Early last month IGN gave us the scoop with Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige as to what to expect for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, specifically as it spins out of the upcoming Avengers movie we’re expecting for 2012.
Here are the relevant quotes which left us Marvel movie fans feeling very pleased with ourselves, and no doubt left DC and Warner Bros. cringing;
"X-Men was the dawn of the new Marvel cinematic age," said Feige. "Iron Man was the dawn of the Marvel Studios age and the establishment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the beginning of that continuity. The Avengers is the next big step. Once all these characters come together, it's the culmination of all that has come before. It launches a new era and a new time in the history of our films. Not only will it be the first film that our new home studio, Disney, will be distributing, but it will also renew each of these characters and launch them into their own franchises, starting with the second film to be released by Disney, Iron Man 3."
Feige said that following Avengers, "Thor will go off into a new adventure, and Captain America will continue to explore the modern world in another film of his own. We hope that holds true for the characters appearing in that film — Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the spy organization, S.H.I.E.L.D. —all of whom are more than worthy and capable of carrying their own films. And, we've got a lot of other characters we're prepping and getting ready for film debuts: the world of martial arts, these great cosmic space fantasies, Dr. Strange, and the magic side of the Marvel Universe. There are many, many stories to be mined."
A Universe All of Their Own One of the best things for me, as a writer and fan of Marvel as a whole, was the continual use of the term “Marvel Cinematic Universe” and the term “continuity.” It’s what we’ve been hoping for ever since we saw Robert Downey Jr. appear on screen at the end of The Incredible Hulk; a connected, interconnected, continuous series of movies which will rely on ones that come before and after to help tell the story.
Marvel has remembered why medium of comics allows for such unique storytelling; it’s serialised interconnected nature.
On top of that, Marvel has slowly, but surely, reigned in control of most of its properties (as I’m aware, I think they’re still missing Spider-man and Wolverine, though I’m not really sure of that anymore). They are, in effect, simply now in a place where they are able to tell more comic book stories, but promote them to a much wider and, let’s face it, larger audience.
Will it mean anything for comic sales? Probably not, but maybe that’s something we can talk about somewhere else.
After Avengers Prior to the IGN interview, I think the best we could have dreamed when it came to spinoff movies was Ant-Man. Who could have thought that Marvel was smart enough to realise that characters like Black Widow and Hawkeye, not to mention S.H.I.E.L.D., had the chops for their own films?
In fact, by the time all the figures come in by the end of this decade, I’d be willing to low down a hefty bet that films focused on characters like Black Widow and S.H.I.E.L.D. will do better than films featuring Thor and Ant-Man.
Just look at the reception of Iron Man over the top of The Incredible Hulk. Both were equally excellent movies, featuring leading actors and a supporting cast that can easily hold their own in a box office fight. But almost hands down people preferred Iron Man, 1 and 2. Compare that to the fervour for the Batman films, and it seems to me that moviegoers – outside of the comic reading public – prefer unpowered heroes.
Scarlett Johansson probably doesn’t hurt either.
Elsewhere in the Marvelverse Maybe the most interesting aspect of the interview was the wider range that Marvel Studios seems to have when it comes to their movies.
“…we've got a lot of other characters we're prepping and getting ready for film debuts: the world of martial arts, these great cosmic space fantasies, Dr. Strange, and the magic side of the Marvel Universe.”
Dr. Strange, is not a surprise to me, as I think Marvel has always seen him as a possible money-maker in the long run. But I was really blown away when Feige mentioned the martial arts and cosmic aspects of Marvel.
Martial Arts In a world which will see a movie simply because it has Jason Statham in it and relishes a good punch out, it’s no surprise really, when you think about it, that Marvel wants to use their bevy of martial artists to go fight it out on the big screen.
Characters like Iron Fist, Ronin, Daredevil and Elektra, Crossbones – not to mention the wide array of A-level characters which like to smack it out with the bad guys, Captain America and Bucky, the mutants including Wolverine, and Cable – are sure to make a hit on the big screen, as long as fans can ignore the Ben Affleck-Daredevil/Jennifer Garner-Elektra fiasco of a few years ago.
Marvel Cosmic I’ve never read any of it, and for that I just
know that I am missing out something bad. People have been raving about the work done by British writers and artists Andy Lanning and Dan Abnett. They’ve done incredible things with characters that were really very C-list in their nature prior to the change of millennium, and given us stories that make the best of their massive power levels and the threat of impending doom to the cosmos.
Will DC and Warner Bros. Learn? This is the biggest question of all. Marvel has the roster of characters to entertain me for a good decade and more, but my favourite characters live over the street in DC-land. I want to see Green Lantern succeed, I want to see Nightwing get his own movie, and I want someone to understand how to write a Superman movie without screwing it up.
The buzz around is that DC/WB
have actually got a bit of an idea of what they’re doing, finally: their looking into movies for the JLA members without doing a JLA movie. Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern; they all have the necessary requirements to support a stunning movie, but only if their done right.
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how GL turns out, and that’ll give us an idea of how the rest of DC/WB’s line-up will look like.
In The End Marvel has done it right, and by all indications, they’re going to keep doing it right for a long time to come now. No doubt after a few years of individual movies, we’ll get a second Avenges film, and that will be the way of it for the next decade or so.
And that’s the way it has always has to have been. The non-comic reading public don’t want to be bombarded with 87 characters they’ve never heard of before in one movie. For the most part, they probably do actually care about a good story and about understanding the characters. So Marvel is giving the fans and non-fans what they both want; movies which service the comic fans, but don’t exclude the rest.