The Avengers

[BohemianBob]

Nay,the bloody universe!

[aragorn01]

i dunno if the lots of you here are hating The Avengers just piss off those who are fans, or y'all just huge fans yourself but not wanting to be disappointed by the final result, so you're PREPARING for the worst...

one thing's for sure though...i think just like with the original Superman, Spider-Man and Nolan's Batman flicks, the movie makes me go FINALLY... Superman 1 is the first time ever a super hero character getting the "serious" big screen treatment. Spider-Man..well, after all the years of licensing rights wrangling over several parties, which is a huge drama to itself, the character to be finally made into a big hollywood movie is a dream came true to MANY. and to see Sam Raimi got it just right enough (i still think Kirsten Dunst shoulda played Gwen and Raimi shoulda had her killed off either at the end of the first or the second movie...that way, we wouldn't be having this upcoming reboot next year). Nolan's Batman...well, after the Burton's very comic book-ish movie and Schumacher's meshing of the burton movies and the 60's campy tv show movies, i and many others could finally get the correct adaptation to this character and his world. we finally get to see the REAL cool Jim Gordon, the lovable and witty Alfred, the wise and charismatic Lucius Fox, plus the no joke villains..not to mention, of course, Christian Bale as the most ideal Batman/Bruce Wayne, so far. it shows that they seem to finally GET IT on how to do batman movies.

with The Avengers...they've been planning this since the first Iron Man. of course, it hasn't been quite the smooth sail that everyone would've wanted (the departures of Terrence Howard as Jim Rhodes and Edward Norton as Bruce Banner and the lackluster b.o. performances of The Incredible Hulk and the not-so-hot receptions of the second Iron Man flick)..but, in the end, this movie WILL end up as the MOST ambitious and biggest undertaking of all the super hero movies, up till now. to feature big characters, each with big fan base, in one two hour plus movie (i hope the movie will be around 3 hrs. long) will be quite the challenge for ANYBODY to make.

honestly, i didn't quite Marvel would hire Joss Whedon as the director. the writer, maybe, but as the director? of a movie of this scope..?? not at all. but, let's just hope for the BEST.

[MikeyRix]

Marvel seem to go for pretty leftfield choices director-wise recently. Branagh for "Thor", for example. Though it was a gamble that paid off quite well I thought; also, from what I've seen of Whedon, he knows his stuff in that field.

[aragorn01]

i'm not so sure bout their latest pick for Thor 2, though... Monster's Patti Jenkins. Monster, if you recall, is Charlize Theron's vehicle, which she won an acting Oscar for in 2004. but, she doesn't have ANY previous experience in big budget action-packed movie of Thor's scale...gulp.

[jaykays hat]

Originally Posted by aragorn01

i'm not so sure bout their latest pick for Thor 2, though... Monster's Patti Jenkins. Monster, if you recall, is Charlize Theron's vehicle, which she won an acting Oscar for in 2004. but, she doesn't have ANY previous experience in big budget action-packed movie of Thor's scale...gulp.

I was thinking the same thing

[Jeffbiscuits]

Branagh didn't really have the big budget, action-packed credentials either, unless you think of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as an action film. Although I personally didn't rate it too highly, he still managed to turn in a decent superhero, action film in Thor.

[jaykays hat]

Originally Posted by Jeffbiscuits

Branagh didn't really have the big budget, action-packed credentials either, unless you think of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein as an action film. Although I personally didn't rate it too highly, he still managed to turn in a decent superhero, action film in Thor.

I really enjoyed Thor, I didn't realise it was Branagh until the credits came on. I think the producers play a major role these days and he must have got loads of help from them.

Just had a look on IMDB and I see that Kevin Feige is one of the producers, he has worked on loads of Marvel stuff.

[Jeffbiscuits]

Surely that will apply to the sequel too. Branagh would have known from the second he agreed to do Thor that it wasn't just one big Summer movie he was doing. He was going to direct one of a series of films that are collectively the biggest thing happening in cinema at the moment. Despite it being a blatant Marvel movie, there are scenes where it's obvious that Branagh was the director. It's the same with Jon Favreau. Before Iron Man, all I knew him for was Swingers and Zathura so not an obvious choice to direct a big studio action film. Favreau's fingerprints are all over that film though. I think the choice of less mainstream directors for each of these films was to add a personal touch to films that might otherwise end up being far too shiny and soulless.

[MikeyRix]

Originally Posted by aragorn01

i'm not so sure bout their latest pick for Thor 2, though... Monster's Patti Jenkins. Monster, if you recall, is Charlize Theron's vehicle, which she won an acting Oscar for in 2004. but, she doesn't have ANY previous experience in big budget action-packed movie of Thor's scale...gulp.

True, but, um. Neither did Branagh and he still did pretty well out of it.

Originally Posted by BohemianBob

Yep,,and of course i wouldnt want to burst your bubble......but....

But...? Burst my bubble by all means. There's a certain film I still want to see despite it bombing critically and commercially as well as being rush-released onto DVD. I have very low expectations but it's not dimming my interest in it; why should the opposite be true for "The Avengers"?

[aragorn01]

actually, Henry V is a pretty good example for him handling a cupla BIG scenes (namely, the battle scenes). and he's great with big name ensemble cast, his Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing. so..branagh and jenkins ain't no comparison.

as for favreau his Elf and Zathura are quite heavy on special f/x.