Marvel Studios Writers...ASSEMBLE!

Marvel Studios wants to have a team of writers on staff to work on their massive upcoming slate of movies, according to this article in Variety.

Apparently they'll have up to five writers per year to work on specific projects, and that might include writers already grinding out comic books for Marvel Comics proper. Which would be nice.

Also this sounds promising:

"The company will provide the specific pitches it wants the scribes to tackle. Those could involve certain plot points for movies already in development or characters it would like to see in its future film slate.

Gathering of scribes will help Marvel come up with creative ways to launch its lesser-known properties, such as Black Panther, Cable, Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, Nighthawk and Vision."

They do have a damn fine roster of characters to pull from–but Nighthawk? Or Vision for that matter? Why does the writer at Variety, who probably couldn't tell his Lois Lane from his Pepper Potts, even MENTION Nighthawk? Does that mean he's heard that it's a character they're interested in developing? JESUS GOD NO. There aren't better characters to tackle first? Hell, even Nomad would make a better movie. OK I'm going to let that one go for now…

There was some more information of interest to aspiring writers who would give their eyeteeth to work on a Marvel movie (like me). Apparently, Disney has a similar writers' set-up called a "Fellowship Program" where they hire a pool of writers and have them pitch ideas all year long to Disney and ABC. Marvel will be similar:

"Writers will receive a salary for the year. Disney fellows receive around $50,000. Marvel's payment could double that."

Wow. First of all, it's depressing to think of how little the Disney guys make, but now I want to work for Marvel even more. I wonder how they'll notice a lowly internet scribe who has just as many fantastic ideas as the millions of other comic readers out there who want to write movies? Sigh…

ANYhoo, in case you're worried that the guys working on the already-in-the-pipe, large-scale Marvel movies like "Thor" and "Iron Man 2" are included in the Writer's Bullpen (or whatever they'll end up calling themselves), take note:

 

"High-profile writers such as Justin Theroux, Mark Protosevich, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely and Zak Penn, who are currently adapting "Iron Man 2," "Thor," "The First Avenger: Captain America" and "The Avengers," respectively, will not be part of the group.

Terms call for Marvel to own whatever the writers work on during the year. Company has the option to continue a relationship with the scribes after that period."

It really sounds like Marvel is starting to operate like an old-fashioned movie studio, with contracted writers to do their bidding as the Head Office deems. Which could be great–if they get a bunch of talented people, they're bound to output consistently high-quality stuff. And the Marvel execs have so far shown that they can churn out a high-quality, fan-and-layperson-satisfying product, but should there be a shift or the movies suddenly start to do not-so-well, we might see the same thing happen to Marvel that's happened to every other movie studio in the world: kowtowing to the shareholders. That's when guys with business degrees and not one shred of artistic thought, integrity, or creativity start calling the shots for writers, directors, and every other creative person making a movie, and that's when you start to get movies like 20th Century Fox makes.

This could go either way, and I'm fairly certain we will at least get a few great movies out of the process at first. So until they start making more "X-Men 3: X-Men United"s and making less "Iron Man"s, MAKE MINE MARVEL!

I kind of never get sick of saying that. Excelsior! That too.