Source:Ryan Rotten

June 14, 2007

ComingSoon.net/Superhero Hype! talked to Marvel Studios' Kevin Feige on the set of Iron Man on Wednesday about the company's future slate. What's next for the company, which has both the Jon Favreau-directed project and The Incredible Hulk hitting theaters next year?

"I have a writer on 'Captain America' right now, hoping to get a director on that very soon to get that into the pipeline within the next year. Same thing with 'Thor,'" said Feige. "Mark Protosevich has delivered a 'Thor' script, David Self is writing 'Captain America.'"

Feige talked a bit more about Captain America: "We'll have to play with Captain America as being a patriotic propoganda machine on one hand but also being a very human Steve Rogers interesting fascinating hero in his own right." Is the script they're developing a period piece? "Right now what we're developing would be about half and half."

And what is the status of the Wolverine spinoff? "We have not signed a director yet, Fox has not signed a director yet... there's a lot of people in the mix. It's hard, I think it's very close. I think 'Wolverine' will be released first [before 'Magneto']."

He added that for The Punisher 2, "Lionsgate is putting that one together with us right now. I think they'll be announcing a director in the near future and another star in the near future. The only reason I have any interest in doing another 'Punisher' movie is to do a better 'Punisher' movie. And if Marvel felt we wouldn't be able to do that, we wouldn't make it. We have a director, we'd like to announce an actor and a director together."

What about a Ghost Rider 2, any plans? "Not that I've heard, I know they're promoting the DVD right now. But no discussions yet."

For the big screen Sub-Mariner adaptation, "Jonathan Mostow is doing a rewrite on [Self's] script with the intention to direct and that script should be coming in in a few weeks."

Feige said that an Avengers movie could be possible in the future. "What was preventing certain characters from crossing over in the past is they were all divvied up for different studios with gates between them and they couldn't play in the same sandbox. Now we have Hulk, and Thor and Captain and Iron Man and Ant Man... it would certainly indicate to me that it might be fun to see them all in the sandbox at one point. But certainly we're introducing them and building them in their own franchises first." Zak Penn will write the script for the film.

Any chance of a Marvel Zombies adaptation? "'Marvel Zombies' would be pretty cool," said Feige, who added that he'd also love to "put a 'Power Pack' script into development, I'd love to do a PG sort've 'Goonies'-style, those films I love as a kid in the '80s growing up. I'd love to do something like that with 'Power Pack."

After the Iron Man movie (stay tuned for lots more from the set!), the second one out of the gate for Marvel Studios' independently-produced slate is "Hulk." "'The Hulk' movie will be different from the first one 'cause this one will be good," said Feige. "There are certain elements of the first film that I'm proud of, there are other elements that I'm not. In looking to reboot and start the franchise fresh and new, we wanted to start with a clean slate."

While he says he loves the first film's cast, he's really excited about this one (Ed Norton, especially).