Sutton now claiming that the latter might be sticking around the MCU for a while, as the studio wants her to be a regular “on their S.W.O.R.D. TV series.”
Of course, Marvel rarely casts recognizable talents around the same age as the 34 year-old Clarke without having big plans in store for them, with Sutton hinting that she could be playing S.W.O.R.D.’s Abigail Brand, a character who we heard from our own sources a long time ago would be introduced as the long-term replacement for Jackson’s cycloptic head of S.H.I.E.L.D. Everything remains shrouded in mystery for now, but Secret Invasion is poised to start filming before the end of 2021, so we should be getting more details quite soon.