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!

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.

As it stands, Hollywood studios are deadlocked in their contract negotiations with the Screen Actors Guild. That news stirs up foul memories of a year ago, when the Writers Guild of America was at a similar juncture with the studios… Soon after that there were no TV shows for about half a year.

And we all know what that did last year’s TV season.

The official plot for Captain America has been released, and it seems it does indeed take place completely during the 1940s, which I think is pretty cool.  I just wish the official title, The First Avenger: Captain America was reversed to Captain America: The First Avenger.

Paramount has sent us updated (and first time) releases dates for the big Marvel Studios movies coming out over the next three years.

Iron Man 2 has been pushed back one week, Thor has been pushed back a month and a half and we have release dates for Captain America and The Avengers movies.

Wow.

First Marvel goes with Jon Favreau for Iron Man and now it’s looking like another non-action/indie film director will come into the fold: Kenneth Branagh as the director for Thor.

The closest thing he’s directed to this would be Henry V almost 20 years ago, but he been directing other films since then.

Branagh also has a very long acting resume, having had a role in about 50 movies and TV episodes.

According to Den of Geek, Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier has been letting all the beans spill from Marvel’s bag of tricks concerning the cast of the Avengers movie, as well as the current state of Iron Man 2. Is the Frenchman giving us fact, or just more fiction? I’ll let you be the judge of that.

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?

Courtesy of MTV come the logos for the next four superhero movies coming from Marvel Studios. On the left you can see the spiffy graphics for Iron Man 2 (or should I say Iron Man II?) and Thor in 2010, Captain America in 2011 and… The Avengers.

This is as high res a version of the poster as is out there at the moment.

Conspicuous by it’s absence is any mention of Hulk 2. I guess they weren’t feeling confident about how it would do at the box office… we’ll have to see what happens over the next couple of weeks. Also interesting is seeing Thor up there for a 2010 release (which is supposed to be a couple of months after the Iron Man sequel). I say interesting because Jon Favreau thinks there’s not enough time to get Shellhead out the door by early Summer 2010. I don’t know if the script is done for Thor, but with Matthew Vaughn having dropped out there’s still no director picked to helm the Norse god epic.

On the other hand, while Justice League has been tossed about like a rowboat in stormy seas, I have no doubt that The Avengers will make it to the big screen. Marvel has planting the seeds for it in both Iron Man AND The Incredible Hulk and I have no doubt we’ll see hints of it in Thor as well.

Source: MTV