Yesterday, we found out Marvel had signed deals with Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johannson for big roles in Iron Man 2 (and other pictures including The Avengers for Scarlett).

Today, Marvel gave us another big announcement – this time releasing a revised schedule for their upcoming feature films. The new schedule pushes each of their planned movies back except for Iron Man 2 which is still scheduled to open May 7, 2010.

Here are the key parts of the official announcement:

“Paving the way for the production and release of its multi-character superhero film, THE AVENGERS, Marvel Entertainment, Inc. , announced today an adjusted release pipeline for its self-produced feature film properties that reflects the first time individual Super Hero characters and story arcs will be inter-woven and culminate in a multi-character motion picture."

"Separately, Marvel Studios confirmed today that Sony Pictures Entertainment will release SPIDER-MAN 4 on May 6, 2011. Additionally, Marvel Studios has revised the release dates for THOR and CAPTAIN AMERICA as part of its release strategy for an uninterrupted road to THE AVENGERS, now debuting May 4, 2012.”

While it may sound like bad news that we’ll be waiting quite a bit longer for three of the four scheduled Marvel flicks, it’s actually a very good thing.

When Marvel over-excitedly put out the original release schedule last May on the heels of Iron Man’s box office success, they were clearly trying to rush these movies into production. And we all know that rush = bad.

Jon Favreau had commented on how he doesn’t know if they can do Iron Man 2 so quickly as he felt he’d need a full two years to make the sequel just as he did the first. At the same time, Thor hadn’t even begun pre-production and it was rumored they were still sorting through script drafts – It wasn’t until September that they had found a director in Kenneth Branagh.

While Iron Man is locking down its character actors, they still haven't got a cast lined up for Thor. The best we have so far are the rumors of Alexander Skarsgård possibly playing Thor, and Josh Harnett playing his mischievous brother Loki.

So, with the new schedule, they have an extra year to make Thor and an extra year to make The Avengers after all the solo films are out. On top of that, Marvel will open the summer blockbuster season for each of the next three years with their title characters (including Sony's Spider-Man 4)

The revised schedule is as follows:

  • Iron Man 2 - May 7, 2010  (remains the same)
  • Thor - June 17, 2011  (moved from July 16, 2010)
  • The First Avenger: Captain America - July 22, 2011  (moved from May 6, 2011)
  • The Avengers: May 4, 2012  (moved from July 15, 2011)
  • Spider-Man 4 - May 6, 2011

What do you think of this announcement?

Source: Marvel