Skip to main content

Marvel Studios short film The Consultant arrives online, offers Avengers prequel

A while back, Marvel revealed that the Thor Blu-Ray would feature the first in a series of short films created by the studio to bridge the gap between the films leading up to The Avengers and make the Marvel movie-verse timeline a little clearer for casual fans.

Well, now that Thor has arrived a little early in some countries, so has Marvel One-Shot: The Consultant.

Recommended Videos

The four-minute film posted by Twitter user antovolk bridges the gap between Iron Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk, and shows a meeting between S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and a fellow agent, Jasper Sitwell (played by Maximiliano Hernandez). The pair discuss plans for the “Avengers Initiative” and Coulson reveals some distressing news: The government wants Incredible Hulk villain Emil “The Abomination” Blonsky for the team.

Neither the agents nor S.H.I.E.L.D. head honcho Nick Fury want Blonsky on the team, so the pair discuss how to best derail plans to include the murderous behemoth on the squad. After a funny exchange in which Sitwell offers his considerable talents at playing patsy in the affair, they agree that the best plan is to bring in someone with the potential to completely ruin their relationship with Blonsky’s current caretaker, General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross.

Their choice? “The consultant” — better known as Iron Man himself, Tony Stark.

The film then offers an extended look at the post-credits scene from The Incredible Hulk in which Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) tracks down General Ross (William Hurt) in a bar and the two get off to a bad start in their conversation. The film then cuts back to Coulson and Stilwell, who reveal that their plan went even better than they’d imagined.

Rick Marshall
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
Colman Domingo says he doesn’t look like himself at all in the upcoming Michael Jackson biopic
Colman Domingo in The Madness.

Throughout his career to date, Colman Domingo has not been a performer known for transforming himself for roles. If you believe the actor's recent interview with W Magazine, though, that all might be about to change as he takes on the role of Joe Jackson in frequent Denzel Washington collaborator Antoine Fuqua's upcoming Michael Jackson biopic Michael.

In speaking with the magazine, Domingo said that he doesn't "look like myself at all" in the film. He elaborated, explaining all of the prosthetics that were used to make him look like the Jackson family patriarch. "My skin is lighter because Joe was a bit more fair-skinned. I had prosthetics on top of my head above my eye, and my nose is different," he continued.

Read more
Lily-Rose Depp didn’t like how mean everyone was to her dad in Edward Scissorhands
Lily-Rose Depp bleeds from the mouth and eyes in a still from the movie Nosferatu.

Nosferatu star Lily-Rose Depp likely knows a thing or two about which movies traumatize an audience. Her central role in Robert Eggers' latest film is unsettling, to say the least. Which is why it might come as a surprise to some that, in a recent interview with the U.K. version of Harper's Bazaar., she said that one of her most traumatizing childhood watches was Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands, which stars her father, Johnny Depp, as its central character.

"I was traumatized by it," Depp explained. "Not because I thought he was scary, but because everyone was being so mean to him, and I got really upset."
"I remember being petrified by that," the actress explained, describing a scene where neighbors ask Edward to leave their community, "which is weird because I don't have many memories from when I was that young ... Edward's the good guy and Nosferatu's kind of the bad guy, but there's a part of me that feels a little bit of empathy for Nosferatu. I mean, am I sick for feeling that way?"
She added that she has not returned to the film since she watched it as a child, saying the memory of her watch was "difficult."

Read more
10 most anticipated movies of 2025, ranked
Blended image showing characters from Wicked, Superman, Fantastic Four, and Avatar.

Well, 2025 is finally here, and with it comes a new wave of exciting and highly anticipated movies. Last year was a solid one for movies, with a string of expected hits ( the lame Deadpool & Wolverine did boffo business, as everyone knew it would) and a few unexpected winners (looking at you, Wicked). However, 2025 has a slate of truly inspired films, promising 12 months of exhilarating and gripping entertainment for cinema lovers.

From auteur-driven remakes like Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein and Edgar Wright's The Running Man to the final chapters of revered franchises like Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning to the continuations of a few recent hits like Wicked: For Good, there's a wealth of anticipated 2025 movies. Narrowly missing the cut are Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride!, Gareth Edwards' Jurassic World Rebirth, and Dougal Wilson's Paddington in Peru, which says a lot about the quality of the films that actually made the list.
10. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (TBD)

Read more