With the world premiere of Marvel's The Avengers "superhero team-up of a lifetime" only 2 weeks away, obviously it's now more than just an idea, however, that wasn't always the case. Chatting with the press, the 2 major forces behind the film's characters & development, Stan Lee & Kevin Feige, elaborated on the 5-year buildup.
“We started looking at the list of characters in the Marvel Universe that hadn’t been taken by other studios: Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye and Black Widow,” says Feige. “And I thought, ‘Isn’t that interesting; all of these characters happen to form one of the most popular comic book series - ‘The Avengers.’
“When the idea of a Nick Fury cameo started coming up, we called Sam Jackson and he thought it was a cool idea,” continues Feige.
“It was his enthusiasm about it that led us to shoot that end credit scene and what he says to Tony Stark in the scene, ‘You’re part of a bigger universe, you just don’t know it yet.’ The line was also Marvel telling that to the audience as well.”
“Audiences loved the cameo and the buzz about Nick Fury began. We did it again two months later on the ‘Incredible Hulk’ and the reaction once again told us ‘The Avengers’ is going to work. Our plan then became to build it one Super Hero at a time because it was really important that we introduced all of the characters first in their own franchises before putting them together in ‘The Avengers.’ We also hired filmmakers on ‘Thor’ and ‘Captain America’ who were open to the idea that they were playing in a shared sandbox.”
“We had to have a lot of confidence in the direction we were heading, but two of the four characters had not been introduced to audiences yet and it was a bit of a leap of faith,” says Kevin Feige. “A big part of the puzzle was introducing both ‘Thor’ and ‘Captain America’ in self-contained origin stories with very distinctive beginnings and endings that segued nicely into the storyline for ‘The Avengers.’”
For Stan Lee, seeing his characters continue to grow in popularity is a testament to the Marvel Universe he helped create over the last 50 years.
“I’d like to think that one of the reasons that Marvel characters have been so successful is when we created them, we tried to give them interesting personalities and personal problems so people would still be interested in them even if they didn’t have superpowers,” explains Stan lee.
“In other words we tried to make our heroes and heroines three-dimensional, interesting people.”
“Sometimes people make the mistake of just concentrating on the super power while the real person beneath the costume gets ignored. That’s when those particular stories don’t do as well. Every character in ‘The Avengers,’ is flawed in some way and has a dynamic, interesting, personal story in addition to them saving the world.”
Marvel Studios presents in association with Paramount Pictures “Marvel’s The Avengers”--the super hero team up of a lifetime, featuring iconic Marvel super heroes Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye and Black Widow. When an unexpected enemy emerges that threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, Director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins.
Starring Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson, & directed by Joss Whedon from a screenplay by Joss Whedon, “Marvel’s The Avengers” is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series “The Avengers,” first published in 1963 and a comics institution ever since. Prepare yourself for an exciting event movie, packed with action and spectacular special effects, when “Marvel’s The Avengers” assemble on May 4, 2012. The film is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. In addition to "Marvel's The Avengers," Marvel Studios will release a slate of films based on the Marvel characters including "Iron Man 3" on May 3, 2013!; and “Thor 2” on November 15, 2013.