comScore
  1. Mediaite
  2. Gossip Cop
  3. Geekosystem
  4. Styleite
  5. SportsGrid
  6. The Mary Sue
  7. The Jane Dough
  8. The Braiser

Excelsior!

Avengers to Officially Reassemble, Surprising No One; Marvel Stuff in Disney Parks is Go


Look. We live in a day and age where sequels are greenlit before their preceding films have even hit theaters, and whether or not a movie is critically acclaimed doesn’t necessarily have anything to say about whether it gets a follow up (see persistant rumblings of a Tron 3). So, yeah, nobody should really be surprised that a movie that has made $702 million dollars globally by the end of its first opening weekend in America, a movie whose merchandise Disney itself is reportedly having difficulty keeping in stock, a movie that set up for its own sequel in its post credits sequence, a movie that studio executives were saying was getting a sequel last October… is getting a sequel.

It is.

The LA Times took it upon themselves to talk to Robert A. Iger, Walt Disney Co. Chairman and CEO, who confirmed that the company was already in development on an Avengers 2. Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and Captain America 2, as you might already know are fully greenlit, in various stages of production and have release dates in the summers of 2013, 2013, and 2014, respectively. The earliest we might see an Avengers 2, therefore, would be 2014, but it would be liklier, I think, in 2015.

The questions left unanswered by Iger is what plans Marvel has to introduce new characters to its Cinematic Universe. Ant-Man, which would feature Hank Pym and one would assume his wife/partner Janet Van Dyne, is being teased hard by director Edgar Wright, but with no actual confirmation yet that the movie has made it past script stages. Marvel has theoretically committed to several television shows, or at least to pilots of those shows, based on the Punisher and Jessica Jones. AKA Jessica Jones, if it gets made, has already been confirmed as being set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe rather than its own separate timeline. And what of the characters given greater screen time and significant fan attention since The Avengers hit theaters? Mark Ruffalo‘s Hulk is being called the best movie version of the character yet, and if Marvel would offer Joss Whedon a chance to write and direct a S.H.I.E.L.D. movie featuring Black Widow, Hawkeye, Nick Fury, Maria Hill, and Agent Coulson who I don’t think is actually dead I mean come on they left that door wide open, it could contribute a lot to the run up to a second Avengers film.

But in the meantime, according to Iger, we can all look forward to one of the most important synergies of the Disney/Marvel takeover. Theme park attractions.

Iger also said that Disney’s parks and resorts planning group, known as the “Imagineers,” have been working on ways to incorporate Marvel into the company’s theme parks, beyond Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., where Universal Studios holds the rights to the characters.

“We have a number of other opportunities … at our other parks, notably California and Europe and in Asia — I guess that pretty much covers the rest of the world,” Iger said. “And our Imagineering group has been working over the last year … to create more opportunities for Marvel in the parks.”

Until then, if you want your Marvel fix, you’ll have to get it where it usually is: Universal’s theme parks.

(via The LA Times.)

TAGS: | | | | | | | |


  • http://twitter.com/HeGeekSheGeek He Geek She Geek

    Curious as to why you think what you do in your hidden spoiler. Yes, it wasn’t “seen” but this is Joss Whedon we’re talking about. He’s notorious for this kind of thing.

  • Anonymous

    Well, if she feels similar to how I do, it’s mainly because of a later Nick Fury line.  He admits having tricked them on a detail of that incident and the way it’s phrased would make it easy to think that he could have fooled them on purpose about the whole incident.

  • Anonymous

    I agree with your spoiler- mainly cos I’m gutted if that’s it for that character. Also the whole “cards were in the locker” has me crossing my fingers optimistically. Dead doesn’t always stick in comic books and comic book movies…

  • Anonymous

    Basically “The Doctor always lies.” Where in this case the Doctor only has one eye.

    I could be wrong, but I feel like there’s definitely some wiggle room there.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=711423351 Sarah Wolcott

     It wouldn’t surprise me, just because comic are notorious for “Haha, s/he was never really dead!” 

  • Anonymous

    I have no idea if this is something you can fix (it probably isn’t), but the spoiler text doesn’t work in Google Reader. So, yeah, I haven’t seen the movie yet. Whooops for me. And before anyone is all “don’t read articles about the movie then” I was skimming for the info on Disney parks. Apparently my skimming wasn’t skimmy enough.

  • Carmen Sandiego

     He’s also notorious for the other thing.   Although, Marvel made it clear that what happened in Avengers was their idea and insistence, not Joss’.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=542385515 Carolyn ZwickyPerez

    So, we have a Thor 2, Ironman 2, Captain America 2, even an Ant-man, but no feature movie about Natasha Romanov, even though she is the only female Avenger. Way to go again, weird misogynist Hollywood…

  • Anonymous

     She’s not interesting enough to carry a movie on her own. It would flop. Superhero films are male dominated. How did Elektra do again?

  • Anonymous

     While I am sincerely sorry you hit a spoiler, why haven’t you seen the movie yet?  It is really very good.  I hope you get to go soon.  :)

  • Anonymous

    Though I’d love to see it, a Black Widow movie does not seem to be in the cards at this moment in time. While I could have mentioned it as something I’d like to see in the post, frankly a S.H.I.E.L.D. movie featuring her as a lead alongside Hawkeye seems much more likely to get made. Unrelatedly, I think it would also scratch a lot of the same itch for me.

  • Anonymous

    There are many superheroes not considered “interesting” enough on their own to get movies, and they will be right up until someone makes an interesting movie about them. If Black Widow wasn’t interesting, Marvel wouldn’t have been telling stories about her all this time. I say this as a person who knows next to nothing about Black Widow.

  • Anonymous

    *SPOILER ALERT*SPOILER ALERT*SPOILER ALERT*

    I, for one, would be glad to overlook any plot holes/cliched devices/comic book shenanigans to get AC back.  Clark Gregg is brilliant in these movies!  Remember that short where he goes to a convenience store, which then gets robbed?  Classic.

  • Anonymous

    Okay, I keep hearing that people really want an Ant Man movie, I just can’t for the life of me see how they’re going to pull it off without looking really hokey. Size changing abilities seem really hard to pull off  without looking terrible.

    Admittedly they managed to pull off a lot of potentially cheesy looking effects in The Avengers but that one I can’t imagine at all.

  • http://twitter.com/chandri Chandri MacLeod

    Elektra didn’t flop because it had a female lead. It flopped because it was an innately terrible movie. Next!

  • http://twitter.com/neptunesnachos Kathryn Guess

    It would be weird for Disney to cash in on Marvel, and I’d wager, unlikely. Universal already has the superhero park perfectly executed, and Disney should stick to their Avatar expansion. Plus I’d feel super weird if Cinderella was next to The Hulk in my autograph book. But I would like to see them fight.

  • Anonymous

     I really, really, really want to see it, however, I am broke.

  • http://twitter.com/GeekLock Dingo

    While I think Natasha  is plenty interesting, and resent the comparison with electra (she does not get capitalization in this context, comic Electra does, Carmen does as well, but that is unrelated) quite a bit I think she won’t be getting one soon because of her less than stellar powers. Or rather the fact that she has none confirmed.

    Remember that part where all the Avengers hoisted their weapons and all Natasha had was the tiniest pistol ever? Yeah.

    I think she could pull a spy flick, but I don’t think that is what Marvel is aiming for. Maybe she will get (or reveal that she has) all the little abilities she has in the comics. The whole “aging as slow as Fury” thing and the whole “artificially enhanced peak condition body”. Also I think she has hypnosis, maybe? And once she does, she could probably pull a solo flick, until then she makes a top notch supporter for the other movies.

    Also they could give her a less crappy gun. That would be swell.

  • http://twitter.com/Totz_the_Plaid Totz_the_Plaid

    A S.H.I.E.L.D. movie would be awesome, but I’m really hoping Hawkeye and Black Widow get their own movie as a pair. Maybe a prequel to the Avengers detailing him being sent to take her out and what changed his mind in the first half and the second being a mission or two of theirs afterward? That would rule.

    Also, if Ant Man does happen before Avengers 2, Whedon’s probably going to try to talk Wright into including Wasp since he said that she was someone he wished he could’ve had in this movie.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_R7GVNIKWG3S2UTHEQOMSZXT4M4 Anna B

    I’m holding out hope. I was catatonic for 5 minutes after that happened. All the movies just seem… LESS if he’s really–you know.

X