Vin Diesel was great as Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy
Rumors of Diesel starring in Marvel’s Inhumans movie have persisted for years now, although they were somewhat sidelined when his surprise casting in Guardians happened. Since then though, the actor has continued to hint towards another potential role in the MCU, and his latest tease basically spells out that he’s up for that previously rumored Inhumans character.
Here’s the quote, via io9:
I can totally be something [else] with Marvel. I think playing [Groot] only makes Marvel that much more excited and me having my experience with Marvel, seeing how great they were, makes me more excited. We’ve heard a lot of talk about Marvel wanting to have me play a character that doesn’t have my voice. So my voice is used for Groot and my presence is used for the other character.
So… what kind of character would use Diesel’s “presence” but not his voice?
How about the almost completely mute Black Bolt, king of the Inhumans?
In the comics, Black Bolt’s powers are linked to the speech center of his brain, effectively turning his voice into an incredibly destructive weapon. To prevent himself from inadvertently unleashing it, he’s trained himself to never make a sound, communicating mainly through sign language or through an envoy on his behalf.
Considering Black Bolt has been the rumor since Diesel was first linked to a potential Inhumans movie years ago, this seems like a very on-the-nose bit of hinting.
Why is Diesel basically spelling it out for us?
Here’s where we drift even further from rumors to just flat out speculation, but hear me out.
Recently, Kevin Feige managed to wrest control of Marvel Studios from Ike Perlmutter, the head of Marvel Entertainment. I won’t go into it here, but just know that Feige and Perlmutter do not get along at all, and Feige nearly left the company during production on Civil War due to Perlmutter’s interference.
After years of butting heads, Feige only just recently had enough leverage to cut Perlmutter out of the chain of command, with Feige now answering directly to Disney (and Perlmutter cut out of the movie development loop completely). Unfortunately for Feige though, Perlmutter is still in charge of Marvel television, which includes all of the current and future ABC and Netflix shows.
Why does any of this matter to Inhumans? Well recently, a rumor has been going around that Ike Perlmutter was the one pushing hard for an Inhumans movie, in order to boost Marvel’s TV brand. This makes some amount of sense, given the Inhumans were born out of ABC’s Agents of SHIELD.
So… the idea is that Feige at Marvel Studios may be considering cutting Inhumans from the line-up, in order to completely free himself of Perlmutter’s influence.
If that’s true (and again, it’s all rumors at this point), then Vin Diesel may be subtly maneuvering to keep Inhumans in the fan conversations, in a way campaigning Marvel to keep development going.
Either way, Inhumans‘ 2019 release date is still a long, long ways off, so anything could happen between then and now. But if it does maintain its current course, it sure sounds like Diesel is on board.
