Despite being burnt by experiences writing the last two X-Men movies, screenwriter Zak Penn told an audience at the Los Angeles Film Festival that he's excited to be writing the upcoming Avengers movie. The big difference? Guest-stars and co-operation, apparently.
Penn told the audience at the Graphic Explosion panel that he had originally wanted to include other Marvel characters in his X-Men movies, but was unable to because of rights issues... A problem that doesn't exist in Marvel's shared universe of self-produced movies:
They're doing Captain American and Thor first, and then Avengers is coming out... They want to see that they're all connected, not like the Fantastic Four can't come into the X-Men world, like I was told. I'm taking a meeting next week with the Thor and Captain America people, and we are all going to get together, and I will see what is going to happen. I'll see where they are leaving the characters; it's pretty complicated. ... There's a board that is tracking what is happening. [We'll see] how this movie overlaps in that movie. ... Marvel is autonomous now. It is night and day: Everyone has read every comic. They know how to make a cool movie.
A cool movie, perhaps, but apparently not necessarily a good movie, as this later comment from Penn hinted at nerves over his Avengers script:
It's hard to make a good movie... We all have the best intentions, and it still might suck.
Sounds like he saw Mickey Rourke's Iron Man 2 costume during one of those cross-movie meetings...
X-Men writer Zak Penn breaks his silence about adapting The Avengers [Sci Fi Wire]