UPDATE TO PREVIOUS POST: Mickey Rourke, some reports suggest, will play Whiplash, but integrate elements of the Crimson Dynamo, most notably by making him a Russian. Presumably they felt it was redundant to feature another armored foe for Iron Man so soon after the first movie. Whiplash is pretty lame, though.
I’m not sure that this is a result of Warner’s moving the last half of the final Harry Potter movie to that same release date, but Marvel has pushed back the release of The Avengers to the beginning of summer 2012. (Dammit. I better not die before then.)
There are probably other reasons, but I can’t help think the Warners move was a big part of it. As well, though, Marvel seems to have wanted to avoid competing with Sony’s Spider-Man 4, now announced for May 6th, 2011. They’ll get only a tiny part of that one, but why crowd the superhero marketplace?
The biggest problem I see with the changes is that the end of Captain America feeds directly into the events in The Avengers. So it was nice when those two movies were scheduled to be out the same year, as opposed to the current plan of releasing Thor and Captain America the same summer.
Originally Thor and Iron Man II were to come out next summer (2010); now only Iron Man 2 is. That strikes me as weird (unless they just decided they needed more time to get the movies made properly), because that means the summer of 2011 will see Spider-Man 4, Thor and Captain America all released within two and a half months of each other. Let’s hope Spider-Man 4 is better than the third chapter, because if it sucks, it might hurt Marvel’s homegrown movies.
Iron Man 2 – May 7, 2010
Thor – June 17, 2011
Captain America – July 22, 2011
The Avengers – May 4, 2012
