The Tribeca Film Festival has announced The Avengers as the closing-night selection of its 11th annual event, where Joss Whedon's summer superhero blockbuster will have its New York premiere on April 28 — and for a good cause, according to Marvel and fest organizers.
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Avengers director Joss Whedon spent much of his weekend in Austin at SXSW pounding the pavement for The Cabin in the Woods (that is, when he wasn't busy dancing into the wee hours of the night) but he also managed to mostly deflect the laser geek gaze of the bloggerati when it came to divulging information about his upcoming Marvel superhero pick. That said, he did offer up one huge clarification on a matter Avengers fans have been trying to root out via various clues and tea leaves: Who are the villains under Loki's command?
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In February, a federal court threw out a suit filed by Stan Lee Media Inc. against Paradox Entertainment — a failed attempt for the plaintiff to regain the intellectual-property rights of the Conan comic character. It might seem odd enough that a company sues for a claim to the proceeds of a film that lost tens of millions of dollars last summer, but odder still is that Stan Lee himself — the comic-book mastermind responsible for The Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man, and hundreds of other iconic characters — was neither the plaintiff nor the defendant in that suit.
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Marvel's The Avengers has the pressure of living up to years of hype resting on its shoulders, but a new trailer for the May 4 superhero pic looks promising, if not terribly complicated. Plot details, like what Loki's up to and why? Save it for the movie. This is the chance to give every one of the Avengers their close-up. Well, except for you, Hawkeye.
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On the eve of a new trailer debut, Marvel has released a new poster for May's superhero superteam pic The Avengers. Here you'll find all your favorite heroes gathered in various states of action and repose: There's Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) stalking her prey while Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) contemplates a sandwich, with Captain America (Chris Evans) having a senior moment in the background as Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) hogs the spotlight. Typical. Get a full look at the cut & paste wonderment after the jump.
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Here is your first look at Mark Ruffalo in his full motion-capture Hulk get-up from The Avengers. No spoilers on the home page; click through for the Hulk-y goodness/weirdness, whatever.
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If nothing else, this really puts paycheck roles in perspective: “You have all these disparate egos, superheroes in this and that, and they refuse to give up some of their positions in order to make a more perfect union and to join the team. That’s really what the whole movie is about: subjugating your own best interest momentarily to further that of the whole. [...] I didn’t know it a year ago that it was going to speak to so many of the issues we’re having here in the United States and throughout the world, the same kind of theme.” [Speakeasy/WSJ via The Awl]
Tragic news from the New Orleans set of G.I. Joe: Retaliation, where a crew member suffered fatal injuries after an accident while breaking down the set. Filming closed earlier this week under director Jon M. Chu, who had already Tweeted his departure from the set days before the incident occurred. The tragedy marks the latest in a string of on-set accidents on big budget studio productions including The Expendables 2 and The Hobbit.
When Joss Whedon first dropped Angelina Jolie's name while talking up his doomed Wonder Woman project, folks assumed he'd envisioned her in the lead role. Speaking with Rookie Magazine, he clarified: His Diana Prince, Amazon goddess, was merely Angelina-esque in her globe-trotting humanitarian leanings. And in a way, the superheroine would have been saved by love. Whedon explains after the jump.
In addition to giving the Gaddafi assassination the ol' Taiwanese 'toon treatment, the good folks at Next Media Animation have processed the recent Avengers trailer through their kooky CG filters. The result? One and a half minutes of hilarious superhero (and gyrating ScarJo) action that imagines the titular crime fighters are called to assemble to battle the evil, cell phone-hacking, nude pic-distributing Loki. There's no way the actual movie will be this entertaining. Stick around for more Buzz Break!
The pop culture parodists at The Hillywood Show bring it with the Halloween movie-music mash-up of the season. Put your paws up and watch as they envision The Nightmare Before Christmas, only with Lady Gaga in place of Jack Skellington. The Monster Queen of Halloweentown! Somehow it's not much of a stretch. Bonus: It'll give you a plethora of Gaga Halloween costume ideas (sans the meat dress, which might be a bit tricky to pull off). More in your Thursday Buzz Break!
Whew! It's been quite the eventful week here at Movieline, what with Netflix's Qwikster dying on the vine, indie theater owners giving Universal and VOD what for, and the crazy real life developments you couldn't have dreamed up. (Random Task, we're looking at you... in fear.) Hit your Friday Week in Review and come tomorrow for the weekend stylings of Louis Virtel.
This pat in the back just in from Marvel Studios: The first trailer for The Avengers was "downloaded over 10 million times in its first 24 hours" from iTunes alone upon its debut this week. 10 million downloads. In a day. That's got to also be the record for the most people listening to Nine Inch Nails (whose musical stylings played under shots of ScarJo pondering the tightness of her Black Widow costume, etc.) at the same time. Congrats! Now, to convert those 10 million trailer-watchers into opening day ticket-buyers... [Press release]
This morning Disney released the first full trailer for Joss Whedon's Marvel superhero party The Avengers, and ZOMG guys -- have there ever been two minutes of action more packed with hero shots, zingers, and things blowing up before this very moment? (Michael Bay might give Whedon a run for his money, but the Avengers trailer has what even his robot spectaculars don't: copious slow-mo superhero booty shots. Consider the bar raised.)
Stand back! Brace yourself! Nothing can prepare you for the rocking magnitude of the blast that is Movieline's Week in Review. Read on for all of it, but careful! Don't look directly into the light, and consider hiding the children. And in any case be stay to drop by this weekend for box-office updates and other fiery dispatches from the one and only Louis Virtel. Have a good one!
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