Oscar winner Ben Kingsley will once again play the man who would be king, hack actor Trevor Slattery, in Marvel Studios’ upcoming Wonder Man series.
Variety was first to break the news, about which Marvel is staying mum.
Kingsley first played Slattery in 2013’s Iron Man 3: a washed-up, drugged-out actor who was tasked with portraying a fearsome terrorist known as The Mandarin. In 2014’s Marvel One-Shot short All Hail The King, fans catch up with Slattery behind bars, enjoying his celebrity status as a onetime supervillain — until he’s sprung from prison to be punished by the actual Mandarin.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe catches back up with Trevor in 2021’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, where as it turns out he was spared execution and acts instead as something of a court jester for the fearsome group known as the Ten Rings.
The Wonder Man project reunites Kingsley with Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed Shang-Chi.
While the Disney+ series won’t necessarily follow the character’s comic origins exactly, Wonder Man was the alter ego of weapons manufacturer Simon Williams. Williams blames fellow iron monger Tony Stark for his father’s company going under and eventually gets superpowers from Baron Helmut Zemo, the baddie played by Daniel Brühl in the MCU.
Incidentally, ABC Audio recently spoke with Marvel Studios producer Brad Winderbaum, who cut his teeth on the One-Shots. A flashback to Kingsley in Caged Heat, Trevor’s failed 1980s TV pilot in All Hail the King, was a high point.
“That Caged Heat video, that trailer for Trevor Slattery’s television show is one of my favorite things we’ve ever put on screen,” Winderbaum laughed.
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