Louis Leterrier Talks Captain America, Incredible Hulk and An Avengers Quadrilogy

I love me some comic book movies and Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk) made my weekend by dishing a bunch in an interview for the Los Angeles Times this weekend while on the set of Clash of the Titans. Some of the news was good, some of the news was bad, but all of it can be found after the jump.To get the bad news out of the way: Leterrier according to the article, is not keen on making another Hulk movie. I know some of you are cheering, but I am actually disappointed by this news. I thought that The Incredible Hulk was highly underrated, in part because it was a massive improvement over Ang Lee’s Hulk, but also because the film did right by the character: Edward Norton was a perfect choice to play Banner, Tim Roth made for a fantastic villain and the film fit perfectly into the budding Marvel film universe by incorporating both Stark Industries and the Stratigic Homeland Intelligence Enforcement and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D. to the common-folk). The movie also set itself up for a sequel involving The Leader after Tim Blake Nelson was seen smiling whilst his was head bubbling. Now with two under-par returns on the character, Marvel is unlikely to plan a sequel itself unless pushed and Leterrier doesn’t seem motivated, even though he is under contract for another movie with Marvel Studios.

Now, on to the good news:

While he hasn’t worked on the film itself, Leterrier said that he has seen some of the design work they have done for Joe Johnston’s The First Avenger: Captain America and says that “it looks amazing,” saying that it appears to be a hybrid between Raiders of the Lost Ark, Saving Private Ryan and The Rocketeer (Joe Johnston’s first comic book film from 1991).

I continue to love the fact that they are setting the Cap movie in World War II. While he will obviously have to be frozen in order to get to The Avengers (seen in a deleted scene from Leterrier’s Incredible Hulk), the character’s story is so perfectly intertwined with that time period that to move him forward (into the Iraq War per say) would ruin the character. The period piece set-up also allows for Cap to actually display the character’s patriotism (unlike a certain G.I. Joe movie) in a way that won’t alienate foreign audiences. This has win written all over it.

For the pièce de résistance, while discussing The Avengers, Leterrier floated the idea of an Avengers Summer: Four separate Avenger movies directed by four different directors (including Leterrier, Jon Favreau, Kenneth Branagh and Johnston) to come out each month during the summer of 2012. Here is the whole quote:

You know, you asked about my dream, I’ll tell you my real dream: To work with Joe Johnston and Kenneth Branagh and Jon Favreau and make like a triptych. We do four movies. We release them one a month for the summer. Or even every two weeks or three weeks. And the whole summer would be Avengers summer. So we do it the way they make television shows. One story arc but told in installments by different directors. So all of the directors that touch part of the Avengers world would do a part; we could make the movies shorter, maybe less than an hour and a half, and we use the same sets and save Marvel money. I would love to sit around a table with all of them a kick around the story. That’s my dream.

Some may disagree, but I would be on this like white on rice. Hell, I would throw my own money into the mix if they could make it work. As it is, I am worried about an Avengers movie if not only because you are balancing four characters (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Hulk) who can have their own standalone movies, but because Zak Penn is doing the screenplay and he has the most mixed record in Hollywood, especially when it comes to comic books. While the guy worked on the story for X2: X-Men United and “wrote” the screenplay for The Incredible Hulk (rumor still floats that Norton did a MASSIVE rewrite on Penn’s initial script to the point where it was more Norton than Penn), the man is also responsible for some of the worst modern-day comic adaptations, including X-Men: The Last Stand, Fantastic Four and Elektra. Meanwhile, splitting the Avengers into four movies would put more creative control in the hands of the directors and allow each one to further explore the character they have already developed. Penn has expressed some distress about the project and this would completely alleviate the pressure.

For the full interview, click on this link. For me, there are few things as great as a well done comic book movie and I will report everything I hear from here on out.

(Thanks to /Film)