It’s becoming more and more common for studios to start planning sequels for movies before the first film has come out. The reason is that in the economics of Hollywood, getting a script underway costs very little, but it potentially allows you to get a follow-up in the cinemas quicker – something that in recent years has been shown to help boost box office.
As a result sequels to both Captain America and Real Steel are already in the works. Despite the fact the Hugh Jackman robot boxing movie, Real Steel, doesn’t open until October, John Gatins, who scripted the first film, has already been hired to start work on the second installment, according to Deadline. It’s early to get a sequel started, but Dreamworks obviously smells a hit. Real Steel is about a prize fighter (Jackman) whose pugilistic skills are rendered obsolete when human boxers are replaced by robots. The fighter becomes a boxing promoter and finds a discarded robot that wins and wins. The fighter also discovers he has a 13-year old son, who comes along for the ride as the robot heads toward the top against scary competition.
Also with a sequel in the works is Captain America, with Stephen McFeely & Christopher Markus hired to write it. By the time the First Avenger follow-up comes out, audiences will have seen Thor, The Avengers and Iron Man 3, so the Marvel Universe will be pretty well established. The big question though is that with Captain America set during World War II and The Avengers in the present, which era would a Cap sequel fit into?
The writers have been talking to MTV about that, with Markus saying, “Were very early, still. This is the fun part – when we can say, Hey, we can do this! and everyone says, Yeah! No one says anything negative at this point in the process. We have a million great ideas and havent thrown any of them out yet. That being said, its sort of a weirdly huge opportunity for storytelling in that you know modern Cap through the Avengers at that point, and just by the nature of what we were talking about before, theres going to be a lot of his World War II history we havent shown. Were going to have two entire timelines to play with.”
McFeely adds, £I wonder if the reaction to [“The First Avenger”] will steer us in some way. First, if it does well Then, if it does well and people embrace the World War II aspect of it, maybe theres pressure to return there in a large way. But if they dont embrace that aspect and just love Chris Evans as Steve, maybe theres less pressure to do that you can just keep him in the Avengers universe.”
It’s obviously not been decided what era it’ll be set in, but it sounds like both modern and 1940s are being considered, and a sequel could play with both.