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Well, well, it looks like things are shaping up for Joss Whedon’s AVENGERS movie , as Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) ahs joined the cast as Hawkeye. So far we have RDJ as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Cap, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, ScarJo as The Black Widow, and Don Cheadle as War Machine. That’s a hefty and costly lineup of stars, but thrifty Marvel is asking the actors to take pay cuts and otherwise watching the budget very, very closely, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

1 COMMENT

  2. Wonder if it’s going to be the matrixy Hawkeye from Ultimates or an amalgam of the classic and modern. Obviously they’re probably going to avoid the purple.

  3. With Fury’s comment towards the end of IM2 (spoiler, I suppose) that he would be interested in Stark serving in an advisory capacity, I’m guessing we won’t see that much of RDJ in the Avengers movie.

  4. *SPOILER*

    Consider:
    * Don Cheadle probably signed a contract much cheaper than that of Terrence Howard
    * Iron Man is a successful franchise which would suffer if Downey had to film an Avengers movie
    * The contracts signed for Thor and Cap are probably on the cheap side (new actors in high profile movies)
    * War Machine is a U. S. soldier in an older Iron Man armor, and thus is more attractive to SHIELD as an operative.
    *Putting War Machine in the Avengers allows Marvel to market and license another character, while protecting the Iron Man franchise.
    * War Machine diversifies the cast of the Avengers
    * The actors might have a “Joker” clause. Remember Jack Nicholson? He earned more on merchandise as The Joker than he did starring in the Batman movie.

  5. In fairness, I wouldn’t call Chris Evans a “new actor”, he has made many movies, some with big box office.

    IMO, the benefit to Marvel is that in an Avengers movie, you don’t need to see Iron Man and War Machine out of the armour, so for the actors, it becomes a voice-over role, like a cartoon, which is quicker and undoubtedly saves money.

    Still, Avengers won’t be cheap as it needs a world-wide scale and that equals lots of CGI IMO.

  6. Torsten, I’m not convinced. Whatever they do with Cheadle, there’s no way we won’t see RDJ as Iron Man in Avengers. He’s the lynchpin of their movie universe, and too much fun as an actor not to bounce him off of Evans, Hemsworth, et al in a group setting.

    It’s the centerpiece of what these movies have been building toward. I assume that the “consultant” line is there merely to generate some tension and set up yet another character arc where Stark has to prove himself.

    To Ronan’s point, the overstuffed cast could well mean that some of the actors don’t have to spend too many days shooting (and they could conceivably feature the Hulk without Ed Norton at all) but if Downey doesn’t get some prominent face time I’ll eat my unstable molecule hat.