Marvel Studios has made one of the biggest splashes into the film industry in recent years with them become a full-fledged independent studio that finances its own films.
You no doubt have seen the results of this in mainstream media in recent times with the two big summer movies last year, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, and the success that ensued.
Now we have an ever-growing list of films on Marvel’s production slate with talk of expansion to a production capacity of four big budget features a year in the not too distant future.
For now, we’ll have to settle with the massive upcoming origin films for Thor and Captain America, the sequel to last summer’s hit Iron Man, and the eagerly anticipated and almighty team-up film that will bring them all together: Avengers.
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Writing the Avengers movie is one of the go-to Marvel writers, Zak Penn. He was responsible for the screenplays of previous Marvel-based films X-Men 2 & 3, Elektra, the Fantastic Four & X3 video games as well as last year’s Incredible Hulk. Currently, he’s preparing to work on his biggest task yet, Avengers.
In his previous work, most notably when writing the X-Men sequels, Penn had a desire to have the Fox Studios’ Marvel Films cross-over by including more characters in the films – most notably, the Fantastic Four. However, Fox wanted no part of that and it didn’t happen.
With Marvel Studios however, all the films share the same universe and so we’ll be seeing cameos, tying-elements and all of the characters eventually working together as a full-fledged team, come 2012 (barring any more delays).
Earlier this week, Zak Penn was on a panel at the Los Angeles Film Festival and spoke a little bit about the project and working with Marvel:
“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.”
Awesome.
Continue reading ‘Zak Penn Loves Marvel Interconnectivity… But His ‘Avengers’ May Suck’
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35 Comments
connecting all the different characters can be extremely difficult so i hope they don’t get crazy with this.
i didn’t like Fantasic four 1 and 2 , thought it was pretty bad, and x man was pretty decent… if the guy who wrote the story for those is doing this… well…
He wrote Elektra, Fantastic Four, and X3. let’s just say, confidence is low.
Well, I think it has a lot to do with the directors and the studio involved. Fox most likely wasn’t too concerned over the movies keeping true to the comics and probably made clear the direction they wanted out of those movies. But now under Marvel, Penn also did The Incredible Hulk, and that was like 100 times better than the Fantastic Four movies and X3…
And he also did X2 right? And that was pretty good.
It could definitely be worse, and I still want Favs, but you never know!
Actually, Fav is directing it isn’t he? Penn is just “penning” it, lol, sorry… He’s the writer.
They should just get Penn and the other writersd from the other individual films.
I Think it might work if they find a way to begin the story through the eyes of just a couple of the characters Just as The X-Men, film opened with Rogue And Magneto.
Something like that .
Make them relatable not just super powered gods juggling their powers.
i’m with you guys on low expectations due to his writing credits but as someone mentioned, director choice is more important.
Look at David Goyer.
He wrote the story for Dark Knight and screenplays for Dark City, Blade 1 and 2. All those had great directors behind them.
He also wrote screenplays for Jumper, Crow City of Angels and Blade Trinity and directed The Unborn, Invisible and Blad Trinity. All sub par movies.
Directors and actors can pick up the slack, but it has to be the right people.
For Penn, it would have to be some amazing combo of actor/director to pick up his slack.
Zach Penn is writing this? Did anyone see Elektra, any of the fantastic 4’s, or x-men 3? I thought this was going to be bad, now I am sure… After this comes out and BOMBS I think that we will have reached teh peak of comic book movies and the decline will esnue. They are overdoing it now…I mean i kind of know about comics but I have asked girls, people at work, and family and tehy have never even heard of thor and deadpool and yet these are going to be major movies…the whole comic book movie thing is going to get worn out very very soon and Avengers will be the marking point to the decline
@Tasouli
That’s the spirit!
Viva la defeat!
@tasouli
I don’t think a lot of people knew who Iron Man was either before the movie, at most they’ve heard of a comic book character by that name but won’t know anything about him…
i just hope they get Decent Villains for the Films. i assume For Cap the”Red Skull”.
&
for Thor, obviusly Loki.
but the Avenger film, i hope they dont Use HULK as the so called villan. i would assume numerous Smaller roles for villans with the Red skull or Baron Van Stuker observing from behind Closed doors.
or if a MARVEL fan (me) can Dream, they would Bring in Ultron as the Villan,
and Make “my personall favorite Avenger” The Vision a villan then like in the Comics Turn him over to the AVENGERS. Leaving it open for sequels.
and who knows if the Avengers does well and spawns Sequals, we could see a West coast Avenger movie.
but it’s highly doubtful.
Of course Penn shouldn’t write the script; he’s bald. We all know bald guys can’t write.
Kahless,
Bald guys may not be able to write,
But they have on occasion done a fairly effective job at commanding starships!
If you are referring to that petaQ Jean Luc Picard, all he is good for commanding is a garbage skow!! He is nothing but tin plated Denebian Slime Devil with delusions of gradeur!!
Uh, that was Kahless, if you were wondering, not me.
Ken from everything I’ve read Zack didn’t do most of the X2 writing. He was on a team and he was involved in the writing, but most of it wasn’t him. With X2 out of the way. Penn did X3, Fantastic Four 1 and 2 and Electra those are some of the worst comic movies ever certainly top 5 worst from the last 8 years. I have no faith in Penn I can only hope the actors and director can pull something good together because I think at this point it’s been proven this guy isn’t a great writer.
@ Brodie Bruce
“or if a MARVEL fan (me) can Dream, they would Bring in Ultron as the Villan,
and Make “my personall favorite Avenger” The Vision a villan then like in the Comics Turn him over to the AVENGERS. Leaving it open for sequels. ”
I agree ..completely..they can do so much interms of storyline with Vision and Ultron especially considering reliance on tech and how they could exploit it.
I hope Marvel has the sense to rewrite his script if need be, or get a new writer all-together, they have time…
Elektra, Fantastic Four, and X3.Those are some of comic book fans least favorite movies.The Avengers is a movie I have hoped to see since I was a kid,heres hoping they can pull it off.
And since I heard David Goyer’s name come up in a comment.His storylines are pretty awesome,the problem is the actual execution.His concepts are awesome in my opinion.I loved the concept of the crow:city of angels,but the movie sucked.Visually stunning but it wasnt good.Dark city however was awesome and to this day its looked at as a sci-fi masterpiece.
he also wrote the story for last action hero which is arnold best movie ever!
Iggy I really do hope you were joking/being sarcastic.
@ogb lol nope its the destruction of the action flick…and its a comedy; so i like it.
at least the film is meant to be what it is
unlike transformers where it is the action film with bad puns and story that last action hero is making fun of.
plus those pans and widescreen shots are hilarious
even Ian McKellen played death
and his acting was superb.. even though he was onscreen for 5 mins
@Iggy
I just can’t believe you consider that movie to be Arnold’s best. Terminator 2 by FAR is his best. True Lies also way better.
But that’s my opinion.
I don’t know, I liked Last Action Hero because they were kind of funny in some of the things they make fun of about movies (some of it was totally true! lol), but no way it’s Arnold’s best…
okay maybe not his best.. but his best comedy.. total recall would be his best action… ziiing!
touche
Why can’t Marvel UNDERSTAND or face the fact that his movies were the worst of the superhero genre to date? Even the unreleased Fantastic Four movie that was done what, in the eighties?, had more to it than his recent ventures. Writers can have the best intentions and decide to be true to the comics, but when it all comes out as mish-mash, many things need to be reconsidered. LIKE THE WRITERS! How can Marvel, or those at large who make the final decisions, actually consider taking what could be the most celebrated superhero movie of all time (YES I SAID ALL TIME) and allow someone who has proven to NOT command the box office OR the fans approval? Can anyone say DUH? LETS GET SOME OF THESE GREAT COMIC WRITERS AND LET THEM DO IT RIGHT!!! If Penn writes the Avengers(and this doesn’t even fully describe it), It WILL suck. I want THE Avengers. Not some rehydrated hollywood stylized version of My Avengers wasted on the big screen. What a waste that would be. As Daniel F. mentions, there is always HOPE.
I like the idea of having the Vision being the villian, who could turn out to be a substantial part of the Avengers at some point, as Brodie Bruce states in his post. With Iron Man, Iron Monger, Crimson Dynamo?, I think this robot ideal might be overdone. As it may be with an Ultron and the Vision storyline. THERE IS SO MUCH TO CHOOSE FROM THROUGH THE AGES! This is why we need the Mighty Men at Marvel to be at the helm.
The only Penn I want involved with the Avengers is the one that designs the storyboards. THE END.
Ken Branagh doing Thor is what I’m most excited about, too. Captain America seems tough to pull off (what’s the costume gonna look like?)
Gotta admit…that list of Zak Penn’s superhero movie credits, other than X2, doesn’t give me a lot of confidence. I hope he does well…with a name like Zak Penn, he’s a born superhero writer!
When is Woody Allen’s Weeping Gorilla coming out? Now THAT I want to see!
…And then Wes Anderson’s ARCHIE’S PALS N GALS. I’m the first one in line!
when can we start to see some pictures of thor’s costume that will be worn in the movie? i like the new design with the chainmail armor for thor 2011. my pick’s for an avengers line-up include captain america,thor,iron man,quasar,ms. marvel black panther. but please no hulk! he’s boring he’s stupid, he can’t even communicate in proper english.unless the hulk is cast as an enemy of the avengers it can work!
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