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.
