Whatever happened to the Runaways of tomorrow? In 2010, Marvel hired Iron Man 3 screenwriter Drew Pearce to adapt the comic created by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona, and got as far as casting before the studio abruptly pulled the brakes on the project. Nearly a year later, Pearce revealed the film was put on hold so Marvel could focus on The Avengers, but it remained very much alive.

It's now September 2013, and Runaways seems all but forgotten. So what gives?

"We were really close to being made, and then this movie started to happen called The Avengers," Pearce said recently on The Q&A With Jeff Goldsmith. "Oddly, it pulled focus from the unheard-of brand Runaways, and it really did kind of consume the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's there — maybe it'll be a Phase Three movie. I really hope so. I'm really proud of it and I think it'll be a brilliant film, but I think it all depends what Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel, his master plan is."

So, we'll see Runaways in Phase Three? Maybe, maybe not. As Iron Man 3 director Shane Black puts it, Marvel makes two movies a year, putting Runaways "at least three years down the line." Even still, Black said that Pearce's take on Runaways is "one of the better screenplays that's sitting on a shelf somewhere," so perhaps Marvel will wake up and smell the Gertie sooner than later.

(via The Hollywood Reporter)