Drew Pearce, who is writing Iron Man 3 with Shane Black and the DC Comic The Mighty for Paramount, is hoping that production could start as early as 2012 on his script based on Brian K. Vaughan’s Runaways.  According to Pearce Marvel is very happy with the Runaways script, which was slated to go into production in late 2010 (see “Marvel’s Runaways Set for Production”) but put the brakes on the project in favor of Joss Whedon’s The Avengers.  Evidently having two superhero team-up movies in production at the same time was too much for Marvel.

 

Pearce explained the situation to Playlist: “Basically, The Avengers came along and everything else at Marvel got put on hold for a year.  But the script is there, we’re good go. It’s kind of like [being] at the airport when you’re waiting for your slot to take off with Marvel, and we’re hoping we get a slot next year.  Fingers crossed. They’re very happy with it, so hopefully it happens.”

 

Could this mean that Runaways will be one of the two Marvel “mystery movies” that Disney has slotted in the summer of 2014 (see “Disney Reserves Slots for Marvel Mystery Movies”)?  It could be, though many observers feel that Ant Man and Doctor Strange are the two Marvel-based movies slated for 2014.  Perhaps once again the fate of the Runaways project will once again depend on The Avengers.  Will Whedon’s A-list team-up movie demonstrate.the viability of group superhero films?  Will Marvel want to rush an Avengers sequel into production?  The answers to these questions could determine the near future fate of the Runaways project.

 

The Runaways is the saga of a group of five SoCal teens who discover that their parents are actually a group of supervillains known as “The Pride” who rule the California underworld.  Due to its youthful leads the Runaways movie could be a relatively inexpensive film to produce.