Keyser Soze
AW YEEEAH!
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2002
- Messages
- 21,405
- Reaction score
- 14
- Points
- 33
http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=21619
Jonah Weiland: Joe, weve spent the last couple of days talking Marvels publishing plans, so let's move to the world of Hollywood, an area Marvel has been staking a claim in pretty dramatically over the past few years. Lets talk about the day you spent with Thor director Kenneth Branagh. You went on a a creative retreat with him, did you not?
Joe Quesada: Its funny that youre bringing this up as Im leaving for LA on Monday for the week. Ill be immersed in Marvel Hollywood business. Someone tell Scarlett Im on my way! [laughs]
But yes, I sure did. We had one big creative meeting with the Marvel Creative Committee, which now works on all of our movies and I have the honor to be a part of. We sat with Kenneth and discussed the "Thor" movie and the overarching story of what that's going to be, just to give our input before anything was put down to paper by screenwriters.
And it was one of the highlights of my time here at Marvel because not only did Branagh sit there and give you the story beat for beat, he and [Marvel Studios head] Kevin Feige formed a great team. It was performance art. Kevin would give us the establishment of the shot and the situation: "Here we are. We're in (take your pick of location). And here's Odin and hes coming up to (pick a character)." And then Kenneth would come in and give you the color commentary. "Odin has an air of majesty to him" and he'd act out the Odin part or the Thor part. So we sat there and literally got a three-hour one-man show from Kenneth Branagh. It was fantastic. People pay a lot of money for that kind of performance by one of the worlds greatest living actors.
And of course, he's got that great, charming British accent, so it makes it all go down easy too. [laughs] He could have said anything, and we would have said, "Yeah. Make that." He has such a passion for the material, and he's sitting there describing things from the Kirby run and things from the Simonson run, citing places where the mythology conflicted in Marvel history and how we're going to streamline it. It was just fascinating to watch.
As much as this may sadden Kenneth, he reminded me a lot of Mark Millar. He has a very charming, yet mischievous manner about him that makes him instantly likable.
After that, I was lucky enough about a month ago to see Kenneth here in New York City. We had no idea he was in town until we got a call from some of our guys at Marvel West saying, "Hey, Kenneth is in town, and he just wanted to stop by the office and see what it was like." He came up here and literally charmed the pants off of everyone. The people in the bullpen were literally out of their minds sitting there and talking with him. And then he came into my office, we closed my door and started talking casting.
Jonah Weiland: Do you have a recording of that conversation youd mind sharing?
Joe Quesada: Well, you know at least one piece of the casting. They announced Loki. But we talked about possible Odins and other characters. What Kenneth has in mind is pretty cool. We'll see. People have to be talked to, and we'll see who we end up with.
Jonah Weiland: Weve heard about a lot of these early creative presentations, that some directors are very animated jumping up on chairs while they're talking. What kind of director is Kenneth Branagh? Was he really animated or more reserved?
Joe Quesada: Kenneth sat in his chair. I'll give him that. But of course he's very Shakespearean in his delivery. He'd sit there and give us the emotions between the characters as they are in scenes what the character's motivation is in that particular moment and how it relates to the overarching story of the movie. He's definitely about character, which is the quintessential trait you have to have to understand the Marvel characters. It's not just big hammers and capes and things like that. It's about what makes the character tick. There's definitely a reason for Thor, a reason for him being and a very deep family relationship and story in the movie that I think is going to be very cool. Oh yeah, and theres reasons and motivations for him to hit people with his hammer hard!
Jonah Weiland: Is "Thor" going to be a tougher sell than any other Marvel Studios movie to date?
Joe Quesada: I think it's going to be on the surface. We had the same conversation in internally about "Iron Man." We knew Iron Man wasn't as recognizable to most people not into comics. He's not Spider-Man. He's certainly becoming that, but we worked very hard here at Marvel and started doing things like the Iron Man digital animation shorts, I worked on those with Blur Studios and Craig Kyle over at Marvel West. Those did really, really well for us online. They were basically designed to introduce Iron Man to kids by showing him in the Marvel Universe interacting with our characters, and I think we have the same work ahead of us with Thor. We'll be getting out there. We've got plans already to get Thor's name out within a younger group of kids. I think the upcoming "Super Hero Squad" and "Avengers Animated" shows are going to do wonders to get that across, and then we're working on a couple of ancillary things here and there to boost the desire for kids in particular to know more about Thor and the general public as well. Let me add that the portrayal of Thor in Super Hero Squad is my absolute favorite.
Jonah Weiland: Joe, weve spent the last couple of days talking Marvels publishing plans, so let's move to the world of Hollywood, an area Marvel has been staking a claim in pretty dramatically over the past few years. Lets talk about the day you spent with Thor director Kenneth Branagh. You went on a a creative retreat with him, did you not?
Joe Quesada: Its funny that youre bringing this up as Im leaving for LA on Monday for the week. Ill be immersed in Marvel Hollywood business. Someone tell Scarlett Im on my way! [laughs]
But yes, I sure did. We had one big creative meeting with the Marvel Creative Committee, which now works on all of our movies and I have the honor to be a part of. We sat with Kenneth and discussed the "Thor" movie and the overarching story of what that's going to be, just to give our input before anything was put down to paper by screenwriters.
And it was one of the highlights of my time here at Marvel because not only did Branagh sit there and give you the story beat for beat, he and [Marvel Studios head] Kevin Feige formed a great team. It was performance art. Kevin would give us the establishment of the shot and the situation: "Here we are. We're in (take your pick of location). And here's Odin and hes coming up to (pick a character)." And then Kenneth would come in and give you the color commentary. "Odin has an air of majesty to him" and he'd act out the Odin part or the Thor part. So we sat there and literally got a three-hour one-man show from Kenneth Branagh. It was fantastic. People pay a lot of money for that kind of performance by one of the worlds greatest living actors.
And of course, he's got that great, charming British accent, so it makes it all go down easy too. [laughs] He could have said anything, and we would have said, "Yeah. Make that." He has such a passion for the material, and he's sitting there describing things from the Kirby run and things from the Simonson run, citing places where the mythology conflicted in Marvel history and how we're going to streamline it. It was just fascinating to watch.
As much as this may sadden Kenneth, he reminded me a lot of Mark Millar. He has a very charming, yet mischievous manner about him that makes him instantly likable.
After that, I was lucky enough about a month ago to see Kenneth here in New York City. We had no idea he was in town until we got a call from some of our guys at Marvel West saying, "Hey, Kenneth is in town, and he just wanted to stop by the office and see what it was like." He came up here and literally charmed the pants off of everyone. The people in the bullpen were literally out of their minds sitting there and talking with him. And then he came into my office, we closed my door and started talking casting.
Jonah Weiland: Do you have a recording of that conversation youd mind sharing?
Joe Quesada: Well, you know at least one piece of the casting. They announced Loki. But we talked about possible Odins and other characters. What Kenneth has in mind is pretty cool. We'll see. People have to be talked to, and we'll see who we end up with.
Jonah Weiland: Weve heard about a lot of these early creative presentations, that some directors are very animated jumping up on chairs while they're talking. What kind of director is Kenneth Branagh? Was he really animated or more reserved?
Joe Quesada: Kenneth sat in his chair. I'll give him that. But of course he's very Shakespearean in his delivery. He'd sit there and give us the emotions between the characters as they are in scenes what the character's motivation is in that particular moment and how it relates to the overarching story of the movie. He's definitely about character, which is the quintessential trait you have to have to understand the Marvel characters. It's not just big hammers and capes and things like that. It's about what makes the character tick. There's definitely a reason for Thor, a reason for him being and a very deep family relationship and story in the movie that I think is going to be very cool. Oh yeah, and theres reasons and motivations for him to hit people with his hammer hard!
Jonah Weiland: Is "Thor" going to be a tougher sell than any other Marvel Studios movie to date?
Joe Quesada: I think it's going to be on the surface. We had the same conversation in internally about "Iron Man." We knew Iron Man wasn't as recognizable to most people not into comics. He's not Spider-Man. He's certainly becoming that, but we worked very hard here at Marvel and started doing things like the Iron Man digital animation shorts, I worked on those with Blur Studios and Craig Kyle over at Marvel West. Those did really, really well for us online. They were basically designed to introduce Iron Man to kids by showing him in the Marvel Universe interacting with our characters, and I think we have the same work ahead of us with Thor. We'll be getting out there. We've got plans already to get Thor's name out within a younger group of kids. I think the upcoming "Super Hero Squad" and "Avengers Animated" shows are going to do wonders to get that across, and then we're working on a couple of ancillary things here and there to boost the desire for kids in particular to know more about Thor and the general public as well. Let me add that the portrayal of Thor in Super Hero Squad is my absolute favorite.