Marvel CCO Joe Quesada talks Phase Two of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe; plus a new outfit for Cap

Marvel’s Chief Creative Officer, Joe Quesada, recently spilled some info to SFX magazine about the rollout of Phase Two in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, talking about the overall direction, choices, and strategy for the next evolution of their superheroes on the big screen.

“It’s going to be really interesting to see what happens next,” teased Quesada. “But personally I think that THE AVENGERS now enhances the solo movies because it was so successful. Everyone has their favourite moment or character and now it’s like ’we’ve seen what you’ve got, so show us some more.’”

On IRON MAN 3:

“It’s going to have some amazing surprises,”he teases. “I don’t think people have any idea what it’s going to be like but it’s a wonderful take on what the third Iron Man movie should be. We have a really unique perspective on it and we’re pretty happy with how it’s shaping up. [Robert Downey Jr.] has really taken the character to some new and interesting places.”

On THOR: THE DARK WORLD and CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER’s direction:

“The goal is to mine different territory to what we have already,” he says. “We’ve been very lucky and fortunate to [also] have these characters enhanced by the performances of these actors.”

On how GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY was selected as the next Marvel film:

“There’s a whole library of Marvel characters that could benefit from these treatments,”he says.”What happens is that when one breaks out and is a success, it makes you think that if that character worked then maybe these two or three others that we never thought about before might also work. But we have to be really judicious about how we do these films because you don’t want to become your own worst enemy by over-saturating and flooding the market with this stuff.”

On the strategy for Marvel’s cinematic universe:

“So much of what we do is part of a big collaborative process at Marvel. So we’re going to stick to our guns and continue doing the things that we want to do in the way that we want to do them. I know that it’s tough as a fan because fans are impatient, they want to see their favourite character up there but at the end of the day the worst thing that we could do is rush a character to the screen and have it fail because then you don’t see them again for decades. That’s why we’re so strategic about this stuff, because we don’t want to hurt any characters or the Marvel brand by rushing out product.”

In October, Marvel will begin a relaunch of all of their flagship titles, called Marvel NOW, which will feature a revamped look to all of their characters, including Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, etc.  While not a reboot like DC’s New 52, this “relaunch” is intended to be a solid jumping on point for new readers.  Judging by the designs of the costumes, however, I’d venture that it’s a means of tying both the comics and the movies together a bit more. 

Check out the Marvel NOW launch image (ironically drawn by CCO Joe Quesada) and new designs for Captain America by artist Jerome Opena, featuring a more “Soldierly” Cap.