Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

Wow! What a not surprise!

Remember this story from June of last year?

When I ran that, I knew for a fact that Sam Jackson was cast as Nick Fury, and I was amused to see Paramount and Marvel and Jon Favreau all play coy and almost-but-not-quite call me a liar when responding to the news.

We’ve also heard the rumor that there would be something that tied the new HULK film and IRON MAN together, something that would help pave the way for an eventual AVENGERS movie. I’ll have more on that below.

The news I’m linking to today is from MTV, where they ran a short interview with Favreau, in which he offers up the startling news that he would happily helm an AVENGERS movie.

Well, duh.

Based on that IRON MAN trailer, I am faithful that Favreau is a big giant nerd. In the best possible way. I think he’s making IRON MAN not because “it’s a good opportunity” or “it’s time to leverage his directorial heat into a franchise situation,” but because he fucking loves superheroes. I might be wrong... but I doubt it. And once you’ve gotten a feel for it, I would imagine it’s very tempting to do it again. This is by far the biggest film that Favreau’s ever directed, and the most complex, and it’s exciting to think that he may have found his calling.

I’m also glad to see Marvel taking control of their properties for film. I like the idea of a world where cross-overs are possible. I like the idea of these characters being able to bump into each other.

And what is that rumored moment that will tie HULK and IRON MAN together? Well, our spy has some clarification for us:

So the scene that was shot was for the Hulk with General Thunderbolt who is very important to the Hulk. Anyway, Tony Stark meets with him - which of course is a straight prelude to the Avengers Movie.

For now, maybe my code name should be Forty One Q

Our spy had some other interesting things to say about Jeff Bridges and his role as Iron Monger/Obidiah Stane [corrected - "M"] and it really does sound like this is going to be one of May’s biggest treats. How cool is it going to be seeing Robert Downey Jr in HULK, even if just for a moment?

And, god, I hope THE AVENGERS works out down the road. I think Edgar Wright’s take on ANT-MAN sounds great, and HULK is shaping up nicely, and Matthew Vaughn’s THOR will rock really hard. Everything’s coming together, slowly but surely, and I love being able to be optimistic about this possibility.