Marvel Studios and parent company Disney have yet to release The Avengers, but they're already hard at work on "phase two" of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, starting with Iron Man 3. That movie was set to start shooting at the end of May, after The Avengers had opened, but Comicbook.com reports the date's been moved up and filming could start as early as the end of April or the first week of May in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Marvel would not officially confirm the production change. It's likely that the studio will want Robert Downey Jr. to do press for The Avengers through April and, possibly, through The Avengers' opening date of May 4th. However, production could begin without Downey. "It is not April for sure," another Marvel source later told the site. Whether it shoots in early or late May, Iron Man 3 is set for a May 3, 2013 release date.
After Iron Man 3, the next movie on Marvel's slate is Thor 2. Scheduled for a November 15, 2013 release, it will start shooting this summer. After that, Marvel has yet to say what its two announced mystery projects for 2014 will be. According to Neal McDonough, who played Dum Dum Dugan in last summer's Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America 2 is next.
"Yeah, they're planning (to go into production for) Captain America 2 for the end of this year, because Marvel does one film at a time," McDonough told IMDb TV. "So they're going to do Thor 2 and as soon as Thor has wrapped, they'll do Cap 2. Hopefully right after that, we'll jump into Nick Fury because that's the one I'm looking forward to more than anything."
McDonough is talking about a possible S.H.I.E.L.D. movie, the organization that employs Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury, Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow, and Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson and that helps assembles The Avengers. In the comic book continuity, Dum Dum Dugan is a big part of S.H.I.E.L.D., though none of that is set up in The First Avenger. Feige said in August of 2010 that S.H.I.E.L.D. "could be it's own franchise," which is obviously not lost on McDonough, who hopes Marvel makes a S.H.I.E.L.D. movie "because it'll be me and Sam Jackson."
And I just pray that they have a 1970's setting, because I want to see Sam Jackson with lambchops kicking people's asses for Marvel universe. It would just be awesome. And to work with Sam would be a treat. We’ve become friendly over the years.
While nothing is official, McDonough obviously has some cause to think that a S.H.I.E.L.D. movie could happen. But it's only one of several possibilities for 2014. Chris Evans said last September that Marvel "may wait until 2014" for Cap 2, which could fill either the "Marvel Untitled 1" slot (opening on May 16) or "Marvel Untitled 2" slot (recently rescheduled for April 4th).
Besides a S.H.I.E.L.D. movie, there's also the possibility of other Marvel projects finally arriving by 2014, including the long-in-development Ant-Man, The Avengers 2, or even Doctor Strange.
A movie about Marvel's Sorcerer Supreme has been in the works since 2009, with Conan the Barbarian reboot screenwriters Thomas Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer hired to write a script in June of 2010. The script was reportedly finished last August, prompting Marvel to begin looking for a director. Fansshare has offered a dubious report that says Marvel will start production on a Doctor Strange movie later this year for a 2013 release, but there's no official confirmation or even a "source" confirmation of that. As McDonough pointed out, Marvel likes to work on one movie at a time and already seems pretty busy, so we'll consider the report rumor for now.
io9 has said Marvel is still putting some finishing touches on the project, confirming that theoretical physicist Sean Carroll, who worked previously as a scientific adviser on Thor, is now working with Marvel on Doctor Strange by helping them come up with scientific limits to the character's powers. "You need constraints to provide tension," he told the site. "A world where anything can happen makes for a very boring movie. It's when science imposes boundaries on what a superhero can do that the real drama begins."
Or the drama could begin in the 1970s with Jackson, his lamb chops, and his ass-kicking. We'll see what Marvel intends to do soon enough.
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