Over the past few days more footage for both The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man has been released, and between the two, a MARVELous summer is surely in store. (See what I did there?!? Stop looking at me like that! It was punny!)

First up was The Avengers with a new commercial during the Super Bowl that brought us a lot of new footage.  We still don’t get a clear shot at who is working with Loki, but there are numerous theories floating around out there.

Next up is The Amazing Spider-Man which shows just how far off book the new movie is going … and it’s pretty darn far. Peter finishing The Lizard formula? His father having worked at Oscorp?  Why do they constantly insist on messing around with these origin stories is beyond me, but here we go yet again.

The Avengers hits theaters on May 4, and The Amazing Spider-Man on July 3.  (And both are based on comics from Marvel if you didn’t get my earlier joke …)

What do you do when you wrap filming on the most anticipated movie of 2012, but you haven’t yet finished post-production on it? Shoot another movie … in 12 days.

Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, has been busy working on The Avengers for Marvel, but it appears he had enough time off to do some work on a pet project of his own.  It would seem he snuck off for a few days with a few of his old crew from various TV shows and shot a contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

Apparently this is the first project out of a new venture Whedon has formed a new studio called Bellwether Films with someone named Kai Cole.  They are referring to it as a “micro-studio” that will focus on making smaller productions.  Judging by the fact that no one knew this was filming, and it shot in only 12 days, that seems to definitely qualify as “micro” to me.

The cast has some very familiar names amongst them, and also appears to have very much kept it in the family with only one actor he had not worked with previously.

• Amy Acker is Beatrice (she played “Fred” in Angel)
• Alexis Denisof is Benedick (He played Wesley in Buffy and Angel)
• Nathan Fillion is Dogberry (He appeared as “Caleb” in Buffy, “Capt. Mal” in Firefly and “Hammer” in Dr. Horrible)
• Clark Gregg is Leonato (he appears in The Avengers as Agent Phil Coulson)
• Fran Kranz is Claudio (he appeared in Cabin in the Woods)
• Reed Diamong is Don Pedro

It is known amongst Whedon fans that he has a tendency to gather his actors at his house on Sundays for dramatic readings, including the works of Shakespeare, so it wouldn’t be surprising to hear that this was born out of that.

Right now it is planned that the film will hit the festival circuit next year.

While it is certainly an intriguing concept, and something I’d love to see, I’d love to know how he got away from his duites in The Avengers to do it.

[Thanks to Jo for the tip]

Hitting theaters on May 4, 2012, The Avengers is one the most eagerly anticipated comic book films of all time. So, why not start the marketing campaign now?

The first trailer for The Avengers was just released, and while it doesn’t give away everything we’ll see – rumors still persist the Skrulls are involved – it certainly gives us a lot to look forward to.  Besides seeing Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) all together, it’s nice to see that Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) will be doing more than just walking around saying cryptic things.

And, yes, that is indeed Loki (Tom Hiddleston) from the Thor film in there as well.

Considering how long Marvel has taken to work up to this film with numerous movies building the mythos, here’s hoping it pays off large.  Plus, on a personal level, I would love to see director Joss Whedon just blow everyone out of the water with the work he does on this.

Filming on The Avengers continues on the streets of Cleveland, doubling for New York City, and while the other day it was just shots of Chris Evans, but this time Chris Hemsworth joins in the fun as Thor.

While this is sure to be that much more exciting once it hits the big screen, seeing such iconic Marvel characters team-up like this is thrilling no matter what the quality of the video is.  Sure, we’ve seen films like The X-Men before, but we’ve never seen a comic book team movie that was crafted in such a way that it multiple movies come before it to prep the audiences for the back-story of each character.  You have to tip your hat just a little to the way the comic book company has gone about shaping this to make sure they can deliver the most interesting team movie yet.

Enough with the talk, lets take a look at some action.

Thor and Captain America team-up to fight those guys in the motion capture suits from the other day. I’m still fairly sure they are supposed to be the Skrulls.

Click the jump for more videos and pictures.

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While The Dark Knight Rises has taken over the streets of Pittsburgh to stand in as the mythical Gotham City, and has hence leaked out a ton of photos and videos, now the same is happening with The Avengers.  Filming in Cleveland, which is standing in for New York City, Chris Evans, spent the day yesterday in his Captain America costume, fighting … something/someone.

Here’s one picture and video, and then you’ll just have to follow after the jump.

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With 10 months to go, Marvel is wasting no time getting us all worked up for the upcoming film of The Avengers.  Considering the amount of time and money the company has put into prepping for this film, it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Released over the course of the San Diego Comic-Con was a series of seven character posters that would finally form one large image that showed you some of the history of each character as well as hints of what we’ll see in the new film.  (Is that a Helicarrier I see behind Hawkeye and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents?)

• Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow
• Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
• Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk
• Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America
• Chris Hemsworth as Thor
• Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye
• Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk
• Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
• Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson (S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent)
• Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill (S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent)

While I normally don’t care for films with too many characters in them, especially in the comic book genre, but the only new introductions out of all those characters I listed that are new to the series are Cobie Smulders of How I Met Your Mother as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye.  (Yes, Hawkeye appeared in Thor for a sum total of an eye blink, I don’t count it.)  If Marvel was going to try to introduce each character in this film I would go out of mind, but seeing as the characters have had their own films to prepare for this particular project, this concept works fine for me.

May 2012 can’t get here fast enough for me.

Knocking the boy wizard from the top box office spot, Captain America: The First Avenger planted his flag at the top of the mountain.

Captain America took the top box office spot this weekend with $65.8 million, beating the last Marvel movie, Thor, by a mere $100,000 for a weekend total.  The latter went on to a domestic gross total of $180 million, so it looks like this film will go on to a similar total.  This is the last of the films from the company leading up to its team film, The Avengers debuting next May.

The big news this week, however, was the 72 percent decline that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2, the largest fall ever for a film that set an opening weekend record. It still brought in $48 million, and it is doubtful that Warner Brothers is to up set as it’s nine day worldwide total sits at $834.5 million.  How will they ever make payroll next week with so little income coming in?

Friends With Benefits came in third with a rather anemic $18.5 million, below the similarly themed No Strings Attached that came out this past winter and opened with $19.7 million. There are probably some nerves around this film now as it opened so low and had a $35 million dollar budget. Using the usual math the film needs to hit $70 million domestic to break even, and that seems a pretty tall order now.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon slipped to fourth place with an estimated $12 million. It’s domestic total now sits at $325 million and a worldwide total of $882.3 million.

Coming in fifth was Horrible Bosses with $11.7 million, bringing its domestic total to $82.4 million off of a $35 million budget.

And since I love a train wreck, where was Green Lantern? 18th place with $390,000 for a new domestic total of $113.9 million. Worldwide it’s now at $147.2 million off of a production budget of $200 million. And yet they say there will be a sequel? Well, okay then.

Next week sees Cowboys & Aliens, Crazy, Stupid, Love and The Smurfs.

Can the world handle another dosage of the God of Thunder? Well, it better get ready as Thor 2 has gotten a release date.

While the first Thor film didn’t exactly burn up the box office compared to some of the other movies out there, that isn’t stopping Disney/Marvel from getting ready to release a sequel.  The film will hit screens on July 26, 2013, only about two months after Iron Man 3 hits on May 3, 2013.

Chris Hemsworth will be returning to the title role, but Director Kenneth Branaghwill not be back for the second film.  Reportedly his departure is not born out of any issues between him and the studio, but rather was a mutually agreed upon decision and was amicable on both parts.

No word on details such as a new director yet or if the script has even be started as of yet.

With the last few films building towards The Avengers coming out next year, I wonder if we’re now building towards The Avengers 2 by using solo movies to build things up again.  Obviously there is a master plan afoot here, we just don’t know what it is as of yet.

The Avengers movie is still a little over a year away, but a promo poster at the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas gives us a taste of what we’re in for.

You have to give Marvel credit, they’ve now literally spent years prepping for this movie.  Each of the films produced by the studio have been giving us little tidbits so that the team film can just jump into the action without having to do a lot of backstory.  Since the first Iron Man movie there have been hints to this project, and now it’s all coming together.  The promo poster that was spotted at the Expo shows off Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and the yet-to-appear Hawkeye (the guy with the bow and arrow).  And, yes, all of the actors from the various films are reprising their roles, so not only will get the ultimate team movie, but it will be star-studded as well.

Big bonus to this poster?  The first look at the “modern” Captain America costume that differs from what we’ll see in his movie next month.

This poster alone is enough to get me excited.  Who ever thought we’d really see all these characters in one movie some day?  Add in Joss Whedon directing and I’m so there.

[via ComingSoon and an IM from Jon Rettinger]

The movie news pouring out of San Diego Comic Con almost makes you forget this used to be a comic book convention.  With more movies based on comic books coming out than ever before, it figures that big announcements are made at this show, and they just keep coming.

(click any of the images for full-sized views)

Green Lantern

Sadly nothing was released after this panel other than the official movie logo.  There was some footage shown, but not to the general public to see, sadly.  Apparently it was pretty quick, showed the ring forming a giant fist to hit some criminals and so on.

Two great bits of news:

1. The costume we saw is not the final one we’ll see on screen, there is more refining to be done to it, and the black will stand out more.
2. A kid in the audience asked Ryan Reynolds to recite Hal Jordan’s oath … everyone reported that no words had been changed.  I am now much more at ease with the film.

There were other tidbits, but we’ll see how this film turns out.

Cowboys & Aliens

I have never read the comic this is based on, but the premise is pretty easy to grasp since it’s right in the title … aliens … in the old West.

It stars Daniel Craig as a mysterious stranger who arrives in town with an odd wrist band, and when alien ships arrive to shoot the town up, he shoots one of their ships down with his device.  Wackiness ensues from there.

It also stars Olivia Wilde as a saloon girl, Harrison Ford as … someone, he’s rumored to be a bad guy.  It’s also directed by Jon Favreau who has directed the two Iron Man movies.  He’s definitely shown he is capable of directing action, and it should prove to be an interesting movie.

I love the concept of this.  There won’t be any going to the mothership and using a Mac to install a virus malarkey.  We’ll have to see how this mysterious wrist weapon works into it, but sign me up as being highly interested.

The Avengers

Yes, more news on The Avengers, but it’s because Marvel had the bright idea to bring the whole cast together on stage and become the talk of the con.

From left-to-right

• Robert Downey Jr. – Tony Stark/Iron Man
• Clark Gregg – Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Scarlett Johansson – Black Widow
• Chris Hemsworth – Thor
• Chris Evans – Captain America
• Samuel L. Jackson – Nick Fury
• Jeremy Renner – Hawkeye
• Mark Ruffalo – Bruce Banner/Hulk
• Joss Whedon – Co-Writer/Director
• Kevin Feige – Marvel Studios’ President

The only two thins we learned from this was the re-casting of Bruce Banner, and we didn’t know for sure the Black Widow would be in the movie.  Even not in costumes, this line-up looks amazing … I can not wait for May 4, 2012.  The only thing missing is someone really should have yelled, “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!”

Side note from the Marvel panel … The Punisher film rights now belong to Marvel again … can we please finally get a good Punisher movie now?

After ages of speculation, we finally know for sure that not only is Joss Whedon directing The Avengers slated for 2012 release, but he is also co-writing it.

Marvel has been building towards The Avengers film for some time now, and delayed it to 2012 so that they could get out Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger before the team movie finally made its way to the screen.  When you count in the two Iron Man movies, this film will actually be the fifth in a series, and that’s a heck of a lot of investment in one unproven project.

With that in mind, it’s a bit surprising the studio opted to go with Joss Whedon in the director’s chair as he isn’t known for big blockbuster-style film making.  Don’t get me wrong, I am huge Whedon fan, just this isn’t the type of project you associate him with.

The other big announcement was that Jeremy Renner of The Hurt Locker has been cast as the archer of the team, Hawkeye.  If you aren’t familiar with the character, don’t worry, I’d be surprised if you were, but to die hard fans this is very exciting.

May 4, 2012, mark your calendars for what will be a film technically in the making for years just based on the amount of set up that has poured into it.

If the rumors are to be believed, you could be meeting a whole slew of Marvel Entertainment characters you’ve never heard of before.

Marvel has literally thousands of characters, but how many of you know who Luke Cage (picture to the right), Black Panther or Dr. Strange are?  My guess would be not that many of you.  All of that may change if a rumor reported over at Latino Review proves to be true.

According to a source, Marvel is pondering doing short, ten minute, films of some of their lesser known characters to introduce them to audiences.  These would run in front of other Marvel movies so you would essentially get a short film of a “new” character followed by the film you paid to see.  There is no word when this might start up, but The Avengers film in 2012 seems like a good place to start.

I think this is a fantastic idea as there are tons of cool characters in the Marvel Universe, but not all of them are known names like the X-Men or Spider-Man.  If this ever got me an Alpha Flight movie, I’d be over the moon.  (Don’t worry, I’m not holding my breath)  It is a great way to test the waters with some of these characters without gambling on a full-length feature film.  If the audience doesn’t like it, you do nothing else with the property, if they love it, you move forward.  Makes sound financial sense to me.

Again, this is just a rumor for now, but boy am I going to be interested if it proves to be true.