Upcoming Marvel Movies We DON'T Need and The Ones We Do

Ever since we heard the last words out of Samuel L. Jackson's mouth at the very end of the Iron Man movie, Marvel fans have been daily checking the web in hope of seeing their favourite super-hero or super-heroine get the big screen treatment. After all, hearing the words "I'm here to talk to you about the Avengers Initiative" leads to a lot of speculation. Just how big is Marvel willing to go in order to expand their film franchises? The Marvel Cinematic Universe obviously turned into a profitable success with their lead up to the Avengers movie and now they're continuing with Phase II and expanding their continuity even further. 

So my question is...where do they go too far? 

Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled that Marvel is jumping at the chance to get some long-deserved titles into the theaters. But when you find out that they're actually spending billions of dollars on a superhero team called the Guardians of the Galaxy (featuring a talking space raccoon and an Ent-like tree man) then it might be time to step back, take a breath and realize just what people will pay money to see. The fact that they're actually trying to make the Ant Man movie possible where most directors would have rolled on the office floor laughing halfway through the script shows dedication from the company. 

But we've got to look at this from a realistic standpoint. Action alone does not make a movie; take Battleship or Michael Bay's Transformers film series if you need convincing on that argument. And just because there's a wide fanbase on a comic book series doesn't mean that the film industry is going to go on that alone; they're going to want everyone that they can to make a movie work.

Time to sort out the movie projects worth Hollywood's time and money and the ones that just won't gain that big an audience.

MOVIES NOT TO PRODUCE
 
The War Machine spin-off

Yes, Terence Howard and Don Cheadle are awesome actors. Yes, they get to wear some powerful suits of armour that could blow up a tank like it was a popped balloon. But here's the question I want you to answer honestly, even if it's just to yourself. 

Would you watch an Iron Man movie where somebody other than Tony Stark was the main character? 

The most common response is probably not. Let's face it, Robert Downey Jr. helped make that franchise with his quick-witted humour and ad-lib style acting that put his own unique stamp on the Iron Man character. Yes he delivered some great action in his movies but when you take him out of the picture, the movie just doesn't work with anybody else taking his place. 

People weren't even really that interested in the character of James Rhodes in the trilogy as much as they wanted to see him dawn the suit. Because it was War Machine they really wanted to check out. So you're probably thinking well then that's more of a reason to give him a spin-off! 

Not when you think about it hard enough. Unless they were ready to throw War Machine up against zombies or some killer robot, you just get an Iron Man movie without Iron Man. Sure he's got bigger weapons to work with but it don't mean jack if he has no one to fight or something to fight for. Can you name me one good War Machine bad guy? Can you even name me any War Machine bad guy?

I'll just say the same thing with the Winter Soldier idea that's kicking around right now. The guy hasn't even made it into his own movie yet. Cool your jets...

The Hulk sequel

Mark Ruffalo is the best Bruce Banner; there I said it. But here's the problem that Hollywood has yet to come up with a solution for. There's hardly anything left for the character to do except make cameo appearances and join the Avengers again.

There's just not a lot of meat they could bring to the script unless they worked incredibly hard into making this sequel come to life. And with all of their knowledge and resources devoted to making the Avengers 2 happen, it's going to be a long time before you see any fruit bloom in terms of seeing the Hulk get his own story again. 

Now I know what you're all anxious to type in the comments below. "They set up the Leader for a Hulk sequel!" First of all, that was close to five years ago so it would be close to ten years by the time you got to see him (meaning most of the audience will have forgotten by then) even if they got started on the project now. Second, remember how uptight Marvel's writers and visual effects guys were about bringing the Abomination to life?

Scaly and green? Rubbish! Big pointy ears? Keep dreaming! Russian accent? Not anymore.

Try integrating a bad guy into a Hulk movie with mind-reading powers due to a mutated head. Even if you had him as this mastermind evil genius, it wouldn't mean squat if you put him and the Hulk in the same room. You'd get another Hulk ragdolling Loki scene and the movie would be over in about five minutes. Unless you had him pair up with the Red Hulk (General Ross in a Hulked out form) or some other respectable villain, the dude would have zero threat level. And let's face it, when you saw that goofy look on Tim Blake Nelson's face, you wondered if making this man the next bad guy was a good idea after all...

Daredevil reboot

Ok, you want to see a good Daredevil movie? Watch the Director's Cut of the 2003 adaptation starring Ben Affleck. 

I mean how many different ways can you turn a blind lawyer into a ninja/vigilante? This is not exactly a "bitten by a radioactive spider" storyline. Now they're talking about rebooting the film series. You'd just get the exact same stories and most of the exact same characters. The only new villains you'd be able to do are maybe Mr. Fear (who let's face it, is a rip-off of DC Comic's Scarecrow) the Gladiator or the Owl (oh my gosh...run...it's the Owl...). 

The tone delivered in the 2003 movie is about as dark, serious and realistic as you can get for a man dressed in red biker leather. The same can be said about Blade and the Punisher. Yes, Marvel wants to reboot those two as well. Nobody is going to do a better Blade than Wesley Snipes. NOBODY. That and thanks to Twilight the vampire mythology is basically broken in Hollywood. 

As for Punisher? They made three movies, played by three different actors, and they all failed. Next...

Ka-Zar 

I'm going to make this short and simple. Just picture Tarzan blonde. 

That's Ka-Zar. And they're already trying to make another Tarzan movie.

Luke Cage and Iron Fist

Years ago they tried to make an Iron Fist movie starring Ray Park. I don't know what kind of story they would have given the guy other than a man going to some Tibetan monastery and learning to punch through concrete but we would have gotten a solid action flick. 

But Hollywood gave up on it, so it's not gonna happen. Now everybody wants to see Dwayne Johnson as Luke Cage, Iron Fist's usual partner. Okay, I know I'm going to get a lot of flack for this but I have to come out and say it. There's only two reasons people even know who Luke Cage is. He's got impenetrable skin (admittedly cool) and he was made in response to the demand back in the 1970s for blaxploitation characters galore. Other than that, very little has been done with the character. 

 I know that Heroes for Hire does have a larger roster than just these two but they are the most well known faces of the team and they're the only two who have had studios actually trying to write scripts for individual franchises.

This project I will admit has the most potential in being a film project in the making but I think it would just get written as some super-powered buddy cop movie where these two don't get along and the script becomes as predictable as clockwork. If you can tell exactly how a movie is going to proceed, you're not going to find a large audience for it. 

They could work in an angle about these guys being mercenaries but they'd have to really work hard on toning down the costumes. Luke Cage would probably not be too hard in that department but Iron Fist you'd have to practically start from scratch. For the life of me I have no idea what kind of story you'd be able to set up for them, especially in the villains department. Actually just about all of their bad guys are more well known for fighting more famous superheroes that they've already made appearances in film adaptations (Kingpin, Doctor Octopus, etc). Maybe Goliath or Moses Magnum. 

Yeah, you have no idea who those guys are, do you?


MOVIES TO DO

Fantastic Four reboot

Okay there are a lot of better ways Hollywood could have made a better Fantastic Four movie. Let's take turning Galactus into a giant cotton ball as the straw that broke the camel's back. 

Now they're considering making a Fantastic Four reboot, which I'm all for. As long as they take it seriously and show us a different direction. You don't have to shove them back into space, you don't have to shoehorn in Dr. Doom (at least not yet) and you definitely don't have to make them some reality TV celebrity family.

What Fantastic Four needs is more action and more science gizmos to make the series more visually interesting. To keep you in the theater the Tim Story movies offered the odd scene of these guys fighting each other or some kooky shennanigan involving a near naked Jessica Alba. Because that's just intelligent writing right there...

Ideas circling the net about this reboot has it being heavily involved around things like the Negative Zone and aliens, so they could go the Ultimate route in terms of an origin story. They also want to try and share continuity with the X-men film series. The only thing that could make that worth connecting would be introducing the mutant offspring Franklin Richards. A bold idea, but would it pay off? 

Only time will tell...

Venom movie

Maybe I have a bias on this, but screw it this is my blog. Marvel, you owe us a freakin' Venom movie!

Eddie Brock in Spider-Man 3 was the most squeezed in, poorly handled, miscast villain since Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin. 10 minutes we got of Topher Grace in that black alien suit and then he got blown to kingdom come. But that's not the worst of it. It is widely believed that Sam Raimi put Venom in solely out of fan service, as he admittedly doesn't like the character. 

You know it's one thing to work with something or someone you don't like and showing at least a sizable amount of respect and then there's literally blowing it up in our faces! 

Now wait until I've finished having my say before you gang up and crucify me here. They could make a Venom movie without it being set in the Spider-Man universe. Yes, it is possible. 

Let's face it, Venom is an anti-hero so you don't have to make Eddie Brock the most likeable everyman if you were to give him his own film. You could make him this guy who's down on his luck photographer who gets shafted by everybody around him and in desperate need of a backbone. Think the Halle Berry Catwoman movie...except not awful. 

You make a movie where the man is struggling with his dark side with some killer special effects and the police going on a manhunt to bring this monster in. Who would he have as a bad guy? Well, the only logical option is Carnage. If Venom is about revenge and aggression, then Carnage is about a psycho with no limits. 

Doctor Strange

Viggo Mortensen is the best candidate for playing the Sorcerer Supreme. If you got this guy signed up for the movie then you'd already have tons of guys lined up for the theater...and double that number for all the hopeful fan girls. 

 There's a lot of talk about bringing Doctor Strange into the fold with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Admirable, I will admit, but Thor and Avengers pretty well scratched off any chance of seeing some real magic in that universe by explaining everything from gods to mythological creatures as something out of Star Wars. But if Marvel is willing to retcon that decision, Doctor Strange could very well turn out to be a great addition to the universe. 

Not much else to say about why this movie could be profitable other than the script pretty much writes itself. You'd get this kind of Oriental, mystic atmosphere to the film along with a great mythology that features evil wizards, demons and maybe even some cameos from the gods of Asgard. It happens to be even more audience friendly when you realize how much of the human element would makes it way into the screenplay due to Stephen Strange's origin story of a man who has a life changing accident that cripples his career as a surgeon. 

Namor: The Sub-Mariner

I suspect the reason we have no Namor movie is the same reason we don't have an Aquaman movie: nobody thinks we'll take a fish-themed superhero seriously. 

But if you know anything about Namor, you know this dude is downright bad-ass. The guy's not some boy scout superhero, he's a man with serious attitude problems and not always does acts very heroically. You could do a drinking game of how many times he's tried to take over the world as a matter of fact. 

That doesn't mean you have to make the guy some superhero who would stab you in the back the second you look the other way, but you could take the character in a kind of Batman meets Lord of the Oceans story. Who wouldn't want to see that?

Black Panther

This is actually my biggest contender for an additional Avengers member. I totally agree, there are not enough African American superheroes out there and Black Panther would make an awesome one. Not just because he's some guy in a black suit who fights with claws and can slip in and out of a room like a ninja but because he comes from a country so technologically driven that it makes Japan look like a scrapyard. 

First off, we get that little nod to Vibranium in Captain America: The First Avenger. You do not just introduce a random element like that with the power to absorb any physical force and expect nobody to wonder "Where in the heck did that come from?" 

That would be Wakanda, the fictional African country that Black Panther comes from. You may or may not have picked up on the Easter Egg in Iron Man 2 that showed something big was being monitored by S.H.I.E.L.D. The Marvel Cinematic Universe movies have been heavy on one thing to justify how all these characters of various super-powered backgrounds can co-exist...science fiction. 

Wakanda is filled to the brim with futuristic technology. It doesn't mean they have to make it look like J.J. Abrams Star Trek but there's lots of creative options to take. The visual ideas are endless when you brainstorm how to make a world like this. 

Black Panther is also an international hero and features themes like cultural clashes and questioning tradition. Again, not an uncommon or overexplored territory but with plenty of potential. Treated even half right, this could lead to a great movie...especially with the Avengers universe backing it up.