Excelsior!! The Marvel Universe on Film (Spoilers Allowed)

I am wondering if the other properties start reverting back to Marvel will they try to relaunch much the same as they did with Hulk and tie them in better with the grander universe. One can only hope we get better takes on Daredevil and Fantastic Four. And I would love to see Spidey tie in with other characters and have more cross cameoing.

 

Thats why I am suggesting they aim for more of an Incredible Hulk kinda thing...well minus the opening sequence where they rework the origin. Vague continuity I believe the term is.

 

How long will it be before Wolverine has a guest appearance in every Marvel movie?

 

in a deleted scene on on the fantastic four movies, mr. fantastic changes his face to look like his
so he's kinda in the movie
the scene is kinda funny

 

Captain America: The First Avenger(working title I believe) is slated for 2011. I imagine this will coincide with, if not be the basis for the Avengers movie...if they decide to do one. I am wondering how many more stand alone features they can put out before that time, to set up the crossover. Or perhaps the intention is to reveal some characters in the actual Avengers release itself.

I am really pumped for this...Cap being my favorite super hero. After seeing the new Hulk, and watching Tim Roth go at the Hulk out in that field when he was juiced up, it really made me think of how cool they could make a Cap feature. Especially after the previous abortion.

 

The current plan is to release Captain America in May of 2011, and follow that two months later, in July 2011, with the Avengers movie. It's a bold idea, which they may re-think, since Incredible Hulk did not fare so well in the wake of Iron Man's success.

 

I think the lack of success surrounding The Incredible Hulk has more to do withe stigma attached to the first Hulk than the success of Iron Man. And with the build up over the next 2-3 years of Marvel Movies tieing into Avengers I can't see it being hindered by cap's success by riding high off of it.

 

Dark Horizons are reporting a rumour that Will Smith was offered the part of Captain America, here.


It's not obvious casting, but Will Smith is a big star, and a likeable one at that. However, I suspect that even if it was true, he probably turned it down.

Edited for spelling incompetence.

 

I am going to assume that if this is true he is likely going to play Isaiah Bradley's Captain America, not the Steve Rogers Captain America...I hope.

 

I love the fact that they plan to interlock all the future Marvel movies together like the comics. It was one of the coolest things about the Paul Dini DC Universe that the world was linked from Batman the Animated Series to Justice League Unlimited.

I know the new Punisher movie is now under Marvel's guidance, any chance Frank Castle will be linked to the Avengers world begun with Hulk and Iron Man?

 

You know, one of the things I think the Bruce Timm DC cartoons did best was have all the heroes & villains mixed in. Sure, at first there was only Batman, but as they went on, they included references to everyone else. Superman had numerous references to BatMan before their cross-over story, and it introduced Steel, Green Lantern, and others. (odd that none of Batman's side-kicks ever turned up in Justice League).
People were ooohing & ahhhing about Green Arrow when he showed up in SmallVille
About the best thing in the pilot movie for the Blade TV show was the reference to Marc Spectre (Moon Knight).

In short, using the complete reference to other characters, even if they never show up, helps tie the universe of the movies together.
I'd love to see something similar happen to Marvel. Last time I saw anything like that was in the 90s when the Spider-man cartoon had Spidey visit the X-Men.

 

Blame that on the licensing issues.

 

yeah, same reason they had to change character names from "The Tick" animated show to "The Tick" live show--Fox Kids was a separate company from Fox Studios, and the lawyers wouldn't share.

 

Its the reason why little things that should have been simple crossovers have been big no-nos. Like Ben Urich in Daredevil working for the New York Post not the Daily Bugle, as Sony had rights to the Daily Bugle. I mean how great would it have been to have Joey Pantoliano arguing with Jameson over a story when Parker walks in, or you see articles on Jameson's wall referencing Daredevil, the Mutant Menace, or the world's introduction to the Fantastic Four. I realize these moments aren't necessary to the story but they add a whole level of texture that really makes the world look real.

I mean imagine moments like Nick Fury in Iron Man or seeing Stark in The Incredible Hulk for a few minutes but within the world of Spider-Man and the X-Men. Thanks to the licencing agreements it looks like thats not possible right now for certain properties.

Sorry thats the end of my rant.

 

Marvel really has no one to blame but themselves for that though. After the first X-Men movie came out studios started clamoring to buy up as many superhero properties as the could. WB owns DC so all the studios looked to Marvel who was fresh out of bankrupcy. I doubt Marvel could have predicted just how popular the superhero genre would get so they just started selling off character rights to the highest bidder. It made a lot of finacial sense at the time. As it stands now, the non-Marvel movie properties look like this:

Sony - Spider-Man
Fox - X-Men, Daredevil, Fantastic Four
Lion's Gate - Punisher
Columbia - Ghost Rider
New Line - Blade

We could potentially see a crossover with the Fox properties but I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

Sony=Columbia

And sadly Fox is looking to rejuvinate the comic franchises it owns, including Daredevil, which I was hoping would revert back to Marvel so they could take a better stab at the character.

 

Meh, whatever.

 

It's a big step in world building.
Finally saw Iron Man today (arrived from NetFlix).
It was pretty good. To be honest, I would have enjoyed it more if people had not been ranting and raving about how fabulous it was and yadda yadda yadda... Hype hype hype.

At this time, I'd like to once again put in my vote for the animated/anime movies that were released on DVD.