The Secret Avengers are one of Marvel’s newest teams and it’s comic book hasn’t even been going a year. The premise of the team is basically that they’re the black-0pps Avengers, secret from the public. The picture below however isn’t of the Secret Avengers but of the Ultimate Avengers, which from what I gather, is a very similar concept, a secret team of Avengers.
A team of under-cover Avengers would work as a movie as it would have all the cool of the Avengers combined with a black-ops style which would let the characters let rip. The public like the X-Men because of Wolverine and the Secret Avengers would be Marvel’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine (but hopefully actually good!)
The other reason why it would work is the characters. Heading up the team would be Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson of course) working alongside other already established characters War Machine and Black Widow. Having these three characters should draw in the audience without wasting the contracts of the bigger name stars (Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans). Round off the cast with Hawkeye (already cast as Jeremy Renner and in the main Avengers film) and then all you need is a couple more characters for the team and a villain.
There are a huge amount of characters that could work as the other members, Ant-Man and/or The Wasp as kick-ass scientists; the Black Panther working with the team to fight for this country back; Ms Marvel as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with special powers; Mockingbird as a rival for Black Widow or Iron Fist just being Iron Fist! Even lesser-known characters like the Black Knight, Hellcat, Wonderman or even Tigra could be reinvented in a more black-ops style and used in the team. (I’m not even going to try cast all those characters I just mentioned!
Pit the team against a few scary villains like Taskmaster as a unbeatable master of all fighting techniques, Ultron as a computer virus which becomes a killer robot or turn the Wrecking Crew into a serious threat. Give them a post 9-11 terrorist feel and you’ve got a movie. The main problem would be over using the Avengers title and producers may feel at a Secret Avengers will would do this. The first Avengers film would also need to be a success to warrant a spin-off. I personally would love to see a Secret Avengers film and hopefully the right people at Marvel would too!