‘The Avengers’ Stills And Behind The Scenes Featurette
Time draws ever closer to May 4th, 2012. We’re a little more than a month away from finally seeing Marvel’s spectacular superhero stable on the silver screen in ‘The Avengers’, so that means we’re likely to get an overload of promotion for the film in the next four weeks. And you know what? I don’t mind one bit!
First off, over the weekend, some new stills from the movie hit the web giving us a few new looks at the cast. You can find them all nicely collected at /Film, but I have some scattered throughout this article.
Next up, The Hollywood Reporter has shared a new behind the scenes featurette from Norton (yes, the anit-virus people) that was released online. The video contains a little history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, some footage from the shoot in New York City, and interviews with director Joss Whedon and President of Production of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige. During his interview, Whedon says that what they did with ‘The Avengers’ is “completely unprecedented”. He goes on further to say,
“Marvel is taking the characters that they’re putting in their movies and bringing them all together in a team franchise movie experience, which really has never been done before.”
When Whedon goes on to talk about how the team doesn’t belong together, I’m reminded of Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner saying in the record breaking trailer, “We’re not a team. We’re a time bomb.” I sure as hell can’t wait for that bomb to go off.
Check out the Norton Avengers featurette below:
‘The Avengers’ Norton Behind The Scenes Featurette
Black Widow News
In addition to that new video, in order to promote the movie internationally, Disney XD started airing short TV spots highlighting some of the Avengers. Comic Book Movie has three of them on their site, but only the ones for Nick Fury and The Black Widow work. These are actually pretty nifty because your average, every day person that Disney wants to see this movie has probably forgotten all about the smaller characters like Widow and Fury. And since Agent Clint Barton was only in a few minutes of ‘Thor’, it’s safe to say that they don’t know who he is either.
Case and point: When an Avengers trailer came on TV yesterday, my mom asked me who the character Scarlett Johansson is playing is, so these things are perfect for people like my mom. Black Widow’s video recounts our last encounter with her in ‘Iron Man 2’ and is fully action-packed, featuring many scenes of the super spy played by Scarlett Johansson kicking ass.
Here for your viewing pleasure is Disney XD’s Black Widow spot, just in case you forgot about how awesome she is/will be in ‘The Avengers’. Yeah, it’s not in English, but opening a can of whoop ass is easily translated into all languages.
‘The Avengers’ Black Widow Footage:
And finally, speaking of ScarJo’s Black Widow character, Collider has found out via Feature Film Casting that she will be seen after ‘The Avengers’ in Shane Black’s ‘Iron Man 3’. Also rejoining her will be Pepper Potts, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, and Col. James Rhodes AKA War Machine, played by Don Cheadle, besides the obvious return of Robert Downey Jr. as the man in the iron suit, Tony Stark.
As with all the big names that sign on for the Marvel movies, Johansson is signed to a multi-picture deal. I believe that some deals are even as large as nine movies, but I’m unsure exactly how many each Avenger is signed on for. In terms of The Black Widow’s future in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, there were talks in the past of a S.H.I.E.L.D. movie featuring the Widow, Hawkeye, Agent Coulson, and Nick Fury, in addition to a solo movie for just the femme fatale. Regardless of all the speculation that we may have about what’s next after ‘Iron Man 3’, no one really knows for sure except the head honchos over at Marvel. Whatever happens, one thing is for sure: Everyone wins by having The Black Widow in the next Iron Man film.
Like I said before, it’s easy for people to forget the lesser-known Marvel heroes like The Black Widow unless they’re well versed in the comic cannon. By having her appear in ‘Iron Man 3’, the character is being kept fresh in the audience’s heads, which is great for Disney and Marvel, even if they don’t really know what to do with her afterwards. Besides being able to remember who the character is, the audience wins because we get to see Johansson appear as Natasha Romanoff again, a character which she has portrayed pretty awesomely up to this point. And Scarlett wins because she gets to work more. See that? Everyone’s happy.
My vote is that The Black Widow and Hawkeye move onto the S.H.I.E.L.D. movie so as to open up some spots on the Avengers team for ‘The Avengers 2’. Like I mentioned in article on the ‘Avengers’ sequel, maybe we can finally see The Wasp, Ant-man, or even She-Hulk make an appearance on the roster of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.
I hope getting through all of that wasn’t too painful because this is only a portion of the impending advertising blitzkrieg coming in the next few weeks. My suggestion is to just sit back and bask in the epicness that will be contained in this movie.
