Category: Around the Intertubes

Two items about Marvel Comics movie futures hit the ‘net, spraying fanboy drool all over the place and breaking fangirl hearts.

Over at MTV, Shawn Adler spoke to Marvel Studios’ production president Kevin Feige who confirmed that they’re definitely moving ahead with another Incredible Hulk movie, saying, “We made 3 or maybe 4 million more [than Ang Lee’s version, which pulled in $132 million] domestically, and I think 10 or 12 million more internationally. That was one feather [in our cap] and a big deal! Now we have a Hulk that we can be proud of and that is a better match and fits more with the tone of what had been in our comics and what we want him to be in our films going forward.”

In fact, Feige is so certain about this prospect that he pooh-poohed Adler’s intimation that the Marvel Studios roster from now until 2011 didn’t have a Hulk 2 on it, and it’s this sentence that probably started the salivating.

[What] we are doing is suggesting and cross-pollinating the characters between films, and like reading a comic, I’d like to set that expectation that anything can happen—and anyone can pop up—in anybody else’s story.

Meanwhile, over at IESB comes news that no, Daniel Craig will not be playing Thor. He had been offered the part, but turned it down, and IESB adds that Craig jokingly said, “[It] would have been too much of a power trip, both Bond and Thor, and running around with long hair and a hammer.”

The part that slays me about this is that the folks at IESB asked Craig these questions during a press junket for Quantum of Solace. And the reason why this is funny to me is that this sort of dovetails into what Peter Bart wrote in a recent Variety blog post: You can’t ever really trust what a celebrity says during an interview to be indicative of their true feelings.

In my era, the time allotted for interviews was far greater. You often got to spend an entire day with an actor, or at least hang out for an entire evening. Naively, I felt like I’d gotten some insight into my subjects, whether they be Beatty, McQueen, Redford or even the deliciously mysterious Elizabeth Taylor.

Of course, I was wrong. The stars I dealt with on a business level bore no resemblance to those who presented themselves to a journalist. The “serene” stars often became money-grubbing nightmares. Those who came across as “tough interviews” turned out to be serious artists who were dedicated to their work.

Oh, Peter Bart. How is it that I can love and hate you at the same time?