Secret Invasion Set Photos Reportedly Spoil Surprising Actor as New US President in the MCU

A new leak from the set of Secret Invasion has surfaced online, revealing the Marvel Cinematic Universe has a new president. Given that the story lends itself to espionage and involves a few characters from Marvel’s first spy thriller in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, it makes perfect sense for the President of the United States to appear. This time around, however, it looks like the character is being played by veteran actor Dermot Mulroney.

Mulroney has appeared in countless projects throughout his career in Hollywood but most recently, he’s known for appearing in Shameless, Arrested Development, and Hanna. His character, President Ritson, is visible in a prop newspaper captured by set-tracking paparazzi, appearing right alongside Don Cheadle’s War Machine. See it for yourself in the gallery below.

Interestingly enough, the writers behind Avengers: Endgame initially intended for James Rhodes (Cheadle) to play the vice president during the team-up flick in a post-Blip world. Instead, they scrubbed it from the final draft they filmed from.

“We took it out because it didn’t have any story weight, but I believe that during one draft, in the five year jump, Rhodie became vice president,” Christopher Markus told ComicBook.com back in 2019. “Vice President Rhodey.” 

That said, Markus went on to admit they removed it because of time instead of having explicit intentions of setting it up in a future Disney+ show.

“It’s not like [Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige] said, ‘You know what, we had a meeting and we’re going to have these three streaming services, so let’s make sure…’” Markus said. ‘No, if anything, I don’t know what all the streaming shows are, but it feels like they might come off of Endgame in some ways, but at no point did anybody say, ‘That’s what we should do, so therefore, sprinkle that in.’”

Secret Invasion has yet to set a release date on Disney+. What other characters do you hope appear in the series? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!

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