Do I smell comic book superhero movie overload?
Does anyone else think Marvel is saturating the market?
Captain America's Big Shot
By Joal Ryan
Tue Sep 6, 8:52 PM ET
Spider-Man is about to get company--a lot of it--in makeup.
Marvel Entertainment, the Webslinger's corporate boss, announced plans Tuesday to produce as many as 10 new films based on 10 characters from its considerable comic-book collection.
Captain America, Black Panther and the supergroup known as the Avengers are among the crimefighters in line for their big-screen closeups.
As announced last April, Paramount will distribute the films, all of which are slated to be live action. The first made-by-Marvel movie is due out in summer 2008. Which tights-wearer will be the subject of that inaugural production is undecided.
"No character before its time," Avi Arad, chairman and CEO of Marvel Studios, told the Hollywood Reporter. "The scripts will dictate which is first."
The other characters jockeying for position: Nick Fury, the one-eyed agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.; Ant-Man, the ant-sized avenger from Coral Gables, Florida; Cloak and Dagger, a pair of vigilante teenagers; Doctor Strange, a neurosurgeon turned sorcerer previously immortalized in a 1978 made-for-TV movie; Hawkeye, a mere mortal with a costume and spot-on archery skills; Power Pack, a sort of kid-centric Fantastic Four; and Shang-Chi, a kung-fu fighting master.
There's nothing new in Marvel product becoming movie product. Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Hulk, Daredevil, Elektra, the Fantastic Four and Blade all hail from the comics giant, and all have recent big-screen credits. Next year will bring more Marvel releases: Ghost Rider, The Punisher II and X-Men 3.
What's new is the amount of control Marvel will exert over its legion of heroes--no small thing for a company that has wrangled in the past with producing partners. In the new set-up for the 10-picture slate, Marvel will set the budgets (approximately $165 million), secure prime release dates (the summer or winter holiday seasons) and keep the kitty from all film-related merchandising.
Additionally, Marvel will hire the writers, and decide which screenplays are ready to shoot, and when. In the Reporter, Arad dropped a heavy hint that a certain shield-baring, star-spangled superhero might have the inside track. "I cannot wait to tell Captain America's story," he said. "It's a doozy of a story." (Variations of the story have been told already, most ignobly in a low-budget 1991 feature that was dumped on video.)
Marvel's exclusive pact with Paramount also is new. In the past, the company's heroes have worked freelance for the likes of Fox (the X-Men franchise), Universal (The Hulk) and Sony (the Spider-Man movies). As a result, a project like The Avengers might present a lineup challenge to Marvel and Paramount since Avenger members such as the X-Men's Wolverine and Hulk already have appeared in films for rival studios.
She-Hulk, however, is unattached and available at a moment's notice.
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