The Subtle Connection Between The Falcon And The Winter Soldier And Star Wars
Well, it's happened: Disney revealed that over the next few years, they'll unleash about ten tons of Star Wars, 60 tons of Marvel stories, and a little bit of Indiana Jones while they're at it — just for flavor. The list of upcoming franchise series and films Disney is releasing in the coming years is so exhaustive as to border on the exhausting.
And the thing about so much content is that, inevitably, some of it is going to overlap in ways that aren't even intentional. Sure, there will likely be crossover events. Yes, there will be characters who appear on multiple shows — that's basically Marvel's business model: shared universes for maximum profit.
However, there's something else worth noting: there are only so many actors a sprawling multimedia conglomerate can cast before they run out. That's part of the reason why Ben Affleck can be Daredevil and then, later, become Batman. Disney's web of film licenses is kind of like the Law & Order shows — there are so many of them that, eventually, every actor is going to have to double up. For Law & Order that usually means the same actor being a dead body a few times, but for Disney it could mean anything.
Take the case of Erin Kellyman, who, it turns out, is set to appear in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier but has already been part of another major Disney property — Star Wars.
From masked in Star Wars to masked in Marvel
We don't know much about the plot twists of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier yet, likely by design. But in the trailer Disney debuted at their Investor Day event, we do see a masked villain who has yet to be named. We do at least know the name of the actor behind the mask — Erin Kellyman.
If you're a theater lover, you may already recognize Kellyman for her turn as everyone's favorite girl who gets turned down, Éponine, from the 2019 mini-series version of Les Misérables. On the Disney front, not only is Kellyman in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but she's also set to appear as a character named Jade in the new Disney+ series set in the world of the beloved fantasy classic Willow, also detailed during the Lucasfilm portion of Disney's Investor Day.
However, this is not Erin Kellyman's Disney debut and, in point of fact, she's about to connect Star Wars, Marvel, and Willow all together and you probably didn't even realize it.
In the not-so-distant past Kellyman starred in Solo: A Star Wars Story as Enfys Nest. In case you forgot her among the willful droids, cape-wearing Donald Glovers, and predictable heel turns from Emilia Clarke, Enfys Nest is leader of the resistance group known as the Cloud Riders. You might remember that Han (Alden Ehrenreich) and Enfys conflict at first, fighting over who will get some hyperspace fuel, but they do wind up as allies fighting against the crime syndicate Crimson Dawn.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier debuts on in March 2021 on Disney+.