MTV caught up with the new Nick Fury actor, Samuel L. Jackson, at an event for the 20th anniversary of Spike Lee’s film Do The Right Thing and discussed with him his role in Iron Man 2.

The star actor of seemingly every movie revealed that his role in the sequel to Iron Man will be limited to him pulling strings behind the scenes and not getting directly involved in any sort of combat.

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Thor is arguably the toughest character and film to sell out of the upcoming slate of movies in development at Marvel Studios, but it is the one I’m most excited for.

Besides my interest in the character, what really grabs my interest is the man in charge: Kenneth Branagh.

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.

The First Avenger: Captain America is one of the four big budget summer blockbusters on Marvel’s official slate of upcoming films. Along with the Iron Man franchise, The Incredible Hulk and Thor, Captain America is getting his own origin film to establish his character in Marvel movie continuity all culminating to the main event: The Avengers.

It’s fantastic timing for Marvel to be doing this with their own fast-growing studio during the era of comic book films, but for Captain America, the timing seemed a little off in terms of lining up with the comics since the character the movie is based on is dead - and has been for over two years.

Well, that’s not going to be the case for long and it’s no coincidence in timing.

If you’re a regular Screen Rant reader, you’ve no doubt seen our extensive coverage of Thor leading up to and including the casting announcements. As we waited eagerly to see director Kenneth Branagh’s choice of who would play the God of Thunder, there was quite a bit of speculation abound as to what candidates were in the running for the role.

Back in March, we reported that the folks behind Thor had narrowed their choices down to six. They included Josh Hartnett, Liam Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam, Joel Kinnaman and Alexander Skarsgård.

There is a lot of new info about the major Marvel superhero movies floating around the Web right now, and because we at Screen Rant believe in a lifestyle of convenience, we’ve pulled together all the bits and pieces into one cohesive Marvel Movie Update.

If you’ve been wondering what’s the latest with Iron Man 2, Thor, The First Avenger: Captain America or the much-anticipated grand-slam finale, The Avengers, then be sure to keep on reading. Oh, and not to be left out of the club, we’ve got some quick recaps on what’s going on with  Spider-Man 4.

[UPDATE: Check out the Promo Posters for Iron Man 2 and Spider-Man 4!]

It’s an exciting time for film buffs and comic readers alike as we have entered the era of comic book movies with no end in site. Today, we’ve got a little tease to keep that excitement up!

With films based on Marvel’s vast collection of characters and stories being created regularly by a multitude of studios over the years, we saw the genre grow even more with the comic publisher creating its own film production company, Marvel Studios, back in the nineties.

The logos after the jump…

In the last month, we’ve seen some major movement on Marvel’s upcoming Thor movie. Major casting decisions were announced with Chris Hemsworth set to play Thor and Tom Hiddleston to play Loki, and we’ve heard director Kenneth Branagh talk about the cast and nailing down the shooting schedule.

With the big announcements made, we’re starting to finally see some more general news on the movie including these two interviews that I’ll discuss in this article.

As you may already know, Fox and Marvel want to reboot both the Fantastic Four and Daredevil and it looks like a certain “Starbuck” may be angling to play none other than Typhoid Mary!

Recently, Katee Sackhoff (”Starbuck” on Battlestar Galactica) was seen at Golden Apple Comics in Los Angeles purchasing as many comics featuring Typhoid Mary as possible. Now of course there’s no guarantee that she’ll be playing the pyrokinetic villain, or is even being considered, but it’s a darn good bet she wants to play her!

It’s been a big few days for Kenneth Branagh and his upcoming Marvel epic, Thor. On Saturday, all the rumors and speculation were put to rest as we finally found out Chris Hemsworth (Captain Kirk’s short-lived dad from Star Trek) would be playing Thor. To keep the buzz momentum going, today we found out that Tom Hiddleston has been cast as the villain, Loki.

Yesterday, Empire spoke with the President of Production at Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige, and threw some questions at him regarding the upcoming Thor and Avengers movies.

For Thor, we recently found out that the movie would start shooting in January and we expected to hear some casting updates soon. As it turns out, that is the case and we’ll likely start hearing some casting decisions next month. Kevin Feige had this to say about Thor casting:

Click to continue "Marvel Movie Updates: Thor Cast Soon"

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We all remember the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike that lasted 100 days (from late 2007 to early 2008) and cost Hollywood a couple of billion dollars in lost wages and revenue.  Sure, plenty of movies went into production anyway so there would be at least some new movies, but without writers to do onset re-writes has the quality suffered?

For example, the recent James Bond film Quantum of Solace; writer Paul Haggis turned in the script right before the WGA strike began in November 2007, and the film started shooting soon after.  Production was well underway by the time the strike ended, so it is possible they had some rewrites done, especially if there were any major reshoots.

Last month, news broke that Thor director Kenneth Branagh was seen meeting with True Blood actor, Alexander Skarsgård. This sparked rumors that the 6’4” son of veteran actor Stellan Skarsgård was in the running to wield the Mighty hammer, Mjolnir.

Those rumors may now be all for not as news broke this weekend that Alexander may no longer be contending for the lead role in Marvel Studios’ upcoming Thor, The Avengers and potential sequels.

With X-Men Origins: Wolverine a little under three weeks from release, we here at Screen Rant thought an overview of all Marvel properties (and possibilities) might be in order. Though the new independent studio is now producing their own films, solely distributed by Paramount Pictures, there are a number of iconic characters still residing at Hollywood’s other major studios.

Now that the film division of Marvel Entertainment exists, we’ve seen questions around the inter-webs about certain properties and copyrights concerning top-tier Marvel characters. Many readers have been calling for Wolverine to cameo in the expected 2012 film Avengers, but there’s a little problem with that potential geekgasm.

There are rumors and then there are rumors… I would put this one down in the “very likely to be true” column: Jon Favreau may be directing The Avengers.

Now, all together… say it with me: SWEET!

AICN reports that they have a new “source” that has given them accurate information in the past. This source sent them a report explaining the reason for the Marvel schedule release push-back:

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.

The last we heard, due to salary negotiation problems, Samuel L. Jackson was no longer going to be playing Nick Fury in movies based on the Marvel Comics universe. His next appearance was to be in Iron Man 2, where he was supposed to have more of a significant role than his brief after-credits cameo in the first film.

Although I don’t consider him irreplaceable, I do like the idea of Jackson as Fury, based on the Marvel “Ultimates” version of the character. Some people are up in arms that Fury isn’t being portrayed as the classic version of the character going back 40 years, but to me he’s a supporting character in the films so it doesn’t bother me.

Some new release dates have been announced by Warner Bros. for some pretty big movies, including Green Lantern, the final Harry Potter film, Sherlock Holmes, Jonah Hex and Clash of the Titans. The dates range from late 2009 all the way to summer 2011, and one of these movies picked a date that will make things interesting as far as a box office battle (if the date sticks).

[UPDATE: Marvel was kind enough to provide additional information about their animated projects.]

The Marvel Animation Group panel at this year’s New York Comic Con was a rally for support– Cort Lane, director of development for Marvel Animation repeatedly asked for fans to $upport Marvel Animated projects, so that the company could continue to grow and provide fans with animated shows and features they want to see.

Reading between the lines I got somewhat of an impression that this is an important juncture for Marvel Animation. Personally, I’ve always been more of a DC Animation fan, though this panel did give me one or two reasons to consider making a switch.

With things looking bad worldwide economically, why are movie studios hurting even though box office, TV ratings and DVD rentals are all up?  Why is the big DreamWorks/Bollywood deal about to go south?  With ratings up, why are networks still hurting for money?  And finally, why are DVD sales being affected (aside from Netflix cannibalizing them)?

There was much joy and celebration when Marvel Comics formed its own studio for the purpose of producing films based on their extensive library of characters. They would have creative control over how their cadre of superheroes would be portrayed on the big screen - as opposed to handing the rights over to Sony Pictures or Fox Studios.

While Sony did all right with the first two Spider-Man movies, the third was pretty much reviled by hard core fans - and Fox, while they didn’t do badly on the first two X-Men films, the third was a disappointment. And of course let’s not forget Electra and Daredevil which where underwhelming to say the least.

Samuel Jackson is not happy. Negotiations with Marvel for his continuing role as Nick Fury have broken down due to money issues.

As it stands, Nick Fury has shown up at the end of Iron Man, and there are were plans for his appearance in Iron Man 2, The First Avenger: Captain America and The Avengers.

Not too long after it was announced that Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer) was going to direct Marvel’s Avengers prequel, The First Avenger: Captain America, it looks like Marvel is taking the next logical step: Securing writers to pen the epic origin story of Steve Rogers.

The scribes currently in negotiations with Marvel Studios are none other than Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, both part of the writing team behind The Chronicles of Narnia films.

Is Captain America going to fantasy camp? Or does Marvel know something about these two guys that we have yet to perceive? Let’s talk about it!

It’s official, folks! Marvel Studios has put out a production update stating a director has been tapped to helm the upcoming corner-piece to Marvel’s Avengers puzzle, The First Avenger: Captain America. So, without further ado, the man bringing us the adventures of the Star-Spangled Avenger will be none other than:

Joe Johnston (???).

Super nice guy Quint over at AICN had the chance a while back (prior to all the Terrence Howard/Don Cheadle news) to sit down with Iron Man director Jon Favreau. It’s a huge interview (took up two posts over at their site) and covers a lot of ground as far as Iron Man 2, The Avengers, and how all the movies involving Marvel Comics characters have to mesh into a cohesive whole.

No rumors here folks - we’ve got some rock solid, straight from Marvel Studios news regarding the Avengers, Iron Man 2 & 3, Jon Favreau, Robert Downey Jr. and the final word on the the Don Cheadle replacing Terrence Howard story.

That’s a lot of stuff for one post!

Kevin Feige, President of Production for Marvel Studios spoke with MTV News earlier this week about the success of this summer’s The Incredible Hulk.

Feige discussed the risks in doing another Hulk-centered film and how it paid off financially and critically compared to Ang Lee’s Hulk of 2003. Although, not even close to the success or critical acclaim of The Dark Knight or Iron Man, Feige says they now have a Hulk they are proud of and that fans can enjoy going forward. He details the two objectives Marvel had with the new adaptation of Bruce Banner’s alter-ego:

On Monday, Stephanie Sanchez at IESB.net had a chance to speak with Daniel Craig in Beverly Hills for a Quantum of Solace press event.

Sanchez asked Craig if he would be up for trying something new and different in a character role such as Thor and he laughed it off. Sanchez then told him she had heard that Craig was on Marvel’s shortlist to play Thor.

In response, Mr. Craig, Daniel Craig, revealed that Marvel indeed had already approached him for this role and he had turned it down. He jokingly clarified that it would be too much of a power trip playing both James Bond and the mighty Thor.

Marvel Studios has us already talking about a movie not set to be released until 2011: The Avengers. That film will no doubt be of epic proportions.

Director Louis Leterrier, who brought us The Incredible Hulk, suggested to MTV News (back in June) that they couldn’t find a villain that could challenge the teaming of Iron Man, Ant-Man, Thor and Captain America.

And his solution was for them to use his.

Marvel Studios is really stacking the deck for the release of The Avengers movie. We already know about Marvel’s two-year plan to release stand-alone films for its Avengers roster, before the team unites to take center stage in 2011. However it seems as though the big screen isn’t a big enough venue for Marvel’s Avengers roll-out, because the small screen is being included in the campaign effort too.