First of all, let me say it is great to be back. My computer imposed hiatus was a long one, made even longer by the fact that a lot of news came and went, and I desperately wanted to write about it! Things are better computer-wise now, and so back into it!

This past weekend, as I’m sure a lot of you did, I went to check out the much-anticipated Iron Man movie. It was a great flick, lot’s of action, great acting, and with only a few nitpicky complaints here and there, I can say that I am now eagerly anticipating the DVD.

If you were smart enough to stay until the end past the credits (or at least be there with someone who was) you were treated to a special extra scene between Tony Stark and a Samuel L Jackson-played Nick Fury. Fury as come to Stark to discuss something called “The Avenger Initiative.”

Now, I had two initial reactions to this. The first was the obvious Fanboy gasp followed by a hearty “that’s awesome!” But as my brain processed what I had seen, my excitement soon passed. I will say it here and now, if you think you are going to see an Avengers movie anytime soon, think again.

First off, an ensemble movie like Avengers with so many iconic characters on the team would have to be about 4 hours long. To explain and properly introduce all the different characters, many of who we haven’t seen on the big screen yet would take forever. Now, some would argue that X-men worked, and they were able to tell the origin story of multiple characters. True, except for the fact that the origin story of every character in the X-Men movies was the same: they are mutants. Characters with such rich history like Thor, Giant-Man and of course, Captain America need to be treated properly. To have them just “show up” on a team would be a huge discredit to the history of the characters, and the Avengers themselves.

Second, the cost for an Avengers movie would be through the roof. The studios would now have to pay not just one leading man (Robert Downey Jr, Ed Norton, Hugh Jackman), but 5 or 6. Couple that with the fact that this would become an almost 90% CGI movie (Iron Man is almost complete CGI, same with The Hulk, and probably characters like Thor and Giant-Man) and suddenly the production costs are through the stratosphere. It could be argued that The Lord of The Rings trilogy was hugely CGI, and it made a lot of money. Well, LoTR didn’t feature huge, established movie stars for the most part, and also Peter Jackson founded WETA workshops, so the effects were done in house, assumably at a lesser cost. Could Marvel Studios make a similar move? Perhaps, but the company is still very young as a movie studio, and they don’t have the corporate backing that DC would to make the same move. Marvel has filed for chapter 11 once, I don’t think they are willing to go back to that state of affairs just yet.

Finally, an Avengers movie is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” movie for Marvel to make right now. No matter who is in it, who writes it, who directs it, or a thousand other jobs, you are never going to make the audience love it. Fanboys everywhere will nitpick it to death because there simply isn’t room in a 2 hour flick to tell these stories properly. Once Marvel has made some more “Solo” movies (Iron Man II, Thor, Captain America) then it can look into the team concept. Now I’m not saying we need a Giant-Man movie to understand Hank Pym, and a Vision movie to know who he is. But the bigger names definitely need that. Then the characters will have properly fleshed out stories, and can assemble to take on a bigger menace, just like they did in the comics. It’s only at that point that a truly cohesive and understandable.

Based on previous comic-book movie adaptations, the best ones are the ones that follow closely the stories laid out in the comic books. If Marvel, and Marvel fans can just be patient, I’m sure that an excellent Avengers movie is in our future. But for now, sit back and let it happen naturally, just like in the comics. In the meantime though, the Fanboy in me can’t wait to see what kind of Jackson-like hidden gem The Incredible Hulk will hold.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 9:26 pm and is filed under Future-casting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.