There has been a lot of talk over the last five years or so about why Disney/Marvel hasn’t done movies of some of their more grittier characters such as The Punisher,Ghost Rider,Blade,Moon Knight and Cloak & Dagger. I think its because Disney/Marvel is trying to do more family oriented films. There is some violence in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films but, its more of punching and kicking. The shooting is part if it as well but, there hasn’t been a lot of blood and the injuries have been kept cleaner then some action movies. The Marvel Knights characters tend to be more violent then these other Marvel characters.
We have already seen two movies of The Punisher starring Thomas Jane and Ray Stevenson. They both came out under the Lions Gate studios. There has also been two Ghost Rider movies under the Lions Gate studios starring Nickolas Cage. These four movies are quit violent and now that Disney/Marvel has the rights to these characters again they should make movies of them. I don’t think Sony owns the rights to The Punisher either. Now we know that Sony did own the film right to Blade and, there was three movies of Blade starring Wesley Snipes. Also there was a short lived TV show on Spike for one season. Blade is also now under the Disney/Marvel umbrella.
For a few years now Disney Studios has been called Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. There are few movie studios under this brand Disney Picture, Pixar, Disney Nature, Lucas Films, Marvel and Touchstone Pictures. For Disney to do more adult themed movies they would need a more adult themed movie studio. Well they have it in Touchstone Pictures. Touchstone Pictures have made such movies as The Cor of Money, Good Morning Vietnam, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Dead Poets Society, A Nightmare Before Christmas, Rushmore,The Insider, The Royal Tenenbaums,Pretty Women, Dick Tracy, The Help, War Horse and Lincoln. A key player for Touchstone Pictures though over the years has been Jerry Bruckheimer. He has produced such films as Con Air, The Ref, Enemy of the State, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Coyote Ugly, Veronica Guerin,Pearl Harbor, King Arthur Deja Vu and Armageddon. Armageddon was Touchstones biggest hit under the Disney umbrella.
Jerry Bruckheimer as just left Disney/Touchstone last September and joined up with Paramount pictures. There is a void under the Touchstone Pictures label and Marvel could take over that mantle. With the Marvel Knights there is plenty of characters to make movies of. There are also possibilities of there Marvel Pictures characters such as Black Widow/Scarlett Johansson and Hawkeye/Jeremy Renner getting stand alone movies or crossing over into a Marvel Knights movies. Marvel has already amde a deal with Netfix to premier four of there characters in stand alone TV shows. They then will join together after that in another show called The Defenders. All four of these shows will take place in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York City. It would be hard for Marvel to introduce six more gritty characters to New York but, I wouldn’t put anything past them. Why not use other cities such as Miami,L.A.,Chicago or Detroit to introduce these character to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Time will tell but, one thing is for sure Marvel/Disney has done a great job so far with Iron Man 2 being the only bad movie and Marvel’s Agents of Shield starting off slow but, getting a lot better over the second half of the season. I can’t wait to see what they have in store next.
Dan Skip Allen
From the Fourth Row! 