The film adaptations of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk would now appear to be much firmer bets after Marvel Studios restructured its existing credit facility to kick off its inaugural slate.

The comics giant recently struck out alone after several years of partnership with the more established Hollywood studios. However, its efforts were stalled as executives sought to get the funding jigsaw in place.

Now their fears have been allayed following a restructure of the $525m credit facility with Merrill Lynch that allocates more money to the two projects, starting with more than $100 million for Iron Man.

Iron Man will begin filming under Jon Favreau in February with Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, a billionaire industrialist who designs an armour suit to help him recover from an accident and ends up using it to fight crime. Paramount Pictures will handle the May 2008 release.

French film-maker Louis Leterrier is in charge of Marvel's upcoming The Incredible Hulk tale, which will feature the green-eyed beast's maniacal nemesis Abomination. Universal Pictures will release the picture.

While this is all very well, it casts doubt over the fate of the other titles in Marvel's lineup.

Projects such Hawkeye and Cloak and Dagger had been in line to benefit from the credit facility before the parties changed things around and chose to focus on the two biggest projects. Variety says the restructured deal will at the very least delay the other titles on Marvel's 10-picture roster. Watch this space.