hollywood

Updated: Sep 12, 2018 20:40 IST

Marvel’s last two films, Avengers: Infinity War and Black Panther, were both huge box office successes across the world, and more specifically, extremely profitable in India. Whatever future plans the company has in India will involve Shah Rukh Khan, a Marvel rep has said in a new interview. Whether or not SRK is aware of these plans is unclear.

Speaking to Indian Express, Stephen Wacker (VP, Creative Development, Marvel), said, “I think in the next few years Marvel is going to try to create characters with a real toehold in Indian culture. Try for authenticity that can go as far as finding Indian talent. We want to find a way to create characters that have a home in this world so we can bring Indian culture to the core North American Marvel fan. Let them understand a different part of the world too. I think that’s going to be an exciting thing for Marvel. My hope is that the fan in India feels just as much part of the Marvel universe as some kid in New York.”

It was announced in 2016 that Sacred Games and Bhavesh Joshi Superhero director Vikramaditya Motwane would be directing an adaptation of Chakra, an Indian superhero created by the iconic Stan Lee, who has created several popular Marvel characters like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, Fantastic Four and X-Men. “It’s an honour, and an absolute delight to be making a film based on a Stan Lee character. We are very excited, and we hope to take comic book film-making to the next level with Chakra,” Motwane had said.

While no further news of Chakra has been reported since, Marvel has been making inroads into the subcontinent with large-scale releases of their movies, and have also introduced their first Pakistani-American superhero with Mr Marvel. Marvel chief Kevin Feige in a recent interview said that they were ‘actively planning’ a Ms Marvel movie after Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel. In response to the news, several fans threw Priyanka Chopra’s name in the mix to play the character.

Wacker said in the interview that he hopes for Marvel to create an Indian character on par with Black Panther, and when prodded about who they’d cast, he said, “If we make Indian content, we have to put Shah Rukh Khan. He has to be in it.”

Marvel currently has Captain Marvel and Avengers 4 on the docket, which will put an end to this version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and open doors into a new phase of films.

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