cast the inevitable "Mighty Avengers" movie...

Cafe Society
1

Two X-Men films down and more to come, a “Fantastic Four” summer blockbuster wrapped up, I guess an “Avengers” movie is the next logical move. So who do you think ought to be in it? Obviously, as in "the X-Men, they couldn’t possibly squeeze in every character. So the list below is a “pick & choose” type of thing. But these are my ideas –

Captain America - Scott Bakula
Iron-Man - Kyle MacLachlan
Thor - Viggo Mortensen
Hank Pym - (whatsisname - the guy who played “Berkeley” on ST:TNG)
Wasp - Mariska Hartigay
Hawkeye - Matt Damon
Quicksilver - Jude Law
Scarlet Witch - Scarlett Johanson
Black Panther - Don Cheadle
Vision - Keanu Reeves
Black Widow - Jennifer Garner
Beast - Nicholas Brendon
Wonder Man - Dean Cain
Ms. Marvel / Warstar - Elizabeth Rohm
Falcon - J. August Richards
Tigra - Parker Posey
She-Hulk - Lucy Lawless
Captain Marvel II / Photon - Thandie Newton
Sub-Mariner - Guy Pierce
Justice - Topher Grace
Firestar - Tara Reid
Jarvis - Wallace Shawn
Henry Gyrich - (whatsisname - mayor of Sunnydale from BtVS)

Wolverine, Daredevil, Spider-Man, Sentry & Luke Cage - won’t appear, 'cuz this whole “New Avengers” thing is terrible, a blotch in the history of this comic, and just plain AIN"T HAPPENING! Nuh-uh, it’s a strange permutation caused by Kang’s monkeying about in the time stream. It’ll soon be corrected and things will go back to the way they should be - Vision alive, Wanda not a villain, She-Hulk sane & in control, etc.

As for villains,
Ultron - CGI-ed
Kang / Immortus - Stanley Tucci
Space Phantom - Steve Buscemi
Loki - uhmmmmm???

2

Loki - Jim Carrey?

3

I’m not sure about the prospect of an Avengers movie. I know an Iron Man movie is in the works, with possible Tom Cruisage :confused: . Captain America and Black Panther might also get deals. If the individual movies come first, you’d have to leave the characters out of a team movie, or face recasting or using the same actor. Would get messy and possibly expensive.

It would also help to narrow the field down on team members. I’d stick to Captain America, Hawkeye, Wonder Man, Vision, Ant Man or Wasp to avoid redundant shrinkage, and Black Widow/Tigra/Warstar to even out the girl side.

I need to think more on casting though.

4

Couple of thoughts. I’m trying to avoid actors that have already been in comic book movies as they might not want to repeat in a genre.

I like Johnny Knoxville or Jason Lee as Hawkeye. Old School Hawkeye was kind of an asshole. Both could do that easily

For Wonder Man, the only person I could think of that might work is the Rock. He’s an experienced actor, sort of. He’s at least got the build and an action background.

5

I don’t think it necessarily follows that a ‘group of heroes’ movie or movies (Avengers, JLA, etc.) will be made because ‘single hero’ movies are proving successful. For the purposes of this post, I’m considering the X-Men movies the exception to my theory, since they’re a fairly self-contained universe unto themselves, and lack a very iconic character that the public-at-large would recognize.

Consider: Any given Joe Blow who doesn’t realize they still make comic books and never read one in his life is still likely aware of Superman and Batman, and possibly Spider-Man (perhaps Marvel’s sole iconic character that non-comics-readers were aware of, at least before the recent spate of movies). A series of movies can be built around such iconic characters, and has. For non-fans to remain interested, the movies have to explain what’s going on and how the current state of affairs came to be (again, this is something the X-Men movies have sidestepped or spent minimal time on). In other words, how the hero became the hero must be shown, and each villain also needs an explanatory introduction.

Now, let’s put aside the issue of one studio actually getting all the requisite licenses together to make an Avengers movie. Each of the heroes they do use will have their own distinct origin, which hopefully was explained in their own solo movie (if we’re lucky). The villain or villains will need introduction, and the forming of the team will need explaining. Having so many heroes around will be a problem just to build a proper story. Then there’s the actual stars filling the various roles to consider. And the money, multiplied (exponentially?) by the number of characters involved.

The Fantastic Four are a group, but I think they’re as self-contained as the X-Men, sharing the advantage of all the heroes having a common origin (cosmic rays, being born Homo Sapiens Superior). Still, they will be the real test. The X-Men movies used a different formula than most other superhero movies. We’re going to see if another ‘group of heroes’ movie can succeed, when all the heroes have something in common. The third step along this path will be having a group of heroes without a common origin, and we may never actually see this.

I think this is why I’m hearing rumors of every ‘solo’ property being seized upon first. I mean, really, Iron Fist before the Avengers? There’s got to be a reason for that, and I say it has little to do with the Avengers themselves.

</hijack>

6

Since when is Iron Fist a solo property? Luke Cage made that comic, man!

7

SWEET CHRISTMAS!

8

tripthicket has set forth what I think is the dealbreaking objection to an Avengers film, which I first saw articulated by Kury Busiek. The pubic can accept one super origin in a film withouth challenging suspension of disbelief. In X-Men, everyone’s origin is the same (mutancy), so that doesn’t violate the rule. But in Avengers, you’ve got one guy who is a god, one guy who was a WWII soldier injected with some serum and then frozen in an iceberg for decades, one guy who is an android, one guy who invented a gas that can make him small or large, that guy’s girlfriend, one guy who is a mechanical genius and invented a supersuit to escape terrorists holding him hostage in the jungle, one guy who trained to be the best archer that ever lived, two mutants, a former KGB agent, and the king of a technologically superadvanced African nation who trained himself to physical perfection. That’s two hours of movie right there.

–Cliffy

9

Wellllllll, actually the origin story of the specific heroes need to be addressed so much as the origin of the team itself. In my mind, an “Avengers” movie would follow the blueprint for a “Seven Samurais” or “Magnificent Seven” type movie. Let’s just take, for example, a scenario similar to the story in “Avengers #1”:

Loki (or a comparable substitute, maybe even Kang) decides to wreak havok on the general populace as a vengeance for some thwarted past scheme. Since Hulk has already been done movie-style, let’s substitute another threat – Ultron fits pretty well. Just as the good Dr. Hank Pym is putting the finishing touches on his crowning achievement in the field of cybertechnology, Loki (or Kang, or whoever) fiddles around and inspires Ultron to go on a mass-murdering rampage. Perhaps Dr. Pym (in one of his heroic guises) & the Wasp try to rein in Ultron…and fail miserably. Thus, Pym is inspired to seek out and unite all (or as many as) of the “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” he can find to confront the rampaging Ultron - and ultimately Loki himself. I think it’d work.

In this day and age, superheroes in general are such an archetype, there isn’t a need for the in-depth backstory for every single character. Take “the Incredibles” for example - okay, the family are a unit like the X-Men or Fantastic Four, but as the movie opens - Mr. Incredible, Elasti-Girl & Frozone are all more or less solo heroes going about their crime-fighting careers. No origins given for any of them. An Avengers movie would be more about the clash of personalities between the heroes than it would be about how they got their powers anyway.

10

The Justice League cartoon (both “regular” and Unlimited) have handled large casts of characters by pretty much ignoring the backstories and just thrusting all the superheroes together to combat the crisis-of-the-week. Character development moments have been interspersed into the show, but they are few and far between. I don’t recall seeing any familiar origin stories retold for the cartoon. They just expect us to accept that there are several superheroes who have been operating for various periods of time in their own corners of the world, and they will all band together to do what needs to be done. It works for a 22-minute cartoon, but I know superhero movies have traditionally been about origins, coming-of-age stories, and plenty of character development, so just introducing each Avenger and throwing them together wouldn’t work so well.

11

Y’know, it occurs to me that I never stated my hope that an Avengers movie does indeed come to pass. I think Art has it right: drop the ‘give the audience an origin for everyone’ formula, and just tell the story. Show us a universe where the presence of superheroes is a given, and just tell the story at hand. It could work. It has worked, with the X-Men. Collect a cast of relative unknowns, to avoid the big paychecks a big star would want. At present, none of the Avengers has had a real solo movie (ignoring any movies made some time ago coughCaptainAmerica cough), so there’s no ‘big name’ already attached to any of the characters an Avengers movie should have. Write a story that juggles all the characters - again, this has worked to some degree with the X-Men.

I still think, pessimist that I am, that no studio is going to want to take a chance on this, but it is doable.

12

You explained their origins clearly and concisely in a single paragraph.

It wouldn’t be difficult to do a roll call at the beginning of the movie. Tony is considering forming the Avengers, or possibly is giving a briefing on the newly formed team to a government . He makes a list of people he wants to invite, and he briefly explains their origins and powers to Jarvis, or the govt. liason while a minute or two long clip of them in action plays on the video screen. 15, 20 minutes and you’ve got your origins out of the way.

13

'Cuz you know them already. (And actually, it was one sentence! ;))

–Cliffy

14

I don’t believe we’ll be seeing an Avengers live action movie anytime soon. However, we will be seeing an animated Ultimates [Avengers] movie going straight to DVD (starring YOU).

http://www.marvel.com/publishing/stories/showstory.htm?id=4
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/news/articles/1358.asp

15

Ant Man/Giant Man = Jim Carey.

The size change thing would suit his rubbery mugging perfectlly. [ul]
[li]Thor[/li][li]Iron Man (Early Golden Armor, with “bullet” hemet & shoulder antenna)[/li][li]Ant Man/Giant Man[/li][li]Wasp[/li][li]Captain America[/li][li]Hawkeye[/li][/ul]