Namor can’t have a solo film, even if Tenoch Huerta and Marvel would like it

Early Thanksgiving estimates indicate that “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” will manage to stay at No. 1 at the North American box office. The latest film in Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a success. Ryan Coogler’s film also receives acclaim from audiences (94% of the more than 10,000 user reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are positive). And if anyone is getting a great number of accolades, it’s Namor.

The leader of Talocan is already one of the most popular antagonists of the MCU (Coogler was already perfectly right in this regard with Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger). Being also a fairly important character in the cartoons, many will wonder how long we will have to wait to see a solo film of Tenoch Huerta’s character. Unfortunately the answer is many, at the moment never. And not because the actor or producer doesn’t want to. It’s because they can’t.

Namor is one of those characters hit by the rights sale that Marvel made in the 90s to escape bankruptcy. While the X-Men and Fantastic 4 ended up at Fox and Spider-Man at Sony, Hulk and Namor went to Universal Pictures. Marvel has already recovered the characters that Fox had with the purchase of the studio by Disney, and the House of Ideas has reached an agreement with Sony to be able to use Peter Parker in its Cinematic Universe, but the rights to the characters are tied to the wall -crawlers (like Venom) are still from Sony. The agreement they have reached with Universal is that they can use Hulk or Namor in films or series in which they are not the protagonists., like ‘She-Hulk: Lawyer She-Hulk’ or ‘Wakanda Forever’, but never solo projects. They can’t even make posters or merchandise that only represent them, unless they’re part of a line associated with one of those movies or series in which they’re not the stars. Universal made a Namor movie in the early 2000s, but the project was left in borage (heh, heh) water.

Nate Moore, producer of the ‘Black Panther’ sequel, confirms to The Wrap that their hands are tied when it comes to a solo film, and talks about the problems this situation has caused them, explaining that changes in their history, such as realization of is a native of Talocán instead of Atlantis, were creative decisions that have nothing to do with rights: “YesIt honestly affects us more, and I don’t want to get too far out there, in how we sell the film rather than how we use it in the film. There weren’t any things we couldn’t do character-wise.. I’ve read every Namor comic ever written and I love them, but the world of Atlantis is drawn a little vaguely. Maybe it’s a bit Roman. Because Ryan is such a detail-oriented director, I wanted to anchor him in something that felt tangible and real like I hope Wakanda feels for people. And I think there hasn’t been any commercial aspect that has stopped us from doing that, which is great.”.

The exact details of the deal between Marvel Studios and Universal are unknown, so it’s hard to predict Namor’s next steps in the MCU aside from the fact that it won’t be with a movie or series centered around him. Tenoch Huerta already told us in our interview think there is “lots of cloth to cut in case we had more than Namor” thanks to his new origin story. He would be all for the job of getting wings back on his ankles, but whenever asked he refers to Kevin Feige.

The Marvel boss always responds evasively, but in reality Nate Moore has already indicated a way to bring him back into a team project which, coincidentally, would finally involve the highly anticipated X-Men: “We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We don’t want to commit to something that isn’t on the horizon. But the truth is, Namor is a mutant. And as a fan of comics and their history, it would feel untrue if we didn’t say so.”.

The character who has a solo project

For now, one character from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” will soon have a continuation in the form of a series for Disney+. Riri Williams, ‘Ironheart,’ to star in her own title with Dominique Thorne at the helm of the cast next year. And it aims to be one of the key pieces of Phase 5, so we will have to be vigilant.