The Avengers is Marvel’s answer to DC’s Justice League, a comic book that unites all their heroes into one supergroup, a lá the Traveling Wilburys. Hollywood can barely get a movie with one superhero made, but every year I have to post 20 or 30 of the latest development rumors about one of these projects that never seem to get very far. The latest is that Jon Favreau says he won’t be directing The Avengers, which is the kind of critical thinking skill we wish he’d displayed before signing on to Couples Retreat.
“They’ll have to [find a different director], because I’m not going to be available,” he explained. “It’s something I’m being the executive producer on, so I’ll definitely have input and a say.” “It’s going to be hard, because I was so involved in creating the world of Iron Man and Iron Man is very much a tech-based hero, and then with ‘Avengers’ you’re going to be introducing some supernatural aspects because of Thor,” he continued. “How you mix the two of those works very well in the comic books, but it’s going to take a lot of thoughtfulness to make that all work and not blow the reality that we’ve created.” [via MTV, video below]
I would say that I don’t like the idea of these superhero supergroup movies because each character sort of exists in his own alternate reality, and trying to put them all in one is not only hard, but it can ruin the particular strengths of certain characters. I would say that, but then I’d be a grown man arguing the finer points of dudes in spandex beating people up. What I will say is that as long as we’re doing supergroups, one of the characters should be Ted Nugent.
Astro Boy is an upcoming film from Imagi animation. It’s kind of like that Korean ad where RoboCop eats fried chicken. Only this time they turned Bob’s Big Boy into Iron Man. Bottom line, Asians are big on their cyborg-American food combos. Anyway, the movie still looks pretty lame, and the tagline “Meet the boy built for adventure” still isn’t doing anyone any favors.
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Two new animated trailers hit Friday afternoon, and I wouldn’t want you to miss out. Above, we have Astro Boy, from, Imagi animation studios and the director of Flushed Away, which is basically what would happen if Iron Man and Bob’s Big Boy had a butt baby.
After the jump, we have Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, starring our old friend Scrat, which combines ice age mammals with dinosaurs, as part of Fox’s ongoing attempt to totally F up your your child’s conception of history. The only real question here is what would make a better baby name: Scrat Palin or SoHo Scrat Wentz?
When Marvel abruptly announced they were replacing Terrence Howard with Don Cheadle in the Iron Man sequel, they offered little explanation. Entertainment Weekly is now reporting that part of the reason was that Howard had been the first to sign on for Iron Man and had been the highest paid cast member (yup, even more than Downey), despite his relatively small role, and refused to renegotiate his contract. The other reason was that no one liked his performance that much.
According to one source, Favreau and his producers spent a lot of time cutting and reshooting his scenes. As such, when Favreau and screenwriter Justin Theroux went to map out the sequel they found themselves minimizing Howard’s story line. Once Marvel learned that Favreau was thinking of curtailing the role, the studio went to the actor’s agents with a new and drastically reduced offer — a number that’s similar to what supporting cast members were paid for the first movie. The agents, according to sources, were so taken aback by this new figure — estimated at somewhere between a 50 and 80 percent pay cut — that they questioned it.
It’s unclear whether Howard’s team walked away first, or if Marvel ended the discussion at that point.
FilmDrunk’s inside sources say another sticking point was that Howard hoped to communicate all of his lines through interpretive dance. Reached for comment, Howard snapped his fingers for 27 straight minutes and made bass noises with his mouth.
ShowEast is some kind of convention for theater owners going on right now at the convention center in Orlando (ha, more like BORE-lando). A little blog called The Film Experience had a spy at the event who claims to have overheard the following conversation between two execs (whether they were studio execs or theater owners he does not specify).
Exec 1: Iron Man had a really good story line. I think there may be a segment of the audience that appreciates that.
Exec 2: Maybe…
Har. Better put this question to a focus group just to be safe.
[Thanks to Robo for the tip]
