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Marvel Studios changes the release date schedule for their unannounced 2014 mystery movies. Are they planning a third movie? Come let's explore the world of the Marvel Universe, with a focus on Marvel Studios. Oh, it's comics legend Stan Lee's birthday today True Believers.
Marvel Studios has had a tough time keeping to their plan of two theatrical releases per year. Delays with Thor and The Avengers had Iron Man 2 release by itself in 2010 and next year, The Avengers is without a partner since Runaways was indefinitely postponed. For 2013 and 2014 however, it’s back to two films/year or more.
News in from Disney that Marvel would be releasing The Avengers in 3D (post-converted). Marvel Studios also is claiming another release date in 2014 to release one of their films earlier.
Up until now, the official slate of upcoming films from Marvel Studios was scheduled as follows:
2012
The Avengers (May 4)
Runaways (canned)
2013
Iron Man 3 (May 3)
Thor 2 (July 26 pushed back to November 15)
2014
Unknown (May 16)
Unknown (June 27)
The 2014 schedule has changed the June 27 project will now be releasing on April 4th, nearly three months earlier. No information has been provided on the 2014 releases but know The Avengers will get a sequel eventually and that there’s talk of a follow-up for Captain America’s solo outing as well. Reports from two months ago also indicated that Marvel Studios would be working on Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Inhumans after Iron Man 3 and Thor 2.
So, will these 2014 movies simply be sequels to what we already know? Is Edgar Wright’s latest Ant-Man script finally going to be pushed into production? Is Marvel preparing to finally introduce some other characters in solo films? Or, as reported in recent months, is the studio going to take the risk by bringing fans deeper into the Marvel cosmic universe post-Avengers?
Two years might be pushing it for The Avengers 2 so it’s more likely that’ll be a 2015 release, depending on the success of its predecessor at the box office next summer. That would open up the 2014 dates to be used for films launching from characters and storylines introduced in The Avengers. Chris Evans went on record stating that the next time we’d see him suit up as the star-spangled Avenger would be in 2014 at the earliest. Ant-Man has been in development for a very long time and writer/director Edgar Wright told the press at Comic-Con this summer that his latest script was being submitted days later and that they already have concept art.
The Possibilities...
Marvel will add a third release date, either in the summer (maybe making use of that June 27 date) or in the fall, something they’re testing in 2013 with Thor 2. This would allow them to play with interconnected films and/or do more to setup for The Avengers 2 the following year.
Dropping a summer (U.S) date for a spring (U.S) date means one of two things. This mystery project is not a big-budget tentpole or it directly ties into whatever the second movie is in May and needs to come before it. The May date is the most important and has to stay there.
The April release is very likely Ant-Man finally getting his post-Avengers introduction in time for The Avengers 2 or it could be Runaways, the lower-budget film Peter Sollett was going to direct off of Drew Pearce’s script, a script that Marvel apparently really likes, and one that Pearce says could still be adapted after The Avengers. As for the May date, that’s going to be a major project. Expect a Captain America sequel.
Guardians of the Galaxy and The Inhumans are actively in development and are possibilities as well, but Marvel will not talk about those until we’ve very close to The Avengers (or afterwards) to avoid fans digging into how those play off and tie-in to what happens in The Avengers. Marvel knows what these films are so there’s very deliberate reasons for not announcing them – it’s because they’re launching off of The Avengers.
Other potential projects include Black Panther, Dr. Stange, Heroes for Hire and a S.H.I.E.L.D. movie.
What would you like to see Marvel Studios do in 2014? Ant-Man and Captain America or a few cosmic movies?
The Avengers stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Clark Gregg, Tom Hiddleston and Stellan Skarsgard. It is of course written and directed by Joss Whedon, opening in theaters on May 4, 2012.
Game of Thrones veteran to direct Thor 2...
The search for a director for Thor 2 has reportedly ended, with Marvel selecting veteran television director Alan Taylor to helm the sequel.
Taylor's most recent efforts have been for HBO, where he has directed episodes of the period fantasy series Game of Thrones.
Taylor has also directed episodes of the cable series Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men and The Sopranos.
He steps in for Monster director Patty Jenkins, who dropped out of Thor 2 citing creative differences with Marvel, movie news website Deadline revealed.
The sequel, which is due to start filming next spring for a November 2013 release, brings back 28-year-old Australian actor Chris Hemsworth as the hammer-wielding superhero.
Australian Chris Hemsworth reprise his role as the Norse god cast out to live among humans.
In the meantime, fans will be able to see Hemsworth team up with other Marvel stars in The Avengers.
Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans and Jeremy Renner also star in Avengers, which is due out next year.
Chris Hemsworth profile...
Chris Hemsworth (born 11 August 1983) is an Australian actor most notable for portraying Thor in the Marvel Studios film Thor. Hemsworth is set to reprise his role as Thor in the upcoming films The Avengers in 2012 and Thor 2 in 2013. He also starred as Kim Hyde in the Australian soap opera Home and Away. He is the older brother of Liam and the younger brother of Luke Hemsworth.
Mini Biography
Though born in Melbourne, Australia, Hemsworth saw quite a bit of the country in his youth when his family moved first to the Northern Territory before finally settling on Phillip Island top the south of Melbourne.
In 2004, he unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Robbie Hunter in the Australian soap "Home and Away" (1988) but was recalled for the role of Kim Hyde which he played until 2007. In 2006, he entered the Australian version of "Dancing with the Stars" (2004) and his popularity in the soap enabled him to hang on until show 7 ("Dancing with the Stars: Episode #5.7" (2006) when he became the fifth contestant to be eliminated.
His first Hollywood appearance was in Star Trek (2009) but it was his titular role in Thor (2011) which propelled him to prominence worldwide.
His US representative, the management company ROAR, also manages Elsa Pataky and it was through them that the couple met, marrying in 2010. (Credit: IMDB).
Happy Birthday Stan Lee; Marvel Comics Living Legend...
Happy 89th birthday to one of Marvel’s founding fathers, “The Man” himself, Stan Lee! Without Stan, the Marvel Universe as we know it would not exist.
"There is no bigger star in all of comics," Marc Nathan of Baltimore Comic-Con — where Stan was the featured guest last summer — tells Comic Riffs.
The path to stardom was many decades in the making. Stanley “Stan Lee” Lieber broke into the business as a teenager in the late-’30s, hired by ”Captain America” co-creator Joe Simon as an office assistant. As Simon told Comic Riffs, Stanley was soon writing the filler prose that Timely Comics (Marvel’s precursor) needed to secure better mailing rates. (Simon, the first editor at Timely Comics, died earlier this month at age 98.)
By the early ‘60s, Stan seriously contemplated quitting Timely/Marvel, which had been launched by his relative Martin Goodman. But at the advice of his longtime wife, Joanie, Stan says he took a shot at writing superheroes the way he wanted to - relatable and with many human aspects.
Working with such fellow legends as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, of course, Lee and his “Marvel method” would launch the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Hulk, Daredevil, Iron Man and X-Men. (Other talents in that famed stable included Gene Colan — who died this year at age 84 — as well as Stan’s own brother, Larry Lieber, who first scripted Thor.)
“There’s no question that Stan and the innovations he came up with saved the comic book and the superhero,” Tom Brevoort, Marvel’s senior vice president of publishing, has told Comic Riffs — noting that Lee and the artists he worked with “made me want to do this professionally.”
“By crafting characters with feet of clay and personal problems — and not writing down to an audience that was perceived to be primarily 8-year-olds — Stan opened the doorway for more sophisticated and interesting treatments of any subject matter in comics,” Brevoort says. “He made comics interesting and relevant and fun again.”
Stan Lee quotes...
“I’d just like a Cabinet position [in the current White House]. For comic books. I’d be secretary of comics — something simple.”
“Being associated with Disney is the dream of a lifetime. The things Disney did just knocked me out [when I was young] — Mickey Mouse to Bambi and Pinocchio and Snow White. And then there were the nature movies and now movies like ’Pirates of the Caribbean.’ I think they’re wonderful movie marketers — they’re the best marketers you can find anyhwere. And to combine them with Marvel — the two companies I’m in love with the most.”
"I’m very lucky to still being doing this. I seem to get a good reception [when I pitch entertainment ideas]. I hope I can sell a lot more movies. And it would be nice to win an Oscar one day."
That's a wrap True Believers (References: Marvel Entertainment, Disney, IMDB, Google News, Wikipedia, POW! Entertainment, Dark Horizons, Comic Book Movies, Box Office Mojo and Paramount Pictures).
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