Despite what seemed like a logical timeline, Disney did not reveal the identity of two mystery Marvel movies planned for Summer 2014 at this weekend’s D23. A mystery Pixar film was shown to be “The Untitled Pixar film about Dinosaurs” and “The Untitled Pixar Movie that Takes You Inside the Mind.” Well, fair enough. The only Marvel movie touched on was THE AVENGERS — Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, and Chris Hemsworth all showed up to wave to the crowd — however, and a no cell phones policy meant that no pictures or leaked footage got out.

Screen Crave has a roundup that says that the weekend included Disneyland-like lines to buy exclusive merchandise and so on. While D23 this year may have been Disney’s attempt to throw their own Comic-Con, they didn’t afford the overflowing press opportunities that Comic-Con does. For hardcore movie press, the results were mixed:

The film panels (for Monsters University and Brave) were basically extensions of their presentations on the main stage. Mostly they talked about the design, though (because of the no electronic equipment policy for the movies panel) they didn’t offer as much footage, nor were they as flashy. Like the Pixar nerds who presented them, they came off as really solid, but slightly dull power-point presentations.

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When Disney pulled out of Comic-con this year (for the most part, DreamWorks’s Fright Night and Real Steel were at the Con, and there were no DreamWorks booths at D23), there was a sense that it was partly to bolster their D23 presentations. Instead, Comic-con as a driving force for hype may be dying, and we may yet see it return to its less Hollywood-driven roots if studios begin to abandon it as a place to launch titles. This is the second year in a row that Universal had a film play at comic-con and die at the box office (Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, Cowboys and Aliens), and it’s hard to know how much it helps a film, period. Comic book titan titles The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel didn’t show at Comic-con. Realistically, they didn’t need to be.


Despite this, JOHN CARTER seems to have gotten a pretty big buzz boost coming out of the show. AVENGERS is already buzzing, but this didn’t hurt.

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The Disney police seem to have throttled a lot of crowdsourced coverage, but you can see a few pictures here.

Robot 6’s J.K. Parkin went to the Joe Quesada presentation, which was mostly a history of Marvel Comics, but the Q&A has an interesting look into what peope who paid a lot of money to go to a Disney show might ask about Marvel:

–It started with a question about the possibility of more Broadway musicals after Spider-Man:Turn Off the Dark, to which Quesada responded there weren’t any plans right now.
–Another person asked why Marvel didn’t have a booth at D23, which brought applause from the audience. Quesada said as the creative guy he honestly didn’t know, but pointed out this was their first time to attend the show and maybe they’d have one next time.
–The next question was about reboots, and Quesada said they don’t do hard reboots — their characters still have the same histories. He then explained how the Ultimate Universe is a separate, alternate universe that’s only been around for 10 years. I’ve had these kinds of conversations with non-comic reading friends who keep seeing news stories about DC reboots and Miles Morales, so I could feel his pain.
–Will Marvel ever have a presence at any Disney parks? Quesada said there have been talks, but couldn’t elaborate.
–Another fan said he loved Howard the Duck, and wanted to know if Marvel had more plans for him, and if we’d find out he’s related to Donald. Quesada chuckled and mentioned the legal troubles between Marvel and Disney over Howard before Quesada was CEO. He also pointed out that the 25th anniversary of the Howard the Duck movie was coming up. No mention of Fearsome Four, though.
–Several fans asked about the possibility of Marvel doing Disney comics now that BOOM!’s Disney line was coming to an end. One fan (the same one who thanked Quesada for his work on Booster Gold) suggested that if Marvel did a Darkwing Duck comic, they should hire the creative team of Ian Brill and James Silvani, who work on the comic for BOOM! Studios. Quesada said where these licenses go is really up to Disney, pointing out they’ve done a few comics with them.
–Another fan asked if Marvel would be doing any stories that reference the “end of the world” coming in 2012, per the Mayan Calendar. Quesada said the world ends in Marvel comics every week.
–Is a Deadpool movie in the works? Quesada said that’s in FOX’s hands, but said Ryan Reynolds makes a better Deadpool than a Green Lantern.

1 COMMENT

  1. The next question was about reboots, and Quesada said they don’t do hard reboots — their characters still have the same histories.

    At which point, the questioner should have pointed out that retcons change characters’ histories.

    As an alternative to doing either OGNs or reboots, what would be wrong with doing variable-length miniseries instead of series? The biggest editorial problem might be that the approach would interfere with line-wide events, which depend on all the characters inhabiting the same universe.

    SRS

  2. –Is a Deadpool movie in the works? Quesada said that’s in FOX’s hands, but said Ryan Reynolds makes a better Deadpool than a Green Lantern.

    And he would make a better Flash than either of the characters Quesada mentioned.