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X-Men writer Zak Penn breaks his silence about adapting The Avengers
Screenwriter Zak Penn is already scratching his head about how to piece together and overlap stories from three, maybe four or more movies as he sits down to write The Avengers this summer, based on the Marvel Comics superheroes.
Penn was on a panel Tuesday night called "Graphic Explosion" at the Los Angeles Film Festival in the Westwood Village area of Los Angeles, along with History of Violence screenwriter Josh Olson and Radical Publishing co-founder Barry Levine. During the question-and-answer segment, Penn answered some questions he said "I might get in trouble for."
Penn said he ran into frustration while writing the last two X-Men movies because he wanted to include a few of the other characters—the Fantastic Four, for instance—but was prevented by studio executives. That, perhaps, led to the ho-hum response to his Incredible Hulk movie.
But Penn is aware that Marvel movies coming up—with Iron Man, Thor and Captain America—will precede his Avengers film (slated for 2012), so he has to figure out how all the movies fit together. Now that Marvel is itself producing movies as a company, Penn said, "It is a world of difference; it is a lot easier to do things like that, and they encourage it."
Penn said he is meeting this coming week with the team writing the other movies so they can piece together storylines and overlap some of the film plots.
"They're doing Captain American and Thor first, and then Avengers is coming out," Penn said. "They want to see that they're all connected, not like the Fantastic Four can't come into the X-Men world, like I was told. I'm taking a meeting next week with the Thor and Captain America people, and we are all going to get together, and I will see what is going to happen. I'll see where they are leaving the characters; it's pretty complicated. ... There's a board that is tracking what is happening. [We'll see] how this movie overlaps in that movie. ... Marvel is autonomous now. It is night and day: Everyone has read every comic. They know how to make a cool movie."
And although Penn holds the responsibility for bringing all the characters of the other films together, he remains insecure. "It's hard to make a good movie," he said. "We all have the best intentions, and it still might suck."
By PJAvenger at 2:44 PM ON 06/24/09
"It's hard to make a good movie," he said. "We all have the best intentions, and it still might suck."
Wow. I like his thinking! Maybe he should go write Great Lakes Avengers instead. Then he won't need to bring any of the current characters together.
By lizzygilly at 3:05 PM ON 06/24/09
it would be great to see some of the avengers that are being used right now in new avengers. logan and peter are always the best part, and i love seeing dr. strange, luke cage, ms marvel, ronin, and if hank pym or the fantastic four could make even a cameo that would be awesome!
By quene at 3:06 PM ON 06/24/09
Please don't mention the Great lakes Avengers again there were a Joke team.
It was a complete and total shame of a team which was a blight on a team that always had a great membership for it's beginning.
By Longtime Avenger at 3:23 PM ON 06/24/09
Ronin? Logan? Peter?
Please, I'd like to see real Avengers instead.
By UnRiel at 3:37 PM ON 06/24/09
Kids! Great Lakes Avengers was written to be a joke team of under achieving wannabes with a lot of heart. It was a great John Byrne storyline.
An Avengers movie should stick with the traditional Core members, but I could stand not to see Ant Man and Wasp. They don't bring much to the big screen.
Cap, Thor, Iron Man are musts
By Pointer Obvious at 4:21 PM ON 06/24/09
Great Lakes Avengers reference in the first comment was being sardonic, not a serious recommendation to Zak "not very confident sounding" Penn. Modesty is one thing, but it's really not a good idea to suggest your yet to be produced work has a 50/50 likelihood of sucking. PJAvenger was teasing the guy, that's all.
By ungluedbones at 7:22 PM ON 06/24/09
if you put more of what u use to put on tv i might watch ch. 49 in King George, Va.
By dogolopee at 8:26 PM ON 06/24/09
Zak Penn did a horrible job with X2 & 3. He tried to shove too many characters in instead of focusing on the ones central to the story. I have a feeling he will risk doing the same with the Avengers.
By suprememango at 11:54 PM ON 06/24/09
X2 was great. X3 suffered from mutant character overload in too short movie with lame plot. Once Downey Jr is Iron Man in the Avengers movie I shall be there.
By [A] at 4:50 AM ON 06/25/09
Zak is a hack -- other people usually improves what he writes. He's kinda like Goyer.
By GrumpyOldMan at 6:06 AM ON 06/25/09
If Zak Penn is writing it, you can be sure it will suck. This guy has penned several bombs based on the work of much more imaginative people. I hope to see him pumping gas when this superhero fad is over.
By Jeff at 10:02 AM ON 06/25/09
GrumpyOldMan: Look at his IMDB. He may have wrote the terrible movies Elektra and X3, but X3 was HUEGLY impacted by the studio itself.
But he also did the stories for X2 and the 2008 Hulk, both of which were great.
By magnoliafan at 12:01 PM ON 06/25/09
"...and it still might suck." Thats the spirit, Zak - GO GET 'EM!!
At least the Wolverine movie didn't completely bend Gambit over...like they did Deadpool.
By celtimoon at 4:35 PM ON 06/25/09
how this guy continues to get work is amazing.....his writing sux........do the studio people really know that his name on the writing credit does nothing to inspire excitement??? get some fresh blood in there instead of this LAST ACTION HERO zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
By Warcam at 5:41 PM ON 06/25/09
"Hack" Penn has to have pics of Kevin Feige or something. How this guy continues to get work is beyond me. As has been pointed out already; most of his work gets reworked anyway, so why even bother going with him in the 1st damn place. Edward Norton practically rewrote 'The Hulk', and, studio interference notwithstanding, he and Kinberg were still responsible for the crappy writing/dialogue on X3. There's a pool of writing talent out there. Why these execs continue to stick their toes in the shallow, murky end baffles me.
By STOP DELETING ME! at 6:32 PM ON 06/25/09
The best you can do is a blurry cover scan? Isn't Spiffy owned by NBC/Universal? This is an embarrasment!
I WILL NOT BE SILENT!
By Inneresting at 11:12 AM ON 06/26/09
It would be a lot easier for all these comic book movie writers to keep things straight if they actually followed the frigging comic book story lines instead of inventing crap!
By buzzcut at 12:45 PM ON 06/30/09
It'll be easier for Zak to pen something when Cap, Thor and Iron Man (and maybe Hulk, FF, Spidey and the rest for cameo potential) are already established in their own movies. It means he can hit the ground running and not have to spend half the movie introducing the characters to the audience. That's why X2 worked: the first movie established the people, Zak just had to find a kick-arse plot for them to get caught up in.
By jeretic at 2:21 PM ON 07/02/09
Neither Logan or Peter can appear in the Avengers because Marvel studios does not hold the movie rights to those characters.
By Tennman9985 at 6:44 PM ON 07/08/09
Does anyone care about the Marvel Movies anymore.... Dont get me wrong im a huge Marvel Comics fan but at some point when do they just say "Hey, all of our characters arent working on film anymore".... I mean Spiderman worked at first but judging by the 3rd movie they've run him into the ground, Xmen is being run into the ground, Elektra was trash, They've already rebooted Punisher and Hulk and still failed. If Thor and Cap Am fail what does that do to The Avengers movie and can they even get all these big name actors to sign on for it, mainly Downey and Norton and who knows who Cap will be..... So far the only Marvel Movies ive seen done right are the first Spidey, Xmen and Iron Man.
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Tennman9985:
Does anyone care about the Marvel Movies anymore.... Dont get me wrong im a huge Marvel Comics fan but at some poin...More »