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ARAD'S MEGA MARVEL MOVIE, TV UPDATE (Marvel Comics' upcoming movie slate)
ComiX-Fan Forums ^ | 11.19.03 | Eric J. Moreels

Posted on 11/19/2003 10:29:34 AM PST by mhking

ARAD'S MEGA MARVEL MOVIE, TV UPDATE

Marvel Enterprises today held their inaugural Analyst Day Webcast during which Marvel Studios CEO Avi Arad delivered his previously promised updates on Marvel's upcoming slate of movie and television projects.

Arad began his segment of the proceedings by crediting Marvel's recent movie successes to a new generation of filmmakers who grew up reading Marvel Comics.

"There is a whole generation of people that grew up on sci-fi {and} comic books, specifically Marvel," he said. "These people earned their stripes over the years, professionally, to get to the point that they can take their favorite characters and bring them to life. And we've been very blessed to reach this community and bring these people to the table, and prove to the industry, to the world, that our material not only makes great entertainment, but it's there to support {the} core businesses that Marvel is in."

"One thing we bring to the table is what I call 'natural sequels'. There are sequels out there - Legally Blonde and Legally Blonde 2. These are not natural. These are take a shot if you have a little bit of awareness. With us, there is great awareness."

"We have a powerful brand, and supply the studios with a significant product on the box office, on DVD, international distribution, and more importantly supply us with a significant product to support our core businesses. All these movies generate video games, all the PG-13's generate toys, and obviously licensing varies from license to license by it's story, by it's art, by it's target audience."

"{That's} the basics of the secret of our success," Arad revealed. "It's a very simple formula. When a studio that is basically a banker and a distributor, they have a product that virtually guarantees a semblance of success. The studio executive sits there and says I'm making a Marvel movie, I'm going to get the right talent, I'm going to get the right actors. The star is the movie. The star is the brand. {You} have all these lunatics running around the world that cannot wait to see this movie four times on opening weekend. That's how you generate these numbers. The good news for us is that it used to be called a male core audience. These days are over. We get male, female. We are today in a business that appeals to everybody - kids, adults."

Arad then went on to discuss individual movies in turn, beginning with Blade: Trinity.

"We are now in the middle of principal photography on Blade III," Arad announced. "Now Blade III is an interesting story, because we say we have 4700 characters, {and} some of you that are comic book followers will know that Blade was number 4697 when we first started. He was actually part of the Tomb of Dracula, not a book on his own. And for our friends in New Line, Blade today is a billion dollar franchise. {There was} an increase with Blade II, {and} Blade III has a bigger budget. It's a very good movie."


"Hulk had an incredible story for us," Arad said. "What we're very proud of {is that} we made an Ang Lee drama. If we made it probably sillier or happier, maybe it would have done better. The point is that for our brand, Hulk was extremely successful in taking our franchise and lifting it out of sort-of-known to an incredibly important franchise that performed beautifully for us. And the DVD is performing very, very well for us and Universal, and obviously there will be a sequel. We'll call it Hulk-Lite to make it easier for people to deal with the psychological depth," Arad joked.

"The Punisher has been around for a long time. The icon of the skull, the whole idea of the death-wish vigilante. You'll see this movie is coming in April. We put class in the upper class. This movie is an amazing story, and I think what Wesley {Snipes} did for Blade, Thomas Jane will do for the Punisher. We are already developing the next one. We have a lot of confidence in it. We took a story that people knew, a smaller story, and we brought in a writer/director {Johnathan Hensleigh}, we brought in John Travolta, we brought in Rebecca {Romijn-}Stamos, and all of a sudden we had a very important movie our of something that, in the past, was considered rather small."


"Gargoyle is a great example of taking something that, unless you are in the deep trenches of the Marvel Universe, you probably never heard of it, or it would have sounded like a public domain name. We found a writer and we got him interested in Gargoyle. Jonathan Hales, who is a fantastic English writer, fell in love with our enthusiasm for our story of what we feel we can tell about the Gargoyle... in a fine, family movie."

"Our first horror movie, Man-Thing, we just wrapped in Australia. What we did {is} we found Brett Leonard, who {directed} Lawnmower Man and Virtuosity, a very, very good director, and I think he had a girlfriend in Australia so he said I'll go to Australia and make this whole movie. It has huge production values. We just finished selling it internationally in mid-February in Milan with great success."


In the subsequent Q&A session, Arad clarified the situation surrounding Marvel's previous deal multi-license with Artisan in light of the recent purchase of the company by Lion's Gate .

"We have a single deal {with Artisan}," Arad confirmed, referring to The Punisher movie. "There was a lot of misconception in the past. At one time we had multi-picture deals with Artisan, {but} it was on a basis of 'use it or lose it'. A couple of years ago, they lost it. Basically, the deal that we have with Artisan is inherited by Lion's Gate."

Toy Biz President & CEO Alan Fine confirmed that all of Marvel's movie deals have the aforementioned "use it or lose it" clause, and in the case of Artisan they did not meet the time frames required of the deal. Marvel Enterprises President & CEO Allen Lipson added that whilst Artisan have the rights to produce the first Punisher movie, there are very specific milestones that will need to be reached in order to retain the sequel rights.


Other topics discussed by Arad were as follows:



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: captainamerica; comic; comicbooks; comics; daredevil; elektra; fantasticfour; ghostrider; ironfist; ironman; manthing; marvel; marvelcomics; movies; namor; punisher; werewolfbynight
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1 posted on 11/19/2003 10:29:35 AM PST by mhking
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To: Howlin; Ed_NYC; MonroeDNA; widgysoft; Springman; Timesink; dubyaismypresident; Grani; coug97; ...
It's Clobberin' Time!

Just damn.

If you want on the new list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...

2 posted on 11/19/2003 10:30:01 AM PST by mhking
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To: mhking
I'm anticipating seeing how they'll f*ck up yet ANOTHER Fantastic Four movie.


3 posted on 11/19/2003 10:36:13 AM PST by martin_fierro (_____oooo_(_°_¿_°_)_oooo_____)
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To: mhking
Strikeforce: Morituri...

Hmmmm. I actually liked that series. Hope they don't butcher it too bad...

And, of course, Elektra has Jennifer Garner. Hubba hubba!
4 posted on 11/19/2003 10:36:29 AM PST by Mr. Thorne ("But iron, cold iron, shall be master of them all..." Kipling)
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To: mhking
Captain America is in development with "a race between some of the world's greatest writers" to see who will pen the script.

Whooo Hooooo

I hope they show him knocking the hell out of Saddam instead of Hitler in the opening pages(so to speek).

5 posted on 11/19/2003 10:38:58 AM PST by OXENinFLA
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To: mhking
Thanks for posting...

6 posted on 11/19/2003 10:39:14 AM PST by wallcrawlr
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To: mhking
Punisher movie looks very promising - there is a smallish trailer already out there that seems to have the right atmosphere for the Punisher story, and it appears they are sticking much closer to the comic continuity (and there are no no-talent former bodybuilder-actors invovled in this production).

The Nick Fury movie is news, and something I am definitely looking forward to. I am wondering if the actor mentioned might be Kurt Russell; I have heard is a big Nick Fury fan.

7 posted on 11/19/2003 10:39:14 AM PST by AzSteven
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To: AzSteven
Snake Plissken...eyepatch and all...was simply Nick Fury at his best. :)

As for THE PUNISHER...I don't know if bringing in John Travolta is such a wise move. I can hear the studio exec now..."Listen ta me...three words to throw atcha...Battlefield Eart 2!. Huh? Huh?"

8 posted on 11/19/2003 10:45:05 AM PST by TheBigB (Teddy Kennedy wouldn't know the American mainstream if he drove his car into it.)
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To: mhking
Wasn't there already a version of Punisher starring Dolph Lundgren?
9 posted on 11/19/2003 10:45:11 AM PST by Hugin
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To: Hugin
Yes, but it sucked. :)
10 posted on 11/19/2003 10:45:54 AM PST by Grit (Visit - http://www.NRSC.org - Help get 60 Senators in 2004)
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To: mhking
They should do "The Unknown Soldier"

Heck, I'd be happy if they just re-released the old "Combat" tv series...
11 posted on 11/19/2003 10:47:53 AM PST by jonalvy44
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To: Hugin
Wasn't there already a version of Punisher starring Dolph Lundgren?

Shortly before the TV movie of "Nick Fury" starring David Hasselhoff.

Yes. They both sucked. Bad.

'Nuff said.

12 posted on 11/19/2003 10:49:16 AM PST by mhking
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To: jonalvy44
They should do "The Unknown Soldier"

I thought "Unknown Soldier" was a DC series.

13 posted on 11/19/2003 10:49:47 AM PST by mhking
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To: OXENinFLA
If he turns it over to the Hollywood crowd they will probably have him save America from an evil right-wing president who wants to start WWIII.
14 posted on 11/19/2003 10:50:24 AM PST by Hugin
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To: jonalvy44
Heck, I'd be happy if they just re-released the old "Combat" tv series...

'Combat' has been rerunning afternoons on the Action Channel.

15 posted on 11/19/2003 10:50:42 AM PST by mhking
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To: mhking
What, no Night Nurse or movies? No Team Ameica or U.S. 1? C'mon Marvel!
16 posted on 11/19/2003 10:52:00 AM PST by GodBlessRonaldReagan (where is Count Petofi when we need him most?)
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To: GodBlessRonaldReagan
Should have read:

What, no Night Nurse or Devil Dinosaur movies? No Team America or U.S. 1? C'mon Marvel!
17 posted on 11/19/2003 10:53:33 AM PST by GodBlessRonaldReagan (where is Count Petofi when we need him most?)
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To: OXENinFLA
I hope they show him [Captain America] knocking the hell out of Saddam instead of Hitler in the opening pages(so to speak).

Tsk, tsk, you are so behind the times! Obviously, the evil to be fought has to be something ostentatiously right wing - like the Aryan menace in the movie version of 'Sum of All Fears'.

Personally, I expect Captain America to take on a bunch of Christians who refuse to follow Hillary instead of Jesus - but maybe I'm just cynical.
18 posted on 11/19/2003 10:55:14 AM PST by Gorjus
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To: mhking
As much as it pains me, it sounds like The Punisher is going to be a worse movie than the Dolph Lundgren version from the 80's. Thomas Jane is not exactly ideal for the role, but that's not the worst of it. It's set in Florida, Frank Castle is now some kind of generic "special agent", his family gets killed in a deliberate hit, and he finds a T-shirt with the skull on it, and starts using it as his costume.

Gone is the New York setting, the idea of Castle being a Vietnam vet (I think he's going to be a vet of Gulf War I in this thing), and gone is the idea that his family was killed as a result of pure bad luck. I always thought this was key to the story - he and his family stumbled onto something in the middle of Central Park, and his family died as a result. The randomness of it was one of the things that pushed him over the edge, and made him go after all criminals. Don't even get me started on the idea of Castle finding a T-shirt with the skull on it.

Perhaps I've just spent too much time thinking about this.
19 posted on 11/19/2003 10:58:55 AM PST by LanPB01
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To: mhking
I'm still suffering from the 70's mish-mash they made of Doctor Strange, my particular favorite.
20 posted on 11/19/2003 11:02:44 AM PST by warchild9
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