Amph Avengers: Doomsday (and Secret Wars)

Isn't there supposedly an Ant-Man movie in the works, that isn't the Hank Pym version?

I'm not sure if it's Scott Lang, or not.

 

I know it's on Marvel's slate of upcoming projects. I don't know if they have given a projected start or release date.

 

Zak Penn Talks About Norton as The Hulk and Avengers movie

When it comes to bringing Marvel Comics characters into the movies, you can't get much more knowledgeable than Zak Penn, who's written or been involved with the last two "X-Men" movies, both "Hulk" movies, Elektra and a bunch of the Marvel movie-related video games. In two weeks, Penn's second movie as a director, the poker comedy The Grand, will be premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival, and by pure chance, ComingSoon.net/Superhero Hype! had a chance to talk to the writer less than 24 hours after the casting announcement that Edward Norton would be starring in the upcoming The Incredible Hulk. Of course, we had to ask him for a few words about the news.

"I couldn't be happier about Ed Norton," he told us. "I worked on the first 'Hulk' movie and I remember talking about how awesome it would be if we got Ed Norton to play this part. He really was up for it the first time. I think Ed Norton's one of the best actors working, and even I was pretty shocked that he wanted to do it. It's one of those rare things where it turned out better than I [expected]. Look, there's a lot of really good actors who wanted to do it even before I wrote my script. I'm not just saying this, but I cannot think of a better person to play Bruce Banner. In this case, Ed Norton would have been at the top of my list.

"To me, the thing about Bruce is that he's a physicist, he's a super-smart guy who has a lot of repressed anger. To me, that is the essential thing you need to know about him. He could be tall or short, but you have to believe that he's a physicist, you have to believe that life is frustrating for him physically. Ed went to Yale. He's a really smart guy. He has an intelligence that you can see on-screen, which a lot of people who are great actors don't project that. He projects the guy that is smarter than you, and he also projects anger in a lot of his movies, 'Fight Club' being the most obvious example. If you think about 'Fight Club,' he has a lot of similarities to the Hulk as a character. Tyler Durden is his Hulk."

We also asked Penn to describe his take on the movie in terms of whether it's a sequel, a revamp or something different. "It's not going to be a sequel, but it's hard to describe," he admitted. "The best description I would say is something like 'Batman Begins' where it's not necessarily out of continuity with the other movies, though that was more of an origin story. It's much more of a reboot, the way that 'Aliens' is a sequel to 'Alien,' but the kinds of movie are different. It keeps the mythology of the worlds, but it's a totally different structure. It's more of an action movie than the first one was. This one is much more of a thriller, I would say. I don't think it's unfair to say like a 'Bourne Identity' type feeling to it. Certainly I've mentioned that the Bruce Jones comic book run were very influential or the TV series. It definitely harkens back much more to that, emphasizing a guy on the run with a secret, who cannot feel emotion and cannot risk having any close relationships with people for fear what it's going to do to them."

"The first movie is not about Bruce Banner dealing with the repercussions of being the Hulk, it's much more about him becoming the Hulk," he continued. "He gets taken to a base and put under observation pretty quickly. This movie is about Bruce Banner on the run and what life is like. There's stuff that I didn't want to deal with that was in the first movie. You're not going to see anything about his father or his experiments or anything, because to me, as a fan, that was the part that I found most frustrating and nooooooo dogs. I liked the fight, but I didn't like the poodle."

"There's a lot of skepticism towards this project, particularly online, despite the first movie, it's not just that," Penn opined to us, realizing the hurdles the second movie has to face. "Every time I go online and I read these people talking about 'X-

 

If anyone kept an eye on the marvel panel at comic-con this past weekend you could tell that they are dead set on doing this movie!

 

As much as the fanboy in me wants to see this brought to life, I just see too many problems, and given the series of lackluster films coming from the Marvel camp in the last few years I am really worried about trying to cram in that many major characters and giving each their due. Granted the benefit of working off already produced movies and a connected series is that you dont have to waste time and exposition on each character already established. And I am more then elated at the prospect that Captain America may well indeed be coming to the big screen. I am still reserving judgement until I see some results.

Its also interesting to me that for the most part there have been very few Avengers that we have seen translated to screen in the recent years and the majority of the big ones still seem to be left to Marvel's discretion (as opposed to Spidey and X-men whose fate is in the hands of Sony and Fox respectively). I am wondering if this is happy fortune or if it was to some extent intentional.

 

I think that is primarily due to the fact that Spider-Man and the X-Men are Marvel's two most popular titles. It makes sense that they would be among the first to be made into movies and be the most sucessful. The Avengers have only started getting popular again in the comics community in the past few years. I think Marvel has kept most of the Avengers characters to themselves so they don't wind up in a situation where all the characters have individual movies made by different studios. That would render any cross-overs impossible.

 

Iron Man/Hulk Movies Crossover Cameos?

I hope this turns out to be true!

 

Marvel Studios Sets Four More Release Dates!

Marvel Entertainment released their first quarter report to its shareholders this morning to coincide with the announcement about the success this past weekend of Marvel Studios' first production Iron Man, which grossed an estimated $100.7 million domestically and over $200 million worldwide. The announcement included an update of Marvel Studios' feature film slate with the already-rumored Iron Man 2 announced for a release on April 30, 2010, followed by three more movies for the summers of '10 and '11. Matthew Vaughn's Thor is set for a release on June 4, 2010, and The First Avenger: Captain America (the working title) will kick off the summer of 2011 on May 6, followed by the highly-anticipated and foreshadowed The Avengers scheduled for July 2011. (Edgar Wright'sAnt-Man is also listed as being in development with no release date set.)

With that in mind, one can start expecting a lot more announcements in the coming months about creative teams and casting for those movies including who might direct the Captain America and Avengers movies. (Whomever plays Steve Rogers AKA Captain America presumably will be making two movies at once.)

 

2011 is not bad. My only question is when Magneto is slated for release. I had thought '09 but there's been little information on it.

So Marvel's schedule seems like:

2008: Iron Man, Hulk
2009: Wolverine, Magneto?
2010: Iron Man 2, Thor
2011: Captain America, Avengers

I can live with that provided they are all as good as Iron Man.

 

I'm not that excited about Thor or Captain America but I am looking forward to Wolverine, Magneto and IM 2

 

From what I have read, Marvel has been very deliberate in giving all the members of the Avengers their own films first before doing an Avengers movie. Apparently the plan is to have the Avengers played by the actors who originated the part, rather than recasting the character. They've also decided that if they can't do this, then the Avengers film won't happen.

 

First, here are the individual threads:

Captain America
Iron Man
Thor
Hulk


I thought it was a good idea to have a thread about the Avengers movie itself.


We start with this juicy rumor:

The Avengers Will Face the Skrulls in 2012


PS.: The first to make a Ms. Steed joke gets it.

 

Ok I was going to protest, suggesting the Skrulls are more suitable for a sequel to the team flick, but it sounds like they are mostly going to be working behind the scenes setting up for the sequel.

I love the many various layers that they are building into each stand-alone story.

 

I'm glad they'll be using the Skrulls rather than the lame-o Chitauri, their Ultimate stand-ins that were created because Bill Jemas thought the Skrulls were too cheesy.

Hey Bill, you wrote Marville, you don't have the right to make such judgment calls.

 

Did you read the bit about Noh Varr? Now, I ADORE Marvel Boy and think it's one of the best superhero comics of the last decade but I can't see him in an Avengers origin story. If you need a Kree hero use Mar-Vell... or at least Mahr Vell.

 

IIRC Chitauri were Skrulls. It was a different name for the same species. And I loved the idea that they had been here for decades and no one knew it.

 

Yeah, I just don't picture Sony of Fox "growing tired" of those franchises. They will continue to churn out movies of decreasing quality until their contract expires. I do agree that they shouldn't work out a deal with the studios though. No way Sony should get money for Spidey showing up in a Marvel movie. Just a sucky situation all around if you ask me.

I do like the idea of Skrulls in the Avengers movie though. Just as long as it's not Secret Invasion.

 

Mar-Vell would come across as Marvel trying to name-drop themselves as a character, to those unfamiliar with the comics.

But that's just me.

 

Is there not a Hulk thread?

 

News:

Joss Whedon is directing.
Jon Favreau is exec producing.
The movie will be Nick Fury-centric.

Rumors:

(more fact than rumor): Whedon is getting rewrite passes at The Avengers movie.
Whedon also asked for rewrite permissions for First Avenger: Captain America.
Nathan Fillion is almost signed for Hank Pym.

Speculation:

The Hulk will be in the film as the (or one of the) bad guy(s).

 

Yeah, this is what ultimately sucks about this new Marvel Film Universe: it can't be a new version of the Marvel Universe what with all those properties spread around different studios. I mean, Wolverine and Spidey are technically Avengers but you can't acknowledge that fact in any of the sequels since Sony has the rights to all movie things Spidey just like Fox has the right to all things Wolverine. But why can't Marvel (or their new owners, Disney) pull some $eriou$ mu$cle on this is beyond me.