Is it time for us nerds to start anticipating THE AVENGERS, directed by Joss Whedon?

These days and many days, battleship is basically a recruitment film

A starjammers plot would be dope.
How fractured are marvels film rights? Can spidey be in the next avengers?

If they're starting a new (hopeful) trilogy, then I doubt it. I'm guessing Fantastic Four and X-Men are all tied up as well.

Fox has Daredevil, Fantastic Four, and any and all mutants (including Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, so don't expect to see them in any Avengers sequels). Sony has Spiderman. It seems unlikely that either studio is going to want to have any of those characters appear in any Marvel Studios pictures. Of course, if Fox doesn't get their planned reboots of Daredevil and Fantastic Four off the ground soon, those rights revert to Marvel.

As far as a contingency plan by the Joss Whedon-brand SHADOWY CONSPIRACY WITH THEIR OWN MYSTERIOUS AGENDA, I think they were referring to Phase 2, which was the whole "weaponizing the cube" thing.

This breaks down who exactly owns what

http://screenrant.com/marvel-comics-movies-characters-carl-6766/

apparently the Navy "balked" at helping with the Avengers film because they didn't want to be seen taking orders from Nick Fury.

man, this was fun. saw a late matinee in an almost completely empty theater this afternoon, and even without a peanut gallery, it was a blast. agree that it took its time ramping up (the first all-cylinders scene, imo, was fury's bridge gathering with the galaga joke), but i guess that's to be expected with such a large ensemble. after that, once things really got moving, it never let up.

a lot's been made of the comedy element, so i was a bit surprised that while it's certainly got moments, it's nowhere near as laugh-a-minute as i perhaps foolishly expected after cabin in the woods. just funny enough, i'd say.

I also agree with the point about how there are a lot of well-put-together charming actors reading some well-written lines that exhibit character and move plot forwards, and then there's Mark Ruffalo, showing them how it's done.

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, May 7, 2012 3:48 PM (5 hours ago).

all the talk about the rest of the marvel universe and "established canon" is interesting, but kind of irrelevant, imo. i would say that these movies create canon as they go and ignorate as they will. it seems pretty clear, wr2 the avengers, for instance, that there are no other known superheros in this universe. there's no west coast branch, no spiderman, no x-men, etc. at least not yet... in the x-men movies, xavier's group was international news in the 60s, and that's very clearly not the case here. so canon exist only to the extent that it's been ratified, i'd say.

was there a second post-credits scene?

yup. was nothing you should feel bad abt missing (though funny).

I saw a still of them all eating at a restaurant.

SPOILAR:

yeah, that's it, the shawarma joint that stark talked about earlier. just one long shot of them eating.

Hey, how did Thor get back to earth for this?

Odin did it, but it pretty much exhausted his power. Something like that

Magic telephone booth

Was that mentioned in the movie? I totally missed that. Just suddenly, Thor was landing on a plane.

I think it was the scene just after, with Loki taunting Thor. I _think_ it was a barb about how Odin would spend all this energy to let Thor go chase after Loki, but not to let him see Natalie Portman.

Odin is wise.

and who could blame Odin?

Yeah, Loki said he must have used all the energy to get there, and he would need the Tesseract just to get back.

How did Loki astral mind control project back from the trans-dimensional abyss at the end of "Thor," then? Tricky, that Loki.

The South Park episode that made fun of Natalie Portman in the Thor movie was so good.

(That is, at the end of "Thor" he's mind-controlling Stellan Skarsgard [who sounds like he could be a Norse warrior].)

i think he's in dethlok

skolimowski!

"i'm always angry" was my favorite line out of the whole thing

I really enjoyed this, too. The minimal Bruce Banner character development scenes were almost better than the two overwrought Hulk movies combined.

btw & imo girl from 'how i met yr mother' > scarjo

She's the other hot one they kept cutting to, even though she didn't look like she was doing anything? Right?

yeah, she was the "look! we do have more than one female character!" character

she managed to avoid being hit from point-blank range by hawkete about ten times at the start, i wasn't too sure about that tbh...

the other hot one that wasn't doung anything could also = hawkeye, cpt america or a couple others tbf.

Ah, I knew I'd seen that actress somewhere before. Her character in the comics is kind of interesting -- high level SHIELD operative (incl a stretch as Acting Director in Fury's place) who more often than not has to clean up after superheroes who don't have to deal with consequences of beating up cities.

I thought this ok, not as fun as, say, Star Trek or M:I4. Banner definitely a highlight.

Maria Hill ("the other woman") is a major character in the (very good) Matt Fraction written Iron Man reboot and has loads of neat backstory

The initial financing deal, for Marvel Entertainment, Inc., consists of $525 million for the possible production of 10 films, based on its comic book properties, over the next seven years. The debt facility will fund initial development, including scripts for each production, and they maintain sole “green light” control. Understandably there are some restrictions to taking a loan, Marvel cannot withdraw profits until after the release of the third film and only if certain financial parameters are met. The original properties for those 10 films, announced in the press release, were Captain America, Nick Fury, The Avengers, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Cloak & Dagger, Dr. Strange, Hawkeye, Power Pack and Shang-Chi. In the original press release, the budget’s ceiling is at $165 million and can have a “rating no more restrictive than PG-13.” The explanation of why Marvel had been doing everything on the cheap was apparent from its initial deal.

i can see all of those but POWER PACK; wonder if they'll combine the characters with Runaways and make it on the outskirts of the marvel u.

They sort of have the same drawback - getting kids to enjoy a movie where their parents are dead / evil.

Wait no I've completely misremembered Power Pack there!

Power Pack would be ok, but Black Panther a la Hudlin is one I'd really like to see. Did the animated version planned for BET ever happen?

they made an animated black panther thing. i think it's on netflix instant.

she managed to avoid being hit from point-blank range by hawkete about ten times at the start, i wasn't too sure about that tbh...

i figured that mind-controlled hawkeye wasn't quite as good a shot as real hawkeye

like, his (suppressed) conscience was fucking with his aim

xp - I agree entirely provided that Hudlin is a typo for Priest.

please please please make Dr. Strange/Clooney vehicle happen

cosine

I'm all for a Clooney version of Strange, especially if they can get footage from ER to use in flashbacks.

A Doctor Strange movie would be neat, but I can't see how you could do it psychedelic justice considering the rather conservative aesthetic approach of the Marvel Movie U (i.e. Thor shoulda looked a lot cooler).

Thor = the movie, not the character.

eh Thor's pretty smashy-smashy, even in the Kirby era, never really thought of him as explicitly psychedelic. at least, not the way Dr. Strange is.

but a Dr. Strange movie could accomodate a fair amount of post-Harry Potter/Tim Burton/proto-goth/vampire silliness

That would be an actual crime.

There was this one extra in the movie that kept popping up, too, at the end. First you see her in the coffee shop through a window looking scared. Several minutes later you see her being loaded onto an ambulance or evacuated or something. Then during the news scroll at the end she gets a few lines, saying she was forever grateful to Captain America or something like that. Maybe she's Whedon's niece?

Cool to hear Maria Hill is a real character. Hope she turns up later. I don't watch those shows she's on, so I was just struck by this model dropped into the SHIELD milieu. Not that there are a lot of ugly female superheroes ...

I would love a Dr. Strange movie.

I just meant that occult/magic stuff has a lot more cultural currency at the moment, and a Dr. Strange vehicle could take advantage of that. Not that it would be good as a sub-Twilight campyfest.