Who Is Owen Wilson Playing In The MCU?
News recently broke that funnyman Owen Wilson, who has been on a bit of a hiatus for the past few years, has been cast in the upcoming, hotly anticipated Disney+ series Loki (via ComicBook). The six-part series will focus on the version of the trickster god who managed to escape with the Space Stone during the events of Avengers: Endgame, and it will see him gallivanting around history influencing and interfering with events, sort of like a malevolent, time-traveling Forrest Gump.
While it'll be an absolute treat to see star Tom Hiddleston return to the role of Loki, we know very little about what times he'll be visiting and the types of characters he'll be interacting with — and, as such, we have no idea just who Wilson will be portraying in the series. Marvel Studios has, of course, been tight-lipped on the casting; we would simply ask Marvel boss Kevin Feige were we not afraid that he would actually tell us, and would therefore have to kill us.
The casting of Wilson, though, implies that the Loki series will have a distinct comedic bent, and we're expecting whatever role the legendarily quirky actor fills to be... well, quirky. As you may be aware, we here at Looper are quite fond of engaging in wanton speculation, and since you're reading this, you're probably expecting us to do that right now. Well, guess what? Just because it's what you're expecting, we're not going to. We're just kidding; of course we are. Let's take a look at some of the off-the-wall characters that it wouldn't surprise us to see Owen Wilson playing in the MCU.
Could Owen Wilson be playing Tomorrow Man?
Feige has said that many of the characters who debut in the Disney+ corner of the MCU will eventually end up on the big screen. While this obviously doesn't mean that every denizen of the MCU who debuts on the Mouse House's streamer will get a feature film assignment, Wilson is a pretty big star — so it's not too much of a reach to think that he may be portraying a character who will get some screen time in an upcoming flick such as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness or Thor: Love and Thunder, both of which are likely to deal with at least some of the ramifications of Loki's time-hopping fun.
Taking a look at characters associated with Thor and/or Loki who similarly enjoy meddling with time and history, one candidate stands out: Artur Zarrko, AKA Tomorrow Man. Zarrko originally hailed from Earth-6297, a peaceful, futuristic version of Earth in which all weapons and conflict had been abandoned. Seeking to dominate this world, Zarrko used his genius to create a time machine, traveling back in time to steal weapons of mass destruction, which he brought back to his time. Fortunately, this plan was foiled by Thor, who followed him back to the future and returned the WMDs to their rightful place on our regular, conflict-laden Earth.
Zarrko has at times been depicted as attempting to use his time-travel technology for more benevolent purposes, and the character could be an interesting one to throw into conflict with Loki — who, let's not forget, will be the 2012 version of the trickster god, fresh off his attempt to conquer the Earth on behalf of Thanos. The MCU has a way of making household names of obscure characters, and Tomorrow Man could be next in line.
Could Owen Wilson be playing Jack Frost?
Stay with us here, because this one is going to be a reach. Way back when Marvel was still known as Timely Comics, the publisher introduced a character called Jack Frost, a godlike creature of mysterious origin who eventually came into contact with Marvel's Golden Age heroes after hundreds of years spent living in solitude in the Arctic. With a power set similar to Iceman of the X-Men, Jack fought alongside Bucky Barnes in the Liberty Legion, a superhero squad assembled by Bucky to combat the Invaders (which included Namor, the Human Torch, and Captain America) after they had been brainwashed by the Red Skull.
Jack eventually returned to the Arctic to keep the world from being destroyed in an Iceworm rampage (long story), and perhaps due to the fact that Marvel now has Iceman, he hasn't appeared much since. Other than the fact that he's familiar with Thor, though, why should Marvel consider resurrecting the character for the MCU?
Well, because he just might be a Frost Giant. During one of Jack's encounters with Thor, the Thunder God told him the story of an undersized Frost Giant who long ago departed Asgard to live on Earth, suggesting that Jack's origins might not be so mysterious after all. Loki, of course, is an adopted, undersized Frost Giant himself — and if he were to run into another of his lineage in a similar situation of exile, things could get interesting. It's a long shot, we know, but the MCU is nothing if not full of surprises.
Could Owen Wilson be playing an alternate version of Loki?
We actually find this to be the most likely scenario of all: what if Wilson were to portray an alternate version of Loki, one with an agenda in opposition to Hiddleston's version? It sure seems like another Loki would be the most formidable enemy that the trickster god could ever find himself up against; nobody knows better than Loki himself just how conflicted and duplicitous he really is, and it would be a hell of a lot of fun trying to watch him puzzle out the motivations of another version of himself who may or may not have the same inner conflicts and talent for deception.
This could also serve as a fun sort of introduction to concepts which are likely to be further explored in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, as it's already being rumored that that flick will indeed feature alternate-universe versions of established MCU characters. Besides, Hiddleston famously nailed a dead-on impression of Wilson as Loki during a visit with the Popcorn Taxi YouTube channel back in 2013, so it would only be fitting to have Wilson get in a rebuttal by way of actually getting to play the character.
Of course, we'll be keeping our finger on the pulse of casting announcements and any other news concerning Loki, and we'll be sure to keep you up to speed. In the meantime, try to temper your excitement with patience: Loki is slated to drop on Disney+ sometime in the spring of 2021.