I kind of hate the fact that this blog is only updated with mostly comic book movie information. I really have a wider perspective than this, but for some reason, these are the posts that inspire me to write. Anyway, two articles came out tonight that had some very interesting perspectives.
The first is from Deadline and the always insufferable Nikki Finke who is reporting that the major players in The Avengers are getting very frustrated with the lowball offers that keep coming in for future movies. Despite the $1.5 billion return on a few hundred million dollar movie (there's no way that movie didn't just straight up profit a billion dollars), they appear to being pretty stingy with the on camera talent. Of course, they seem to be unhappy with this. And rightfully so. Evans, Hemsworth, Downey, Ruffalo, Jackson, Johannson, and Renner all deserve varying degrees of credit for the massive success. But they DO deserve credit. And frankly, the reason that fans like me are so invested is because of what these actors bring to their roles. Nobody wants to see them recast, and hopefully Marvel doesn't think that just because they got away with it on Iron Man 2 by replacing Terrance Howard with Don Cheadle, that they'll be able to do it with the headliners. It's just not going to happen. And I'm sure some will make the argument that it wasn't a problem replacing Ed Norton with Mark Ruffalo, but again, The Incredible Hulk was a bit of a disappointment overall and the commitment to that version of Bruce Banner was a lot lower than what the general public is now familiar with. A very small percentage of those who saw the Avengers actually saw the Incredible Hulk. But if the tens of millions of Avengers fans have to go into Avengers 2 with a unnecessarily shaken up cast, I can't see it playing well. Even if Joss Whedon knocks it out of the park again.
While Marvel is notoriously stingy, they had better not look that gift horse in the mouth because it honestly could turn south at any moment. Look at literally any other comic book franchise in history. But while I don't doubt that these are valid issues, I could see Deadline reporting this stuff as a favor to agents to hopefully stir up the fanbase in an effort to strong arm Marvel into caving. Honestly, I say give them the big paydays they're looking for because I want to keep the continuity going.
Now, on the other side of the coin, according to Heat Vision, it turns out that Robert Downey, Jr. has entered into negotiations for Avengers 2 and 3. I do believe if they get Downey on board for those, the rest of the cast will be far easier to deal with. Especially if Downey makes his appearance contingent on everyone else returning (pure speculation on my part). So he hasn't decided to hang up the helmet forever and is definitely open to at least a couple more installments. Frankly, I'm perfectly all right with this. The man is nearing 50 years old and has not been shy about how he feels his age is affecting him. I'd be perfectly happy to see Iron Man pop up in a couple of new Avengers movies and keep the Iron Man trilogy where it stands. In fact, I totally expected him to do Avengers 2 and then call it a franchise, so anything more than that will be a welcome surprise.
The only thing that I don't understand, and anyone with an understanding of contract law is more than happy to chime in about, is how there's any sort of argument at all. From my understanding, all the major players get locked in for multiple movies. How does there get to be any sort of forced negotiation after the fact? Granted, I'm sure there could be an argument in regards to raises, but couldn't Marvel just say "No, that's not going to happen"? Obviously, this isn't my area of expertise.
Here's to hoping this all gets figured out sooner rather than later so we can all look forward to the inevitably awesome Avengers 2 instead of fretting over what the cast is going to look like in two years. When all is said and done, I do believe we'll have everyone coming back and Phase Two is going to be as epic as it possibly can be. It seems that they're all under contract whether they like it or not (I think) and Downey seems to be enough of a team player that he appears willing to hop back into it all, especially if he's not the one doing all the heavy lifting in such a large ensemble. It's Phase Three that I'm beginning to worry about. Let's cross our fingers and hope that everyone does what's in the best interest of the fans.
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