After three weeks in theaters, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” has made $363 million domestically, over $600 million worldwide, and it looks like it’s going to be Marvel’s second biggest hit of the year following “Doctor Strange & The Multiverse Of Madness.” The film is full of action, grief, and emotion and, of course, is highlighted by a classic Marvel character that fans have wanted to see onscreen for decades: Namor, The Submariner (played by Tenoch Huerta).
The success of this character and Huerta in the film has fans asking when we will see Namor again and if the character ever gets a solo movie. For years, Universal owned the rights to the character, and when Marvel was able to include him in ‘Wakanda Forever,’ many fans assumed rights had exchanged hands and Marvel was free to do whatever they wanted. However, an interview with a Marvel studio executive reveals that isn’t the case.
Nate Moore, the Marvel executive overseeing the “Black Panther” franchise, has confirmed to The Wrap that Universal still owns Namor. Therefore Disney is still unable to produce a standalone movie about the character. Moore suggested that Namor was more or less “borrowed” for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” but he eventually teased his return to the MCU.
“He can return,” Moore said to The Wrap while disclosing they can’t make a standalone film.
Without Moore directly naming the studio, the producer alluded to the longstanding rights issues with Universal Pictures. This would mean Marvel is only able to use Namor in the future, similar to how they use the Hulk, which is still also owned by Universal Pictures. Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk/Bruce Banner has appeared in projects like the “Avengers” movies, “Thor: Ragnarok” and the Disney+ show, “She-Hulk,” but that character works under the same rules: he can’t have his own solo film unless Universal distributed it.
The upside is, creatively, the terms of the deal; it doesn’t affect Namor much, like the way Marvel substituted Talokan for Atlantis in his origin story.
“It honestly affects us more, and not to talk too much out of school, but in how we market the film than it does how we use him in the film,” Moore said. “There weren’t really things we couldn’t do from a character perspective for him, which is good because clearly, we took a ton of inspiration from the source material, but we also made some big changes to really anchor him in that world in a truth that publishing never really landed on, I would argue, in a big way.”
For years Universal has held the film rights to Namor and once attempted their own movie in the 2000s titled “The Sub-Mariner” that once had folks like Chris Columbus (“Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone”) and Jonathan Mostow (“Terminator 3: Rise of The Machines”) attached to direct with Jason Statham (a former competitive diver) being eyed for the titular role. Since then, the superhero character has been collecting dust until Marvel called for “Wakanda Forever.”
Still, it’s unclear where or when Marvel plans to use Namor again. There are plenty of options though, such as Matt Shakman’s “Fantastic Four” reboot, given there is a long history between Namor and Sue Storm (a potential love triangle?). Namor is also a self-proclaimed mutant, and that connective tissue would also allow him to get involved with the “X-Men” movies. Plus, it is hard to imagine that “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” and “Avengers: Secret Wars” would attempt to leave him out, given his multiple previous partnerships with Avengers members in the comic books. We’ll have to wait and see where he appears next.
