There’s been a lot of talk about the upcoming Avengers inside of the Iron Man 2 thread, and I don’t want to hijack a good thread about a good movie, so I figured I’d make one for this one too.
This movie is gonna be big. Really big. Big stars, big characters, LOTS of hype…how are they gonna do it? How are they gonna make screen time for Downey Jr, Edward Norton, Sam Jackson, (insert Thor here), AND (insert Captain America here)?? Plus a female that I don’t know who it would be…and an apparent plot.
Whats the plot? Who’s the bad guy? Who plays him/her/it? Who directs?
I’m going to go ahead and copy and paste what I wrote in the Iron Man thread pertaining to the Avengers movie.
Honestly, I have no idea where they’re going for the concept on this film, which makes it hard to make predictions. My main concern is the problem with so many big names all sharing the screen at the same time, its going to feel crowded and I think some of them are going to get the short end of the stick on this.
There’s also the fact that Thor, (Chris Hemsworth), and Cap, (Chris Evans), have both already been cast for their own movies, and they’re much smaller names than Downey Jr, Norton, Jackson and so forth.
As far as other characters go… I’m kind of operating under the assumption that Johansson will be back as Black Widow which would give us a five man team, plus Fury. Unfortunately I can’t see them adding in any of the better known Avenger mainstays at this point. (Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, Vision, Hank and Janet for example) That doesn’t mean they won’t show up in cameos or have their names dropped however.
Plot and villains? I have no idea. Fury seems to be putting together a team for a very specific purpose though. Kang, Ultron, or Thanos maybe? Problem here is that most of the Avengers villains don’t have a lot of name recognition with the general public. Didn’t the Avengers originally come together, (pre-Captain America), to stop one of the Hulk’s rampages? That might be a good direction to go with it.
That’s the plot in the first volume of The Ultimates (basically the Ultimate Marvel version of The Avengers). That story was also hinted at during the post-credits scene in The Incredible Hulk when Tony Stark meets up with General Ross and tells him about the Avenger program as a way to deal with The Hulk.
Also, it’s not been mentioned yet, but Joss Whedon (yes, that Joss Whedon) will be directing The Avengers. And there’s some speculation that he’ll also include The Wasp so he can cast Morena Baccarin or Summer Glau.
A book I highly recommend, by the way. The first two volumes of The Ultimates are great stuff. Just don’t touch any of the stuff written by Loeb, or you’ll regret it.
No clue about who the bad guy would be but what’s wrong with Julian McMahon as Dr. Doom?
While I wouldn’t object to Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow, I honestly think it’s beneath her. She performed brilliantly with what she was given in Iron Man 2 but basically, it was a forgettable role unworthy of her, IMHO.
I like the world they are setting up with the marvel movie-verse. I am fine them plucking bits out of the Ultimates stories but that’s it. Man, if you like stories where every character is unlikeable- Ultimates is for you. (Plot was fine- characters were awful)
It will be interesting to see how they balance Thor and Hulk level power with more ‘street’ level abilities with Cap and Black Widow.
There’s been a lot of speculation that Hulk will be the antagonist for the first half of the movie but then will join up when the real threat arrives.
I’m also curious to see if/how they deal with War Machine. I can’t recall if Cheadle is signed for Avengers or not. I can see him being on the initial team but getting taken out by the Hulk, which leads to Tony actually leaving his “advisory role” (established in IM2) and suiting up with the team.
Edgar Wright was working on doing an Ant-Man film (apparently with the Disney acquistion the mouse was big on getting that movie fast-tracked) and recently met with Joss Whedon. That could mean they were getting their ducks in order to have Ant-Man be in Avengers or to steer clear but still be in the same movie-verse. Or it could have just been two directors meeting for shits and giggles.
Sadly it appears that the rights to Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are tied into the X-franchise and they won’t appear in Avengers movies. But that does make me hopeful that we see them in X-men First Class. I like what they did with them in both recent X-men cartoons.
Given the direction all the movies are going, I’d be very surprised if they didn’t copy the Ultimates storyline.
At first, I hated the Ultimate universe, but then I found out the key difference is that all powers are based on science, and logical issues are dealt with as realistically as possible (e.g. the Hulk needs to find a pair of pants after transforming from Banner.)
You can find summaries of all the storylines at Wikipedia. Imho, the one best suited for the big screen would be the alien invasion in Vol 2.
Exactly… and that isn’t all that different than the 616 where the original Avengers were all science based save for Thor. Giant-Man and Wasp used pym particles and genetics to gain their abilities. Hulk is a science monster like Frankenstein and Iron Man is a man in a metal suit.
I don’t think the biggest problem with the entire cast is gonna be big actors and their screen time (save for Norton…he seems like a dick about that), my biggest concern is having a movie that consists of 6 people, plus a bad guy will be too convoluted to make sense or play out evenly.
I agree with this. I like Whedon, I really do, but he doesn’t seem to be the right one to handle this project. The natural choice would’ve have been to tap Favreau again and let him head the movie. He’s proven he can handle mythology rich projects and juggle multiple leading characters. In the Iron Man movies he’s even shown he can handle balancing over the top action sequences with small, but pivotal, character moments. That will be crucial to making an Avengers movie work. He would have been perfect. He’s even appeared in a Marvel movie solely as a supporting actor so he would appear to have some interest in the material on a personal level, even if we couldn’t have deduced that by his deft handling of the Iron Man movies.