Filmonic » Captain America

Marvel’s profits drop 60%

Liam — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:11:47 +0000

As Marvel Entertainment had no tent-pole movies released in 2009 it’s not surprising to see that they didn’t make as much money this year, and they are reporting a 60% drop in profits from the 3rd Quarter of 2009. However, they did make quite a lot from the release of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk last year, with DVD/Blu-ray, merchandise and TV sales flowing through to 2009.

Despite the drop in profits the report from Yahoo! shows Marvel have nothing to be worried about. As we all know Iron Man 2 will be released next May which should top up their bank balance (Iron Man made $580+ million worldwide). They also have Thor and Captain America starting production over the upcoming months for 2011 releases, and then The Avengers in 2012. Marvel are also developing games with Sega to coincide with the release of all these movies. Lets not forget Spider-Man 4 in 2011 either.

Should all the above movies flop (which is highly unlikely) they still have TV shows such as a second season of Wolverine and the X-Men and Black Panther in the works. They also have a Spider-Man Broadway musical opening sometime next year, DVDs and games such as Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 which has already started bringing in revenue.

So an average end to 2009 for Marvel, although the best is yet to come (which is probably why Disney bought them earlier this year.)

Joe Quesada says Captain America will “rock everyone’s socks off”

Liam — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:22:45 +0000

With all the behind the scenes footage from Iron Man 2 and casting details on Thor it’s quite easy to forget that Marvel are actually working on the Captain America movie too. The film is currently scheduled to be released in May 2011, which is two months after Thor, however they still need to put together a cast and there is also the small issue of finding Captain America himself.

Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada recently spoke to Comic Book Resources and praised the film, but he didn’t give anything away.

Quesada offered a brief update on “The First Avenger: Captain America,” with which he’s had some involvement. “I’ve seen a couple of outlines and an initial screenplay, and it’s going to rock everyone’s socks off,” he said. “It’s very unexpected, the kind of movie it is.” Quesada added that “Captain America” sets up “The Avengers” in “a fantastic way” and also mentioned that there is an undisclosed wish list of actors to play the star-spangled superhero.

Captain America is expected to start filming next summer, so in between now and then we should be getting some big developments. The Wolfman director Joe Johnston is directing, and the writers are the guys responsible for The Chronicles of Narnia scripts.

Jon Favreau won’t be directing The Avengers

Liam — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:58:13 +0000

A year ago it was announced that Iron Man and Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau would be an executive producer on The Avengers, and there was talk that Marvel wanted him in the director chair too. However, Favreau recently sat down with MTV and denied that he would be directing, and explained why not.

“They’ll have to [find a different director], because I’m not going to be available,” he explained. “It’s something I’m being the executive producer on, so I’ll definitely have input and a say.”
“It’s going to be hard, because I was so involved in creating the world of Iron Man and Iron Man is very much a tech-based hero, and then with ‘Avengers’ you’re going to be introducing some supernatural aspects because of Thor,” he continued. “How you mix the two of those works very well in the comic books, but it’s going to take a lot of thoughtfulness to make that all work and not blow the reality that we’ve created.”
Favreau also confessed that his focus on a single member of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” might not be the best fit for the team-up film.
“That’s why it’s good that you have the guys from Marvel like Kevin Feige, who knows the books well and has been involved with the making of all the movies, and he’ll be very involved with ‘Thor’ and ‘Cap,’” said Favreau. “You need somebody who has the perspective of all the different franchises to bring them together. I have the myopic vision of just knowing and loving Iron Man.”

So if not Favreau then who? As the film won’t be released until 2012 there’s plenty of time for Marvel to find the right guy (or female?) for the job. Although there is a chance it could either be Thor director Kenneth Branagh or Captain America director Joe Johnston.

Who do you want to direct The Avengers?

The Avengers line-up revealed

Liam — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:19:40 +0000

Some Iron Man 2 footage was shown at Comic-Con yesterday (read a description of what was seen here) and afterwards producer Kevin Feige took part in a Q&A session. As Marvel have IM2, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers coming up there are hundreds of questions people would like to ask, however one person asked a question everyone wants to know: Which heroes will be in The Avengers line-up?

I think we know. I think it’s going to be Iron Man and Thor, Captain America and Nick Fury. I think it’s safe to assume that there will be some members of the Hulk universe in the film as well. In terms of the additional I think Black Widow, sure. The SHIELD organization for sure. What’s exciting, for me, about The Avengers movie is seeing those four characters interact with each other. I think anywhere from the first issues of The Avengers to Civil War the dynamic between Steve Rogers and Tony Stark is just awesome, it’s fascinating. It brings out sides in others that won’t be brought out in the other franchises. Going forward with the mix is a whole other thing, I think it will be cool. So to pile on another 15 or 10, frankly more than four would be too many.
Is the Hulk in it?
Zak Penn is outlining it as we speak, so we’ll see.

In the past there has been talk of The Hulk actually being a villain in the film, which I think would be kinda cool.

What do you think of the line-up? Are there any other characters you think should appear in the film?

Zak Penn is meeting with the Captain America and Thor people next week

Liam — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:40:16 +0000

Iron Man 2 director Jon Faverua has a fair amount of pressure on his shoulders as he has to make a sequel that builds and improves upon the first film. Thor director Kenneth Branagh has a different type of pressure as he has the task of making the Thor world believable, and making it fit in the Iron Man and Hulk worlds that we’ve already seen. However, Zack Penn probably has the most complicated job in the Marvel movie universe, as he has to combine all of the worlds and characters into one film, The Avengers. Penn spoke to Scifi Wire at a recent event in Los Angeles and said that he would be meeting with other creative people to see how he will pull off the greatest crossover in movie history.

Now that Marvel is itself producing movies as a company, Penn said, “It is a world of difference; it is a lot easier to do things like that, and they encourage it.”
Penn said he is meeting this coming week with the team writing the other movies so they can piece together storylines and overlap some of the film plots.
“They’re doing Captain American and Thor first, and then Avengers is coming out,” Penn said. “They want to see that they’re all connected, not like the Fantastic Four can’t come into the X-Men world, like I was told. I’m taking a meeting next week with the Thor and Captain America people, and we are all going to get together, and I will see what is going to happen. I’ll see where they are leaving the characters; it’s pretty complicated. … There’s a board that is tracking what is happening. [We'll see] how this movie overlaps in that movie. … Marvel is autonomous now. It is night and day: Everyone has read every comic. They know how to make a cool movie.”
And although Penn holds the responsibility for bringing all the characters of the other films together, he remains insecure. “It’s hard to make a good movie,” he said. “We all have the best intentions, and it still might suck.”

That last sentence wasn’t very encouraging. I will be cheering Penn on and hope that it doesn’t suck, however his past work isn’t the best. He wrote Elektra, X-Men 3, and his Incredible Hulk script was rewritten by Edward Norton. While some of his past turds may be the result of crappy directors, his scripts were probably a reason for them not being that great. Hopefully with a good director (possibly Jon Favreau) and the Marvel Creative Committee Penn can produce gold.

Kevin Feige talks Thor, Captain America and The Avengers

Liam — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:17:12 +0000

UGO recently got the chance to interview Marvel Films President Kevin Feige (click here to read the full interview, highly recommended) and he revealed a lot of interesting info regarding the future Marvel movies (Thor, Captain America, The Avengers). Here are some of the best bits:

Update: UGO were not supposed to post it yet! I’ll post again when it’s allowed to go up.

Thor, Captain America and The Avengers updates

Liam — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:29:39 +0000

With Iron Man 2 currently in production everyone wants to know when all those other movies Marvel have been planning will follow suit. Empire recently spoke to Kevin Feige (President of Production at Marvel Studios) and he gave some updates on Thor and The Avengers.

On Thor:

“We will probably be having cast announcements in the next month or so on Thor,” he told us. “We’re looking to cast Loki and Odin soon, and the main female role. And we’ll also hopefully have lockdown shortly, gearing towards the beginning of production, which will be early next year. So I think there will be a lot of announcements between now and then.”
“But [director Kenneth] Branagh’s here, we’re prepping, and he’s put together some spectacular animatics already for our first action scene. We’re digging into the second and third now, and we are just embarking on a rewrite of the draft.”

On The Avengers:

“Zak Penn is already on board The Avengers [as writer] and he’s spending a lot of his time looking into what we’re doing with Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, seeing how we’re tying it all together. And he’s beginning to outline the script now – he’ll be doing that over the summer.”
“All of the Marvel movies leading up to The Avengers will be based in our new facility in Manhattan Beach, in LA. There will be location work that will take us out occasionally, but our home base will always be here. “

ComingSoon.net also got news that The First Avenger: Captain America will start filming in the summer of 2010 for a July 22, 2011 release. Next year is looking like it will be an interesting and exciting year for both fans and Marvel.

S.H.I.E.L.D guy to return in Iron Man 2

Liam — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:32:57 +0000

Clark Gregg will be returning as Agent Phil Coulson in Iron Man 2 according to THR. The S.H.I.E.L.D agent had a few scenes with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) in Iron Man and was mainly there to lay some foundations and to give a wink to the fans. However with Thor, Captain America and The Avengers on the horizon it’s possible that he’ll have a more important and expanded role in the sequel, possibly setting something up for those films along with Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury.

THR also say that Kate Mara (Brokeback Mountain, Shooter) has joined the cast but her role is being kept under wraps, which suggests she is either playing someone super important…or someone not important at all, like a girlfriend or something (not that girlfriends aren’t important, it’s just they aren’t often important in films).

Spider-Man 4, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers release dates

Liam — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:49:46 +0000

Sony and Marvel have announced that the release date for Spider-Man 4 will be May 6th 2011. Marvel also announced release dates for some of it’s upcoming movies, which you can see below.

Iron Man 2 – May 7, 2010
Thor - June 17, 2011
The First Avenger: Captain America – July 22, 2011
The Avengers – May 4, 2012

From the looks of things 2011 is the place to be. We will be getting Spider-Man 4 in May, Thor in June and Captain America in July. Only 2 years to wait!

Robert Downey Jr. Talks Avengers

Liam — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:09:33 +0000

Robert Downey Jr. recently spoke to Splashpage and, as usual, gave his honest thoughts on the upcoming Avengers movie.

“If we don’t get it right it’s really, really going to suck,” said Downey. “It has to be the crowning blow of Marvel’s best and brightest because it’s the hardest thing to get right. It’s tough to spin all the plates for one of these characters.”
“I think its important that I do what I’m supposed to do which is keep my side of the street clean,” said Downey. “The danger you run with colliding all these worlds is [director] Jon [Favreau] was very certain that ‘Iron Man’ should be set in a very realistic world. Nothing that happened in ‘Iron Man’ is really outside the realm of possibility. Once you start talking about Valhalla and supersized super soldiers and jolly green giants it warrants much further discussion.”

Out of all the movies I think Thor will be the trickiest to translate onto the big screen. If they can get Thor right then it will mean whoever lands the directing job for The Avengers will have a little less pressure on them. Combining (possibly) 4 worlds could get complicated if Marvel doesn’t get everyone to collaborate. Communication is key!