Get ready for Marvel’s Phase One, take two.
The comic book studio’s 10-disc, 6-movie box set of films, spanning from 2008’s Iron Man to last May’s The Avengers, was put on hold in September due to a lawsuit over its suitcase packaging but now the collectors package (featuring a different case, but the same glowing Tesseract cube) is heading back into stores.
The Blu-ray set will go back on pre-sale later today,
for release on April 2, and EW has learned the exclusive details about some of its new components.
Marvel used the downtime to add a showcase of the studio’s upcoming Phase Two slate of movies to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe: Phase One.
And the set will also include deleted scenes from each of the past films, such as this variation on the ending to Thor, with a rooftop Natalie Portman sending out the most long-distance “I miss you” message in history.
In the original ending to Thor, Chris Hemsworth’s hammer-wielding hero stands at the edge of a cliff in his celestial realm of Asgard, peering off into the galactic distance as he wonders about his lost love, Jane Foster. We see a shot of her gathering up equipment, and the all-seeing sentry Heimdall tells him she is looking for him.
The end credits play out over a beam of light traveling from Earth through various star systems and nebulae, ending at the shimmering towers of Asgard. But in the scene above we learn that Jane was the source of that skyward blast.
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here to see the video.
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We went back to the editor's assembly of each film and discovered some rare moments that dropped out of the films early on and had not been released on prior discs,” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige tells EW.
He said part of the fun of putting together the set was highlighting all the little hidden references they put in the films, allowing fans "to catch the connective tissue that paved the way toward the Avengers assembling."
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We spent an embarrassing amount of time compiling the ‘Shield Files’ included in the box set to be sure that each character's file was full of great, movie-accurate props and Easter eggs, which help tie all of the Phase one [Marvel Comics Universe] films together,” Feige said.
Even more compelling for fans in the $219 set is a chance to look ahead to Marvel’s Phase Two, which starts in May with Iron Man 3 and includes Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy and, of course, The Avengers 2.
Obviously, some of those films are closer to completion than others, but Feige was mum about what will actually be included, saying only
that the Phase Two preview would include “footage, concept art, and a few new surprises. Also, look for a nod to Iron Man 3 in the Tony Stark S.H.I.E.L.D. file in the box set.”
As we know from last summer's Comic-Con, there is already test-footage of Ant-Man and concept art from Guardians of the Galaxy, and Marvel still has plenty of time to add more to the collection.
Of course, if this set takes much longer to reach fans, they might be able to include elements of Phase Three.
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