In yet another Q&A with the head of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige offers CraveOnline some new and intriguing nuggets about Thor: The Dark World and elements in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's future. With Loki's mind-control in The Avengers driving Erik Selvig mad in Thor: The Dark World, could this mean Clint Barton aka Hawkeye will go through something similar in the Age of Ultron?
"Well, I think we saw that in The Avengers already. We saw the scene where he is with Widow, and he’s coming out of that, and he’s dealing with the repercussions of that. That was sort of it for Hawkeye. Selvig was held in that Loki trance a little bit longer and only popped out at the very, very end, so I think his repercussions [are more significant]. And also, Hawkeye is a field operative of SHIELD. Selvig is a university professor. [Laughs] So they deal with it in different ways. Hawkeye definitely plays a very large part in Age of Ultron. So that’ll be the next place to further evolve the character."
When it was suggested that Thor: The Dark World ironically has more actors of color, as well as female characters, than the other Marvel movies, Kevin Feige said, "No, I wouldn’t say we necessarily said, “The Thor franchise will be our most diverse!” but it’s always an important aspect when we make our movies, and obviously with Jim Rhodes in the Iron Man franchise, and in the next Cap film we’ve got Anthony Mackie playing Sam Wilson, The Falcon, for the first time. And again all that is from the Marvel comics. In the case of Thor, it was just casting the best people for the part. Ken Branagh had the idea to cast Idris Elba as Heimdall and we didn’t blink at that chance to do it. Adewale, I think he read for the part, but ended up being by far the best actor for Algrim. So it was just focusing on the most talented person for the job."
Considering Thor: The Dark World ends on a pretty big cliffhanger, Feige was asked whether fans will have to wait until the next Thor sequel to see what follows, or could it be explored in other films. "I think there’s always room to touch on it in other stories, but I think we wouldn’t get the full evolution of where that story’s progressing until another standalone Thor film."
About the mid-credits teaser for Thor: The Dark World, Kevin Feige clarified that (spoiler alert) both the Aether and Tesseract are indeed Infinity Gems. But when he's asked exactly which gem - Soul, Time, Space, Mind, Reality, Power - the Tesseract is meant to be, the Marvel producer said, "It is [codified in the cinematic universe]. I don’t know when we’ll actually divulge that necessarily, but it’s the space stone." But will the gems be the focus of Guardians of the Galaxy, or is it going to come into play throughout Phase 3? "Well the answer to the first question is both. It is both. And then, you know? Who knows? If they allow us to keep making movies, it will go a little bit further." Anyhow, make the jump over to CraveOnline for the full interview! What do you think?