I recently posted a story about Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige telling SFX magazine that the Marvel movies featuring Thor will give the character sci-fi roots. Now Superhero Hype has posted another excerpt from Feige's interview with the magazine, and in it, Feige talks about what the Marvel movie scene will look like after The Avengers is released in 2012.

Probably the biggest statement he makes is that he wants to do a big sci-fi space movie set in the Marvel universe. Feige told the magazine:

I'd love to break into the cosmic side of the Marvel Universe ... [I]t's kind of there in Thor. J.J. Abrams' Star Trek got me jonesing to do that. It's what I grew up on - Star Trek and Star Wars. I want to do a big space epic. And we've got them in Marvel.

A space opera in the vein of Star Wars using Marvel characters?! If the studio can pull this off, I'm all in. Of course, pulling it off will be the trick. The biggest question will be: Who's gonna be in it? Feige mentions Thor, which might be confusing if it weren't for the fact that he's going to be given sci-fi origins in preceding films. So, there's him. The Silver Surfer's a good possibility. I guess Iron Man could maybe be involved. But it seems like the company might need to go, for the most part, with slightly more obscure characters (Nova, Vision, and Galactus come to mind -- but I'm no Marvel characters expert), characters which aren't bottom-tier by any means but which are less well-known by the casual sci-fi fan-base. When you have characters that the audience is familiar with (and we will, by the time such a film comes out, have gotten accustomed to the Captain and most other major Marvel characters), viewers are less likely to think of them as "cool-looking" superheroes and instead see them for who they have been storied to be (e.g. not a guy in a sweet red iron suit, but a man who was once head of a weapons manufacturer, etc., etc.). Seeing such characters going on adventures in space would likely come off as absurd (imagine a film called X-Men in Space).

On the other hand, seeing characters that are, to many, unknown or semi-unknown would effectually be like reading a comic for the first time. Comic books and space operas have a core element in common: their roots lie in watching awesome characters doing cool things. So, if we get characters that we don't know much about (like Nova), then the film becomes pure visual stimulation. Of course story is necessary as always, but such a setup would be perfect for providing space action that pleases on a primordial level.

There's my little thesis. The good thing is that Marvel has plenty of time to work this out, as such a film would be unlikely to appear before 2013 at the earliest. We'll see (eventually) how things progress, but, Marvel, if you're listening, go for the second string on this one.