Tom Cohen Talks The Avengers, Luke Cage, The Punisher, And Much More!

It’s one thing to have been talking about it, but what’s it like to be on the set of Avengers?

Tom Cohen: It is exciting. I’ll tell you, I grew up a fan, especially a Marvel fan, a comic book fan and I also love movies. So to be able to work at a company and work for a great boss like Kevin Feige, he really is a great boss, it’s really a fun place to work. It’s a real dream to be able to work with these characters.

You’re working on The Avengers now. At what point do you get to start thinking what other characters can we look at?

Tom Cohen: That’s a big topic of discussion within the company. There’s 8000 characters in the Marvel library so there’s a lot of possibilities there. Not every character necessarily has to be a $100 or $200 million effects film. Right now we’re constantly talking about what other characters we can bring to life in movies. Yeah, there’s a lot of talks going on right now about that.

Will we ever see a Luke Cage movie?

Tom Cohen: It’s a possibility.

Black Panther?

Tom Cohen: That’s a possibility too. Black Panther’s something that we’ve been developing so those are all definite possibilities, definitely characters that are talked about.

Would you give Punisher a third or fourth chance (depending where you start counting)?

Tom Cohen: Yeah, we have the rights to that character. We got the movie rights back from Lionsgate. I think it’s just all a matter of waiting for inspiration to strike. He’s a great character and I feel like there’s still a great Punisher movie that can be made. That’s a possibility as well.

Are there any intentions to make Hulk movies with Mark Ruffalo after The Avengers? Was that accounted for in his contract?

Tom Cohen: Honestly I don’t know what the particulars of his deal are but we’re definitely excited about him being in the Avengers movie and thinking he’s going to be a really great Bruce Banner, a really great Hulk. Again, we’ll have to wait and see.

We keep hearing about Fantastic Four or Daredevil getting rebooted. Where do those stand?

Tom Cohen: They’re in development. Fox is developing, they recently announced a director involved with Daredevil. The movie’s currently being scripted and same with Fantastic Four. Those are still early development projects but Fox intends to make movies of them.

But those are characters Marvel really believes in, with a chance to try again?

Tom Cohen: Yeah, I think they see these movies as opportunities to try and do something new. With Spider-Man, I think comic book fans are already familiar with that notion because if you’re a comic book fan, over the years they’re constantly being rebooted and changed and restarted in new directions. The same thing I think applies for movies too.

Also those movies were early, 2003 and 2004. Have you learned a lot more you can do with a Daredevil and Fantastic Four movie now?

Tom Cohen: Those movies predate me. I’ve only been at Marvel for four years. I do think that they look back at a movie, there’s always something new and different no matter how good a movie. In retrospect we can always say there are things you can do differently. I think we see these potential reboots as a way to do something different with the characters that wasn’t done before.