Marvel movies coming together…

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the six Marvel movies starting with Iron Man and ending with The Avengers, due out in summer of 2011, are all pieces on one greater whole. Frankly, this is about the most ambitious movie project I can ever recall. It’s fabulous.

Stills are circulating around the ‘Net now showing what seems to be Captain America’s trademark indestructible shield in the background of Tony Stark’s lab in one shot in the already released Iron Man. See here.

Meanwhile, stills from the Hulk movie coming out this July (I think) show that this film will follow the Ultimates chronology, and that rather than Banner being irradiated whilst testing his new Gamma Bomb, he will now be working to re-formulate the lost Super-Soldier formula that created Captain America back in World War II. Given this, presumalby as a military contractor/genius, Tony Stark has been given Cap’s shield so as to try to duplicate it to equip hoped-for squads of new super-soldiers.

This is all going on in the first two movies, with four left to go. Frankly, this level of linkage goes *way* beyond anything I would have anticipated. Good work, Marvel, this is amazing stuff.

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Blake Matthews

Do you think the minds of Hollywood would ever have been capable of doing something like this?
Ken Begg

It’s worth noting that Marvel itself is producing and funding these movies directly, so that might explain why they are actually tying all this stuff together so well.
Maxtype

I am sooo jazzed to see the Marvel Universe,Ultimates or otherwise,come together this way!

“Iron Man” was a dream come true:a respectful updating of the classic Shellhead,hitting all the right notes of his origin.

I am absolutely STOKED for ‘First Avenger’,because Cap has always been my favorite Superhero.
Joliet Jake Blues

What I am surprised by, when I stop and think about it, is how *easy* it is to do stuff like this, and how little the downside is.

First, you have a multi-movie plan: comparatively cheap when you own the rights and you develop basically a whole story arc across movies, but also allowing each to stand alone.

Throw in the odd prop and reference in your earlier movies – again, cheap to do – and suddenly there are more layers and meaning to your movie than average Joe sees, but it helps to create that depth that helps – almost invisibly – a movie achieve the willing suspension of disbelief.

And if Iron Man had tanked, well, the extra cost in the planning and props…not a lot of downside there.
Danny

“What I am surprised by, when I stop and think about it, is how *easy* it is to do stuff like this, and how little the downside is.”

I think it’s partly just a bit of outdated thinking on the part of the execs. The idea of television shows with season-long arcs is still a fairly new one, for instance.

More of a factor, though, is that a lot of movies just don’t have anything like that to connect to. I’m having trouble thinking of movies with shared continuity that aren’t direct sequels to each other. Superman Returns and Batman Begins, maybe. But those two versions of the respective characters would have trouble fitting together, anyway.

If the Green Latern and Flash movies get out of development hell, though, we might see this sort of thing, just as a follow-the-leader exercise, or a shout-out, or some odd thing.
John Nowak

It’s a very clever bit, but I think one of the reasons other films haven’t done this before is that a stand-alone film just doesn’t have that sort of rich background to snatch from.

Certainly there’s tons of similar in-jokes in other productions, like a voice clip of Billy Mumy from the Lost in Space TV show identifying the Jupiter 2 on Babylon 5; the difference here is that the “joke” is actually a credible tying-together of different movies.

Which is not to say it isn’t really cool.
John Nowak

Sorry, Donny — I forgot to mention you made much the same point.

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