Marvel Studios' Armor Wars series was first announced in December 2020, but the news on the Don Cheadle project was practically non-existent since then. Now, it appears the creative team behind the project has opted to develop the series as a feature film instead.
After Tony Stark's demise—much like with Captain America's Steve Rogers returning from his time-travelling adventures as an old man and passing on his shield to Sam Wilson—it left a gap in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in terms of filling the boots of the famously armored crusader. It was a gap that seemingly fit Cheadle's James Rhodes (a military colonel best known by his nickname, “Rhodey”) to step up from being War Machine to something bigger, which would be explored in Marvel Studios' Armor Wars.
The Hollywood Reporter has learned Armor Wars will now be heading to theaters as a feature film, which means the project will be pushed back even further down the line. The development is due to everyone involved thinking it’s a better fit for the material, though Armor Wars head writer Yassir Lester will remain on board to pen the screenplay. This should be of interest to fans of good storytelling in general, as not spreading a story too thin is in the best interests of viewers everywhere and if the creatives are all aboard, means they’ll be serving up better a product to the content consumers as well.
Marvel Studios' various TV series on Disney plus have been an up-and-down affair, whether or not each is of a standard of quality or not. WandaVision opened up the slate promisingly enough, but then Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness rolled around and basically reset all the events of that series in order to put Wanda right back where she was at the start as the villain. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier introduced audiences to Wyatt Russell's U.S. Agent and explored what it means to take on the Captain America mantle for Sam Wilson, but Captain America: New World Order will seemingly be treading the same ground since it comes from the writer of the aforementioned series.
Since very few Marvel Studios series to date have shaken anything substantial up (Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, and She-Hulk being the few to introduce entirely new lead characters and set up new angles for the MCU to explore when their respective characters finally hit the big screen), this development for Armor Wars seems to be the studio heading in a good direction. If they don’t have enough story for a six-episode series, it’s better to do a 2-plus hour movie than take the Bilbo Baggins way and spread a story thin like butter across too much bread.
Cheadle's next appearance as James Rhodes will be in the 2023 release of Secret Invasion. With the release slate being shuffled around, there’s no date for the upcoming Armor Wars movie.
Armor Wars is in development at Marvel Studios.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter