more Marvel-ous movies

Marvel Studios recently released information about movies that it has on its slate for production and release through 2011.

With the mega-performance of Marvel Studios' first release "Iron Man", it's no surprise that they've announced a sequel to the film, to be released in late April 2010.

In June 2010, Marvel will be releasing "Thor", that god from Norwegia who has a thing for big metal objects that whack nails and people.

May 2011 will see the release of the "Captain America" movie, and in July of that year, "The Avengers", a sort of Justice League, will be released which includes the characters of Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Thor.

All of the films will be released by Paramount Pictures.

Marvel is also supposedly working on a feature film of "Ant-Man". No, I have no idea who he is or what he does or whether Raid is his friend or foe.

A friend and I had been discussing Iron Man and Hulk, and since "Iron Man" was released by Paramount Pictures and "The Incredible Hulk" is being released by Universal Pictures, he was wondering whether they'd ever be able to do an Avengers movie with multiple Marvel characters. I had expressed the idea that it depended on how the rights contracts were drawn up with the studios with regard to film. I figured that if Marvel was smart and could get the studios to agree to it, they could promise that a film made only with a particular individual character would be released by a particular studio, but if that character was in a movie with other Marvel characters, then Marvel would no longer be bound to just that studio for that film. That looks to be the deal that Marvel made with Universal since the Hulk will be appearing in "The Avengers" even though it's being released by Paramount and the "Hulk" film is being released by Universal.

Since I loved "Iron Man", I'm definitely up for a sequel. Having seen the trailer for "The Incredible Hulk", I'm looking forward to seeing that as well. I have no feeling about "Captain America" but I'm willing to see what the trailer looks like. And an "Avengers" movie sounds like a fun time.

I'm also looking forward to seeing how "Thor" looks. I would think they'd have problems working bits into the story, though. I mean, I'm presuming that the whole "glued to the floor of an old warehouse" scene would have happened before he became an actual superhero, maybe as a rebellious teen, unless they change the story and have one of his enemies do that. But he's going to look weird with bits of floorboard stuck on his back. And how are they going to fit in Wales? "Yes, ma'am, I'm going to help you, but first, I have to go and count all the stones in Wales. I'll be back right after that." A challenging task for the screenwriter indeed.