Lizzy Caplan and Jesse Bradford star as a down-on-their-luck couple who find one of the discarded alien guns from the finale to The Avengers — and proceed to make some incredibly bad decisions.
This is the longest, most elaborate of the Marvel shorts so far, and could be a first step toward using short-subject films to dive deeper into the Marvel universe and introduce beloved but less-familiar superheroes to the mainstream.
Item 47 refers to the gun itself, which S.H.I.E.L.D. would like very much to retrieve from the hapless young troublemakers. “The world is topsy-turvy now. There’s been an alien invasion, and things are crazy,” explains Marvel Studios co-president Louis D’Esposito, who directed the film himself. “So when this gun literally fell into their lap, this is a sign: We’re going to rob a few banks, we’re going to buy a boat, we’re going to the Caribbean, and all our problems will be solved.”
Two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents (Maximiliano Hernández, returning from Thor and The Avengers, and Lost’s Man in Black Titus Welliver, making his Marvel debut) are given the job of cleaning up the mess and stopping this modern Bonnie and Clyde (not coincidentally named Benny and Claire.)
The goal was to show some non-superpowered people reacting to the aftermath of The Avengers. “Anything that expands the world and shows you the more human elements of it, that just makes the world more colorful and fun for the average viewer,” says Eric Pearson, who wrote the screenplay for Item 47.
Item 47 will be 12-minutes long which is the longest of the short films so far. It will also have more special effects than the previous two. The studio is also currently working on developing three more companion One-Shots for Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and Captain America 2.