'Thor,' 'Captain America' and 'The Avengers' – Marvel Bits and Bites from Comic Con
Plus Marvel looks to bring 'The Punisher' back for a fourth go 'round
I wasn't too quick to post a round-up of yesterday's Marvel Studios panel at Comic Con because nothing really new was revealed in terms of actual movie news. However, it's the talk of the web and even though I wasn't there I'll attempt to do my best…
Considering I'd reported the day before, the news Mark Ruffalo was going to play The Hulk, Jeremy Renner was going to play Hawkeye and Joss Whedon was going to direct The Avengers their introduction at Comic Con all ended up being old news. Of course, that didn't stop the throngs of 6,500 Comic Con attendees from going insane when Samuel L. Jackson stepped on stage to begin introducing the team you see above. However, it wasn't until the video of the announcement was added to YouTube (as you can see to the right) that I felt it was even worth mentioning.
Now, thanks to the Internet and camera phones, you can watch from afar as Jackson and Downey Jr. announce the currently assembled team of Avengers, who will star in the film that will merge the stories of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Widow, The Hulk and other from the Marvel Universe following their individual introductions in the films that come before.
Of course, one thing missing from the video was a reported series of boos as Marvel Studios' President of Production Kevin Feige was asked earlier by a fan if Ed Norton would return as The Hulk. Feige reiterated his previous statement saying Norton would not be returning, but added, "This panel isn't over yet," alluding to the big reveal of the (mostly) complete cast of The Avengers.
Later in the day Feige was asked by Movieline about his earlier statement in which he said Marvel was looking for "an actor who embodies the creativity and collaborative spirit of our other talented cast members [for The Hulk]… We are looking to announce a name actor who fulfills these requirements." To me it's a statement that insinuates Norton did not embody these qualities considering Norton was vocal about how he'd like to reprise the character. In his interview with Movieline Feige said, "Yeah. I didn't think I was being all that candid, frankly. It's something that I think needed to be very clear [about]."
At this point I would say none of it really matters. Shortly after the boos came the applause as the cast of The Avengers was on stage, and the crowd was having orgasms. All seemed to be forgiven, by an audience apparently suffering from short-term memory loss.
As you can see from the pic at the lede of this article, the Avengers team consists of Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Clark Gregg (S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Phil Coulson), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Chris Evans (Captain America), Jackson (Nick Fury), Renner (Hawkeye) and Ruffalo (The Hulk).
The one noticeable omission from the bunch is Don Cheadle who stepped in for Terrence Howard in Iron Man 2 as Lt. Col. James 'Rhodey' Rhodes a.k.a. War Machine. There's still no word on whether he will have any part in the ensemble feature The Avengers, teaming the superheroes from the Marvel universe into one big crime-fighting organization. Rumors Nathan Fillion would be playing Ant-Man, however, were squashed over the weekend.
The Marvel Studios Panel didn't begin with The Avengers, though, that was merely the headliner after presentations of their two upcoming Summer 2011 offerings, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.
Photo: Marvel/Paramount Pictures
The first presentation centered on Captain America, which has only been shooting for about eight days, but some rough footage was shown including Chris Evans as the title character and Hugo Weaving as the film's Nazi villain, Johann Schmidt (a.k.a. Red Skull), seen only in his pre-comic book transformation. One guy described the footage as "very Indiana Jones in feel" and another said it "would fit right alongside Hellboy" while adding Weaving's voice "sounds a lot like [Werner] Herzog."
Fans of the Captain America comics may be excited to know something called the Cosmic Cube will be a part of the film and according to a Twitter post by Screenrant, director Joe Johnston said, "If you don't love Steve Rogers before he transforms, you're not going to like him after." I personally have no idea if that is just a comment on the character or something to do with the comics that I am just not hip to. Perhaps someone can explain in the comments?
Photo: Marvel/Paramount Pictures
The panel then moved to Thor directed by Kenneth Branagh who apparently compared the comic adaptation to his 1989 Oscar-winning feature Henry V before introducing title star Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston who plays Loki the film's villain, Natalie Portman who plays the film's love interest Jane Foster, Kat Dennings and Clark Gregg.
I've been highly critical of the costumes and early production photos released from Thor and even during the film's presentation it seems others felt the same with Devin Faraci from CHUD.com posting on Twitter, "Asgard looks sort of like the faux-baroque gold plated tacky furniture my grandmother has." However, others were a little more forgiving. One said the "footage should put all the Flash Gordon comparisons to rest" and another added, "Any doubts people had about this flick working should be null and void."
The Playlist was on hand and offers this short, non-spoiler description of what was shown:
A big, meaty, action-heavy teaser showcases Thor being banished to Earth and dealing with SHIELD agents before finding his beloved hammer, as seen in the final moments of Iron Man 2. After some short patter where Clark Gregg admitted he had no idea what Mjolnir was, a short 3D clip gave fans a brief tutorial about the differences between Earth and Asgard. This gives the audience their first glimpse of fan-favorite Asgardians Sif, Balder, the Warriors Three and Heimdall.
Things then moved to The Avengers cast presentation as described above, but not before Portman confirmed her character would not be making the leap from Thor to the ensemble feature.
Finally, the only real new news to come out of the presentation was when Feige announced the rights to the Marvel comic "The Punisher" was no longer at Lionsgate and "Frank Castle is under the roof of Marvel Studios now and we hope to bring him into the fray shortly." The character has been played by three actors to this point — Dolph Lundgren (The Punisher in 1989), Thomas Jane (The Punisher in 2004) and Ray Stevenson (Punisher: War Zone in 2008) — and none of them have done particularly well at the box-office. I wonder, are any of you interested in seeing a fourth attempt any time in the near future?
Thor hits theaters on May 6, 2011, Captain America: The First Avenger arrives shortly after on July 22, 2011 and The Avengers releases a year later on May 4, 2012.
P.S. The official site for The Avengers is live at Marvel.com.
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I still can't get over Norton being replaced just like I can't get over Terrence Howard being replaced. Dont get me wrong, I like the replacements as actors but just can't get over it. I really wouldn't mind seeing them REALLY do a Punisher movie. I can care less for the Lundgren one, Thomas Jane was decent, but the movie looked very low budgeted. Then there's the Ray Stevenson one which I thought he was good, and there seemed to be more action here. The whole movie ended up being REALLY cheesey though, especially the ending. So who knows, maybe now that Marvel has the rights to this they could pull it off.
I love The Punisher as a character, but I don't think we'll ever get a great film out of it. The Thomas Jane film was about as close as you could get and I don't see Marvel signing on for an even darker vehicle as would be needed.
I personally loved the announcement of Ruffalo as Banner (makes much more sense to me than Norton) but I'm still not sold on Whedon as director. You aren't going to please the fanboys more but I'm not sure he has enough experience/skill to bring this gigantic thing home and make it work. I hope I'm wrong.
Finally, Robert Downey Jr. for President.
I don't know why nobody saw "Punisher: War Zone." I wish they could make a sequel to it.
But if they really want to bring the Punisher back to the big screen, what they should do is make him a villian in a new Spider-Man movie, perhaps the sequel to the upcoming reboot (which to be honest is sounding more and more atrocious).
Captain America is looking better, I think it will be a suprising film, but I still think they could've casted a little better.
Tom Jane is the Punisher!
If Don Cheadle wasn't there today, does that mean he's not in the avengers?
It's an interesting question. Having a 2nd Iron Man on the team is kind of unnecessary… I can't recall a time when the two of them have served side-by-side on the Avengers.
The bit with SHIELD at the end of Iron Man 2 suggested that they wanted Stark involved in creating the team but because of his evaluation wanted someone else being Iron Man… likely Rhodey.
However, from the comments that I've read, Joss Whedon is early in the process of rewriting the script, so perhaps quite a bit could still change.
This article comes across as pretty negative on all of this, considering that most accounts from people who were there were really jazzed.
As for the Steve Rogers comment, my guess is that it's meant to be fairly straight forward… his transformation is more in ability than it is in worth. Much like with Peter Parker, I suspect it'll be important that the audience connect with the character before his transformation from meek 4-F reject to Super-Soldier. We'll need to want to see the downtrodden kid make good.
I wish I'd been there at the SDCC, particularly to see the Marvel Studios Panel.
It's starting to look good for the Thor and Captain America movies, though I still think the Avengers will be the big one.
As an Aussie sci-fi writer I've been a Marvel Thor fan since the original JIM of August 1962.
me too dave, i had some of the original journey into mystery comics, from old thor days in the 60,s , wish theyd made the helmet like the original, the hammer looks good, im okay with the costume, at least its got the cape, thats about all we can hope for from hollywood, i havnt anticipated a movie for some time like the thor movie, should be very interesting how they pull it off, story line sounds good and the destroyer was one of the deadliest foes of all time, looking forward to movie
oh yeah , im liking what i hear about helmsworth, i think he is the right pic for the job, looks great in costume, i hope its a hit, i hear he,s a good actor too, havnt seen him in any thing yet, i dont have time to catch much tv, but im gonna find something with him in it and watch it. take care
Both Punisher and Iron Man are well established characters..
i say enough is enough with the comic book movies, they're on thin ice, i think hollywood could really use some creativity & originality instead of taking the easy route. am i the only one feeling the franchise fatigue here ?
If not now, I'm guessing plenty of people will join you in being burnt out after the next 2 years gives us Thor, Green Lantern, Captain America, Rebooted X-men, Rebooted Spider-man, Batman 3, The Avengers and the possibility of Nolan-produced Superman… and that's not even counting all of the minor characters like Ghost Rider and Green Hornet that will come out in that time frame as well.
I think there will always be room for comic adaptations, and even more specifically superhero films, but I do question how long they can remain such prominent tent-pole films before settling down into drawing smaller niche audiences and being more rare.
Westerns never died out, after all. In the last decade alone we've had plenty that could qualify… True Grit, Jonah Hex, Appaloosa, Australia, 3:10 to Yuma, The Assassination of Jesse James, Hildago, Open Range, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Texas Rangers, Shanghai Noon, and also more tangential stuff like Brokeback Mountain, No Country for Old Men, Serenity, the Last Samurai.
dude im already burnt out with the plethora on news articles all over the internet about comic-con, im not here to hate, and i agree that its an incredible revenue stream to aid hollywood in tough times, but my point is to keep this genre fresh they have to draw a line somewhere.
i went to E3 as i am a gaming nerd, and the same thing, it was dominated by sequels like super mario, halo, gears of war, etc, and only a handful of new IP's unveiled, i think the same thing is happening with hollywood, but who's to blame? when a sequel to popular movie releases people go out in droves, hence encouraging the film makers to either churn out sequels, adapt a comic/graphic novel, or reboot am extremely recent franchise that doesnt need rebooting in the first place (spiderman), i can say this with confidence eventually even the comic book nerds arent going to support these movies, more popular ones are going to do good, but the not so popular are going to bite the dust.
Tom Jane is forever my Punisher. Bring him back and I am in.