OH JOY

[trinityvixen]

He's back!

A large part of me realizes that, if reports from the parties involved and rumors about the production are true, it's a goddamned miracle that Iron Man ended up being so good. They had like nothing scripted, and stuff that was scripted was constantly revised, changed, and added to by just about anyone who had an opinion to offer. So, yeah, Jon Favreau's presence doesn't guarantee greatness, but if someone is capable of pulling good stuff from that creative process, hey, more power to him.

There's some grumbling about how he got re-signed, though. Some people think he played dirty outing the negotiation process on his blog or whatever. I say more transparency is always better in job hunting whether you're a kid out of college or a major Hollywood director. The important thing here is that he was right: the fans balked at the idea of an Iron Man franchise without Favreau. It settles my worries some after they announced a start date before anything else relevant to a sequel. At least I know that Favreau has discussed where the film is going with the cast/crew. So if they only have less than two years to pull a film out of their asses (and is that with taking into account the possible actors' strike?), it's good to know the people involved will at least be familiar with the material.

Comments

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

Since Marvel is calling its own shots now, I don't think it's up to Fox. I mean, Fox doesn't own the Wolverine character, so what can they do?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Ah ah ah, you forget how these things work. Sony, recently, purchased the rights to produce Spider-Man movies for another yay-many years. Studios tend to do that when they have what they think is a hot property. This is how come Spider-Man languished in development hell for so long--every time someone wanted to make it, it seems, it was held hostage by another studio.

Now, I know Fox did the X-Men movies, and I'm not sure if that means they're also doing the Wolverine movie that's shooting now, but it does mean that they and whoever is doing that movie have the rights to that character onscreen. Marvel can put out as many TV shows and comics as it likes, but when you sign on to put your character in a movie, the company that bought the rights has them for a while.

It's been, what, three years since X3? Entirely possible that the rights are up for grabs and that Marvel, knowing it was pushing forward its own studio in that time, worked out some kind of deal to get back its characters, but given the deal Sony worked out to keep Spider-Man, I doubt it. In which case, Marvel will have to deal with whoever's got Wolverine if they want him for an Avengers movie.

Honestly, they might be better off not having him. I don't know that Hugh Jackman is going to keep up with that role (though since he's doing a spin-off, maybe it's his franchise and he does want it). And putting someone else into his place would be a laughable failure unless they were really good and Hugh Jackman's movie, I dunno, disappeared into the ether. It's going to take some time before he disappears entirely from that role such that anyone can take it over and not just be endlessly compared to him.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

If Marvel gained traction, they may have altered the deal, licensing all Marvel names and characters to Fox for the extent of the "Wolverine" movie, retaining the rights to do whatever they want with the character.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Entirely possible, but I'm not sure that it's so given that an equally profitable property (Spider-Man) was just extended. I dunno. It will be interesting to see.