Marvel's Kevin Feige Updates Ant-Man, The Avengers Director, and More
Posted 04.27.10 by Ryan
Marvel has a pretty full slate of movies up until May 4, 2012, when The Avengers opens in theaters. One of the pics will likely be Ant-Man, the adaptation that writer/director Edgar Wright said he hoped to return to after he finishes his upcoming Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. In an interview with ComingSoon, Marvel president Kevin Feige confirmed Wright's plans to make Ant-Man.
Edgar was in L.A. last week, we sat down, and we started working on a calendar of when to get him back into it once he finishes promoting Scott Pilgrim, so I think towards the end of this year, early next year we'd start looking at early prep for that, but certainly for a release date after The Avengers.
The character of Ant-Man was a founding member of The Avengers, though there is no confirmation that the character will appear in the movie version.
It is something that we're looking at the ongoing cinematic universe and where to go after 'Avengers,' which we look at as a beginning and not an ending. Listen, the truth is that there are thousands and thousands of characters. Can they all be movies? No, but when you go and look again at the first two movies that started this new model era. The first one was Blade, which no one knew was a Marvel character and never had his own title, was just an interesting character in Tomb of Dracula. And then there was X-Men which was the top-selling comic at the time for many, many years, and that was done well. So certainly we're making a conscious effort of looking at the characters, whether they have marquee value or not, are just interesting stories and can continue to define, which is what I've been trying to do, almost coming up on ten years at Marvel, to continue to push the boundaries of what a comic book movie is and a definition of a comic book movie.
And what movies are Marvel planning? Feige confirmed a few titles to Collider.
I've talked a lot about Iron Fist and a lot about Dr. Strange and Black Panther and clearly been working on Ant-Man with Edgar on and off for many years. And what are the next batches? Whether they're Runaways, whether they're big known characters or not. I think we're open to anything.
Whatever movie Marvel decides to make, it should be less dauting than the "cosmic" and "off-world adventures" in Thor where "worlds can exist in the same universe." Feige isn't worried, since he says all Marvel movies are daunting.
The challenge of Thor as you well know is how do you loop in these other worlds? He's got a hammer, he's got blonde hair, he's got a cape. How's that going to work? A challenge of doing an adventure a big Marvel comic book movie that takes place primarily in the early 40's. So they're all daunting. They're all challenges. The challenge of Avengers frankly is the character interactions is the fun part. That's the reason to make the movie. It's not so we have more people that can run really fast and hit something. Who cares about that? The fun thing about Avengers is the character dynamics and seeing Tony Stark come against somebody like Steve Rogers who they couldn't be more different. And who is going to give Tony Stark an order at some point in the movie. And I don't know how Tony Stark's going to take that necessarily. But I'll be interested to find out.
As for who will direct The Avengers, Joss Whedon is supposedly in negotiations to helm the project though it may be premature to think he has th job. "Not official," said Feige.
What is official is Ant-Man. Fans just have to get through Iron Man 2, Thor, The First Avenger: Captain America, and The Avengers first.