Marvel Planning to Produce More Small Budget Movies?

Marvel is apparently planning to produce many smaller budget films featuring lesser known characters to expand their brand presence in the movie world.

CHUD is reporting on this, saying that Marvel is looking to produce films with a budget in the range of $20 million to $40 million, which would allow them to focus on lesser known characters and bring them into the mainstream consciousness, possibly creating opportunities for new franchises. Here an excerpt from the article, which claims that any characters could be up for grabs:

Filmmakers are being offered their pick of characters whose names are only familiar to comic fans. Properties like Dr. Strange, Ka-Zar, Luke Cage, Dazzler and Power Pack are among the many that are being tossed around right now. And the attitude seems to be that Marvel is open to bringing any of their characters to the screen at the right price point.

This would certainly make sense, allowing Marvel and Disney to take chances with characters that might be considered very risky at $100 million, but not so much at $20 million. We could be seeing some of these in development by the time Avengers hits theaters!