Marvel Moving Forward with Plans to Make Smaller Comic Book Movies
It's no secret that Marvel was going to eventually make smaller superhero movies based around some of their lesser known characters. This is something that Marvel and Disney has been talking about since Disney bought Marvel. They own over 5,000 characters that they can create movies from, and they have talked about on several occasions taking these second and third tier characters and developing them into movie and TV shows. This allows them get more of their brands out in the public eye. Now it looks like Marvel is prepping up to actually put this plan into action.
According to CHUD Marvel Studios is currently meeting with writers and directors to work on these small scale films. It looks like the films will be given a budget of $20 to $40 million dollars to develop, which is plenty of money to make a great film if you know what your doing. Remember, Neil Blomkamp made District 9 for only $30 million and it was awesome. So just because the film will have a lower budget than the other Marvel films doesn't mean they will suck, unless they bring on bad writers and directors.
Apparently these filmmakers that Marvel is meeting with get their pick of characters to develop. Some properties that have been discussed include Dr. Strange, Ka-Zar, Luke Cage, Dazzler and Power Pack. Dr. Strange is a favorite of mine, and I'm excited to see it eventually get made. I just hope that it gets a really good writer and director to bring it to life. Another cool thing about all this, is that it allows for Marvel to hire new, hopefully talented, filmmakers.
This plan gives Marvel the chance to play with more of their characters, and build on the Marvel film universe without the big money risk. It seems like the worse case scenario is the films make a small profit, best case scenario is, the films are a hit, and they make a big profit allowing Marvel to make a sequel and more Marvel films.
It'll be cool to see what comic books Marvel and Disney end up developing into films. Chances are we will see the first of these small films start shooting around the same time as The Avengers. I really don't see an reason why they would wait around until The Avengers is finished to start shooting these things. It seems like from here on out the Marvel movies will continue to roll out big and small.
What do you think of Marvels Plan? And what characters would you like to see brought to life on the big screen?