How big is Marvel Studios these days? It can get Oscar-winning actors to appear not just in its movies, but on its streaming shows. Case in point: Olivia Colman, who won the Oscar for Best Actress in 2019, is joining up with Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn for Secret Invasion, one of several upcoming Disney+ Marvel shows.
The Hollywood Reporter broke the news and though there’s no word on who Colman will be playing, “an infiltration of Skrulls on Earth figures into the proceedings” of the show, which is unsurprising since it shares a name with the iconic comics event where, well, exactly that happens.
We don’t know for sure, but it’s likely that Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion picks up after the events of Spider-Man: Far From Home where Nick Fury (Jackson) was revealed to be out in space on a Skrull ship while Talos (Mendelsohn) was back on Earth, pretending to be Fury. All of which was set up in Captain Marvel, and likewise there’s no word on how, or if, the show will impact the sequel to that movie, which is set for release November 2022.
Colman won that 2019 Oscar for The Favourite — and, looking across her career, it’s so perfect that she won for that. In that role, she was required to be funny and dark and intense all rolled into one, which is basically everything she, herself, can do as an actress. Many of us probably remember her first from her small, funny role as one of the police officers in Hot Fuzz. More recently, she’s been stunning and stoic as Queen Elizabeth in The Crown. But she also stood toe-to-toe with new Indiana Jones cast member Phoebe Waller-Bridge for two seasons of the amazing Fleabag and got another Oscar nomination this year for her movie with with Odin himself, Anthony Hopkins, in The Father. She’s a powerhouse of talent that will be a formidable friend (or foe) to Fury and his crew.
Secret Invasion does not yet have a release date but One Night in Miami star Kingsley Ben-Adir is also on board, and Mr. Robot’s Kyle Bradstreet is showrunning.