Marvel’s Armor Wars is being reimagined as an Iron Man-level film

Don Cheadle was supposed to feature in a Disney Plus program, but it's now a film

Marvel Studios’ previously announced Disney Plus series Armor Wars has officially outgrown its metallic britches: the project was upgraded to a “theatrical release,” or what viewers might call a movie, on Thursday. Armor Wars Mark II presently lacks a release date on Disney and Marvel’s jam-packed theatrical schedule.

Armor Wars stars Don Cheadle as James “Rhodey” Rhodes, alias War Machine, and is based on a Marvel Comics plotline in which Tony Stark’s armor technology falls into the hands of different bad guys. The transition from series to feature is a victory for Cheadle, who has tirelessly played a supporting role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe throughout several films and shows, and will now take center stage on Marvel’s grandest platform.

The Marvel announcement, which oddly cites an earlier report from The Hollywood Reporter despite being the source of the news, notes that the creative team decided during development on the Disney Plus series that the story for Armor Wars made more sense projected on the big screen over two to three hours than cut into six bits and dropped weekly on Disney Plus. Yassir Lester, who stars as both an actor and a writer on Cheadle’s comedy series Black Monday, was the series’ lead writer and would apparently write the movie as well.

Though this year’s San Diego Comic-Con and D23 Expo saw a flood of Marvel updates, the aftermath has seen its fair share of upheavals and surprises. Ryan Reynolds announced earlier this week that Hugh Jackman will star in Deadpool 3, which will be released in September 2024.In the same breath, Blade director Bassam Tariq unexpectedly pulled away from the movie, just weeks before the Mahershala Ali-led drama was supposed to begin filming. Despite two years of preparation, the intended Disney Plus series Armor Wars will now become a film. As Marvel president Kevin Feige and his expansive creative team attempt to chart the next ten years of the mega-franchise, it’s clear that the business of it all could change the MCU’s path at any time.