Superhero Hype! talked to Marvel Studios’ President and CEO Avi Arad and we asked about the projects the company is working on.
“Things are going Fantastic” on Fox’s Fantastic Four, Arad said. “It’s going to blow you away. This movie is so fun. This is going to be, in my opinion, the feel-good movie of the summer. There’s a lot of interesting, good movies coming up. Most of them are on the dark side. This one is fun and funny and touching. It really captures the FF that we always wanted to make. I think it’s going to play incredibly well. It’s just a fun fun movie. We’re very excited… we really captured the essence of the greatest comic magazine. The family concept, the fun, the love triangle, the brother and sister and then Reed.”
We told Arad how much we liked the Magic Johnson FF/NBA TV commercial, to which he replied, “You ain’t seen nothing yet. We have a mirage of promotions right after Star Wars.” Music to our ears!
He added that they’ll be working on the special effects all the way up to the release of the movie and that they “just finished the score and it’s really unbelievable.” Avi said you can expect the new trailer, which will play in theaters with Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, online Thursday night. “It’s awesome, it was hard work.”
Fantastic Four, starring Michael Chiklis, Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans, Jessica Alba and Julian McMahon, hits theaters on July 8th.
Another film he’s really excited about is Ghost Rider, starring Nicolas Cage. “It’s hot. I’ve been on ‘Ghost Rider’ now for seven years and with Nic talking ‘Ghost Rider’ for four. And we finally got it done. That was a very personal project, making it happen. Everything is great. It was worth the wait and [writer/director] Mark Steven Johnson absolutely performed magic.
Regarding the August 4th, 2006 release and promotions. “Right now it’s August, if it stays that day… actually, promotions will start early, you’ll start seeing teasers of stuff. To make events like that, you know, you can’t wait too long.”
About Nicolas Cage playing Johnny Blaze, he said “this is the one [for him], he’s tattooed! But more importantly, he’s a great Johnny Blaze. You can see the conflict and suffering, and the fun he’s having with who he has become. There’s nothing usual about this movie. It’s all magic.”
We also got some brief updates on other projects. He says Spider-Man 3 is in pre-production. He adds that they “hope to be in a very fast track with ‘Deathlok,’ which has an amazing script”. He said that they expect to have the Punisher 2 script in “in three or four weeks,” that there will be an announcement on Iron Man soon and that Hulk 2 is in development.
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Source: Superhero Hype!
