Tag Archives: kevin feige

Carnal Comradery

DC vs marvel artisan

Zack Snyder may be a bad story-teller, but in all fairness is a talented cinematographer.  Luckily enough for us, Christopher Nolan is the kind of guy that would start trolling a baddie if they are bad.  Which let’s be honest if you are dealing with Zack Snyderthat is going to be the case more often than not.

#TROLOLOLOL.  Disney finally bought itself out of Marvel’s Paramount contract, but is still paying 8% and 9% royalties on grosses $1,511,757,910 (The Avengers)  and $1,147,575,931 (Iron Man 3respectively.  Granting Paramount roughly 200$mill without breaking a sweat.  Or literally even doing anything.  Thor: The Dark World however: will be Marvel Studios’ first foot-loose and fancy-free “in-house” project.  With a little bit of wiggle-roomMarvel has already started writing up scripts for some of it’s most recently re-acquired intellectual property most notably: BladePunisherDaredevilGhostrider, and Doctor Strange.

Quote1.pngThey’re back in the fold, which is where we want them to be.Quote2.png —  Marvel President Kevin Feige

Marvel Phase 3

As the #superheroarmsrace #startsheatingup, rumor has it @ChrisNolanWB is now basically the Kevin Feige of DC/Warner Bros.  Igniting what some might describe as a MERCILESS RUMBLE OF TITANS.

DC vs marvel guardian

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Cunning Resolve

Cunning Resolve

Marvel’s promise to “keep taking risks” creatively into it’s Phase Two is already paying off, as relatively untested director Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 crushed it at the box-office AND with critics.  Clinching the second highest domestic opening ever, and pulling in a gross $1,111,096,000 and rocking a 9/10 on IGN, Iron Man 3 is only Black’s second film as a director.  Marvel Studios seems to have a knack for boldly pulling creative gem’s out of nowhere, like they did with Joss Whedon.

NOW IM NOT A MATHEMATICIAN OR ANYTHING: but Shane Black’s average rottentomatoes score as a director with only two films turned out to be 80.5%.  Meaning that if making movies were like high-school, Black got a B.  Pretty impressive.  Equally not impressive: one could argue, is Zack Snyder’s average rottentomatoes score as a director with 5 films at 54.4%.  Meaning that if making movies were like high-school, Snyder failed.  LOLUMADBRO?!?

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Systemic Threshold

Iron Man 3-4

The 2013 Screen Actors Guild Awards evidently put Argo in front-running position to take home The Oscar’s coveted Best Picture.  After being Oscar snubbed as a directorAffleck and his film have since cleaned up on awards culminating in SAG’s top-honor ensemble award.  Daniel Day Lewis’ Oscar chances went from 95%  to 99% with a SAG win, while Jennifer Lawrence and Anne Hathaway are also now a “shoe-in” as well or so they say.

Disney purchased 3 TV spots for tonight’s BIG GAME (Superbowl XLVII) at about 4 mill a pop while Warner Bros. opted to sit out for it’s third year in a row.  Industry insider info indicates that Warner Bros. is strongly hinging on the commercial success of Man of Steel, before “moving forward” with it’s top-priority project:  Justice LeagueThe studio has every right to be nervous, banking it’s flag-ship character hopes on a director like Zack Snyder.  Snyder had early success with 300 (60%), and arguably Watchmen (64%), but his most recent film Sucker Punch (23%), was literally god awful.  Which explains why WB execs are hesitant.

AND SO while Warner Bros’ ensemble team-up film remains in limbo, Disney’s ensemble team-up film is well into it’s phase two, with Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World coming this year.  Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige says that the studio is going to “keep taking risks” creatively  in phase two and beyond.  One of such risks was casting Robert Downey Jr. as billionaire inventor Tony Stark.  But that seemed to work out for everybody:

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Assembly Required

The day of reckoning is nearly upon us my dear friends as The Avengers drops this Friday and can be seen in 3D and IMAX at a theater near you.  Pre-release tracking on the film projects Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to have the biggest domestic box-office opening of all time.  Why all this huss and fuss, jibber-jabb, and riggamaroo over a silly film about a couple of guys in leotards you ask?  Because the core concept of the story is that there are four basic kinds of people.

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Marvel's 'Phase Two'

Marvel Entertainment Inc. brought a strong presence to NYCC (New York Comic-Con) this weekend to further promote their beloved and blossoming potential blockbuster movie franchise The Avengers.  The panel showed some never-before-seen footage and did some Q&A.  Marvel head honcho Kevin Fiege then opened up to fans about how happy he was with the direction the studio was going, culminating in an Avengers film.  The Avengers however, as Fiege explained, is certainly not the end of the road for Marvel/Disney.

Fiege hinted at the fact that ‘phase two of the Marvel Movie Universe‘ will include another round of solo films, and then culminate in a second Avengers film.  That however, is not all.  Marvel reportedly has five projects currently in development.  Iron Man 3 is in pre-production for a 2013 release attached to director Shane Black.  Thor 2 will begin pre-production soon and just picked up director Patty Jenkins (Monster).  An Ant-man film is ‘still nebulous but definitely in the works’.  Guardians of the Galaxy and Inhumans films are also reportedly in the works.  With so much success in their mainstream characters it seems a bit risky to put out obscure characters like some mentioned above.  Lucky enough for Marvel it has an insurance policy: The Walt Disney Company.

Disney bought Marvel about two years ago for over $4 billion.  While things indeed seem to be going well for both companies since the acquisition, Marvel has made deals with other studios to distribute some of their movies (spider-man, x-men, daredevil, etc.) making the Avengers and its four superheroes a coveted ‘in-house’ Marvel enterprise.  Without kissing too much Walt-Disney/Marvel ass, let’s take a look at the first avenger to make it to the big screen, and also by far the most box office successful avenger: Iron Man.

Anthony Edward Stark is the son of industrialist and inventor Howard Stark, and demonstrated his mechanical aptitude and extraordinary inventive genius at an early age.  Inheriting his father’s company Stark Industries, Tony blossomed into a billionaire industrialist, and an ingenious engineer.  With a highly ‘innovative attitude‘, an ‘entrepreneurial spirit‘, and a ‘charming capacity‘ to ignore the standard, the traditional, and the authoritative: Tony Stark is undoubtedly an Inventor Rational.  Indeed the Inventor‘s tendency to depend on their capability and inventiveness can get them in trouble at times.  Tony took this concept a bit too far when he ignored security concerns and ended up with shrapnel lodged in his chest.  In classic Inventor Rational fashion, Tony used his creative and inventive genius to devise a mechanical suit that saved his life.  And thus, Iron Man was born.  Indeed Tony is constantly searching for new projects, as we will no doubt see in the Avengers, and always tinkering with and improving his mechanical suit.  Indeed given their exceptional propensity to innovate, Inventors have a tendency to live their lives somewhat on the brink of disaster: as evidenced by Tony Stark’s perpetuated struggles with alcoholism.  Tony Stark having a somewhat reckless and at-times irresponsible persona in the comics goes hand-in-hand of course with casting the likes of Robert Downey Jr.  The Armored Avenger can be seen amongst his super squad May 2012, and again by himself May 2013.

Quote1.png My kingdom for a Radio Shack. Quote2.png

Anthony Stark (Earth-616)

While Marvel/Disney seems to have it’s sh*t together, DC/Warner Bros. is still searching for solid cash cows to replace the likes of Harry Potter and The Dark Knight.  While they do have The Hobbit films coming up, they simply cannot afford setbacks like Green Lantern if they actually want to directly compete with The Avengers and it’s four characters with already well-developed fan-bases.

Marvel/Disney seems poised to keep churning out inter-related superhero blockbusters while DC/Warner Bros. still has yet to find solid JLA (Justice League of America) footing.  In the epic battle for Hollywood supremacy that is Marvel/Disney vs. DC/Warner Bros.Marvel/Disney is cleaning house.