Will Zak Penn ruin Marvels future?

[luke1234]

I just realized that Zak Penn is suppose to write both Captain America and The Avengers. I see this as a huge problem because I think most of us who appreciate good writing can easily see he lacks in the screenplay department. Lets look at his past films and tell me if one of them had good writing

X3
Fantastic Four
Elektra
Behind Enemy Lines
Incredible Hulk

the only movie on the list that has decent writing is Incredible Hulk and thats only because "Edward Harrison" collaberated with him. I mean C'mon Marvel. DO you honestly want this writer to handle the future of your film buisness. What do you guys think of this? I personally see it as a problem but I want to hear if anyone is fine with it

 

[odiin]

Short answer? No.

Long answer? Nope.

 

[luke1234]

hahah thanks for the input

 

[FaT_tONle]

Yeah he will... no way is he going to come up with a good script for Avengers. If Penn ****s this up it will be the end of Marvel movies as we know it. I have no confidence in him at this point.

 

[luke1234]

neither do I, god i swear Marvel Producers are idiots

 

[MercuryEnigma]

Ok, I agree, but rather than being simple about it, let's be constructive. What would you like to see in those two movies? How would a good Avengers movie play out? And Captain America?

 

[Rac]

I'd say yeah. Unless his future scripts get the TIH treatment (95% rewrite. They only kept like two scenes from his script in TIH).

Thus far, I've hated all his Marvel films, except X2 and TIH where he had very very minimalistic role.

 

[EternalMaster]

Penn can come up with good GENERAL ideas, but when it comes to fleshing those ideas out into a script, he sucks hard.

If Penn has some input on a script, no big deal. If Penn writes a script himself, the end results will be disasterous for Marvel. The man just has very little talent in the way of writing a script that will translate well to film.

For writing Avengers, nb Mark Fergus from Iron Man who also wrote the screenplay for Children of Men. Or maybe David Koepp who helped pen the script for Spider-Man.

 

[Chaos Bringer]

neither do I, god i swear Marvel Producers are idiots

or great biz men. perhaps Penn is inexpensive.

 

[FaT_tONle]

Ok, I agree, but rather than being simple about it, let's be constructive. What would you like to see in those two movies? How would a good Avengers movie play out? And Captain America?

All you need is a good script... and we know that Penn can not deliver and that's all there is too it. I mean look at this guy... Elecktra??? TLS??? FF??? Is this supposed to be an impressive resume? We all know what the deal was with TIH. The fact that this guy is coming anywhere near Cap AND AVengers blows my freaking mind.

 

[Clobberin' Time]

Will Zak Penn ruin Marvels future?

Yes!

 

[Hypestyle]

Jon Favreau needs to write the script for Avengers.. collaborate with Ed Norton..

 

[RaZaTrOn]

Well its a good job Ed and RDJ will be in the Avengers, they won't settle for a crap script will they?

 

[DBZ2cool]

You guys need to be educated.

The new Hulk movie you saw is actually Zak Penn's script! The only thing Norton changed in it were the dialogues and couple of scenes here and there which didn't even make it in the final cut! This is why WGA gave Zak Penn the writing credits since it was his storyline and characters he wrote for this movie that were used.

Seriously guys you should check your facts before posting such stuff.

Hell I myself hate Zak Penn for what he did to X3 and all but you need to realize that those films were under FOX stuidos banner so naturally he couldn't give his best.

I thought TIH was awesome and that was under Marvel studios banner so I am all for him to continue working for marvel.

 

[StarkTheProdigy]

I loved X3 and TIH, and Fantastic Four was ok, but i think they just need to get a new and fresh screenwriter. I think most of us are just sick of one screenwriter writing most of the marvel movies.

 

[Bubonic]

You guys need to be educated.

The new Hulk movie you saw is actually Zak Penn's script! The only thing Norton changed in it were the dialogues and couple of scenes here and there which didn't even make it in the final cut! This is why WGA gave Zak Penn the writing credits since it was his storyline and characters he wrote for this movie that were used.

Seriously guys you should check your facts before posting such stuff.

Hell I myself hate Zak Penn for what he did to X3 and all but you need to realize that those films were under FOX stuidos banner so naturally he couldn't give his best.

I thought TIH was awesome and that was under Marvel studios banner so I am all for him to continue working for marvel.

I think you need to be educated.

It was his script, but what makes a script good is plausibility and good dialogue, both of which were probably absent from the original drafts of The Incredible Hulk, the guy is good to offer framework for movies, but he fails hard, HARD at delivering good scripts.

Don't give him credit until he earns it all on his own.

So far he's done nothing but garbage and you know it if you've watched any of the movies he has been credited for, regardless of production company.

Avengers I am more of less worried about, RDJ and Norton should be involved and they won't settle for stale lines and ridiculous situations, they'll work on it so they don't personally end up looking like idiots.

Captain America on the other hand I am terrified about, it is a WW2 comic book time piece and since we don't know who will be cast or involved other then him then there is no telling if anyone will step in and fix his blunder.

This monkey seems to have a free pass for being involved in Marvel CB movies, I don't know if this is because he has some influential family, or it was some deal with Mephistopheles... But in any case he could be the man to bring down the Marvel empire right when it should be at the peak of its power.

Anti-Penn Petition is what we need people, lets seriously consider this.

 

[odiin]

Whether you like Penn or not, I was under the impression that David Self was writing the Captain America film.

 

[Raiden]

I don't like Zack Penn's writing for the most part, and letting him write both Capt. America and Avengers is a bad idea. I don't understand why Marvel would let a weak writer like Penn to control the two biggest franchises they have, and it could affect how successful Marvel Studio will become down the line.

 

[GNR]

Whether you like Penn or not, I was under the impression that David Self was writing the Captain America film.

Yea I have no idea why everyone thinks Penn is writing Cap.SHH updated their scoop months ago where Penn's reps said that HE IS NOT involved with Cap.

 

[Figs]

This monkey seems to have a free pass for being involved in Marvel CB movies, I don't know if this is because he has some influential family, or it was some deal with Mephistopheles... But in any case he could be the man to bring down the Marvel empire right when it should be at the peak of its power.

Anti-Penn Petition is what we need people, lets seriously consider this.

That's what I want to know!

Why is Penn the go to guy for Marvel most of the time, and even a bigger question...how did he get in this position of so called power. It's like Marvel isn't even trying to grab any professional Hollywood writers that have years of experience and background...for writing good scripts.

Is it too much money for Marvel to spend, so they go for Zak because he reads comics and maybe they get a better deal with him?

 

[DACrowe]

Penn is cheap and desperate. He apparently wrote and pleaded the WGA (who hates when non-members write screenplays) to take Edward "Harrison" Norton's name off of the "written by" credit for The Incredible Hulk so his paycheck would be bigger. He's your typical hack-for-hire of Hollywood big budget movies -- like Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who threw together screenplays for The Island, The Legend of Zorro (the bad one--the sequel), Mission: Impossible III and Transformers.

Penn is a reliable guy who turns out workmanlike screenplays. His draft was one of over a dozen for X2 and he got a credit for introducing Lady Deathstryke to the screenplay and I think that may be it (but I'm not sure, that is just a rumor I heard).

He delivered a solid framework for an action movie with TIH, but apparently it was very cliche and Norton rewrote most of the dialogue giving it a more naturalistic feel and added character scenes (which were then removed by Marvel during editing) and took out silly ideas like "Hulk vs. whales." What humanity there is in that movie is probably from Norton. Even so the plot mechanics of a generic script can be still seen though, like how contrived it is that Gen. Ross brings Blonsky into the fold through a short expository scene.

To see Penn's more unadulterated visions, look at his writings for Elektra, Inspector Gadget, X3 and the Fantastic Four movies. Banal-simple minded platitudes posing as dialogue and generic moments of posturing stand in for "character development" that serve as dead time between interesting action scenes he comes up with.

Really, Marvel may just want him because he'll do whatever they say (like when he bent over and took all of Tom Rothman's "suggestions" for X3). What is sad is that Marvel already hired an excellent writing team for Iron Man and that should be where they're going with it. I would love to see them go outside of the box as well. Imagine Lawerence Kasadan writing Captain America! Imagine William Monahan penning The Avengers. Okay well getting Edgar Wright for Ant-Man as writer/director was inspired...but who wants to see Ant-Man?

I just feel like there is a very small pool of writers for "summer blockbusters" in the last decade and I'd like to see Marvel go outside of that box. It worked on Iron Man, Spider-Man 2 and I'm going to assume TDK as well.

 

[odiin]

Penn is cheap and desperate. He apparently wrote and pleaded the WGA (who hates when non-members write screenplays) to take Edward "Harrison" Norton's name off of the "written by" credit for The Incredible Hulk so his paycheck would be bigger.

Wow. WOW. Way to completely twist and distort the facts there. Whether you hate Zakk Penn or not he didn't do anything unreasonable there. Penn had a legitimate claim to the credit: He wrote the original screenplay, the plot, and the story structure, and Edward Norton's re-write mostly had to do with dialog. This lead to a dispute over who should get the credit so the WGA had to decide, and of COURSE he's going to plead his case, don't be an idiot, that's what you're SUPPOSED to do, you're supposed to make a statement why you feel you deserve the credit, I'm sure Norton made one too. It's not the "desperate plea" you're trying ot make it out to be, and anyway in the end the WGA decided to favour story and plot structure over dialog, which, let's be honest, was the right call. If these where just two anonymous people you had never heard with in the situation, any reasonable person would be able to say "Well DUH, of course the guy who wrote the plot should get the credit."

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike Zak Penn, but that isn't one of them.

 

[Evil Twin]

Penn is a useful writer if used properly. He'll give you a three act script with a servicable plot and set pieces on a tight deadline. It will need polishing from there, but he's fast and reliable and that's sometimes a necessary thing. Marvel has already announced Captain America and The Avengers before they even have scripts or directors and they need to get moving forward on these projects if they even want to have a hope of meeting their proposed schedule.

He's something of the opposite of Joss Whedon who, when attached to WW, took several years, complained about how hard it was to get a handle on the character, and handed in something that sounded like it would set the fanboys on edge on many levels.

 

[luke1234]

Even if hes not involved with Captain America, but im pretty sure he is. He is still in line for the Avengers and that scares the hell out of me. He is such a bad writer. I would love to see The Iron Man Writers handle the Avengers IMO

 

[DACrowe]

Wow. WOW. Way to completely twist and distort the facts there. Whether you hate Zakk Penn or not he didn't do anything unreasonable there. Penn had a legitimate claim to the credit: He wrote the original screenplay, the plot, and the story structure, and Edward Norton's re-write mostly had to do with dialog. This lead to a dispute over who should get the credit so the WGA had to decide, and of COURSE he's going to plead his case, don't be an idiot, that's what you're SUPPOSED to do, you're supposed to make a statement why you feel you deserve the credit, I'm sure Norton made one too. It's not the "desperate plea" you're trying ot make it out to be, and anyway in the end the WGA decided to favour story and plot structure over dialog, which, let's be honest, was the right call. If these where just two anonymous people you had never heard with in the situation, any reasonable person would be able to say "Well DUH, of course the guy who wrote the plot should get the credit."

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike Zak Penn, but that isn't one of them.

When it has reached the columns of Variety and the Hollywood Reporter that he wrote a long and passionate "plea" (their words), when he is in some financial trouble right now (according to Hollywood Reporter), there was more to it.

And yeah, I said WGA awarded him sole credit on providing a framework, but that doesn't mean they should have. They notoriously hate non-members getting credits. That is why the screenplay Koepp turned in with GG and Doc Ock fighting each other and GG living, Harry hating Spidey cause he saw him kiss MJ and Doc Ock still on the run--was enough to give Koepp the sole credit, even though most of the details of the movie and every major scene and 90% of diaologue was written by either Rosenberg, Chabon or Sargent, though.

Would you say it would have been the same movie?