Prepare yourself guys. I've scrabbled together an idea for how a multi-villains Avenger movie could work. Not necessarily how it should work, but at least how it could work, and still turn out pretty decent. Don't mind the formatting. I cut and pasted it out of Notepad. I believe this is a very feasible blueprint for an Avengers movie featuring four heroes on the team (Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America),
and four villains (Mandarin, Red Skull, Loki, and Ultron). The Mandarin is the production end of things, the Red Skull the general, Loki their inside man, and Ultron the weapon. I'll detail broad brushstrokes
about how the lead-in hero films could build to it and then jump into the meat of the Avengers film itself. I don't think this is the only way to do a multi-
villain Avengers film, and it certainly isn't the best, but it at least makes the argument that a film of this magnitude could be pulled off.
Iron Man 2 - Basically, Armor Wars. The lid finally breaks on the sort of catastropophe hinted at in the first film. Stark's technology is freely being
traded on the black market, and has come into the hands of all sorts of rogue groups. S.H.I.E.L.D. is laying increasing pressure on Stark to accept their
help, but he's wary of working too closely with the military. He ends up facing off against the most threatening of these rogue powers, a renegade general
from either the former USSR or China known as the Crimson Dynamo. At the end of the movie, we get a teaser as Dum Dum Dugan or Nick Fury reveals to Stark
intel on the mystery supplier of his weaponry - a Middle Eastern warlord known as the Mandarin who runs a criminal empire called the Ten Rings and has
a history with Stane dating back to the first film.
Hulk 2 - Banner's still on the run, this time facing the Leader, who has the brilliant tactical insight to always be one step ahead of Banner. The climax of
the film signals a reversal of the script for the first. Instead of being put into a situation where Banner has to become the Hulk to save lives, the Hulk is
put into a situation where he has to revert to Banner to save lives. He defeats the Leader, but the Leader's set in motion a chain of events where Banner is
forced to realize that if he doesn't surrender, lives will be lost. The teaser at the end reveals Bruce Banner's new government handler - a psychiatrist who
calls himself Gunnar Golmen but reveals himself to be Loki.
Thor - The framing device is Thor in a mental institution, his sanity uncertain, under the depraved care of Gunnar Golmen, a man he believes to be his brother
Loki. The majority of the film takes lace in Asgard, where the Nordic Gods are in the heat of the final battle Ragnarok, against the children of Loki,
monstrosities that mix mythology with the horrors of industrialized warfare. We see the pyrrhic struggle of the gods, Thor's fall, and his banishment to
Midgard. In Midgard, we see Thor befriending a fellow inmate called Donald Blake who gives him hope and insight into the human condition, and we see Loki
twisting the psyches of some of the more depraved inmates and blessing them with Asgardian relics that turn them into the monstrous Wrecking Crew. The
denouement has the question of Thor's sanity put to rest as he reclaims his powers and puts down Loki's henchmen. We finale with him returning to Asgard to
teach the gods what he's learned, and discover that Odin sent Thor away not for punishment, but to become a savior for the gods. Thor returns to Earth. The
tease shows Iron Man meeting up with Thor.
Captain America - I think Proj's comments in the Captain America thread are absolutely right. We need glimpses into Cap's uncovering in the modern day so
that it doesn't have to become as integral a part of the Avenger's movie. Basically, Cap tears his way across the WWII theaters of war, piecing together
the horrors of the Nazi super-soldier program and establishing the history of superheroes in the Marvel film universe. He's in pursuit of the Red Skull,
who is more than a Nazi, but rather an opportunist who sees the Nazi party as a springboard for him to achieve his own goals. I'd take a page from Raiders
of the Lost Ark. The Skull is in search of some relic of unimaginable power (maybe something Nordic, as a nod of the head to the Thor franchise) but
ultimately discovers that he's not equipped to handle its true power. His face is scarred as a result of his hubris but he blames Captain America. Rogers is
frozen. The teaser is, I don't know, maybe the revelation that Loki and Red Skull are in cahoots?
Anyway, to the Avengers film itself. It's rough, and it would need a whole mess of work before it could function as a real treatment, but I think the ideas
at the heart of it are sound.
Act one is The Avengers vs. the Hulk. We have a meeting of top American generals (maybe an excuse to cameo Gen. Ross and Dum Dum Dugan) who are looking for a
way to greenlight the Avengers Project. The heroes are reticent to enlist themselves with the military for their own reasons seen in their own films, and the
public is wary of fighting another war. Resident expert psychiatrist Gunnar Golman, who has been assigned to recondition Banner as a suitable weapon, suggests
a staged rampage by the Hulk. He insures them the property damage can be controlled and that the heroes they're looking to recruit would be forced to act. The
plan goes into effect. The Avengers take down the Hulk, and we get the first glimpses of how they interact with each other. The Avengers Project is greenlit,
the penitent Bruce Banner is put into SHIELD custody as the Avengers' secret weapon (in the sub-basement of the Triskelion, along with all the other super
villains that SHIELD has managed to capture), and Gunnar is transfered to the Triskelion to continue his work with Hulk and the rest of the inmates. We get
interactions between the men behind the masks as the move into the Trisk.
Act two gives us the public's reaction to the Avengers and the inner workings of how they interact as a team. The Hulk remains imprisoned, and gets visits
from most of the key characters. Tony Stark is insistent on hunting down this terrorist cell that calls itself The Ten Rings (or maybe HYDRA). Thor's convinced
that the resident shrink is Loki, but no one believes him or his assertions that he's a god. We maybe get a look at the Avengers functioning as a military
unit abroad. Finally they discover a HYDRA production facility in the desert, and the Avengers are sent to strike. A fleet of unmanned robots are sent to
fight them. Iron Man gets his epic showdown with the Mandarin, in his own armor, and defeats him. A twist on the "human weapons" theme comes to light in the
conflict, the idea that you don't need a standing army to fight a war anymore. You just need the money and the technology. What chance does one man in armor
stand against an army of programmed, unmanned "Ultron" robots? Cap, meanwhile, is on the ground, and has descended into the heart of the base, which is
much larger than they ever thought. It's a production facility burrowing miles into the desert. Worse, they seem to be shutting down production, as if the
facility has finished serving its purpose. His communication with the other Avengers is lost as HYDRA sets the base to self destruct. Iron Man and Thor return
home. Cap is presumed dead.
Act three. The team has already fractured. Tension between Thor and the military-industrial complex has driven him away from SHIELD. Tony Stark is drinking
heavily. They won, but everyone knows there's more to the story than they can gather. Tony Stark is trying to fit the pieces together, but the whiskey-haze
is getting in the way. Captain America, meanwhile, is in the custody of the Red Skull, aboard a flying fortress manned by his elite guard, who have all been
treated with watered-down versions of the super soldier serum. We discover that Loki has been feeding him the technology to construct the helicarrier they're
on, as well as blueprints and specs for the Triskelion, details on the most advanced forms of the super-soldier serum, and advanced schematics that Stark has
been working on, which became the blueprints for the Ultron technology. They're ready for their strike on American soil, and the Skull wants Captain America
to watch. Loki reveals himself to Bruce Banner just before hijacking the Triskelion, orchestrating a break on the prison levels while using the power grid
as a mainframe to orchestrate the Ultron attack. A drugged Bruce Banner has to force himself into a rage beyond the drugs, to fight his way through a prison
break of super-powered lunatics. Thor and Captain America have to defend New York City against a swarm of Ultrons and berserker monsters crafted by Loki
out of industrial warfare machinery and mutant super-soldier experiments. Captain America is butchering his way through HYDRA's helicarrier, floating above
New York City. In the end, everyone gets their just desserts. Thor fights his way to the Triskelion and gives Loki what he finally deserves. Iron Man repels
the grossly misused monstrosities created with his technology. Hulk gets his chance at redemption. And Captain America finally squares off against the Red
Skull for all the marbles.
The best way to do it would be to make it a two-parter shot back-to-back, Kill Bill style. After all, if you manage to get all these big stars together in
one place, you may as well squeeze as much production out of it as you possibly can. A good split would be the end of the Iron Man/Mandarin showdown in the
desert. Give it sort of an Empire Strikes Back cliffhanger. They won the battle, but there's still lots of threads floating around. They have no clue what
the bad guys' true intent was, and Captain America is missing. A vol.1/Vol.2 thing would allow you to squeeze in a handful of extra set pieces, really flesh
out more of the character bits, and maybe cameo some background characters (Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver anyone?). For that matter, if you cast a
relative unknown for Captain America and did the same for the three guys mentioned above, that would open up a feasible and less complicated route for
producing a second Avengers movie. Get Cap, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver together and do Cap's Kooky Quartet. There are really two ways you could end the film. Either the "Yay! Good guys won!" easy route or the "We've seen the mistakes the military has made getting to the end and you're just damn lucky
we happened to be around. We are NOT happy" ending. I think the latter would be a good lead-in to follow-up Avengers films (Secret Avengers, anyone?).
