Dubai is known for its love of world records, and Ryan Penagos, executive editorial director of Marvel Entertainment’s Digital Media Group, may have inadvertently set a new one for understatement.
Ahead of the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron in cinemas tomorrow, Penagos said: "It is the biggest film we've had so far. That might not sound like a lot, but that's 11 films over the last seven or eight years."
On one level, he has a point: In the grand scheme of things, 11 films does represent a relatively new operation. On the other hand, when those films include a string of global box-office hits, including The Avengers, three Iron Man films, two Captain Americas and a couple of Thors, I'm forced to disagree with Penagos and suggest that it sounds like quite a lot.
“I always go into these movies with reservations,” he said when I talked to him at the Middle East Film & Comic Con. “I read the scripts months ahead of time, I visit the sets and I get engulfed, but at a certain point I have to take a step back and say, ‘OK. What are we doing? How do we need to approach it? Is it everything it’s cracked up to be?’
"I can safely say with Ultron it totally is, from the scope to how big and exciting it is. [At a preview] I was watching the reactions coming in and they've been great. I've only seen it once so far, and it really is totally worth it. My boss and I were like, 'That was terrific' – but you really do never know.
"With the first Avengers film, I was sitting in the theatre with C B Sebulski [Marvel's senior VP of creative and creator development, who was at MEFCC 2014], and I literally slapped him and said 'That movie is so good'. It was like a weight was off my shoulders.
"I don't even have that luxury this time because the expectations are so high and we have to push even harder. Everything is important, from being here in the midst of MEFCC to the 29-hour marathon [cinema screening] of [all 11] Marvel films, culminating in Age of Ultron, I'm doing it in the States when I get back."
Penagos’s job entails overseeing every item of digital, online or social-media output from the much-loved Marvel franchise.
From setting up a Twitter account for Captain America to hosting the popular This Week in Marvel podcast, in which Penagos is better known to fans as Agent M, and liaising with the studio's creative team on the web series What The--?!, it all goes through him.
One would assume he's looking forward to getting Age of Ultron's release out of the way and putting his feet up. Think again. "In a sense it'll be a relief – but then we have Ant-Man coming up [in July], which is going to be a great exercise in making fans familiar with his character and how he fits into the whole Marvel Universe. The script blew me away. It was super funny and I was really happy with it, so that's next for me."
cnewbould@thenational.ae
