Walt Disney chief Bob Iger said Tuesday that Joss Whedon will write and direct a sequel to The Avengers.
Image courtesy Marvel Entertainment
The sequel to this year’s massively successful superhero team-up movie The Avengers is in good hands. The same hands, actually: Joss Whedon, the man behind Marvel’s hit flick, will write and direct the follow-up.
News of the sequel, which will probably be called Avengers 2 (or maybe Avengers: Be Ready to Crap Your Pants This Time), came Tuesday from Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger during a financial-earnings conference call, Variety reported.
The Mouse House chief also revealed that Whedon will create a Marvel-themed TV show to air on ABC and, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the company has plans to “leverage the power of the Avengers” throughout Disney.
This is very, very cool news. Few if any filmmakers can match Whedon’s wit and deep love of comics and genre writing, a combustible mix that fueled The Avengers’ incredible critical and commercial success.
Just last month at Comic-Con International in San Diego, all the buzz coming from the Marvel cinematic universe was about the forthcoming Iron Man 3. During that film’s panel, Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige revealed details about Phase Two of Marvel’s movie master plan, confirming the directors and release dates for Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Feige also confirmed the rumored Guardians of the Galaxy movie, but didn’t offer any specifics on the sequel to The Avengers, which brought in more than $200 million in its opening weekend and has grossed nearly $1.5 billion at box offices worldwide.
Angela is a reporter for the Underwire, Wired's pop culture blog. She is also a senior editor of Longshot magazine and a contributor to Pop-Up Magazine.
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