Though the
Iron Man 2 press junket is over, the studio behind the film isn't done relentlessly dishing out info about their film slate. Many fan questions have yet to be answered, though. Have you wondered which characters will fit into the Marvel Movie-verse? Which film has been the most challenging task to date? Or even if
The Avengers has officially found their director?
In a recent interview with Steve Weintraub of Collider.com, Marvel's President of Production Kevin Feige was very candid about answering these very questions. Here are few excerpts:
You mentioned downstairs that [Iron Man 2] takes place around the same time as Incredible Hulk. "If you…there’s a thing in the movie that will tell you exactly the time line. Exactly where it takes place. Did you see that?" No. They have not shown us the Easter egg at the end of the movie. "That’s not it. It’s in the movie-movie." There’s a conversation with Agent Coulson and Robert Downey, Jr. that talks about New Mexico and that leads me to believe that it’s a different time line. Unless, everything…. ooh interesting! I think I just put it all together! So you’re trying to say there’s a lot of Marvel moments that are taking place at the same time? "There is some cross-over. Yes, there is some layered…just because it’s 4-5 years between movies doesn’t mean it’s 4-5 years in movie time... But there is something in [Iron Man 2], towards the end, that if you look carefully and this is for people like you and people like me, not the mainstream audience, there’s a clear marker of where Hulk fits in in the timeline." A lot of people ask me was can you clarify which mutants Marvel owns and which Fox/Sony/Universal might have or is not something that you want to talk about? "Well, Fox has mutants and Sony/Universal…Universal doesn’t have anything. Sony’s got Spidey and Ghostrider, and those family of characters. And Fox has X-Men and Fantastic Four and Daredevil and those family of characters. But any mutants in particular? Mutants are X-Men." Is there a possibility for any of the X-mutants that are maybe lesser known to be in a Marvel movie or is it all encompassing like the Fox deal?" "It’s pretty all encompassing. I mean they’re very specific character by character. Every character they have the rights to have is named specifically in contracts. And it’s a long, long, long list. So Dazzler for instance would be Fox... Because she’s a mutant." Let’s go into the story that broke a few days ago online that you guys were thinking about doing lower budget Marvel movie like maybe the $20-40 million range with some lesser known characters - maybe take some more risks. Is that story accurate or is that…? "Well I don’t know if the budget numbers are accurate. We haven’t talked budget yet necessarily, but it is accurate…taking risks I think we always do and always try to do. Because taking risks is kind of code for not doing the standard thing, right?
"And we don’t want to….so I don’t look at it necessarily as taking risks, we just look at it as not just doing what’s expected necessarily. But the story was accurate in that there’s the development department at the studios right now is actively looking and speaking with people and figuring out post Avengers, you know, what characters we were going to bring to life. 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. Blade was a great franchise and it wasn’t us…it was before my time…the first one. But I loved that it was a character that no one ever heard of. Never even had his stand alone book even. He was just an interesting character in Tome of Dracula, right? And that became a very cool, more or less a very cool franchise." Do you think Marvel might make an R-rated film in the future with….or is that something that you guys are still thinking the PG-13 arena is great? "I think we’re open to anything. I think we’re open to PG and clearly PG-13 is our wheelhouse. And the Blade movies we just talked about were R. So, at some point, certainly we haven’t closed the door on anything. We don’t have a policy that anyone’s told me about that would preclude any of that." Another thing that I got from a lot of people online was is there any way for you guys to reclaim the characters that the other studios got before you got there, or is it pretty much as long as they keep making movies, they have them? "You know all the contracts are different and they’re all very specific. So for the time being the projects within those other studios are licensed films I think will be there for awhile." There’s a lot of rumor that maybe Sam Jackson and Nick Fury might be, I want to use the term ageless. Is there any truth to that rumor? "There is truth to rumor that in the comics that’s the case. I think in the Ultimates II they reveal that. Let’s put it this way, we want to be very delicate with the big buys that we ask of the audience. Believe that this billionaire can come up with a big metal suit. Believe that this Russian guy, this Russian grease monkey with the plans can make one. Can do what no one else in the world can do other than Tony Stark can make one of these things. Believe that this scientist was exposed to gamma rays and he turned into this. Believe in Thor that there are other realms that you don’t know about that exist in our universe. And it’s kind of like one buy per film is what we like to live with. And I don’t know if we’re going for that buy with Nick Fury necessarily. And he’s the God of Thunder and he was exposed to gamma rays and he’s a super solider who’s frozen and he has the infinity formula and was frozen. When is it too much?" You brought this up and you’ve talked about it in the past but for people that don’t know, the big thing that you guys are doing with Thor is that you guys are moving the audience into another place, if you will. Can you talk about the delicate balancing act for Marvel opening the door to almost the supernatural or the Gods if you will or what that is and how that’s also going to help you in the future? "Well, it’s opening the door in this…there are sides to the Marvel universe in the comics that have everything you just said to the supernatural to the magic. We look at Thor as the cosmic, right? We look at Thor as the…sort of heading into to off-world adventures. And the whole Thor film has been constructed and the story that we’re telling is about our worlds meeting each other. And that slow reveal of pulling….making it feel plausible. Certainly fantastic. Certainly amazing but believable that these worlds can exist in the same universe. That’s what the entire Thor movie is about essentially on one layer. And how does that help us? It opens us up to a whole other buy that we’re going to ask the audience to buy into. If technology is the big buy in the Iron Man franchise, this notion of the cosmic of the portals and travel to other worlds is the big buy of Thor." There was a lot of talk about Jon Favreau possibly doing Avengers for you. He’s doing Cowboys and Aliens and the rumor, I don’t know if it’s solid or official, is Joss Whdeon might be doing Avengers for you? "Not official." You’re obviously trying to bring a lot of characters together and tell one really big story. Do you feel that is almost the most daunting of the challenges thus far?" "...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. And Tony…and how is Steve Rogers going to meet the new world and how is he going to feel about the modern age and the modern day. That’s obviously sincerely 60’s but one of the great elements of the comic books. How is Tony Stark, who thinks he knows everything about everything, going to react when Nick Fury tells him about the other worlds? That’s the reason to make that movie and that’s why that movie frankly is going to feel….it needs to feel like a part 1 and not like a part 5 or a part 6." For the rest of the interview, be sure to follow the link below to Collider.com
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