Rumor is beginning to circulate about which of its top-shelf heroes Marvel plans to recruit for the upcoming, and much-hyped, Avengers movie. Some choices are obvious, due to not-so-subtle foreshadows dropped in both Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. And with the internet recently abuzz with news that Marvel studios was pushing to snag A-list stars for its Captain America movie, that character’s inclusion in the Avengers project is certain. So that’s three Avengers we can expect to see, but who else will make the roster?
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According to Iron Man director Jon Favreau:
“the ones Marvel is talking about now are Captain America, Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man and Iron Man. I would love to see that.”
Marvel Studios President of Production Kevin Feige has also alluded to the fact that Marvel hopes to establish a cinematic continuity in which its characters would be able to “cross into each other’s adventures and occasionally team up if there’s a foe too great for any one of them to handle.” Just what Avengers hopes to accomplish.
But it’ll be a hard feat to pull off, in my opinion. I mean sure, what fanboy hasn’t gotten giddy at the notion of seeing all his favorite heroes battling it out on screen all at once (does that qualify as an orgy?) And reading the quote above, it seems as though Kevin Feige is already drinking the super-group-movie Kool-Aid. However, let’s try an remember that this is the MOVIE industry we are talking about, not the COMIC BOOK industry. Only counting the two movies from Marvel Studios already in theaters, to do The Avengers, you’re talking about getting Robert Downey Jr. to share screen time with Ed Norton, not to mention CGI effect$ out the yin-yang for Shellhead and the Hulk. Factor in Cap, Ant-man, Thor, a CGI boomerang shield, shrinking/growing F/X and CGI lightning, and THEN tell me what the price tag for an Avengers flick will likely be. (And if it will be worth its box office returns.)
Currently, Marvel’s game plan seems to revolve around establishing successful film franchises for each of the individual Avengers heroes, then taking those dividends and investing them in the Avengers project. Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk have both had their turns in theaters, to great or middling success; Thor is tenatively scheduled for a 2010 release; The First Avenger: Captain America is set for 2011; and Ant-Man is still working on nailing down a release date, (though it’s rumored that it will be helmed by Edgar Wright, director of Shaun Of The Dead. A great choice.)
Can the house that Stan Lee built crank out three more box office hits to keep an Avengers film afloat? Can so many big-name, bigger-ego, actors really play nice and make an ensemble blockbuster? Has the term “ensemble blockbuster” ever been used before??? (If not, I claim coining rights.) And will the budget for an Avengers movie really end up being higher than the budget of NASA’s last mission? Only time will tell for sure, but in the meantime, let us know your opinion anyway.
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135 Comments
Finally an SR writer not afraid to use the words Kool-Aid™, yin-yang, and orgy in the same paragraph.
I used to shoot down the starry eyed comic fans here with logic like yours. Too many celebrities, egos, scheduling nightmares, and prohibitive cost.
Then Nick Fury and Tony Stark appeared and put the brakes on those comments. So to hell with logic,
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I thought about this aswell … If Edward Norton was going to be in the Avengers film how much of it would he want to change (like, eg TIH)? And how would the other actors react to it? Would they go for it or would they just end up fighting over what they think there characters should do … etc
And also the SFX of Ironman and Hulk were 2 diff company’s im not sure how the Mov business works but can 2 or even 3 diff SFX company’s work on the same movie?
It is an Awesome idea but just like you said … It works with Comic books but comming onto the big screen is a bit different.
All praise for Marvel if they do pull this off, and if they didnt then at least they tried and took the risk of doing it.
I thought about this aswell … If Edward Norton was going to be in the Avengers film how much of it would he want to change (like, eg TIH)? And how would the other actors react to it? Would they go for it or would they just end up fighting over what they think there characters should do … etc
And also the SFX of Ironman and Hulk were 2 diff company’s im not sure how the Mov business works but can 2 or even 3 diff SFX company’s work on the same movie?
It is an Awesome idea but just like you said … It works with Comic books but comming onto the big screen is a bit different.
All praise for Marvel if they do pull this off, and if they didnt then at least they tried and took the risk of doing it
sorry for the double message i hit it the submit button to fast my boss was comming in the room and had to hit it quickly hahaha
what,No Wasp?
Gary,
Marvel has decided that it will have used all its political capital with the Captain America movie, even though the jingoistic character name will be buffered with “The First Avenger” title. So there will be no more WASPs until the Nick Fury, Luke Cage, Sunfire, Banshee and She-Hulk movies come out.
I’m pretty sure Marvel is having these movies written into all the actors’ contracts. hopefully it works out…
P.S. Kofi, you seem like a solid addition to screenrant. this is a pretty sweet article.
Though it wouldn’t reflect the original Avengers roster, I can’t imagine them making a movie like this without putting a woman on the team. Or some minority. It would make sense to put Luke Cage on the team as I believe he’s on it now, but not many people know him. Sure, Sam Jackson’s black but it’s not the same as having some actual Avenger member diversity.
I think we’ll see some people not normally associated with our classic Avengers (which don’t bother me, long as Iron Man’s on the team).
I thought the official term was ‘Nerdgasm’.
Why Thank You Spark, I aim to rant. I truly do aim to rant.
It does,nt seem as though Marvel plans to make any films with female leads,so the only way the super ladies are going to get on film is in a movie like this or at least guest in one of the solo films. Really like to see Wasp, BLACK WIDOW,MS. MARVEL etc. included somewhere.
Black widow, I believe, would be an easy addition to the movie. It would be cool to introduce her, as a cameo, at the end of the Cap movie.
As for having a lot of big-ego actors on the same screen, it worked out pretty well for Oceans 11. Probably not “blockbuster” level, but they have turned that into a decent franchise.
Sean,
Great point! Perhaps that’s a tribute to the director’s skills?
Vic
Great article. IMHO, Marvel could EASILY make a great Avengers movie for less than or equal to “Superman Returns” (budget:$250-300 mil) or Xmen:Last Stand(budget:approx.$210mil)or (”Spiderman3″ budget:$258 mil).
My argument is that the big chunks of the budget will consist from the CGI and the actors. The following mega block-buster movies used EPIC amounts of excellent CGI under a budget less than $175 mil:
1. “Lord of the Rings:Return of the King”(budget:$94 mil)
2. “300″(budget:$60 mil)
3. “Clone Wars”(budget:$120 mil)
4. “Tranformers”(budget:$151 mil)
5. “Day After Tomorrow”(budget:$125 mil)
The multiple actors’ cost and ego would still be lease than any of the “Ocean’s” films (budget:$85-110 mil).
The military vehicles and equipment could be donated similar to the fashion of Mike Bay’s deal in “Transformers”. Also film alot of the scenes in less expensive locations. Recycle alot of the props and effects from “Incredible Hulk” and “Iron Man”.
*I’m betting the budget will be around $200-270 mil.*
I’d like to see the Avengers roster stay fairly small, if not for budget reasons than for screentime. Iron Man, Thor, and Cap maybe rounding up the Hulk as their first group endeavor, with Nick Fury calling the shots a la The Ultimates? Hopefully an appearance or four by Pepper. And there’ll have to be Cap’s coping with the man-out-of-time thing for at least a good chunk of the first half.
I wonder–will Marvel want the Punisher to ever cross paths with his (presumably) PG-13 brethren?
Kris –
I was just wondering that the other day. Wouldn’t it be cool in the Punisher movie just see in the background some news footage of the Hulk vs Abomination fight as Frank passes by an electronics store?
Maybe, maybe not.
Kris and INK: Unforuately Punisher lincensed to Liongate for the time being. Maybe MoonKnight or Luke Cage could fill that spot?
Adrian –
Crap, forgot about that. I’ll go sit in the corner with my giant cone cap for 20 minutes.
The one thing I’m worried about is when you have a massive action scene involving a large portion (if not all) of the Avengers team that it doesn’t get too confusing and caotic for the viewer. We don’t need the Bourne / Batman Begins style for this.
I gotchyo Avengers right here:
Captain America
Iron Man
Thor (regular Marvel U, NOT Ultimate)
Ant Man aka Giant Man
Wasp
Hulk
Who in the hell is gonna make this tho?
I bet with a true Avengers movie they’ll throw in some new characters as well. Wasp, Black Widow (although she deserves her own movie), or Black Panther.
They don’t ALL need origin films before Avengers. As for Ed and Hulk, a good script could still be written with Bruce Hulked out 90% of the time.
Who’s to say an X-Man or Fantastic can’t show up?
I think the task of doing an Avengers movie is no more daunting a task than the X-Men movies were especially X3. I think the budget can be kept under 200 million especially with the new reality in Hollywood of stars not making a dime (on new contracts being negotiated) until studios recoup the production costs first. I mean look at at the heroes and villians that were in X3. I thought the actual budget for Superman Returns was 200 million and that WB tacked on the 75-100 million extra because the project had been in developmental hell for 10 years. The budget for 300 was low because it was all filmed on a soundstage in a Montreal warehouse in front of green screens, they used largely unknown actors therefore they never got a huge chunk of the studios revenue from the money it made. No large sets to build also saved the studio a lot of cash. The Return of the King was filmed with the other movies in that trilogy and they locked everyone into contracts long term to keep the talent together thereby significantly reducing production costs and they recycled a lot of the sets and different pieces throughout the three films and Jacksons good friend Richard Taylor owns the WETA Workshop along with Jackson owning a share in WETA as well. I’m sure this REALLY helped reduce costs for those movies as well and the New Zealand location lowered production costs as well.Clone wars was all ILM and Skywalker Studio all owned by LUcas so I’m sure that played a large part in keeping it’s production costs under control.I have no idea why The Day After Tomorrow cost so much I thought it was bad with average B-movie effects. If MArvel can follow some of the leads of these previous efforts I’m sure they can keep production costs under 200 million..Geez that still is a freakin lot of money for a movie..a movie…People starvin everywhere in the world and I mean everywhere and they spend this kind of money on something that is in no way guarenteed to show a decent return. Sorry to rain on things at the end there but it should be said..
Cheers
Having more than one FX house on a movie isn’t the impossible dream. One acts as a general contractor and subs jobs out to different houses. Even if you have two or more large houses on a movie like “Avengers” joint ventures in the business world are common. The key is writing the contract and then making sure all parties do their job. I will admit that a blockbuster “Avengers” would be historic. You could get a text book for film school out of it easy. I bet somebody has a breakdown, with the expectations, the pressure has got to be enormous.
I think to help make this a little more feasable, they could film 2 films at once, heck even three.
With massive-name actorsto play Thor and Cap. America, and I’m sure someone cool to play Ant-man as well, this movie is insta-half-billion for each title.Could you imagine how easy this is to market. All they need to do is show a pick of the 5 characters for 30 seconds and id wet myself.
I still hold that eventually this could continue and evolve into “the new avengers” including black panther, luke Cage, Wolverine, Spidey, etc. (Djimon Honsou as Black panther, and rumoured Tyrese Gibson for Luke Cage)
NO! That isn’t in response to the Avengers movie, its to having ANT-MAN in the film or an ant-man film period. I mean what villians does he have that are actually considered a threat or what type of adventure would he have? I’m just saying this because I don’t know much about the character and all of I’ve seen so far is a wife-abuseing, weak-power using (at least Atom can adjust his weight), Reed blasting Skrull LOSER!!! (if I am wrong in any of this please let me know)
You know who I would rather have than Pym? ANYONE, listen Marvel I’ll trade you a Namor for Ant-man, a Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, anybody? Okay final offer, the one guy who would round out the team better than anyone, even though he is owned by another company…SPIDER-Man, I know he was not an orginal member but I have always put him in there ever since I played as a superhero as a little boy.
If Marvel could assemble a movie with Spider Man, Iron Man, Hulk, Ghost Rider, Ant Man, Nick Fury, Captain America, and Thor I’m good!
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