Posted on: June 17th, 2009 Marvel Editor-In-Chief Talks Thor, Iron Man 2 Movies
Joe Quesada, Marvel’s Editor-In-Chief, updated his own personal editorial column, Cup O’ Joe, with some of his thoughts and updates on both Iron Man 2 and the Thor big-screen feature.
Thor was the major meat of the editor’s thoughts; apparently Kenneth Branagh is just blowing everyone involved away with his commitment and excitement for the property, something which really calms me for the moment. Quesada tells of a near 3 hour meeting in which Branagh basically threw down a one-man show of the entire flick, and touches briefly on the as-of-yet-uncast Odin character :
…not only did Branagh sit there and give you the story beat for beat, he and [Marvel Studios head] Kevin Feige formed a great team. It was performance art. Kevin would give us the establishment of the shot and the situation: “Here we are. We’re in (take your pick of location). And here’s Odin and he’s coming up to (pick a character).” And then Kenneth would come in and give you the color commentary. “Odin has an air of majesty to him” and he’d act out the Odin part or the Thor part. So we sat there and literally got a three-hour one-man show from Kenneth Branagh. It was fantastic. People pay a lot of money for that kind of performance by one of the world’s greatest living actors.
Still nothing new in regards to casting, however.
…we talked about possible Odins and other characters. What Kenneth has in mind is pretty cool. We’ll see. People have to be talked to, and we’ll see who we end up with.
He then goes son to talk about how Thor will work within the realm of Marvel flicks that has been established with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk; one major fear I have is losing audiences – having them take a larger leap of faith outside of the hyper-realism we’ve seen so far is a tough science to master. How will Thor, a property based on mythological and fantastical un-realism mesh with Iron Man? Not only that, but Thor isn’t really an accessible, mainstream character Spider-Man or Hulk, or even Iron Man.
We knew Iron Man wasn’t as recognizable to most people not into comics. He’s not Spider-Man. He’s certainly becoming that, but we worked very hard here at Marvel and started doing things like the Iron Man digital animation shorts, I worked on those with Blur Studios and Craig Kyle over at Marvel West. Those did really, really well for us online. They were basically designed to introduce Iron Man to kids by showing him in the Marvel Universe interacting with our characters, and I think we have the same work ahead of us with Thor. We’ll be getting out there. We’ve got plans already to get Thor’s name out within a younger group of kids. I think the upcoming “Super Hero Squad” and “Avengers Animated” shows are going to do wonders to get that across, and then we’re working on a couple of ancillary things here and there to boost the desire for kids in particular to know more about Thor and the general public as well. Let me add that the portrayal of Thor in Super Hero Squad is my absolute favorite.
This tells me that we’re going to be pretty inundated with Thor stuff once production picks up and we’re closer to release date; while this bodes well for younger audience, I’m still skeptical on how much appeal it will have to the bread-and-butter-audience; those who really aren’t familiar with the property but put their butts in the theaters.
Quesada then briefly touches on working with Jon Favreau for the Iron Man films and recounts one of their earlier meetings, during production on the first film. Not incredibly newsworthy, but Quesada is sold on Favreau’s commitment not only to the first film, but in the property, and it’s future films, in general:
…he wanted to know who he is and why Tony Stark does what he does. That was really key to Favreau: why put on the suit and try to do good things? It was a much tougher question once he defeats the Iron Monger, gets his tech and his company back…why continue doing this? What does Tony Stark stand for?
In essence, the thing I never revealed about that conversation in the past is that Jon was looking for these answers because he was already thinking ahead, he was thinking about “Iron Man 2″.
God I love Favreau doing Iron Man. He needs to helm the Avengers flick.
Check out the entire piece over at ComicBookResources.com.
Iron Man 2 hits screens May 7, 2010, Thor flies into theaters May 20, 2011, and The Avengers assembles May 4, 2012.
You can also follow Joe Quesada via Twitter.
One Response to “Marvel Editor-In-Chief Talks Thor, Iron Man 2 Movies”
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Jon Stephens Says:
June 17th, 2009 at 6:06 pmWow, great find Ryan. I can’t believe that one slipped past me.
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Thor comics, but I like the character because I’ve always been a fan of Greek, Roman and Norse mythology. I think that if done properly, kids will love it. I’m very interested in seeing what Branagh does with this film. I think he was a great choice. I kind of wish they had gone with bigger name actors to draw larger audiences in. I really want Thor to be successful similar to Iron Man. Maybe $300 million isn’t an attainable goal, but I want this film to score.
Just think about it: Marvel starts their new mission of creating films based on their characters, the way it should be done for all comic characters btw, and they come out of the gate with 2 good films so far, and one of which is super-successful. If Thor, a film based on a character with less main stream appeal than IM, is a success both in terms of quality and box office numbers, it would be HUGE for the future of Marvel characters on film. Not only would they have the financial means to make their movies their way, but they’d also have the credibility that would attract actors/actresses, directors, producers, audiences, and the die hards in the movie blogging community would come out to support their projects full force unless something CRAZY is going on with the characters.
By the way, Jon Favreau is a genius, and I’ve been singing his praises since Swingers. he’s so money baby! Anyway, he did amazing work with one of my all time favorite comic characters, and he made money with a film based on a comic hero that most people outside of the Iron Man fan club said could never be successful financially. I completely trust Fav’s, and I can’t freaking wait for IM2.
Right now I believe Marvel’s plan is to have Fav’s do the Avengers flick, which is why they moved up the release date of IM2, and he is the right man for the job. My only concern is that the release date has been moved up on IM2, causing Fav’s to rush his process and I fear the film won’t hit on all cylinders like the first one did. I still think it will be good, but there are things to worry about for sure.