The Avengers Will the Avengers be viewed in the same light as other classic ensemble movies?

[Dark Raven]

In years to come, will the Avengers be viewed in the same light as other classic ensemble movies such as The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Dirty Dozen etc?

In some of those films, the stars went on to become even bigger, so that the cast seems even more impressive in retrospect. With the Magnificent Seven, you get the likes of Yul Bryner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson and Robert Vaughn. However, Hortz Bucholz and Brad Dexter remained relatively unknown. Eli Wallach of course is still known for his role in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Will the Avengers have this classic movie status in the future (hopefully with a rousing score like Elmer Bernstein's)? And who is most likely to fade into obscurity out of the Avengers cast?

In the Great Escape you get McQueen, Coburn and Bronson again, together with Richard Attenborough, Donald Pleasance and a bunch of others.

I think the Avengers could be most closely identified with the Magnificent Seven (although there are 6 Avengers), or 7 if you could Samuel L Jackson. Jackson could be seen as a kind of Yul Bryner leader character, again with a bald head. I don't know who else would correspond with the other Magnificent Seven characters.

 

[cherokeesam]

Depends on how "ensemble-y" it actually gets.
Ask me this question again after the movie releases, so I can tell whether or not it's a true ensemble or just "Iron Man 'n' Friends."

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

However, Hortz Bucholz and Brad Dexter remained relatively unknown.

Horst Bucholz went on to became a massive movie star in Germany

 

[El Payaso]

Well, opposite to those 'ensemble movies,' The Avengers takes characters from different previous moivies and it didn't start as a group story. So far, and I'm talking without seeing the movie, this looks far more like a commercial formula than some classic movie.

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

this looks far more like a commercial formula than some classic movie.

A formula so commercial that every studio does it

 

[Incredible Hans]

Horst Bucholz went on to became a massive movie star in Germany

And Buchholz also was in Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three.

And in Nine Hours to Rama and Iron Eagle III.

 

[Pond]

I really dont know why taking a few characters from individual movies and putting them into one looks like more a comercial stroke than a narrative one, when its quite obvious that the reason it might seem as a comercial strike its because it has so much narrative and dramatic punch as a concept.

Its a cool idea, despite it being a potentially comercial one; it was for the comics, it is for the movies.

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

And Buchholz also was in Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three.

And in Nine Hours to Rama and Iron Eagle III.

And Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful...

But for me, he'll always be Horatio Snyder in Geisterjäger John Sinclair

 

[Sharkboy]

Depends on how good the film is really. Simple.

Iron Man (the first one) is the only marvel studios film that's generally mentioned in a higher echelon when it comes to superhero films, and that is because it's regarded as one of the best. If Avengers is that good, people will undoubtedly compare it and mention it along the same lines as the above films.

 

[El Payaso]

A formula so commercial that every studio does it

Freddy vs Jason, Aliens vs Predator... I don't know if every studio but the idea of mixing up different similar characters is not new and it's not done for the sake of the story most of times.

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

Freddy vs Jason, Aliens vs Predator... I don't know if every studio but the idea of mixing up different similar characters is not new and it's not done for the sake of the story most of times.

You know that you are comparing apples and oranges, right?
there is a huge difference between your examples and The Avengers and this is the background of a common interconnecting universe in which it was acknowledged from the start that those other people exist. It's not like R2D2 and C-3PO are suddenly helping Indiana Jones to find the crow cage of Madmartigan....

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

It's not like R2D2 and C-3PO are suddenly helping Indiana Jones to find the crow cage of Madmartigan....

Of course, I'd totally watch that movie

 

[El Payaso]

You know that you are comparing apples and oranges, right?

Yeah, both fruits.

there is a huge difference between your examples and The Avengers and this is the background of a common interconnecting universe in which it was acknowledged from the start that those other people exist.

Which of course everybody in the world knows.

 

[Dark Raven]

I wonder who is going to end up the least known? Chris Evans? Chris Hemsworth? Jeremy Renner? Clark Gregg? Cobie Smulders?

With Renner having his own movies with the new Bourne films, he might become more of a star. Evans is more known than Hemsworth, but still not a huge household name yet.

Cobie Smulders is probably most known for How I Met your Mother. Not really sure how known Clark Gregg is.

Of course, the point is how much this could change in the next few years.

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

I'm not sure, but there might be some pirates in Somalia who aren't aware of it.
but, you know, this common, shared universe has caused a lot of critics, who didn't understand what MS was trying to do (or didn't appreciate it), to focus on exactly this aspect and talk/blog/write the hell out of it over the last three, four years, so I guess at least SOMEBODY might have seen the difference.

 

[cherokeesam]

I'm not sure, but there might be some pirates in Somalia who aren't aware of it.
but, you know, this common, shared universe has caused a lot of critics, who didn't understand what MS was trying to do (or didn't appreciate it), to focus on exactly this aspect and talk/blog/write the hell out of it over the last three, four years, so I guess at least SOMEBODY might have seen the difference.

There's nothing original about the concept at all. In fact, it was inevitable. Simply because everyone who knows Marvel Comics at all knows that all these heroes coexist, and that quite a lot of them band together to form teams like The Avengers and the like.

It's not like somebody just came up with this idea in 2008: "Hey, what if we started joining together a bunch of heroes from totally different films?!?!" No, it was more like The Avengers have existed as a popular franchise for decades, and it was inevitable that Marvel Studios would want to do a film version, and it was inevitable that this would feature heroes we had already seen in other films. Just like the long-rumored Justice League film.

What would be *original* would be something like you described with Star Wars and Indiana Jones and Willow, where you get a bunch of totally unrelated movies and do the mash-up in a team that has never before been seen in any other media.

 

[metaphysician]

Its not original in *comics*, but it is pretty damn original in *movies*. Nobody has ever done what Avengers is doing before, and it has only ever been attempted once or twice. I think it deserves the credit.

 

[mara]

Its not original in *comics*, but it is pretty damn original in *movies*. Nobody has ever done what Avengers is doing before, and it has only ever been attempted once or twice. I think it deserves the credit.

Agreed.

 

[Thebumwhowalks]

I heard that the movie is going to open with *spoiler* Tony explaining the meaning of the lyrics of Madonna's 'like a virgin' to Cap.

 

[Ultimatehero]

Its not original in *comics*, but it is pretty damn original in *movies*. Nobody has ever done what Avengers is doing before, and it has only ever been attempted once or twice. I think it deserves the credit.

When else has it been attempted?

I don't know about those films since they seem to be held in very high regard cinematically while this is a lot more summer blockbuster. I'd say, it has a chance to stand up there with more the likes of 'Oceans Eleven.' Those named are usually shown in film academia.

That said? I believe Marvel's formula will definitely be taught in producing schools because it is so unique of an idea. Releasing several films leading into a cumulation of them. It's never been done before. Aliens vs. Predator - they didn't enter it seeing that as the result, same thing with Freddy v. Jason. Smallville comes close since it's all unified, but even there - different.

 

[R_Hythlodeus]

When else has it been attempted?

Universal did something like this with their Monster Munch back in the 50ies, but that's about it.

 

[Juicy J]

Yeah you really can't compare this to anything thats ever been done on film before simply because nothing like it has been attempted. Yes, there have been cross-pollinated franchises before (Freddy vs Jason, AVP, etc) but nothing to this magnitude where there were 5 interweaving movies all culminating in the ensemble film. There really is no precedent for this.
In the end I feel like this movie (given all the positive buzz it's already getting) will be viewed in a league all it's own since it is truly unique, not just as an ensemble film.

 

[Tony Stark]

I wonder who is going to end up the least known? Chris Evans? Chris Hemsworth? Jeremy Renner? Clark Gregg? Cobie Smulders?

With Renner having his own movies with the new Bourne films, he might become more of a star. Evans is more known than Hemsworth, but still not a huge household name yet.

Cobie Smulders is probably most known for How I Met your Mother. Not really sure how known Clark Gregg is.

Of course, the point is how much this could change in the next few years.

Might become a star? Umm....you do realize Renner is an Oscar nominee way before he ever was offered a part in Avengers?

 

[metaphysician]

I was referring to the off-and-on JLA movie efforts, actually. Obviously none of them but one really awful TV pilot ever reached production, but that kind of supports my thesis.

As for the horror movie crossovers, they are related, but still not that closely. In those cases you had existing independent franchises mixed more or less arbitrarily at a later date. There was no existing effort to create a unified world.

 

[Tony Stark]

Yeah you really can't compare this to anything thats ever been done on film before simply because nothing like it has been attempted. Yes, there have been cross-pollinated franchises before (Freddy vs Jason, AVP, etc) but nothing to this magnitude where there were 5 interweaving movies all culminating in the ensemble film. There really is no precedent for this.
In the end I feel like this movie (given all the positive buzz it's already getting) will be viewed in a league all it's own since it is truly unique, not just as an ensemble film.

I think the best way to put it, is there hasn't been any successful cross-pollinated franchises.

I do admire Marvel's chutzpah for even attempting this. I'm also thankful that Disney owns them because should this be a complete failure (which I highly doubt), this won't kill them.

I've never been rooting as much for a film in my life though, because should they pull this off, I think it will encourage other studios to take chances. I get so tired of hearing people say Marvel plays it safe with their films. This is hardly safe, in fact nothing they have done has been particularly safe.

Need I remind people they had a good thing going co-releasing films in conjunction with other studios. Sure they had some misses, with Daredevil and Elektra, but even the FF movies, while they may have not been great, they did make money. X-men and Spider-man were huge successes.

Going out with Iron Man on their own, who up until that point was not all that well known outside of the comic fan base, was a huge risk. They took out huge loans to finance the film, which potentially could have sent Marvel back into bankrupcy court as they were in the 1990's. They also decided to reboot a franchise that everyone said was a total flop in Ang Lee's Hulk.

Adding to that, the thought from the beginning was to create the MCU, which was a huge risk. Captain America didn't even have a screen play at the time they made the decision to make the MCU. While some called Fiege for interference of the directors, he was trying to make a cohesive story that would not contradict itself, so he asserted his authority in areas that might undermine the MCU, but at the same time, allowed the film makers to make their own story. Iron Man, Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger....five films that couldn't be more different interms of style yet they form somewhat of a pseudo saga.

I for one loudly applaud Marvel for what they are doning here, and hope it pays off big time.