Marvel is notoriously tight-lipped about its new projects — but an eagle-eyed fan on Reddit has spotted a promising update about MCU Phase 4 Disney Plus series Armor Wars: which puts Tony Stark’s right-hand man James Rhodes/War Machine at the centre at long last.
The TV series will see Don Cheadle reprise his role as Rhodes, and while plot details of the show are slim, there’s a good chance that the MCU series will be taking inspiration from the Marvel comic of the same name. In the Armor Wars comic, Rhodes and Stark must grapple with the implications of Stark’s technology falling into the wrong hands.
With Stark will most likely being absent from the series given his death in Endgame, Cheadle has previously said in an interview with ACE Universe that the series gives him scope to delve into Rhodes’ character more. “I think we don’t really have a super-strong idea of who he is really outside of that, sort of, bubble of the Avengers,” he said. “Out of necessarily his friendship with Tony. And now he’s going to kind of be untethered from all of that.”
He added, “So it’s an opportunity to really discover who he is in a way that we have not had before; with concentrated time and focus on Rhodey and Rhodey’s journey, and with, hopefully, some stuff about his past. And teeing up some things about his potential future.”
Fans have been kept in the dark about progress on Armor Wars, but on June 28, a user on the MarvelStudiosSpoilers subreddit pointed out that Jenna Berger, a producer of the series along with Ms Marvel, has apparently revealed an autumn 2022 filming date for Armor Wars. The titbit is part of her bio for April’s University of Pennsylvania’s Idea To Film conference.
“Jenna Berger is an executive at Marvel Studios on the production and development team where she’s been for the last three years,” the bio reads. “She most recently produced the upcoming Disney Plus series Ms. Marvel and is now in development on a new series starring Don Cheadle, which will film in Atlanta this fall.”
With filming reportedly kicking off this autumn, it looks like we can expect Armor Wars sometime in 2023.