Corona | Coming Attractions

There's a report circulating that Marvel Studios has put on hold its budding Runaways movie project because it has simply too much happening right now. According to the report, director Peter Sollett remains still attached to the Runaways film but has been asked by Marvel to field another movie first; by then the decks will have cleared and Marvel will be able to focus more energy on this one.

As reported by Slashfilm, a 17-year-old actress named Keke Palmer is featured in an interview this month in Essense magazine. In it Palmer states that she's just been offered a role in "a new Marvel comic project called Runaways."

Palmer's statement has generated some puzzlement as to what role it is that she's been offered. Coming Soon dives into the reasons by stating that none of the six main characters in the first story arc of the Runaways comic book was a female African-America. Since Palmer is African-American, Runaways fans are wondering who she could be playing, unless one of the four main characters that are female in the comic are being offered to actresses of any nationality and color.

The question of whether the race of the characters as they appear in the comic book and the actors who will portray those characters in the movie will be the same has been made by another site, that being RaceBending.com. Their concern is that if the movie's makers are open to casting the characters for actors of any nationality, what happens to Nico Minoru? Will she not appear as being Asian-American in the Runaways movie? Will the part of Alex Wilder not be played by an African-American male?

RaceBending sent their question off to Marvel Studios and received the following reply:

"Thank you for reaching out regarding your concerns over Marvel's recent casting notice for The Runaways. We appreciate your interest in our production and with Marvel Entertainment.

"To address your concern over casting for the role of Nico, as we do with all of our films, we intend to stay true to the legacy and story of the comic when casting these parts. Thus, our goal is to cast an Asian American actress as depicted in the comic series and the casting notice will be adjusted accordingly.

"We thank you again for your correspondence and the opportunity to clarify our process."

 -- Marvel Studios

It should be noted that RaceBending's question and Marvel Studios' reply were posed and answered in August, more than a month before the publication of Keke Palmer's interview in Essence.

According to this tweet production on the Runaways movie is scheduled to begin in March 2011, with filming to take place in Los Angeles.

Director Peter Sollett (Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist) is reportedly negotiating with Marvel Studios about making this superhero teen movie. [Full story]

Marvel Studios has begun developing Runaways, the acclaimed Marvel Comics series, as a feature film.  Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man), the writer and co-creator of the comic book series, will write the screenplay and also retain a co-producer credit on the movie. Marvel Studios presiden Kevin Feige will be a producer.