Marvel Studios announced today that they arranged with NASA to transfer their record-breaking blockbuster film Marvel’s The Avengers to NASA’s Mission Control in Houston, which will uplink the film to the International Space Station (ISS), currently orbiting 220 miles above Earth. The film will then be screened for the space station crew’s exclusive enjoyment.
This screening continues Marvel’s collaboration with NASA, which began during principal photography of Marvel’s The Avengers when the film shot at the Space Power Facility at NASA’s Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio.
Louis D’Esposito, Marvel Studios’ Co-President and Executive Producer of Marvel’s The Avengers, says, ‘The studio is privileged to share Marvel’s The Avengers with those up in space exploring the universe. A special thanks goes to NASA for utilizing their incredible technology to make this special screening miles above us in space happen. It is a screening that would make Tony Stark envious.’
The current space station mission is Expedition 31 and has a six-member crew consisting of 2 NASA Astronauts, 1 European Space Agency (ESA) Astronaut, and 3 Russian (RU) Cosmonauts as follows: Don Pettit (NASA), Joe Acaba (NASA), Andre Kuipers (ESA), Oleg Kononenko (RU), Gennady Padalka (RU), Sergei Revin (RU)
At Comic-Con last summer, Avi Arad was asked if he would consider allowing Spider-Man to appear in an Avengers movie. At the time Arad insisted there were enough Spider-Man stories to keep him separate. Now that The Avengers is such a phenomenon, he is even open to considering making a deal between Sony’s Spidey and Disney’s Avengers. He says he thought of the Venom crossover possibility independently of Avengers though.
“Everything is possible,” Arad said. “If something like that happens, it’s great for Disney, it’s great for Sony. If the right story comes in... Avengers to me was an expected success so I never looked at it because Avengers was successful.”
Here’s the story – last week, The Amazing Spider-Man’s production designer J Michael Riva passed away after suffering a stroke at the age of 63. Not only did he design the Oscorp Tower for ASM, but he has a staggering resume of awesomeness including The Goonies, The Color Purple, A Few Good Men, Congo, Evolution, and the upcoming Django Unchained.
Oh – And the Iron Man movies.
That design overlap, and the stunning look of the Oscorp Tower (seriously stunning) was enough for Marvel Studios and Sony to have the discussion about inserting Oscorp into The Avengers skyline. The Unified Marvel Manhattan Skyline almost existed.
By the time the Oscorp building was fully designed, The Avengers digital Manhattan was already basically rendered and there was some up-conversion that needed to go down, so – for timing – it was scrapped.
BUT – Sony and Disney were going to let this happen. THAT’s the key thing here. Timing just didn’t work out.
That makes me sad. I told Avi and Matt that I realize it’s a business impossibility to share the characters, (“Thank you for understanding that” - Matt Tolmach to me), but wanted to get across that these small, small things are enough for the fanboys.
Matt said they’d love to do more like this, meaning crossovers on the smaller level.
Next step – letting someone use the word “MUTANT” outside of a Fox movie, right?
It may hit $1.5 Billion by August world wide (hasn't even been released in Japan yet).Marvel’s The Avengers becomes only the 3rd film in Hollywood history to reach $600 million at the domestic box office.
Disney announced the feat on Tuesday, reports Entertainment Weekly, noting that the film also became the fastest in history to cross the $200 million, $300 million, $400 million and $500 million marks.
It is still unknown just how far the Joss Whedon-directed superhero epic can go by the end of its theatrical run. Although it has been in theaters since May 4, it still made another $7.2 million this weekend, just a 19 percent drop from the week before. Although The Amazing Spider-Man, another Marvel property, hits theaters on July 3, it is expected that the July 4 holiday could give The Avengers another boost.
'Avengers' crosses $600 million domestically: Global tally makes pic 3rd-highest grossing film of all time!
June 26, 2012|Andrew Stewart | Variety
Marking the latest domestic milestone, Disney-Marvel's "The Avengers" crossed the $600 million mark, with a colossal $1.438 billion global tally, making it the third-highest grossing film of all time behind "Avatar" and "Titanic."
In its initial theatrical run, "Titanic" grossed $600.8 million Stateside, though the film's 3D re-release boosted its domestic tally to $658 million.
"Avengers," which already holds the record for the biggest domestic opening and second weekend grosses, also holds multiple fastest to records from $200 - $500 million.
"Avengers" has been the summer's most resilient box office player.
Globally, "Avengers" marks the 12th film to breach the billion-dollar threshold and the fifth for Disney, joining "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," "Alice in Wonderland," "Toy Story 3" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides."