Zak Penn is one of those names that I always have to go and visit IMDB to remind myself just who he is. But I don’t know why! He wrote the story for the X-Men official game, wrote Elektra (we won’t hold that against him) and co-wrote X-Men: The Last Stand.
More than that though, he’s also on board as the writer for The Incredible Hulk and Marvel big-daddy, The Avengers.
It was the Avengers that Penn touched on at the press conference, and the news is good, for those of us wanting a good movie.
"The Avengers is a project in the future," Penn said. "That's the best way to put it until Iron Man and The Hulk come out. I haven't talked to Marvel about it in awhile because I think that the best way to do it is to put together a movie that uses all the characters and so they probably want to see how the movies do and figure that out first."
IESB started off their article by saying that it was “bad news … that it’s a long way off.” They rectified it by saying that the good news was that Penn wanted to do this movie right, but I think that’s the whole point. To do this movie right, it has to be done after all the individual movies come out first.
I’ve been harping on this for a long time; I realize that, so I won’t dwell on it any longer than I have too. But what Marvel is doing is the right thing; bring out all the individual movies centering around one character – hint and link if you want too for some geeky fun – but just one character at a time. Then, when all your movies are out, make your group movie.
This has two reasons too it.
a) First of all, it allows all the non-comic nerds (ie, your girlfriend) to get a grasp of just who the characters are. That way, she won’t be sitting next to you as The Avengers starts playing on opening day and whisper in your ear, “Who’s that? And why’s he got such a big...”
b) Secondly, and possibly more importantly for Marvel, they get to see just how well each individual characters movie does. This could both help them determine who is in the team, and whether an Avengers movie is financially feasible in the first place.
Either way, I’m glad that Penn is on the team, as his work with the final X-Men movie was brilliant. We’ll also get to see his work in the upcoming Incredible Hulk, which we hope will wow us.