STORY: 'Elysium' to 'Iron Man 3': This Summer's 4 Weirdest Accents (Video)

"We were really close to being made, and then this movie started to happen called The Avengers," explained Pearce, whose screenplay for the project was his first work for Marvel. "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."

Iron Man 3 director Shane Black called Pearce's screenplay "one of the better screenplays that's sitting on a shelf somewhere," but warned that anyone waiting for a Runaways Phase Three movie will be waiting for awhile. "They make two [movies] a year, but that's still at least three years down the line [until they run out of films already in progress]."

Iron Man 3 is being released on DVD and Blu-ray today. Go watch it, and think good thoughts for an eventual Runaways movie.