The current reigning box office champ, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, accomplished a lot in terms of moving the Marvel Cinematic Universe forward. One of the biggest developments was the introduction of Namor the Sub-Mariner, the mutant ruler of the undersea kingdom of Talokan, portrayed by Tenoch Huerta Mejía. Much like T’Challa, the previous Black Panther, Namor commands a massive secret civilization, which boasts a powerful army, and has access to the highly coveted metal Vibranium.
It is clear that Namor is going to play a major role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, likely in a third Black Panther film and in Thunderbolts. However, don’t expect Mejía to headline a solo Namor film. Marvel Studios and Disney don’t control the film rights to the character.
This harkens back to the early 2000s when Marvel Comics was NOT a film company but just a… well, comic book publisher. Other Hollywood studios licensed the rights to various Marvel characters to feature in movies, but they were all self-contained stories that didn’t connect. 20th Century Fox acquired the rights to X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Daredevil. Sony snatched up Spider-Man and Ghost Rider, while Lionsgate grabbed The Punisher. Universal took Hulk.
The latter and Sony’s acquisition of Spider-Man continue to have an impact today. That’s why all of the current Spider-Man movies are Sony projects, even though they are set in the MCU. That’s also why there hasn’t been a solo Hulk movie since 2008’s The Incredible Hulk (made pre-Marvel Studios).
Oh, and Universal also licensed the rights to Namor the Sub-Mariner, even though they never actually made their own film.
According to Wakanda Forever producer Nate Moore, Namor, like the Hulk, was simply “borrowed.” Not only can Marvel Studios and Disney not make a solo Namor movie, it appears that Mejía’s character can’t even appear by himself on promotional materials unless it’s part of a series of solo posters like the one to the right.
In fact, according to Moore, the restrictions had a bigger impact on Wakanda Forever‘s marketing than the making of the film itself. After all, it’s hard to imagine that Universal had any real concerns about Namor’s depiction when they hadn’t even made one movie with the character and all they were doing was raking in that Disney cash.
Moore stated:
“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. 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.”
Indeed, Wakanda Forever‘s approach to Namor was one that has never been seen in the comics. Filmmaker Ryan Coogler decided not to use the comics’ Greco-Roman-inspired Atlantis, to make this Namor’s kingdom. Instead, he used the Meso-American derived Talokan.
While Namor has always been drawn to look “exotic,” with his pointy ears and eyebrows, his skin has always been colored Caucasian. Instead, in the film, Namor and all of the Talokanil people were cast with Latinx actors, and their civilization and clothing were distinctly drawn from Mayan culture.
One weird twist to all of this is that while Marvel can’t make a movie starring The Hulk, they managed to make a She-Hulk Disney+ series with a Planet Hulk project also on the way. The latter may actually focus on Skaar, the son of Hulk that popped up at the end of She-Hulk. It appears that Marvel can’t make a Hulk MOVIE but TV shows are different and maybe they just can’t focus on Bruce Banner.
So I mean, technically, going by that logic, it could be possible for Disney+ to produce shows featuring Namora (Mabel Cadena) or Attuma (Alex Livinalli)… if anybody wants to see those.
Are you bummed that Namor can’t actually star in his own movie? Or would you rather see him carry on as an anti-hero/supporting character in other projects?
