Stan Lee has died at age 95, but fans of the comic book titan have not seen the last of him. Lee was the “King of Cameos” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and beyond, as previously shared by the Inquisitr, and it seems he may have recorded a few final cameos before he left this universe.
Not only did Stan Lee leave behind a long legacy of work in comics, TV, and film, but he reportedly left behind a collection of cameos already filmed to be used in upcoming Marvel features. One of those coveted posthumous cameos could be coming as soon as next spring in director Joe Russo’s Avengers 4, according to Vanity Fair.
After Stan Lee’s sudden death earlier this week, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige told Variety there could be some surprises from Stan Lee in future films from the franchise.
“I’m not going to tell you what specifically, but Stan always appreciated a good surprise.”
Last fall, Lee and his manager appeared on a panel at Wizard World Nashville in which it was revealed Lee had just filmed five different cameos for future MCS films.
“What we can say about Avengers: Infinity War is that he filmed both parts, one and two. We did Ant-Man, we did Black Panther. We did Thor too,” Lee’s manager, Max Anderson, explained in a video posted by Comic Book.com last year.
Here’s Every Single Stan Lee Marvel Cameo https://t.co/sUKOmhS0Kv
— Variety (@Variety) November 13, 2018
And now given his history of cameos, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Stan Lee pop up in MCU films through 2019. Vanity Fair notes that Lee rivaled Alfred Hitchcock as the most recognizable cameo actor in history, at one point going so far as to suggest that the film Academy create a special Oscar to honor his contributions to movies via a 2011 tweet.
“After we save the world, our next mission will be to convince Hollywood to have an Oscar for Best Cameo. Till then—Excelsior!
Stan Lee’s first “cameo” was in the 1950s when his likeness appeared in the comic book Astonishing #4. But it wasn’t until 1989 that Lee started appearing onscreen in cameos.
In his first television cameo, Lee turned up as a courtroom foreman in Bruce Banner’s trial in the TV film The Trial of the Incredible Hulk. But the comic master’s rise to cameo superstardom really came to fruition in the 2000s under the watchful eye of Marvel Studio’s Kevin Feige, who cleverly cast him as Peter Parker’s bus driver in Avengers: Infinity War.
Lee was such a cameo fanatic that earlier this year he even contributed to rival comic book DC Comics’ Teen Titans Go, famously announcing, “I don’t care if it’s a DC movie. I love cameos! Excelsior!”
Stan Lee was also a familiar face in the X-Men franchise, appearing in the original 2002 Twentieth Century Fox film as well as 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand and 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse, the latter alongside his real-life wife Joan. Sadly, a source told Entertainment Weekly that Lee will not have a cameo in the upcoming X-Men film Dark Phoenix, which is due out June 7, 2019.
But according to ScreenRant, in the later years of his life, Marvel Studios thought ahead and began shooting Stan Lee’s future cameos in groups, flying the elderly comic king in to shoot scenes for multiple upcoming projects back to back.
The last set reportedly included a cameo for 2019’s Captain Marvel, but that has not been confirmed. While Stan Lee’s appearance in Avengers 4 is a done deal, it is unclear if he will have a cameo in the upcoming Captain Marvel or Spider-Man: Far from Home. If Lee doesn’t appear in Captain Marvel, it will be the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film he has missed in the studio’s 10-year history.