(Man, I write hilarious headlines.)
Rumors on the web are that the film arm of Marvel Comics will start making 10 minute teaser adventures for less known comic characters–Ant Man and Luke Cage seem likely prospects–that would play before their theatrical feature films, so as to introduce these characters to wider audiences and provide a tool to gage interest in same.
Older rumors that Marvel was planning to look at more mid-grade movies once the current series of big budget films ends after Thor, Captain America and The Avengers hit movie screens over the next two years. It would be a little bonus that would recall the days of cartoons and newsreels and shorts before films, and be smart advertising at the same time. I’m sure Marvel would be happy to make a bunch of cheaper films that did as well as, say, the Blade movies, also based on a rather obscure Marvel character from their old Tomb of Dracula comic.
I hope they go this route, although with Thor and Cap already due to hit movie screens next summer, it is hard to imagine that they would have anything like this done by then. Maybe before the Avengers movie in 2012, which will be up against a slew of other superhero movies, including Sony’s new Spider-Man revamp and whatever DC actually gets made. My vote, unsurprisingly, would be for a Luke Cage short, although what I really want is the ’70s Cage with the yellow shirt and metal headband shot in the fashion of a blaxploitation film. So, you know, I won’t be holding my breath.
This reminds me that I’ve been planning for a loong time to write an article on how I’d personally shore up (or end up torpedoing) Marvel’s rather blah attempts at DTV animated films. Maybe I’ll finally get around to that this week.
