The twin brother-sister superheroes Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch have been likely contenders to join The Avengers 2 since April when Joss Whedon teased, “I’ve got these two characters, two of my favorite characters from the comic book, a brother-sister act. They’re in the movie.”  Kevin Feige followed that even though the characters fall into a legal grey area (The characters are mutants, Magneto is their father, and Fox could have possession since they own X-Men), they would be available.  Today, Whedon has confirmed that the characters will be in The Avengers 2.

Hit the jump for more including what Whedon had to say about bringing Iron Man into The Avengers 2.

The folks at Marvel are no doubt celebrating the massive opening weekend for Iron Man 3—which currently stands as the second highest of all time behind The Avengers—but the studio still has a very large question mark lingering over its future.  With the release of Iron Man 3, star Robert Downey Jr. fulfilled his contract with Marvel.  He is not contractually obligated to appear in any more Marvel films, and thus has a rather sizable amount of leverage over Marvel going forward given that he is, to the moviegoing public, the face of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Iron Man is the most recognizable character in Marvel Studios’ roster, and the character is now synonymous with Robert Downey Jr.

As such, everyone has been wondering whether RDJ will be back and if there are any more standalone Iron Man films in the future.  The negotiations have now begun, and things are, well, a bit complicated.  Hit the jump for much more.

[This is a re-post of my interview from the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.  While I rarely re-post interviews, this was one of my favorite interviews of 2012 and with the movie now playing in limited release, I decided it was worth another post.]

Every once in awhile you land an interview that you can’t wait to share. The one you’re about to watch with Chris Evans is one of those. At this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, I got to sit down with Evans for over twenty minutes (we were scheduled for a lot less) to talk about his great work in director Ariel Vromen‘s The Iceman. As you can see in the trailer, Evans plays a killer and is nearly unrecognizable in dirty long hair as Richard Kuklinski’s (Michael Shannon) friend and partner.

I’ve spoken to Evans a lot over the years, and one of the things I love about him is his honesty and willingness to talk about everything. If you ask him a question about his career, or even his contract with Marvel, he’ll talk about it. Most actors will try and deflect the question, or give a politician’s answer. That’s not how Evans operates and it’s very refreshing. So besides talking about The Iceman and working with Michael Shannon, Evans talked about how his career has blown up, the intricacies of his Marvel contract, the business of Hollywood, playing a critical character of the Marvel universe, Captain America 2 (Captain America: The Winter Solider), whether he knows anything about Captain America 3, the success of The Avengers, Joss Whedon, Thor 2, Bong Joon-ho‘s Snowpiercer, the greatness of Hayley Atwell, his upcoming anti-romantic comedy A Many Splintered Thing with Michelle Monaghan, and so much more. Hit the jump for more.

Everyone said it would be big and, for once, everyone was right. In its first three days, Iron Man 3 has earned an estimated $175.3 million, making it the second-highest domestic debut of all time behind The Avengers. Worldwide, the Marvel/Disney sequel has earned $504.8 million since its international roll-out began on April 24^th, giving it an enormous global cume  of over $680 million in twelve days.

Here’s a look at the top five US openings of all time, including today’s Iron Man 3 estimate:

Hit the jump for more details, including the weekend’s top ten.

There’s no such thing as too much Marvel news, right?  With Iron Man 3 hitting theaters this weekend, a bevy of details regarding Marvel’s upcoming films have been making their way online.  While it’s exciting to look ahead to Marvel’s Phase Two slate post-Iron Man 3, all roads lead to one of the most anticipated sequels in recent memory: The Avengers 2.

Steve recently spoke with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, and during their extended conversation Feige talked quite a bit about how Iron Man 3 gives audiences an idea of what to expect from The Avengers 2.  He also talked about writer/director Joss Whedon’s script for the follow-up (which he describes as hilarious, awesome, and moving) and whether or not the film will have a subtitle.  Hit the jump to read on.

After setting records all around the world with its international roll-out last week, Iron Man 3 has finally arrived in US theatres. The Disney/Marvel sequel took in a reported $68.1 million from its 4,253 locations on Friday, including $15.6 million earned from its Thursday night/midnight screenings. That blows away the $51.2 million debut of Iron Man 2 on this weekend in 2010, though, as expected, it is well short of the $80.8 million earned by 2012’s The Avengers. Overall, Iron Man 3 now claims the second-highest May debut of all time and the eighth best single-day opening overall.

The current projection for IM3’s opening weekend is $169 million – though that number has shifted continuously for the past 24 hours. A couple of million in either direction would not be enough to put the film past The Avengers’ record of $207.4 million, of course – though anything over $169.1 million would replace Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 as the second-highest debut weekend of all time at the domestic box office.  Check back tomorrow for the complete Iron Man 3 breakdown.

With writer-director Shane Black‘s Iron Man 3 now playing around the world, I recently got to speak with the cast and filmmakers here in Los Angeles.  During my video interview with Don Cheadle, we talked about collaborating with Black, the awesome dialogue, filming the action, changes on set, the collaboration with Marvel on Rhodey, if he’s talked to Joss Whedon about The Avengers 2, will he make an appearance in Captain America 2, and the future of Captain Planet.  Hit the jump to watch.

The wait is almost over for Shane Black’s Iron Man 3, which debuts in the States on Friday, May 3rd.  However, if you’re looking ahead to the rest of Marvel’s Phase Two slate of films, we’ve got a few nibbles of information to pique your interest.  Since there’s currently no Iron Man 4 on Marvel’s lineup, it’s looking like Robert Downey Jr.’s next appearance as the armored Avenger will be in Joss Whedon’s The Avengers 2.  But who else will be joining him?

Hit the jump for more on Iron Man 3 from Downey Jr., Black, Gwyneth Paltrow and Marvel’s Kevin Feige, along with updates on The Avengers 2 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  Spoilers ahead.

Marvel: Phase Two hasn’t even started to hit theaters, but sometimes you just want to rush to desert.  While walking the red carpet at the Iron Man 3 premiere, writer-director Joss Whedon was asked a couple questions regarding The Avengers 2.  First up, since it sounds like Robert Downey Jr. is considering retirement from the Marvel Universe, some may be wondering if we’ll see Iron Man flying around in Whedon’s film.  Whedon responded, “I am not the guy who has to worry about him being replaced. He is Iron Man at this point. When I heard that he was cast I knew that something had just changed, and I usually don’t know stuff like that.”  It sounds fairly certain that Downey is on board for The Avengers 2, but beyond that, Whedon doesn’t know if the actor will continue with the series.

Hit the jump for more including what Whedon had to say about Thanos’ presence in Phase Two.

The U.S. premiere of Iron Man 3 was held last night in Los Angeles, and pretty much everyone from the Marvel Cinematic Universe walked the red carpet.  Though the various actors, actresses, directors, and producers didn’t exactly have time for lengthy interviews while making their way into the theater, a couple of them did drop some interesting tidbits about some upcoming Marvel films.  Gwyneth Paltrow, for one, seems to think that there isn’t going to be an Iron Man 4, and Joss Whedon provided a few more updates on The Avengers 2, even hinting at two new characters he says are in the film.  Hit the jump to read on.

In addition to giving a moving response to the Boston Marathon tragedy, Patton Oswalt has been using his status as Lord High Geek to star in some amazing comedy videos this week.  The first is a bit from College Humor where he plays the Penguin in the site’s ongoing mockery of Batman, “Badman”.  In the sketch, Batman fails to understand the difference between death and being asleep.

The other video is a deleted scene from Parks and Recreation where he plays a citizen doing a filibuster by creating possibly the nerdiest fan-fiction crossover ever between Star Wars: Episode VII and The Avengers 2 while also bringing in the rest of the Marvel Universe, licensing rights be damned.  Eventually it just becomes geeky white noise where I stopped following the plot and just heard bits like “Lando Calrissian, Princess Leia, Han Solo love triangle”, “Robot Chewbacca”, and “Time Ribbon”.  I imagine that Oswalt wrote/riffed the uncut 8-minute scene, but since Parks has such amazing writers, I could believe they had input as well.  Hit the jump for comic greatness.

While Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicks off in earnest next month with the release of Iron Man 3, fans are understandably clamoring for information regarding the next team-up film The Avengers 2.  We still have four Marvel movies to go through before we see the Avengers sequel—in addition to Iron Man 3 there’s Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Guardians of the Galaxy—but writer/director Joss Whedon is already quite deep in development on The Avengers 2.  The filmmaker revealed in January that his first draft of the script should be done “in a couple of months,” and a few weeks ago we learned that filming is slated to take place in the U.K. in early 2014.

Now Whedon has offered a bit of an update on the superhero sequel, revealing that he already had an idea of the plot of The Avengers 2 before he had figured out The Avengers and confirming that production will likely begin in February.  He also talked a bit about being privy to all of the Marvel goodness that’s yet to come.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

Marvel finally released the massive Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One box set earlier this week, and included in the collection is a bounty of extras from the studio’s past and future films.  We’ve already shared a collection of images, video, and concept art for a few of the Phase Two films, and today quite a few deleted scenes from The Avengers and Iron Man 2 have surfaced online.  The Avengers scenes are minor bits and pieces that were nipped out of the finished film, but the Iron Man 2 footage is fascinating because it reveals an alternate ending for the film that involves Mickey Rourke’s Whiplash kidnapping Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper.  It’s rather anticlimactic and it’s not hard to see why Jon Favreau went back and reshot the ending that now concludes the final iteration of the film.

Hit the jump to watch the deleted scenes from The Avengers and the alternate ending for Iron Man 2. [Update: We've added the "And Then Shawarma After" featurette after the jump, which takes a brief look behind the scenes of the Avengers tag.]

We’ve got a couple of brief Marvel-related stories for you this morning.  First up, Screen Daily reports that The Avengers 2 will be filming at Pinewood-Shepperton Studios in early 2014, and pre-production will be underway later this year.  The U.K. studio has already developed a strong relationship with Marvel by playing host to Thor: The Dark World.  They’re also setting up to house filming on Guardians of the Galaxy this summer.

In other Marvel news, hit the jump to check out a sneak peek of the upcoming Phase Two featurette that’s on the new Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One box set.  The Avengers 2 opens May 1, 2015.

Rumors have been flying around that there are/aren’t plans for Marvel to make a stand-alone Hulk movie some time in the near future.  Marvel’s own Kevin Feige put two potential source materials for a Hulk film on the table last year.  Then we got news on possible plot details for not only a stand-alone Hulk film after The Avengers 2, but what may turn out to be a Hulk-centric plot for The Avengers 3.  About a month after that, writer/director Joss Whedon (The Avengers) put the kibosh to the rumors.  Now, the face behind the Hulk himself, Mark Ruffalo, has taken to the Tweets to comment on the state of Hulk.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say.