We think so...
October 16, 2011
Marvel has already impressed fanboys everywhere with their unprecedented strategy of setting all their movies in the same universe, but how cool would it be if their upcoming live-action TV shows also were set in that world?
Check out Marvel TV's animated plans, including Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers Season 2.
This weekend at New York Comic-Con a couple of interesting tidbits came up that have got us thinking that this could be where things are going -- particularly in regards to good old Doc Bruce Banner, he who hath been belted by gamma rays. You know, the Incredible Hulk!
Head of Marvel TV Jeph Loeb talked yesterday about the currently in-development Hulk TV show. While it's still early days on the ABC series, Loeb stated that the recent trailer for The Avengers was basically our first glimpse of the TV Hulk. Wha?!
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It makes sense, really. In order to pull a show like this off budget-wise, Loeb says that Marvel will be pushing the technology to its limit. That apparently means that all the intensive CGI modeling and design work that is being done for the movie Hulk will be recycled for the TV version. And don't forget, Marvel is pretty notorious for being cost-conscious. So why not recycle Hulks?
Of course, don't expect Mark Ruffalo to give up his thriving movie career to channel Bill Bixby on a weekly basis right now. But that wouldn't matter anyway, as Loeb says the series is a different take on the Hulk, one that will focus more on the relationship between Betty Ross and Bruce at the very beginning of the Hulk's existence (when Hulk is still unknown to the world at large). So you cast a younger, Ruffalo-esque actor then.
Now, this shared TV/movie universe idea seems to go against previous statements made by the Marvel brass. So we asked Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige about the matter last night. And he, essentially, said it could happen. Watch Feige's response here:
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Marvel's Kevin Feige talks Hulk.
This is all very tentative, but it does compute when one considers how Marvel has worked in the past. Their other live-action shows that are in the works are a.k.a. jessica jones (featuring Jones, Carol Danvers and Luke Cage), Cloak and Dagger (for ABC Family, set in post-Katrina New Orleans and featuring "science, the supernatural and the environment") and Mockingbird (also ABC Family, with a S.H.I.E.L.D. tie-in). They could all be smaller stories that take place in the bigger Marvel movie universe without really interfering with that world, right? And you don't think Marvel's just dying to recycle its helicarrier sets for that last one?
Comment below. What do you guys think of a potential shared Marvel movie/TV universe?
