By which I mean, it’s still a huge long shot, but sans many of the rights issues I blogged about in a previous post. Reacting to the news that Warner Brothers was mulling a Justice League of America film, I noted that since the studio owned DC comics, they had a leg up on Marvel in terms of owning outright the rights to all the necessary characters for such a thing (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, etc.).
Marvel isn’t owned by a movie studio, however, and has for years been selling the rights to their characters piecemeal to different studios. For instance, Sony currently owns the rights to and makes the Spider-Man movies, while Twentieth Century Fox does the same for the recent and current Fantastic Four and X-Men movies.
With a bunch of other Marvel characters soon to be starring in their own films, including such obligatory Avengers movie characters as Iron Man and the Hulk, I figured gathering all the necessary rights for all the necessary superheroes would be nigh unworkable.
Here’s what I forgot, though. Marvel is actually making these movies themselves. Presumably they have been hoarding the rights to certain characters as they freed up again, rather than selling them back out.
In any case, Marvel has secured over $500 million of funds to produce a slate of films. Next summer’s Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk are the first of these projects, actually being funded and made by Marvel, albeit (obviously) distributed by regular studios, in this case Paramount (Iron Man) and Universal (the Hulk).
Other characters mentioned for upcoming films include Ant-Man, Captain America and Thor. The first group of Avengers included Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Ant-Man and the Wasp. The Hulk very quickly left the team, being a bit of a prickly pear, and a soon to be defrosted Captain America stepped in a few issues later. Ant-Man also eventually became Giant-Man, who would be a better film character, since you don’t need two shrinking characters.
So there you go. You have what I (and I imagine most fans) would consider the essential Avenger characters—Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Captain America, Giant-Man and the Wasp—all secured and ready to go.
Here’s the most likely scenario I see if this movie is going to happen. (I opined on some of this earlier.) Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk make a boatload of money next summer. Robert Downey Jr., who is playing Tony Stark / Iron Man, is reportedly signed for three Iron Man movies. You make one of these the Avengers movie, so that you have Downey, already established in the public mind, playing Iron Man. You also bring in the guy who will play Bruce Banner in The Incredible Hulk.
With those two established actors as linchpins, you then cast appropriate new actors as (especially) Captain America and Thor (Tyler Mane?). The advantage there is that this allows to you showcase the characters / actors opposite the already established Downey Jr. and Whoever Hulk Guy, which means if the Avengers movie does well (as it would almost have to), you’ve built up awareness for the separate adventure of Cap and Thor, and to a lesser extent Giant-Man / Ant-Man and the Wasp.
This is still an extreme long-shot, but not quite as improbable as I was thinking. AND IT WOULD BE THE COOLEST THING IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND!!!
