The Avengers smashed a bunch of records and has grossed $1.46 billion worldwide and $616.8 million domestically. That domestic gross makes it the third-highest-grossing film ever, so it shouldn’t be a surprise Marvel and Disney want to make a sequel (and a TV show, and a lunchbox, and a desert topping, probably). What wasn’t known yet was whether Joss Whedon would return to write and direct the second movie. At San Diego Comic-Con he said he was still undecided. Now it’s settled.
During Disney’s quarterly earnings conference call yesterday CEO Bob Iger announced Whedon would write and direct the Avengers sequel. Iger also said they planned to “leverage the power of the Avengers” across the whole company. Translate that as, “We’re going to milk this cow till it keels over dead. Then we’ll make wallets from its skin. Wallets for ALL THIS MONEY. Mwahahahaha!”
Whedon has also agreed to help develop that live-action Avengers TV show for Marvel and ABC, and you can follow Warming Glow for updates on the TV production. Here’s the full statement from Marvel:
“Joss Whedon has signed an exclusive deal with Marvel Studios for film and television through the end of June 2015. As part of that deal, Whedon will write and direct Marvel’s The Avengers 2 as well as help develop a new live-action series for Marvel Television at ABC. He will also contribute creatively to the next phase of Marvel’s cinematic universe.” [Marvel via WIRED]
The sequel will likely hit theaters in 2015 and is currently titled The Avengers 2, but may we suggest The Avengers: OH SWEET JESUS YES instead? Or perhaps The Avengers: Shut Up And Take My Money. If that doesn’t work, perhaps they could call it The Avengers: Bringing The Party To You . . .
[Sources: WIRED, Variety, THR, The Frogman, Tastefully Offensive]
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this is good news indeed. the unfortunate side to the corporate greed that will happen is a few years from now, we are all going to HATE The Avengers.
They would have been idiots if they hadn’t gotten him locked up, even if they had to bury him in money. Nice Job, Marvel!
Oh, and if there isn’t a Marvel-Land at the Disney parks soon then they’re really blowing an opportunity. Hell, just rebrand the whole “California Adventure” part of the Anaheim one.
I’m guessing there might be some legal issues to work out with Universal before that could happen.
Mark Ruffalo is such a tool….i know they wont replace him, because their probably doing someone a favor in the first place. . . but he needs to GO!
I’m going to remain ambivalent about this one. While I’m excited to see a movie sequel the t.v show I’m not so thrilled about. Like many here are saying it just seems like a cash consuming tie-in to keep the relevance of The Avengers current so as to maximize the popularity of the movie when the sequel comes out. I just hate to see my heroes done this way.
Agreed. And you know they’ll try to shoehorn the lame-ass characters from the TV series into whatever sequel they make.
At first, you might feel like this is awesome. But all sources point to the next round of Marvel movies/Avengers 2 going into SPAAAAAAACE!!!! to battle cosmic forces. More and more ridiculous things will ensue. This isn’t going to end well people….
When keeping it real goes wrong: Coimc book characters….