Avengers Watch

With the principle cast announced at the 2010 SDCC the Avengers are poised to bring the Marvel Age of Comics to the movies. Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as THOR, Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Sam Jackson as Nick Fury, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk. With Joss Whedon directing, the Avengers may prove to be the biggest hit since the Lord of the Rings or the biggest flop since Jonah Hex. With the launch of this Avengers watch page we will take the time to analyze the cast, the plot (as it becomes available) and follow the movies leading up to the Avengers, (THOR and Captain America).

THE CAST

Chris Evans (Captain America) was born in Sudbury, Massachusetts, the son of Lisa (née Capuano), a dancer, and Bob Evans, a dentist. He is the nephew of U.S. Congressman Mike Capuano, who is his mother’s brother. He has two sisters, Carly DuBray and Shanna, and a younger brother, Scott, who was recently featured on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live. Evans is of Italian (from his maternal grandfather) and Irish descent, and was raised Catholic. He graduated from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School in 1999 and had originally planned to attend New York University after graduating from high school.

After completing his junior year in high school, Evans traveled to Brooklyn where he interned at a casting agency and took a summer acting program. That same summer he met an agent that helped him get his start in acting after completing high school. Evans had small parts on television series such as Boston Public and The Fugitive and a role in the television series Opposite Sex before landing his first notable role as Jake Wyler in Not Another Teen Movie.

After filming wrapped on Not Another Teen Movie, Evans landed several more lead roles in The Perfect Score and Cellular. He also starred in a couple of independent films in Chicago with Executive Producer David Johnson where audiences got to see a different side to Evans. In Dirk Wittenborn’s Fierce People he plays Bryce, a character whose sinister mental make up slowly becomes evident as the film unfolds. In London, Evans played a strung out drug user with relationship problems. He was then chosen to play the Human Torch in the 2005 comic book adaptation Fantastic Four. He was named ‘Male Superstar of Tomorrow’ at the 2005 Young Hollywood Awards. Evans reprised the role of Johnny Storm/The Human Torch in the sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer in 2007. That year he also starred as an engineer turned astronaut called Mace in Danny Boyle’s sci-fi film Sunshine , which brought him to the attention of directors as a serious acting talent.

In 2008, Evans appeared in Street Kings, co-starring Keanu Reeves, and The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, co-starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Ellen Burstyn. The latter is based on a play created by Tennessee Williams. Evans also appeared in the 2009 sci-fi thriller Push along with Dakota Fanning and Camilla Belle Evans performed his own fight scenes, which took weeks to film, and was bruised during filming. Evans was featured in an article in The Advocate for his role in Push.

In 2009, Evans was ranked 474th in Forbes’ “Star Currency” rankings based on the global box-office performance of his past films.

In 2010, he filmed Puncture in Huston, Texas. Directed by Mark and Adam Kassen, it is described as a David and Goliath law drama about a drug-addicted lawyer Mark Weiss (played by Evans) who takes on a health supply corporation while battling his own personal demons. In 2010 also, Evans appeared in Sylvain White’s The Losers, an adaptation of Vertigo and DC Comics’ comic book series of the same name. Evans will also appear in another comic book adaption in Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World where he will portray Lucas Lee, one of Ramona Flowers’ seven exes who Scott Pilgrim must defeat in order to win her affections. Evans is set to play the iconic Marvel comic book character Captain America in the upcoming films Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers and at least two sequels to Captain America. Before that he is filming What’s Your Number? a comic romance staring Anna Faris filmed in his native Boston.

Chris Hemsworth (THOR) was born and raised in Melbourne and later moved to Phillip Island, south of Melbourne with his family. Chris’ older and younger brothers Luke and Liam Hemsworth are also actors and have had recurring roles as Nathan Tyson and Josh Taylor on Neighbours, respectively. He attended Heathmont Secondary College in Melbourne. Chris dated Home and Away co-star Isabel Lucas until June 2006.

In 2004, he auditioned for the part of Robbie Hunter (played by Jason Smith), but failed to get the part. He was subsequently recalled for the part of Kim Hyde. He was successful in gaining the role of Kim Hyde and moved to Sydney to join the cast of Home and Away. Hemsworth appeared in series five of celebrity dancing show Dancing with the Stars with Abbey Ross, but they were the sixth couple eliminated. He left the cast of Home and Away on 3 July 2007. He has received two Logie Award nominations and has won one for Most Popular New Talent on Home and Away back in 2005.

Hemsworth portrayed James T. Kirk’s father, George Kirk, in the opening scenes of J. J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek film, and also appeared in the thriller A Perfect Getaway the same year. Hemsworth will star in upcoming horror film The Cabin in the Woods executive produced by Joss Whedon and will portray Jed Eckert in the upcoming Red Dawn remake. He has also been confirmed as being cast as the title character in Thor, which is a film adaptation of the comic book.

In CASH (CA$H), releasing in the spring of 2010, Hemsworth will play the role of economically troubled Sam Phelan. CASH marks Hemsworth’s Hollywood debut, as it was the first film he shot upon his arrival in the United States. In behind-the-scenes interviews, the film’s director Stephen Milburn Anderson says Hemsworth had only been in the United States for six weeks when he had auditioned for the role. “Here’s a guy who is young, has the right look, is a very good actor and, let’s face it, he’s beautiful. So I say, we need to get this guy in. I was very impressed,” Anderson said.

Robert John Downey, Jr. (Iron Man) (born April 4, 1965) is an American actor. Downey made his screen debut at the age of five when he appeared in one of his father’s films, and has worked consistently in film and television ever since. During the 1980s he had roles in a series of coming of age films associated with the Brat Pack. Less Than Zero (1987) is particularly notable, not only because it was the first time Downey’s acting would be acknowledged by critics, but also because the role pushed Downey’s already existing drug habit one step further. After Zero, Downey started landing roles in bigger films such as Air America (1990) and Soapdish (1991). These higher-profile roles eventually led to his being cast as Charlie Chaplin in the 1992 film Chaplin, for which he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

Between 1996 and 2001, Downey was frequently arrested on drug-related charges and went through several drug treatment programs, but had difficulty staying sober. After being released from the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in 2000, Downey joined the cast of the hit television series Ally McBeal, playing the new love interest of Calista Flockhart’s title character. His performance was praised and he was nominated for an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series category and won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a mini-series or TV Film, but his character was written out when Downey was fired after two drug arrests in late 2000 and early 2001. After one last stay in a court-ordered drug treatment program, Downey finally achieved lasting sobriety and his career began to take off again. He appeared in semi-independent films such as The Singing Detective (2003), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), and A Scanner Darkly (2006). He also had supporting roles in the mainstream films Gothika (2003) and Zodiac (2007). In 2004, Downey released his debut studio album The Futurist.

In 2007, Downey was cast as the title character in the comic book adaptation Iron Man which premiered in the spring of 2008, making almost $100 million in the United States and Canada during its opening weekend. In addition to receiving commercial success, Downey’s performance in the film received rave reviews. His other 2008 films include Charlie Bartlett and the Ben Stiller-directed Tropic Thunder, in which he portrayed an Australian method actor overly engrossed in his role as an African-American soldier. He received his second Oscar nomination for said film, in the category of Best Supporting Actor, which he lost to Heath Ledger. Next he played the titular lead character in Guy Ritchie’s adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, released Christmas 2009, for which Downey won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for his portrayal of the famous detective. He reprised the role of Tony Stark in the 2010 sequel, Iron Man 2.

Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) (born November 22, 1984) is an American actress and singer. Johansson made her film debut in the 1994 film North and was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for her performance in 1996′s Manny & Lo. Johansson rose to fame with her roles in 1998′s The Horse Whisperer and 2001′s Ghost World.

She made the transition to adult roles with her performances in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, for which she won a BAFTA Award, and Girl with a Pearl Earring, both of which earned her Golden Globe Award nominations in 2003. A role in A Love Song for Bobby Long earned her a third Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination. Following an appearance in The Island, Johansson garnered a fourth Golden Globe nomination, for Best Supporting Actress, for her role in Woody Allen’s Match Point. She followed that with another Allen film, Scoop, with Hugh Jackman. A role in Brian de Palma’s film noir The Black Dahlia was followed by a second role opposite Hugh Jackman in The Prestige, also starring Christian Bale.

Following a 2007 appearance in The Nanny Diaries, Johansson starred in the 2008 films The Other Boleyn Girl, opposite Natalie Portman and Eric Bana, and the Woody Allen-directed film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, with Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz. She appeared in He’s Just Not That into You (2009) and as the anti-heroine Natasha Romanoff in Iron Man 2 (2010), with Robert Downey, Jr. and Samuel L. Jackson. Johansson won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her part in A View From the Bridge.

On May 20, 2008, Johansson debuted as a vocalist on her first album, Anywhere I Lay My Head, which included cover versions of Tom Waits songs. Her second album, Break Up, with Pete Yorn was released in September 2009. She appeared in the 2010 film Iron Man 2 that will lead into her role in the Avengers.

Samuel L Jackson (Nick Fury) was born in Washington, D.C. He grew up as an only child in Chattanooga, Tennessee with his mother, Elizabeth Jackson (née Montgomery), who was a factory worker and later a supplies buyer for a mental institution, and his maternal grandparents and extended family. His father lived away from the family in Kansas City, Missouri and later died from alcoholism; Jackson had only met his father twice during his life. Jackson attended several segregated schools and graduated from Riverside High School in Chattanooga. Between the third and twelfth grades, he played the French horn and trumpet in the school orchestra. Initially intent on pursuing a degree in marine biology, he attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. After joining a local acting group to earn extra points in a class, Jackson found an interest in acting and switched his major. Before graduating in 1972, he co-founded the “Just Us Theatre”.
Quickly becoming a box office star, Jackson continued with three starring roles in 1997. In 187 he played a dedicated teacher striving to leave an impact on his students. He received an Independent Spirit award for Best First Feature alongside first-time writer/director Kasi Lemmons in the drama Eve’s Bayou, for which he also served as executive producer. He joined up again with director Quentin Tarantino and received a Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear for Best Actor and a fourth Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of arms merchant Ordell Robbie in Jackie Brown. In 1998, he worked with other established actors such as Sharon Stone and Dustin Hoffman in Sphere and Kevin Spacey in The Negotiator, playing a hostage negotiator who resorts to taking hostages himself when he is falsely accused of murder and embezzlement. In 1999, Jackson starred in the horror film Deep Blue Sea, and as Jedi Master Mace Windu in George Lucas’ Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. In an interview, Jackson claimed that he did not have a chance to read the script for the film and did not learn he was playing the character Mace Windu until he was fitted for his costume (he later said that he was eager to accept any role, just for the chance to be a part of the Star Wars saga).
Jackson has several upcoming film projects between 2010 and 2011. In 2010, he will provide his voice for the animated educational science fiction film, Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey, play a terrorist intent on attacking London in Blown, as well as a police officer in Rape: A Love Story. In 2010, he starred in the drama Mother and Child and will portray an interrogator who attempts to locate several nuclear weapons in Unthinkable.

In 2001, Jackson gave his consent for Marvel Comics to design their “Ultimate” version of the character Nick Fury after his likeness. In the 2008 film Iron Man, he made a cameo as the character in a post-credit scene. In February 2009, Jackson signed on to a nine-picture deal with Marvel which would see him appear as the character in Iron Man 2, Captain America: The First Avenger, and The Avengers as well as any other sequels they would produce.

Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) was born in Modesto, California, the eldest of five children of Valerie Cearley and Lee Renner. He graduated from Fred C. Beyer High School and attended Modesto Junior College.
Renner has made a career out of playing charismatic anti-heroes. He has portrayed an eighteenth-century vampire, a gun-toting alcoholic, and a notorious serial killer, among other film roles. In addition to having done extensive theater work, Renner has starred in several major independent films, including the 2009 Iraq war thriller The Hurt Locker (directed by Kathryn Bigelow) which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He received several other major awards for Best Actor for this role.

He portrayed serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Dahmer (2002), which earned Renner his first Independent Spirit Award Best Actor nomination. He has also played supporting roles in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and 28 Weeks Later. In 2005 he won the Best Actor award at the Palm Beach International Film Festival for his role in Neo Ned.

In 2010, Renner will appear in Ben Affleck’s The Town alongside Jon Hamm, Blake Lively, Slaine and Michael Yebba and will shoot for The Raven, which is scheduled for release in 2011. Renner was said to have been in talks with Marvel Studios to play the character Hawkeye in the superhero film The Avengers but has since explained that it was pure conjecture with no truth to him actually doing it, but later on June 3, 2010, it was announced that he was in final negotiations to portray the character in the formentioned adaptation of the Avengers comic. On July 24, 2010 at the San Diego Comic-Con it was confirmed that Renner would be playing Hawkeye in the upcoming Avengers movie.

Mark Alan Ruffalo (Bruce Banner/The Hulk) (born November 22, 1967) is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He portrayed Stan in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Inspector David Toschi in the 2007 film Zodiac and US Marshal Chuck Aule in Shutter Island. Ruffalo has also appeared as a romantic leading man in 13 Going on 30 (2004), Just Like Heaven (2005) and Rumor Has It (2005)
Ruffalo had minor roles in films like The Dentist (1996), the low-key crime comedy Safe Men (1998) and Ang Lee’s Civil War Western Ride with the Devil (1999). Through a chance meeting with writer Kenneth Lonergan, Ruffalo began collaborating with Lonergan and appeared in several of his plays, including the original cast of This is Our Youth (1998), which led to Ruffalo’s role as Laura Linney’s troubled, aimless drifter brother Terry in Longeran’s acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated 2000 film You Can Count on Me.[1] He received favorable reviews for his performance in this film, often earning comparisons to the young Marlon Brando, and won awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and Montreal World Film Festival.[1]

This led to other significant roles, including the films XX/XY (2002), Isabel Coixet’s My Life Without Me alongside Sarah Polley (2003), Jane Campion’s In the Cut alongside Meg Ryan (2003), Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), and We Don’t Live Here Anymore (2004), which is based upon two short stories written by Andre Dubus.[1] He appeared opposite Tom Cruise as a narcotics detective in Michael Mann’s acclaimed crime-thriller Collateral (2004).[1] More recently, Ruffalo has appeared as a romantic lead in “chick flicks” such as View From the Top (2002), 13 Going on 30 (2004), Just Like Heaven (2005) and Rumor Has It (2005).[1] In 2006, Ruffalo starred in Clifford Odets’s Awake and Sing! at the Belasco Theatre in New York, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.[1] In March 2007, he appeared in Zodiac as SFPD homicide inspector Dave Toschi, who ran the investigation to find and apprehend the Zodiac killer from 1969 through most of the 1970s.[1] In 2007 Ruffalo played divorced lawyer Dwight Arno, who accidentally kills a child and speeds away, in Terry George’s film Reservation Road based on the novel by John Burnham Schwartz.

In 2008, Ruffalo starred as a con man in The Brothers Bloom with Adrien Brody and Rachel Weisz. Also in 2008, he starred along with Julianne Moore in “Blindness”. 2008 also saw Ruffalo in Brian Goodman’s What Doesn’t Kill You, with Ethan Hawke and Amanda Peet. It was shown at the Toronto Film Festival. In 2009, he played a brief role in the film Where The Wild Things Are as Max’s mother’s boyfriend. In 2010, he costarred in the Martin Scorsese thriller Shutter Island as U.S. Marshal Chuck Aule, the partner of Leonardo Dicaprio’s character Teddy Daniels.[9]

He is currently stars in Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right, with Annette Bening and Julianne Moore. Ruffalo said in an interview that he approached Cholodenko after watching High Art and said he would love to work with her. Years later, she called Ruffalo and said she wrote a script, and she had him in mind for the part.[10]

He is set to star in Second Coming, a low-budget indie film. According to Production Weekly, it is being produced by Richard N. Gladstein, Laura Bickford, and Ludovic Dardenay. The movie is set to star, along with Ruffalo, Marion Cotillard, Ethan Hawke, Anjelica Huston, and Thandie Newton. It is set to be the directorial debut of Nenad Cicin-Sain.[11]

On July 23, 2010, it was announced that Ruffalo will join actors Chris Evans, Robert Downey, Jr and Chris Hemsworth among others for the upcoming movie The Avengers in 2012 as Bruce Banner