Marvel Unveils Plans for Smaller Superhero Flicks

We kinda already knew that Marvel Studios was planning more superhero films outside the A-list range of Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. The long gestating Edgar Wright helmed Ant-Man is just one example, but there's been talk of a Luke Cage film, Dr. Strange, Power Pack,and plenty more. Hopefully another Punisher film can fit in there somewhere. We've already seen that Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist director, Peter Sollett, is primed to bring The Runaways to the big screen.

CHUD is reporting that Marvel execs are already in the meeting stages on some of these properties, talking with writers and directors to match with some of their lesser known heroes. The plan is these projects to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $20M - $40M, which is a paltry number compared to something like Iron Man which costs literally four times as much.

This makes sense. Marvel has a ton of marketable characters that could be pushed to top tier status if the right script were to come along. Iron Man, while a recognizable character, was nowhere in the league of either Wolverine or the X-men, and yet the movie has catapulted him to the head of the pack. Who's to say the same thing can't happen with another one of Marvel's heroes? At that low cost, it won't take much for them to break the bank, and any of them could lead to yet another tentpole franchise. You think anybody was expecting Blade to be the hit it was and to spawn a successful trilogy?