Back in August, if you remember, I told you about Marvel's upcoming film slate, including an Avengers movie written by Zak Penn. At the time, it wasn't decided if the film would be live action or CG-animated. My guess was that they would go with the latter, because of the logistics involved with actors reprising their roles and what not.
But Marvel executives gave another presentation yesterday to Wall Street analysts at the Merrill Lynch Media & Entertainment Conference in Pasadena, California, where they came right out and said that the plan is to create a live-action Avengers movie, presumably after movies featuring the individual members of the Avengers (i.e. Iron Man, Captain America, Ant Man, Thor, Hulk, etc.) were produced. They did not say which characters would be featured on the Avengers team, but it's a good bet based on the upcoming film line-up that the team will be fairly close to its "classic" make-up, as seen in The Ultimates, which Marvel has already capitalized on for its Ultimate Avengers direct-to-DVD animated films.
Marvel is TOTALLY psyched about its new $525 million film facility, and the ability to produce its own films featuring its own characters the way it wants. David Maisel, vice chairman of Marvel Studios and executive VP of production indicated that the studio would likely no longer be in the business of licensing out its characters to other studios, instead taking the reigns themselves.
This means of course, they'll have no one to blame but themselves if the movies suck, but at the same time it does perhaps heighten their sense of responsibility for turning out a good project.
Think of the children, Avi... think of the children.
