Along with changing their name to Marvel Entertainment (from Marvel Enterprises), the company has gotten financing from Merril Lynch to begin making movies in-house and then having someone else distribute them for a fee, similar to how Lucasfilm and Pixar (as of next year) work. Sci-Fi Wire has some more details. Titles that may be produced include: Captain America, the Avengers, Nick Fury, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Cloak and Dagger, Dr. Strange, Hawkeye, Power Pack and Shang-Chi.
Ant-man????
Ant-man: the Motion Picture. Is there a worse idea they can pitch?
Re: Ant-man????
People LOVE shrinking! From Fantastic Voyage to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, shrinking has sold nicely to movie audiences. If they manage to throw in a killer robot (hi, Ultron, old pal) the thing could hit a lot of buttons.
Of course, my personal favorite from that list, and the one I think has the biggest potential financial upside, is Power Pack. It’s got cute, spunky, super-powered kids and a whole bunch of aliens in the origin. All you have to do is take a look at Spy Kids to see how much money could be milked out of the hero kid premise.
Re: Ant-man????
from SNL
Ohh look he has the strength of a Human
There goes the franchise…
This is a real shame. I was enjoying all of these good adaptations of the Marvel comics I grew up with, like X-Men, Blade, Daredevil (ok, forget that one). That’s all over now. Has anybody seen the old Captain America and Thor movie from the 70’s? ‘Nuff said.
Re: There goes the franchise…
You’re absolutely right. It’s important that we [pre-]judge the quality of future movies based on those made many years and $500 million ago. What else should one do when discussing the subject on the Internet?
Re: There goes the franchise…
LOL
Re: There goes the franchise…
Marvel Comics has absolutely NO experience making movies. These will come out as the worst drivel. I am willing to bet they hire someone relatively cheap, who is known for making money on small budgets, not for making great films.
I’m bookmarking this post for my ‘Told-you-so’s later.
Re: There goes the franchise…
That reminds me, has anyone heard any news about their horrible Venom project? Last I read they were doing a non-spiderman Venom project, where the spider symbol would be an alien biohazard sign, and other assorted nonsense.
Re: There goes the franchise…
I’m just glad that Iron Man still seems like it will be outsourced… I’m torn between “I can’t wait” and “I can’t watch” on this one. Shellhead is an old fav, but depending on what they do with his armor might just turn me off completely. Like the current Ultimates armor… gag.