Is Avengers 2 in the News, or are you just happy to see me?

I think it’s pretty obvious to everyone that Marvel Studios plans to release a whole slew of Avengers movies. So far, they’ve admitted to 3 official team flicks, with an insane amount of solo films that will tie into the greater cinematic universe.

Well, in a recent interview promoting the upcoming debut of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Marvel exec. Kevin Feige shed some light on the studio’s slate of upcoming movies.  And when I say some light… I mean a few little, dim rays that broke through that notoriously iron clad trap.

Check out the best bits of the interview below (including hints at Avengers 2), and for more, head over to our friends at SHH.

Q: Will the events of “The Avengers” have a trickle down effect for any future stand-alone movies? Or do you view this as just like in the comics, where there was just an issue that could happen on its own and not really affect larger comic series?

Feige: It’s definitely the latter. We’re looking to replicate that experience that a comic reader had, who loved reading his “Thor” issues and loved reading his “Cap” issues and loved reading his “Iron Man” issues and they always had their favorites and would argue about who’s better and who would win in a fight and occasionally they would get together for an uber-event and then after that uber-event would go back into their own comic stories. So the story that Shane is developing now on “Iron Man 3,” while it does not avoid any references to “The Avengers,” is very much Tony is back in his world with his players dealing with his issues and is not going to pick up the phone and call Thor or Captain America or anything like that, necessarily. It’s not that won’t happen down the line. It could. But particularly with “Iron Man 3,” year after “The Avengers,” it’s more about getting Tony back into his world.

Q: After “Avengers” is out and you get to something like “Iron Man 3” or “Thor 2,” does this mean we’ll be seeing S.H.I.E.L.D. more, since the general public is going to know what S.H.I.E.L.D. is and you’re not going to have to set it up as much?

Feige: Well, I think that the good news is that it’s a tool in the toolbox. If screenwriters want it to have a purpose to serve… Frankly, I think S.H.I.E.L.D. would be most relevant in a Cap sequel, because Thor has nine worlds to traverse and many, many supporting players and Iron Man has his supporting cast and many villains and plotlines to go through and Steve in the modern world sorta doesn’t have an anchor and the anchor we’re establishing in this one is S.H.I.E.L.D.. It’s early days on “Cap 2,” nobody’s counting those chickens yet, but maybe there’s some connection there.

Q: How much of a gameplan do you have in place beyond “Avengers?” I know you probably can’t tell us, but everything starting with “Iron Man” has led up to “Avengers” and we’ve all known about the plan. We know “Avengers” is coming, but beyond that we don’t know anything.

Feige: Well, “Iron Man 3,” which you know – which has been announced. And then we haven’t announced things yet, but we are thinking and plotting out towards 2015, which anybody in their right mind thinks it’s a million years away and everybody in my company thinks it’s, we’re late! That’s right around the corner! What are we gonna do?

Q: How do you top something like this?

Feige: You know, it’s again — it’s the same thing after how do we top “Spider-Man 1”? After three years with the company I had the biggest weekend of all time and it’s like I went, “Is this it? Where do you go from here?” We found a place to go and I think we’ll continue to find places to go. Certainly now that the characters are established, like the comics continuing to tell those stories and then every few years bring them together again I think would be cool. And whatever happens there alters their dynamic as they go back into their own worlds and keep that going.

Q: So “Avengers 2” is 2015? If we’re piecing together the last five minutes of this conversation. I mean, is there a framework, you call it “Avengers, Part I” is there a framework you feel that you guys want to turn it to maybe a trilogy or…?

Feige: It’s like managing any franchise. Two to three years usually is what makes the most sense. Depending what happens, it can be four years, but two to three years.

Source: SHH