Para­mount Pic­tures and Mar­vel Stu­dios plan to release the much antic­i­pated Avengers movie on May 4th, 2012 — a delay of twelve months on the orig­i­nal 2011 date. Zak Penn, co-writer of The Incred­i­ble Hulk, is pen­ning the movie with inspi­ra­tion taken from Mark Mil­lar and Bryan Hitch’s Ulti­mates ver­sion of the team. Iron man direc­tor Jon Favreau is set to exec­u­tive pro­duce and there have been rumors that this delay may also put him inline to direct:

–Avengers is delayed a year because of financ­ing issues but also because the plan is for Favreau to helm it. Every­body here loves the guy and he wants to do it, but it would have been impos­si­ble for him to do before the date change given his Iron Man 2 com­mit­ments. Also partly the rea­son why he agreed to do the Stark sequel on such an accel­er­ated sched­ule was so he could get given first dibs on this. It would still be a pun­ish­ing sched­ule for him, so hes not firmly con­firmed yet, but he is cer­tainly the pre­sump­tive direc­tor at this point.

Marvel’s offi­cial word on which super­heros will appear in The Avengers is cur­rently lim­ited to a small blurb on a press release:

In a movie event, THE AVENGERS will bring together the super hero team of Mar­vel Comics char­ac­ters for the first time ever, includ­ing Iron Man, Cap­tain Amer­ica, Thor, the Hulk and more, as they are forced to band together to bat­tle the biggest foe they’ve ever faced.

Notably the words ‘includ­ing’ and ‘more’ are there, so we can be ready for fur­ther super hero announce­ments in the future as devel­op­ment continues.

Who’s in?

Iron Man — played by Robert Downey Jr.
Hulk, pre­sum­ably played by Ed Nor­ton though this is only rumored
Thor, cast­ing unknown
Cap­tain Amer­ica, cast­ing unknown
Nick Fury — played by Samuel L. Jackson

From Iron Man:
War Machine — played by Don Chea­dle
Black Widow — played by Scar­lett Johansson

Mar­vel press release about Iron Man 2 and The Avengers

ROBERT DOWNEY JR. AND JON FAVREAU SUIT UP FOR MARVEL STUDIOS’ THE AVENGERS AND IRON MAN 2

As part of his four pic­ture deal with Mar­vel Stu­dios, Robert Downey Jr. is appear­ing as Tony Stark in THE AVENGERS motion pic­ture, as well as repris­ing his star­ring role as the larger-than-life lead­ing char­ac­ter in IRON MAN 2. Jon Favreau will return to direct the sequel to the block­buster IRON MAN, which to date has grossed over $578 mil­lion world­wide, as well as exec­u­tive pro­duce THE AVENGERS.

DON CHEADLE WILL STAR AS RHODEY IN IRON MAN 2

Mar­vel Stu­dios is pleased today to con­firm that an agree­ment has been final­ized with award-winning actor Don Chea­dle to take on the role of Colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes in Marvel’s IRON MAN 2 due in the­aters on May 7, 2010. In cast­ing Chea­dle, Mar­vel replaces Ter­rence Howard who appeared in the role of Rhodey in IRON MAN.

Chea­dle is also signed on to per­form the same role in THE AVENGERS and sub­se­quent install­ments of the IRON MAN franchise.

“We are very excited about work­ing with the extra­or­di­nar­ily tal­ented Don Chea­dle as we expand the role of Rhodey in Iron Man 2. It has already become appar­ent as we prep the movie for pro­duc­tion, that the dynamic between Robert and Don will take Iron Man 2 to new heights,” said Kevin Feige, Pres­i­dent of Mar­vel Stu­dios.