Marvel planning cheaper movies for their not-so-superheroes

How do you outdo Iron Man? You don't. As well as their big-budget blockbusters, Marvel Studios are to produce smaller, cheaper movies for their 'third tier' characters. Hint: they're the ones that ain't so super.

With The Avengers looming on the horizon like a giant, distant, sweaty wrestler, it's a good time for Marvel to take stock and plan out the long road ahead. Spider-Man and Iron Man movies are bound to get the punters in, but they're expensive to produce and can't always guarantee a profit.

Now Marvel are planning to draft some of their lesser heroes to the big-screen, albeit in smaller, cheaper and more intimate movies. CHUD have revealed that Marvel have been meeting with writers and directors to look at movie adaptations of characters like Dazzler, Luke Cage (Nicolas Cage's favourite superhero: fact) and Dr Strange.

With budgets of between $20-40 million, they wouldn't have the clout of Marvel's big summer movies, but it's certainly interesting to see a studio catering for a niche market - Johnny and Jilly Average are hardly going to spend their hard-earned dime on a movie called Ka-Zar, but comic nerds certainly will.

Expectations will be fairly low - geek-centric comic-book movies have a tendency to under-perform at the box-office (see: Kick-Ass, Watchmen) - but you could argue this gives Marvel the licence to experiment with different styles: not every superhero movie can have megasplosions and robots and Scarlett Johansson.

Unfortunately, this also means the rumour mill will start to spin out of control, as evidenced by rumours that Vanessa Hudgens is set to play Spider-Woman. Is that even a real thing? I mean, 'Vanessa Hudgens'. It just sounds so made up!