including an arctic fight scene between the unjolly green giant and a killer whale. That scene didn't make it into the film, but maybe it can inspire the ride designers working on that $1 billion Marvel theme park that was announced in March by the Al Ahli Group in the United Arab Emirates.

"All of this, it's a time of amazing confluence for us," said Maisel, a former protégé of uber-agent Michael S. Ovitz who also made a career stop at Disney and served as president of Livent Inc., the theatrical production company. Maisel came to Marvel in 2004. Feige, a USC School of Cinema-Television grad, had already been there for four years by then and had worked on the "X-Men" and "Spider-Man" franchises.

The two aspire to take Marvelfilm will be a do-over of sorts -- Ang Lee's dour "Hulk" was released by Universal in 2003 and didn't energize audiences or critics (its second week U.S. box office plummeted 70%). The studio has also announced Edgar Wright ("Shaun of the Dead") will direct "Ant-Man," a character that dates to 1962 but has gnat-sized name recognition with the public.

Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount Pictures, said that doesn't matter. Marvel has 5,000 characters in its library, and history has shown they don't need to be household names to click; New Line Cinema, for example, made three successful "Blade" films based on an especially obscure Marvel character.

"Only Pixar has the sort of streak going that Marvel has right now. . . . the stories, both the ones people