By: Jerry Beck,
on 11/7/2016
One of the most important executives in vfx, Marvel's Victoria Alsono, gives a rare interview on how the studio approaches visual effects on its blockbuster superhero films.
The post Marvel’s Victoria Alonso on How Her Studio Tackles VFX Differently appeared first on Cartoon Brew.
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By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/6/2016
Do you like a mystery? I thought so! Here's a good one. If you ask anyone around the Hollywood water cooler about who is the envy of tinsel town, most people would say it's Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige. His handling of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been little short of genius from a box office perspective, taking obscure properties like Guardians of the Galaxy and making them household names, and boosting even mediocre material like Ant-Man to "Hey that was really fun!" reactions. But is this true?
By: Maryann Yin,
on 12/28/2015
Mads Mikkelsen has been cast as the primary antagonist in the Doctor Strange movie. In the past, Mikkelsen has acted in several book-based projects such as King Arthur, The Three Musketeers, and Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky.
Vanity Fair reports that Benedict Cumberbatch plays the titular comic book hero; his character is a neurosurgeon-turned-sorcerer. Other cast members include Tilda Swinton, Rachel McAdams, and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios and a producer on Doctor Strange, sat for a conversation with Entertainment Weekly and explained that “Mads’ character is a sorcerer who breaks off into his own sect. [He] believes that the Ancient One is just protecting her own power base and that the world may be better off if we were to allow some of these other things through.” Marvel Entertainment has set the theatrical release date for Nov. 04, 2016. (via Variety)
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By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 9/4/2015
Since the announcement of Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige’s move to report to Alan Horn and away from Ike Perlmutter, there’s been talk of little else in the comics movie hot stove league. Now Kim Masters and Borys Kit, two of the best entertainment reporters out there, add a few more fact logs to the […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 9/2/2015
While the films under the Marvel Studios banner have proven to be enormously popular with moviegoers (even in what’s presumed to be an “off” year for the studio, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man are both currently in the Top 10 grossing films of 2015), there’s no doubt that there are certain creative difficulties behind the […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 9/1/2015
Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige will no longer report to the notoriously difficult Isaac Perlmutter, but instead will report directly to Disney Studios head Alan Horn, a move that will give him much more freedom.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 8/15/2015
I’m not at D23 this weekend, and I’ll reserve any of the “on the scene” impressions for Beat contributors Alex Jones and Victor Van Scoit, who are both there in person. But that doesn’t mean I won’t report on the biggest announcements that are worthy of attention and discussion, and when it comes to Disney […]
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/25/2015
There’s a nice piece in The Hollywood Reporter, that’s getting lots of ink right now, in which Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige goes pretty in-depth (along with Paul Rudd) regarding a number of details about their upcoming slate, Ant-Man, why they aren’t coming to SDCC this year, etc.
But one of the quotes that caught my eye was Feige’s fairly pointed response to Warner Bros’ Greg Silverman recently stating that the difference between DC and Marvel films is that WB’s slate will be filmmaker focused and that they make “films about superheroes rather than superhero films”. Of which, Feige had this to say:
Warner Bros.’ Greg Silverman told THR that the difference between the DC/Warners movies and Marvel movies is that Warners allows directors to fulfill their visions. How do you respond?
FEIGE My response is: Look at the movies. Iron Man and Iron Man 2 are as Jon Favreau films as you can see. Kenneth Branagh has his stamp all over Thor. Captain America: First Avenger is very much a Joe Johnston film. The greatest example of that, look at Guardians of the Galaxy with James Gunn. And the one I always point out is Avengers. We knew the general structure when we sat down with Joss [Whedon]. But I don’t want you to think we gave him a story. We gave him a “Here’s where we think the movie should start, here’s where we think this character should come into it; it would be fun if something like this happened in the middle and in the end a hole opens up and aliens pour out into Manhattan.” So arguably, there were many pieces in place, and yet now that everyone has seen the movie, it’s completely a Joss Whedon film. He was able to take all the elements that were handed to him – that were studio-imposed, if you want to look at it that way – and make it his own. We wouldn’t have hired any of the filmmakers we’ve hired if we just wanted somebody who would do what we say.
To be honest, I’m not sure I agree with Feige here, and it’s worth noting that he mostly only highlights “Phase 1″ films, whereas the offerings of “Phase 2″ have seemed far more of a piece with one another structurally. My biggest beef with Marvel films, beyond the fact that their stakes are constantly huge yet the danger never feels immediate, is that each film carries a very similar A to B to C plot structure. The fact that literally every movie in Phase 2 (except Iron Man 3, which people don’t like talking about for some silly reason) has something falling from the sky in its third act (or rising as the case may be in Age of Ultron) tells you that there’s definitely a formula, set by the first Avengers film, that these movies are being poured into.
Yes, there are some superficial differences, Guardians of the Galaxy has some of James Gunn‘s wit, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier covers itself in a fairly entertaining conspiracy tale, but criticism is definitely warranted in this case.
The fact that Phase 2 firmly kicked into place right around the time of the Disney buy-out of Marvel, well, I’ll leave you to make your own conclusions.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 4/11/2015
While most of us are still working our way through our Daredevil binge-watches on Netflix this weekend, a little bit of news regarding New York’s other masked vigilante broke today, as Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige relayed some interesting tidbits about the casting process for Spider-Man to Collider.
There’s been a lot of discussion surrounding Marvel’s newest character acquisition for their cinematic universe, as to whether we’ll see another version of Peter Parker or will the studio shake things up with Miles Morales? How old will he be? etc…
As a part of the press junket for Avengers: Age of Ultron, Kevin Feige cleared a good deal of this information up:
In terms of the age of an actor we’ll eventually to cast, I don’t know. In terms of the age of what we believe Peter Parker is, I’d say 15-16 is right…We want to play with Spider-Man in the high school years because frankly there’ve been five Spider-Man films and the amazing thing about it is, even though there’ve been five Spider-Man films, there are so many things from the comics that haven’t been done yet. Not just characters or villains or supporting characters, but sides to his character. The most obvious being the ‘young, doesn’t quite fit in’ kid before his powers, and then the fella that puts on a mask and swings around and fights bad guys and doesn’t shut up, which is something we want to play with and we’re excited about.
That makes it pretty official folks, we’re looking at a high school aged Peter Parker as the next Spider-Man.
With the character reportedly appearing in Captain America: Civil War, which began shooting this week, Marvel and Sony are clearly moving quickly to get their new webslinger in place. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a big breaking news story on that front in the next week or so.
Does more Peter Parker make you more or less excited about the Marvel Studios supported version of Spider-Man?
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 2/9/2015
Fans have clamored for years for Spider-Man to return to the Marvel fold, especially after The Amazing Spider-Man series began to crash and burn for Sony by its second entry. And now, your wishes have come true.
A new Spider-Man is debuting, and it’ll be in a Marvel Studios picture per The Hollywood Reporter.
I’ll let that settle in for a second.
The terms of the deal are that a new, rebooted Spider-Man (that won’t be Andrew Garfield) will debut in an unnamed Marvel Studios picture, believed to be Captain America: Civil War. In turn, Marvel head-honcho Kevin Feige will team up with Sony’s Amy Pascal to produce a new Spider-Man film for Sony and provide a new direction for everyone’s favorite web-slinger. This new film will debut on July 28, 2017.
Here’s Feige on the new deal:
Marvel’s involvement will hopefully deliver the creative continuity and authenticity that fans demand from the MCU. I am equally excited for the opportunity to have Spider-Man appear in the MCU, something which both we at Marvel, and fans alike, have been looking forward to for years.
Tellingly, long-time Spider-Man producer Avi Arad‘s name is nowhere to be seen.
Also, due to the new Spider-Man film date taking the slot that Thor: Ragnarok was slotted in for, Marvel’s Phase 3 line-up shifts a bit with the new schedule as follows:
Thor: Ragnarok – Nov 3, 2017
Black Panther – July 6, 2018
Captain Marvel – Nov 2, 2018
Inhumans – July 12, 2019
It’s time to get those fantasy casting lists for Spidey together, Marvel Studios just got its biggest name back.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 8/4/2014
Whoa, Guardians of the Galaxy…where to start. In a summer of unexceptional sequels and remakes, Marvel and Disney triumphed with a new creation that had a fresh take on the space opera genre, while introducing such comics elements as Thanos, Infinity Gems, and Rocket Raccoon. I never thought I would type that sentence outside of a fever dream.
By the numbers, GotG was the biggest August opening ever by a wide margin with a domestic take of $94 million, handily beating The Bourne Ultimatum $69.2M from 2007. (To be fair I paid like $10 to see Bourne, and $20 [ouch] to see GotG in 3d Imax.) Guardians had the biggest Thursday of the year, and an A tracking on Cinemascore and 90+ on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience was 56%/44% m/f with 59% adults.
At also reversed what has been a generally crappy summer at the box office, at least for one magic weekend. But as Nikki FInke pointed out, it’s not enough to lift the entire summer from the doldrums. Only a scant number of movies have even broken $200 mil domestically this year, and they are:
1 Captain America: The Winter Soldier — $258,923,934
2 The LEGO Movie — $257,709,556
3 Transformers: Age of Extinction — $241,166,000
4 Maleficent — $234,711,000
5 X-Men: Days of Future Past — $231,702,000
6 The Amazing Spider-Man 2 — $202,408,526
Do you sense a pattern here boys and girls, because I sure do. In other words, Marvel movies are going nowhere. Sony may have had to pull back a bit on its Spider-Man plans, but they’ll be back for another hit on the pipe. Because Marvel is the biggest thing in the movies right now.
And Guardians is the biggest triumph for Marvel Studios. Let’s get something straight, people know Iron Man before the movie, but NO ONE went around identifying as “I’m a Guardians of the Galaxy fan!” This success story was completely manufactured from a cauldron of elements including the massive pool of imagination at Marvel Comics, Kevin Feige’s uncanny planning ability, Nicole Perlman’s fearless reinvention of the franchise, James Gunn’s wholehearted empathy with the material, and Disney’s immense marketing machine.
And make no mistake, this was massive. While the spin is that Marvel made a quirky comedy with an indie director, the REALITY is that they spent $170 million dollars to make this the first in a tentpole franchise! That the “quirky indie” story survives at all is testament to good marketing and the inherent charm of the material.
I’ll forego writing a full on review, but as much as I enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy as a movie—the opening scene with Star-Lord dancing to an 80s hook more seismic than any weapon in the film was the best musical scene in a Marvel movie since Peter Parker looked vacant to “Raindrops keep Falling on my Head”—it still had the same flaws as must MCU films: no matter how grungy the heroes they must save THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD by the end of the movie, leaving little room to up the excitement in the next film. Except I guess they’ll save the UNIVERSE next time? There was also, by Star Wars standards, a lot less banter than you’d think. In CGI films, the talking scenes are rewards for sitting through the action, whereas in practical effect days the reverse was true.
All that said, Guardians was, like The Matrix, an amazing amalgamation of everything before it: Raiders, Star Wars, Miyazaki, Disney, Full House. It was far and away the most beautifully art directed Marvel movie yet, with breathtaking vistas and wonderfully set up shots that have the characters—all acted totally on point—their due as both ruffians and heroes. And more importantly, it had—oh God I’m choking as I write this but I have no choice—the Marvel Magic. Guardians was set in a world where anything could happen, from a mining colony set in a Celestial’s head to a tree man who was more human than anyone else on screen. From Thanos’s cold star swept throne to a raccoon with a big gun. Ronan was the latest in a run of rather faceless generic world-threatening adversaries, but he looked cool and Lee Pace has the franchise in arrogant, judgmental magical villains. everyone says that in comics you can do ANYTHING whereas movies have budgets, but in Guardians the comics vision was put front and center and it was…magic.
Yet that scene with the mining colony set in the Celestial’s head may be a metaphor a little too close for comfort. This is another Marvel film where original creators could have been shut out, but Marvel Disney did the right thing as Jim Starlin—creator of Gamora, Drax and Thanos—and Bill Mantlo, co-creator of Rocket Raccoon, have both been looked after. But so much of the movie was an homage to Jack Kirby, whose heirs continue to battle with the studio.
And the final post-credits sequence? SPOILERS BELOW! BEWARE BEWARE!
It features Howard the Duck, followed by a card saying “Howard the Duck was created by Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik.” I don’t know how Marvel dealt with the living Mayerik or Gerber’s surviving family, but I think it’s safe to say Gerber himself is probably spinning in his grave at that one.
That scene says so much though, about Marvel and where it is now. It’s Feige’s ultimate victory lap—even the studio’s worst failure, a movie so horrific it has remained a watchword for awfulness (and a harbinger of George Lucas’s inability to make good movies) for generations. But Haward is back in the pack, Disney owns him, and they’re free to go on mining that head for years to come.
I don’t mean to piss on anyone’s wheaties, here. Guardians of the Galaxy was a triumph of studio filmmaking, and my big regret is that I had seen so much of it before hand covering the story so that I couldn’t experience it freshly and unexpectedly.
Part of the reason for Guardians success has to be James Gunn. The guy’s social media campaign for the movie was sheer genius, something he had to work with ultra-secretive Marvel to develop:
Obviously that’s something you like to do, but at the same time, is it something that you have to talk to Marvel about, due to the studio’s secretive nature?
I did at the beginning. Like at the very beginning, I kind of shut up about the movie when I first got hired. And didn’t say anything for a long time. And then little by little, something would come about and I’d be like “Please let me quench this stupid rumor?” You know, “Please let me say there is no fucking Planet Hulk movie.” That’s the dumbest fucking thing. There’s no fucking Planet Hulk. You know, please let me do that… That’s a way for me to get that out there. I’m like, please let me do whatever. And then sometimes they say, “I don’t really think so. We’d rather not engage in this type of thing.” And then there’s other times they’re like “Yeah, go ahead.”
BUT — read on to the next post for the fatal flaw of Marvel studios!
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 7/21/2014
Marvel just released a list of release dates for their future films…without any actual film names. I guess it just proves they are so planning stuff. Here’s the announced line-up and the five mystery slots:
Guardians of the Galaxy — Aug. 1, 2014
Avengers: Age of Ultron — May 1, 2015
Ant-Man –July 17, 2015
Captian America 3 — May 6, 2016.
And the new dates:
July 8, 2016 — Mostly likely the Doctor Strange film
May 5, 2017
July 28, 2017
November 3, 2017
July 6, 2018
November 2, 2018
May 3, 2019
What else do we know? Avengers 3 and Thor 3 are planned, so two of those are spoken for—I’d guess May 5, 2017 for the next Avengers movie. Thor movies open in the fall, so November 3, 2017 would be possible for that. But four years between Thor films? I’m just spitballin’ folks.
That leave new movies for Moondragon, the Black Panther and Woodgod, right? More will be announced at San Diego, I’d expect, Hall H Saturday afternoon — be there, should be no trouble to get in.
Of course, speculation has run rampant. Could one of these films be Submariner, an oft rumored but never nailed down character? While you would think the film would be delayed by the difficulty finding an actor who doesn’t mind running around in a teeny green speedo for a full length film, it’s actually a rights issue. Namor is part of the much hated Fox Marvel FF film family, right? Not exactly, says Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige
Asked by IGN.com whether Universal and Legendary could produce a Sub-Mariner movie, Feige answered unequivocally “No.” When given the follow-up whether or not Marvel Studios could make the movie instead, he replied “Yes, but it’s slightly more complicated than that. Let’s put it this way – there are entanglements that make it less easy.”
He continued, “There are older contracts that still involve other parties that mean we need to work things out before we move forward on it. As opposed to an Iron Man or any of the Avengers or any of the other Marvel characters where we could just put them in.”
I should register the domain name for Blooding Cool immediately.
I’ll keep running stories about Ike Perlmutter, Some will be positive. Some will be negative. It all depends on what he gets up to.
@Rich Johnson: I just naturally assumed that the post being riddled with typos was a joke at your expense.
My money is on Ike as the culprit. Seems like something obsessive, spiteful Ike would do. He has motive and opportunity. East Coast is his domain. and sources there most likely work for him. As for Arad getting credit lol. I read the Sony/Marvel exchanges in the Sony leaks; when talking about Amazing Spider-Man 2, they imply Arad was probably an idiot that never knew what he was doing.
Perlmutter also gave millions of dollars in support of Drumpf. When BC (I think) broke that story, it got a pretty strong reaction from folks, including some who work for Marvel publishing.
Perhaps that caused enough hassle to have someone decide BC could be fed a new narrative.
I’m shocked that Rich Johnston managed to leave a comment above with no typos in it.
@Skottie: Look at his punctuation and you’ll see that you are mistaken. :-)
@Genius Jones
Do you Ike Perlmutter personally? Or do you just base your judgment on hearsay and the perceptions of people who might or might not know him, but are nonetheless quoted in articles. How do you know he is obsessive and spiteful? After all, Ike himself NEVER talked or defended himself (a wise thing probably). Could you imagine, that Feige got really fond of having power and that he wanted more and more? Could you imagine that he actually is scheming in the background to contribute or establish the Ike-bad-guy image? You are so easily to manipulate. You just base your judgment on whatever you read in the media. But I am sure Feige is not lamb, after all he was the one who basically back-stabbed Ike after Ike was too uncomfortable for him. Now we have a Marvel studio which is run by Feige and every single movie is produced exclusively by him and by him only! That is going to kill the MCU eventually. Inbreeding, closed systems and dictatorships never end well. “Power corrupts, Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. – and my bet is that Feige is lusting power more than Ike. I am sure both men have their issues and perceptions and this conflict should have been handled in a more intelligent way than what Disney came up with. .But one thing is for sure, the real world is not as simple as a comic book where there is a good guy and a villain, even though Feige might see himself as the superhero now who successfully slew the villain.
@Heidi McDonald
Do you really think the world is as simple as having a good guy and a bad guy? The real world is NOT a comic book where those lines are so clear. There is more than just black and white, that is why I appreciate Johnston’s article in BC very much. Finally someone who tries to shine some light on the bigger picture and not always simply giving in to the primitive good versus evil scheme. Perlmutter is not the bad guy at all. Neither is Feige, but both have their issues and their perceptions and unfortunately Disney chose the most primitive and stupidest solution to “resolve” the conflict. And because their solution was so unenlightened, we are still discussion it, and the Civil War is still going on. I would love it if you could stop from trying to find a good and a bad guy in this situation, but rather try to give a balanced view, so that people can stop playing the blame game, scapegoating and beating up the one person who has never actually said anything to defend himself, but was labelled because of some “sources” take things out of context, project their own perceptions on to it, or are simply disgruntled like those Disney employees. I am sure the big, bad Ike persona which was created by the media (and maybe Feige himself?!) is not even close to the reality of who Perlmutter is.
@Skottie and comicsatemybrain
Is mocking a writer who tries to give some more, and very interesting insights into a story which keeps as all busy the only thing you are capable of? I surely hope you never make a mistake, and that whatever you do serves the public only half as much as what Rich Johnston does. You are unkind and disrespectful.
@sarsar:
“Inbreeding, closed systems and dictatorships never end well. ”
—you ACTUALLY wrote that sentence in defense of Ike Perlmutter…