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MARVEL Updates Slate of Projects

By: Jarrod Sarafin, News Editor
Date: Tuesday, November 06, 2007

After a stellar 3rd quarter performance ( reported here), Marvel Studios updated their list of upcoming projects along with films already in the can. Here's the list for the different mediums.

Feature Film Projects Being Developed by Marvel – partial list
Iron Man, Marvel - Completed principal photography; May 2, 2008 release
The Incredible Hulk, Marvel - Commenced principal photography; June 13, 2008 release
Ant-Man, Marvel - Writer and director engaged
Captain America, Marvel - Writer engaged
Thor, Marvel - Writer engaged
The Avengers, Marvel - Writer engaged

Licensed Marvel Character Feature Film Line-Up
Punisher 2, Lionsgate - Commenced principal photography, slated for 2008 release
X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Fox - Director engaged, slated for May 1, 2009 release

Marvel Character Animated TV Projects
Fantastic Four, Moonscoop SAS (France) - 26, 30-minute episodes; Running Internationally.
Spider-Man, Sony - In development; US distribution agreement with Kids' WB for Spring 2008 release.
Wolverine and the X-Men, First Serve Toonz (India) - 26, 30-minute episodes in development; Fall 2008 release.
Iron Man, Method Films (France) - 26, 30-minute episodes in development; Fall 2008 release.
Hulk, TBD - In development.

Marvel Character Animated Direct-to-DVD Projects
Next Avengers, Lionsgate - Targeted July 2008 release
Hulk Smash, Lionsgate - Targeted October 2008 release
Thor, Lionsgate - Targeted April 2009 release
TBD, Lionsgate - Targeted September 2009 release

Marvel Character Live Stage Projects
Spider-Man the Musical, Hello Entertainment/David Garfinkle, Martin McCallum, Marvel Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment
In development/opening date to be determined; Julie Taymor director; music & lyrics by U2’s Bono and The Edge

Marvel Video Game Releases (Release dates controlled by Publishing partner)
Sega, Iron Man - Targeted 2008
Sega, The Incredible Hulk - Targeted 2008

Related Products

Comments/Responses

Perceiver • Nov 06, 2007, 05:20am •

I confess that I do not have high expectations about Captain America or Thor being in development. I am beginning to get the impression that the comic book movie genre may be achieving critical mass and implode soon, although the science/fantasy fiction projects have pulled Hollywood into the black (and STILL largely ignored by the esteemed Oscar Committee EVERY YEAR). It is also ironic that the "writers" are involved in a labor action when computer animated fare such as Final Fantasy, the upcoming Beowulf and Pixar productions clearly exhibit the value of voice talent over actual biological performances. You "actors" are not as valuable as you once were.
Lastly, as an African American Sci-Fi/Fantasy consumer, aren't there ANY African American heroes that deserve some screen/computer time? I do not feel fairly represented by this genre and nearly suffered snow-blindness by watching Superman Returns. George Lucas made appropriate corrections with the addition of Lando after fan commentary and I put it to you to include The Falcon if Cap'n America is developed, or even Luke Cage as a standalone feature (John Singleton's vision). If you are actively pursuing the African American green dollar, perhaps SOMEONE should recognize the value of the African American in fantasy cinema?
Disney cannot seem to find the brown tint and have historically taken great pains to avoid coloring any significant character, other than the ebonics spouting minstrel, as anything resembling a positive role model. Thank you Gene Roddenberry, George Lucas and any other power-broker for recognizing the value of fair representation.
Thank you all for your time.

Dazzler • Nov 06, 2007, 06:45am •

First off Perceiver the character whatever the background of the character has to make sense. Just can't or should not make a movie starting with race. It has to have a following of some sort first in comics or books.

Spawn had good potential but bad writing for it's movie. Blade had a great first movie but bad follow-up's (I still liked the second). Weslie Snipes should have pushed harder for the Black Panther movie which done right might have been what you are looking for. I am sure at this point "Black" will be removed from that title.

gauleyboy420 • Nov 06, 2007, 11:28am •

Dazzler,
That doesn't change the fact that Perciever is correct. These heroes were all created in a time of Segregation (at best, pure racism at worst) and It would be nice to see some diversity. I myself, am a white boy, but I don't find it hard to see the racial gap in comic books, and most sci-fi. IMHO it kinda perpetuates the gap when predominantly white creators, and writers, don't acknowledge any other ethnicities but there own. AND I don't mean throwing in the token ethnic character.
Todd McFarlane did take a bold step (yes even in the 1990's there weren't many creators creating characters outside of their comfort zone) in making Spawn a Black man. Too bad not too many others followed suit.
As for the silver age characters that are African, or of African decent, how many of them had the prefix "Black " in their name. Black Lightning, Black Manta, Black Panther. Is that the prerequisite for having a black character. Sure there have been a few ethnic characters, but not many. I 'd say it's safe to say that the comic universes are still heavily affected by the gap between ethnicities.(all ethnicities, not just African American, but Asian, Arab, American Indian.
How can this be remedied? Well sure it would be nice for the cache of current writers to start the change (and I think they have) but It won't really be changed until an African-American creator creates a viable character that represents their feelings and lifestyle, yet is still a character that all ethnicities of readers wish to read and can easily relate to.
NOW that I'm done my little rant-
ANT-MAN COME ON! They prioritized an ANT-MAN movie?! I'd rather watch a bad ass Black Panther movie, than Ant-Man.
sheesh

aegrant • Nov 06, 2007, 11:39am •

Spider-man the musical, WTF?

JBBUC • Nov 06, 2007, 12:11pm •

I'm with you Perceiver and gauleyboy. There is absolutely no way in hell that Ant-Man has a larger following than Luke Cage.

The thing that is so frustrating is that the movies that have featured black heros don't get nearly the budget or quality of other features. Cat Woman? Seriously? Spawn? After the first 10 minutes, you forget the guy was black once. And like gauley said, Blade was good for the 1st movie, but the writing really suffered after that. I actually thought he Blade series on Spike was pretty good, but naturally it was dumped without resolution. It really is tough to be an African American SciFi fan right now.

We can't keep even a token character on Smallville.
We've been completely run off (or killed off) the island on Lost.
Our 'Hero's scenes are few and far between, not to mention completely irrelevent.
Black people appearently don't exist in the 'Supernatural' universe at all.
And the upcoming shows don't seem to have have much reguard for us either.

The only somewhat promising news is the fact that it's being reported that The Rock is in talks to play Black Adam in a Captain Marvel movie (Shazaam). That gives me hope of a spin off; but then again, there was supposed to be a Storm spin off from X-Men with Halle as well. I don't see that listed here at all.

Whiskeymovie • Nov 06, 2007, 12:47pm •

I think it was summed up best in Chasing Amy, where it is stated that Lando got to fly the Milenium Falcon,,,who cares if a character is white or black? Besides, in todays cultural, with all the emphasis on race, you could have a black super-hero beating up white guys, but not the other way around. Besides, Blade was bad-ass.and Isn't Storm black? All I am saying is that most, not all, comic book nerds are geeky white kids with acne and sinus problems living in their parents basement at 35 playing D&D and lying about their girlfriend in Canada. So, that is why most studios opt to make the "white" comics into movies. It is all aobut the money for them. I would go see a movie with a black superhero as long as it looked bad ass, just the same as a white superhero. If someone saves my life, I could care less if they were polka-dotted with lobster claws.

hanso • Nov 06, 2007, 12:54pm •

JBBUC,

Michael is coming back this season on Lost, plus there are a few African American actors cast for some of the new roles in the upcoming season.
I think Lost has a bit of diversification on it's characters with, americans, koreans, iraquis, australians, latino, british being represented on the cast.

I agree about Smallville though, poor Pete.

Blade 2 in my opinion was better than part 1. but we might differ on our taste of Blade since you thought the series was good while I thought it was horrible.
As far as Heroes, there are a couple of black characters, and I think it's to early to say that the Monica, Micah storyline will be irrelevant, give it a few more episodes first cause the season is moving kinda slow this year.

Anyway, not sure that your complain on the comic heroes can be fixed. Only way to do that is to create some new super heroes that are black. Or like Green Lantern that different characters have done the costume, they could do it with Flash also, have a new Flash be black.

At least african americans get some representation. what about the latinos, asian and even the native americans, those minorities are really screwed.

The main problem is that people need to stop looking at the race of the actors or characters and just see the person. I don't read a comic book and count how many black, white etc characters were in it. Nor do I watch movies that way. I think people need to stop thinking in the lines of "a storm spinoff, great she's black" to just "a storm spinoff, great."

almostunbiased • Nov 06, 2007, 02:43pm •

Ant-man??? Why?

scoundrel • Nov 06, 2007, 02:57pm •

Isn't Matthew Vaughan attached to direct Thor?

As far as the whole race thing goes, it is BS that there aren't more representations of black characters in mainstream comic movies. Ant-Man over John Singleton's Luke Cage? You gotta be kidding me. Blade and Blade 2 kicked ass, sure. So where's Black Panther? Where's Cage? (But please, no Storm -- at least not with Halle Berry).

What someone in Hollywood really needs to do is get the balls to greenlight Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. That's a fantastic fantasy with black protagonists (not to mention a #1 NY Times Bestseller). But hey, let's give Uwe Boll 60 million dollars to make a lame-ass fantasy movie instead...

And while we're talking about SF/F, can I remind everyone of a travesty of a miniseries called Earthsea? Total crap.

It's not that there aren't projects out there that are viable and with followings, it's that Hollywood doesn't have a lot of faith in black heroes in SF/F/Superhero stories.

I will give a shout-out to Lost, though. Yes, Michael and Walt left and Eko's dead, but Michael at least is coming back and as Hanso pointed out, there's a very diverse, well-written cast of characters on the island.

WISEGUY562 • Nov 06, 2007, 03:10pm •

I agree blacks are not properly represented in superhero world. But I do believe Will Smith is going to be playing one in his next project after I am Legend. And we all know they're looking to cast John Stewart for the Green Lantern. So there is still hope. Luke Cage and Black Panther especially I think would be great.
Lastly I don't want to be an apologist for studios or comics but they are in the money making business and I don't think that until they see enough green flash in front of their eyes minorities in general will be relegated to parts and not lead roles. I know things are changing with time, but damn talk about slow.

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