Iron Man 3's Ben Kingsley To Reprise His Marvel Role in Wonder Man Series
Ben Kingsley will return to reprise his role as Trevor Slattery, the actor who impersonated The Mandarin in Iron Man 3, for the upcoming Wonder Man show on Disney+. The connection makes some sense; in the comics, Simon Williams (Wonder Man) has a day job as an actor and stunt performer in his civilian identity. he is also a larger-than-life figure as Wonder Man, something that James Gunn aimed to exploit for a laugh in some mock-up Simon Williams movie posters created for Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2. There is no word yet on who will play Williams; in Guardians, it was Nathan Fillion, but those posters were blink-and-you'll-miss-them Easter eggs even before the were cut entirely. Fillion also voiced the character in the M.O.D.O.K. animated series.
Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed and co-wrote Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, will serve as an executive producer and co-creator on the Wonder Man series. Kingsley's Slattery was most recently seen in Shang-Chi where, after being held captive and psychologically tortured by the real Mandarin, Slattery helped Shang-Chi defeat his kinda/sorta namesake.
According to Variety, who first reported the casting news, Kingsley will play a major role in the series, although exactly what role is unknown. The tone of the series is expected to be a little outside-the-box, with sources describing it as a satire of show business. Elements have that seem to have snuck into set photos from an upcoming episode of Loki, so maybe we will start to get a sense for Simon Williams's future then.
Created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Don Heck in the pages of the Avengers comic back in the 1960s, Wonder Man aka Simon Williams was a villain turned hero with a variety of super powers ranging from strength to speed to Ionic Energy Manipulation and even teleportation. The character is perhaps best known to some for being a love interest to the Scarlet Witch for a brief time. Wonder Man was also notably a founding member of the West Coast Avengers.
Back in December it was confirmed that Cretton had inked a new overall deal with Marvel Studios and Hulu's Onyx Collective. As a part of that deal he'll not only work on the Shang-Chi sequel movie, which he will once again direct, but also a Disney+ series. Last month saw the announcement not just of the Wonder Man show, but also the news that Cretton will be the director of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.