Stan Lee may appear in future Marvel movies, after all

Improbably, comic book fable Stan Lee is returning to Marvel.

According to
The Hollywood Reporter,
the superhero studio has signed a 20-year deal with Stan Lee Universe, a company founded by Lee prior to his death in 2022, to license the name and likeness of the iconic writer-producer for utilise in time to come entertainment products.

The agreement could see Lee featuring in theme parks, merchandise, video games, virtual reality experiences, and, crucially, upcoming movies and TV shows in a style reminiscent of his famous cameos in Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) flicks.

Andy Heyward, CEO of Genius Brands (co-owner of Stan Lee Universe), said in a argument: “[This] actually ensures that Stan, through digital applied science and archival footage and other forms, will live [on] in the most important venue: the Marvel movies and Disney theme parks.”

Nevertheless, other insiders have reportedly cautioned fans confronting expecting Lee to return to the big screen whatever time soon. The priority – at least initially, information technology seems – will be on applying his likeness to various “digital experiences”.

Should Marvel choose to include digital versions of Lee in future movies, though, it wouldn’t exist the beginning time a Disney-owned studio has flirted with the concept of virtual resurrection – digital versions of Carrie Fisher and Peter Cushing were featured in Star Wars: The Ascension of Skywalker and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, respectively.

Such a move could exist viewed as controversial for some Marvel fans, but Genius Brands CEO Heyward has said that “if it’s washed with taste and class, and respectful of who he was, it will be welcomed.”

“He is a love personality and long later you and I are gone, he will remain the essence of Marvel,” he added.

With the continued growth of virtual reality engineering and the metaverse in 2022, the bailiwick of digital immortality will likely persist for years to come. Some industry experts even believe this virtual afterlife is a natural adjacent pace for humanity.

Nayeem Syed, Primary Vision Officeholder at Exponentials.tv, recently told TechRadar: “Vanity or not, nosotros are wired to desire to be remembered forever by leaving behind a legacy that tin can outlast united states and be shared with future generations. We are trying to boring downwards aging and control our lifespan with biotechnology, gene therapy, and 3D organ printing, but all of this engineering is just far too costly. A amend and cheaper route to immortality might then lie in the digital earth.”

“In the future,” Syed continued, “almost metaverses will be structured so that virtual personalities tin simply exist with directly command and input from a main user. It is fourth dimension to change our mindset about the merging of humans with technology and showtime thinking of it every bit a binomial collaboration.”

Perhaps, and then, Marvel’due south conquering of Stan Lee’south likeness for apply in the digital globe represents the earliest days of a society-broad tendency, one reserved, right now, for the richest and about influential among us and Idiot box shows depicting the very same virtual afterlife. At present there’s a thought.

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