Joe Q on the Thor movie:Kiel Phegley: Joe, it's been a while since we've gotten all together. I hear you've been traveling around the country of late.Joe Quesada: It has been a while! I've been moving around quite a bit, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon. Things are of course heating up with "Iron Man 2," "Thor" and "Captain America," as we're getting into a major areas of production on all three films. And on the other side, animation has really been heating up too.
Kiel Phegley: Have you been on any specific new business, or was it a routine check up on the West Coast side of Marvel?JQ: My most recent trip out there was about two and a half days without a free moment, except for a couple of hours where I got to just sit with Brian Bendis at Starbucks, have coffee and chill for a little bit...and watch him tear his cornea, but that's a whole other story. Thank goodness he can type with one eye. [Laughter]
JW: While you and Bendis were both Tweeting from LA last week, a bunch of my friends who work in Hollywood were casting a skeptical eye on "Thor." They question how the movie will be a success. We see all this excitement from you guys, which has been ramped up by your business with Kenneth this week...how can you put all those naysayers in their place and say, "This is the next Iron Man?" Are you that confident in the property?JQ: We are incredibly confident. And there isn't much I could say to convince people beyond, "Look at these designs! Look at this script! Look at the moments in this story and tell me it won't be a huge success." But, that's obviously something I can't do, so the one thing I can say – and I've said as much to Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige – is that people are going to go into this movie with a preconceived idea about what it will be. If you're a comics fan, you'll have a preconceived notion of what you're going to get. If you're a non-comics fan, you'll have another notion of what the movie is all about. And what's really amazing is that both groups will walk away going, "I've never seen anything like this before within the super hero genre." It's so cool, and I don't want to use the word unusual, but it is unusual in the sense that it redefines what a super hero movie can be. It's not the expected story or settings. That part of it is incredibly exciting to me.
We walked through sets and saw different designs for locations and designs for costumes, and I just thought to myself, "Oh my God." It's absolutely breathtaking, and the casting is terrific on the movie. And Branagh is a joy to listen to talk story. There was a point during the discussion of the most recent draft of the screenplay where a particular plot point was put up to the group for discussion, "How should we play this one moment within the context of the story?" and Branagh and some in the group had a particular idea of how it should play, while some others felt differently. I was in the opposite camp, but as we discussed the differences, I'm sitting there listening to Branagh act out his version of the scene with gusto and passion and I had to stop him and say, "If you said to me right now, 'Then Thor kills 100 puppies in an animal shelter' I'd say it was fantastic." [Laughter] It's just magnificent hearing him talking about the story with the great love he has for the material. You don't see it quite often, but when you see it you've got to go with it.
There's not much more I can say about it than that. I'm in the room with these guys and watching the stuff happen, and it just feels and looks right, and Kenneth's excitement is infectious, and his vision brilliant. You can never really predict 100% success, but at this juncture, "Thor" does seem to have all the ingredients in place to make it huge so its foundation feels very strong to me.
JW: You were checking out sets - any clue as to what those sets were?JQ: No! [Laughter] Absolutely not! But they were pretty fantastical, and some of the locations are amazing. I will say this: I'm pretty sure this will redefine how we draw a Thor comic.
I will give you a funny aside. As we were looking at some of the models for the movie, there was one particular element that we were thinking would be a great prop to bring to next year's San Diego Comic-Con, ala this past year's Hall of Armor. However, the piece was so massive in size that it was actually too large for our usual given floor space at the con.
JW: When you and Bendis go into these production meetings full of producers and designers and various people, what role do you guys fall into?JQ: We're just additional idea guys and an extra set of eyes. We listen to the big ideas and story beats and play a little creative kick the can. In a lot of cases, guys like Kenneth and Kevin have been living with this screenplay for a while, so having someone with a visceral reaction who's reading and or seeing it in their minds' eye for the first time can sometimes give you a fresher perspective. Truth be told, that's what the Marvel Creative Committee is there for.
Sounds great so far!
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