Donnie Yen Fans Demand He Be Cast as Marvel’s Latest Rumored Superhero
By Ryan General
When Reel News Hawaii sparked rumors that both Marvel’s “Sub-Mariner” and DC’s “Aquaman” could be filming in Hawaii at the same time via a tweet, comic fans everywhere became excited at the thought.
While “Aquaman” is already slated for October 2018, a film about the character Namor, also known as the Sub-Mariner, is categorized as “in development” at best.
The rumor comes less than a year after the rights to the mutant reportedly returned to Marvel after being with Universal for a long time. Regardless, whether there’s actually a film on the horizon or not, excited fans took the liberty to start offering their casting choices with Chinese action star Donnie Yen being the favorite.
Numerous Donnie Yen fan sites echoed the excitement by putting images of Yen and his physique next to Marvel’s own Atlantean prince.
Yen, who recently starred in the highly successful “Star Wars: Rogue One”, seems to be quite interested in playing the aquatic Avenger. In fact, his official twitter account has been retweeting his fans’ bids to make him Namor.
So far, just one other actor has expressed interest in playing the character. Japanese American actor Brian Tee, who played Shredder in last year’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows”, told Comicbook.com how he would be a good fit in playing the hero:
“You know what’s funny is my career I’ve kind of played villains, guys with attitude, guys with chips on their shoulders, um, in reading the comics books and being a fan of Namor, that’s kind of this guy’s persona. Even though he’s a hero or a quote unquote good guy. He’s kind of a bit of an anti-hero with a bit of an edge, and I feel like I kind of fall in that line, especially with other things that I’ve done. So that’s the kind of aspect that I would love to bring into Namor.”
Although Namor is not actually Asian in the comics (his father is American Leonard McKenzie and mother is an Atlanten princess), either Yen or Tee could easily fill his shoes in the film.
If the movie is, in fact, being made, hopefully Marvel won’t mess up its casting and give us someone who does look the part. Asian actors are sorely lacking in representation in the MCU and Namor would be a pretty cool start. Studios can always save Matt Damon for some other future project.
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