While Sony raced to the finish line to keep the rights to Spider-Man, the same can’t be said for another major character. Rewind: a few years back, the studio was in danger of losing the rights to the webslinger after Spider-Man 3. Director Sam Raimi couldn’t come to terms on a fourth film and if Sony didn’t get a film in production within a certain time frame, Spider-Man would have been in danger of joining Marvel’s The Avengers. That’s why, just five years after its last sequel, Marc Webb’s reboot The Amazing Spider-Man was born.
Recently, rights packages lapsed for several Marvel characters once licensed to other studios, such as the Punisher and Daredevil, bringing them back to Marvel. Two more names can now be added to that list, according to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige. A new interview confirms that despite last year’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Marvel once again controls the rights to both Ghost Rider, formerly at Sony, and Blade, formerly at New Line. Read More »
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Posted on Thursday, May 2nd, 2013 by Angie Han
While the first three releases from Marvel’s Phase Two will be sequels to films from Phase One, the studio also has plans to introduce a whole bunch of new faces to the Cinematic Universe with films like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man. The cast for the former has been shaping up nicely as of late, with Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, and Zoë Saldana clinching the leads. It’ll be a while yet before we get to see what those guys actually look like in character, but a new piece of concept art offers a peek at a young Peter Quill.
Meanwhile, casting on Edgar Wright‘s Ant-Man is expected to get underway later this year, along with some rewrites. And if you’re having trouble imagining how such a tiny hero might look on the big screen, fear not. According to Feige, a polished version of the test reel shown at Comic-Con will be released sooner or later. Hit the jump to see the Guardians pic and get a status update on Ant-Man.
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Posted on Thursday, May 2nd, 2013 by Angie Han
It’s easy to forget how insanely ambitious Marvel’s Phase One plan seemed back in 2008, when the first Iron Man movie was all we’d seen so far. But now that the strategy’s turned out to be a smashing success, Marvel’s challenge will be to clear that high bar again in Phase Two.
Fortunately for them and for us, so far it looks like they’ll manage to do just that. Iron Man 3, which opens this weekend, is drawing strong reviews all over, and what we’ve seen and heard of Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier seems very promising. After the jump, check out a new image from the former, a bit of concept art from the latter, and Kevin Feige‘s comments on both.
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Its very hard to keep secrets in the age of the internet, especially when it comes to fanboy properties like superhero movies. While talking to Marvel head Kevin Feige and Iron Man 3 writer/director Shane Black, I asked how Marvel Studios is evolving to deal with this growing interest in rumors, leaks and sometimes even misinformation.
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During my interview last week with Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige and Iron Man 3 director Shane Black, I brought up Patton Oswalt’s awesome ad-libbed Star Wars: Episode VII pitch (a Parks & Recreation outtake) which involved a cross-over event involving Disney’s Marvel superhero and galactic universe.
While many of my colleagues were asking the softball questions like “will Robert Downey Jr come back for a fourth Iron Man” or “where will Marvel go in Phase 3?” I knuckled down with the much more important hardball question: when is Disney going to take Oswalt’s pitch seriously and give us that Marvel/Disney cross-over film? Find out the answer after the jump.
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Tomorrow we’ll see the debut footage from Alan Taylor‘s Thor: The Dark World when the trailer goes online, but today we’ve got a few new images to whet your appetite for another trip to Asgard. Along with the pics are some quotes from Chris Hemsworth and Marvel producer Kevin Feige, offering up a bit of new info about the story that plays out in the upcoming film. Read More »
It’s no secret Iron Man 3 marks the end of Robert Downey Jr.‘s contract with Marvel. The actor has been vocal about it, the president of the studio Kevin Feige has talked about it, but everyone agreed concentrating on Iron Man 3 was the most important thing. That film is now done and hitting theaters in mere days. So talk once again turns to Downey’s future with Marvel. The actor’s charismatic turn as billionaire playboy Tony Stark is credited for igniting the massive success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and while he feels like an integral part of that universe Downey recently revealed he has an end in mind for his Marvel run.
In a new interview with GQ magazine, the actor said he’s had a ton of fun playing Iron Man and hasn’t decided anything for sure, but suggests about three more years is as far as he can go with the role, at least physically. After that, he’d like to direct and star in a Halloween-set thriller. Read the quotes below. Read More »
You may not know the names Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, but you know their work. They wrote the three Chronicles of Narnia movies, this month’s Michael Bay film Pain & Gain, and also a little film called Captain America: The First Avenger. From there, they went on to not only Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which started production this week, but to do a lot of work on Thor: The Dark World too. So they’re a pretty fantastic authority on Marvel’s Phase 2.
We spoke to the pair on the occasion of the release of Pain & Gain and, of course, inquired about their Marvel movies. We’ll run the enlightening stuff about Michael Bay’s movie closer to release, but Markus and McFeely had some very interesting, non-spoiler, thoughts on their two Marvel movies as well as how they relate to The Avengers 2.
The pair said that the biggest thing they had to do when writing a movie to lead into The Avengers 2 was make sure the character loyalties were in a specific place. They also discussed how writing on Thor: The Dark World was a different experience, how much The Winter Soldier had changed from its initial outline, and how the sequel will put Captain America in a totally new place. Spoiler alert – they really love working with Marvel and want to continue to do so. Read the quotes below. Read More »
