Latest Avengers news

[Jules]

That trailer looks so good!! I love the bit were Tony Stark says ''We've got a Hulk.'' I cant wait for this film.

 

[JCoatsworth]

Newest Trailer

Hi, I just saw that they released, once again, a new trailer for the movie.
Now, I've got to say that this is the first time I thought, "Wow, this is actually pretty interesting."

The Avengers Trailer

 

[Jules]

I really cant wait for this film!! That trailer looks fab!! The theme tune at the start reminded me a little of Transformers though 🙂

 

[Firefly]

In the UK, The Avengers is being re-titled "Avengers Assemble" because it doesn't want their audiences to confuse it with the other movie called "Avengers" starring Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes.

Here's the new UK poster

 

[Fusions2]

And to add to the gorgeous new poster...

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY9DnBNJFTI"]The Avengers - Official Trailer #2 (HD) - YouTube[/ame]

This second trailer just adds more excitement, it looks like Joss has done a superb job. Not long until the film is released now. 😀

 

[Bexieh]

I saw that trailer yesterday and it just sent my excitement into overdrive (seriously, I thought I was gonna spontaneously combust!) aldjawhdshdaslofhsdflkdsjf this movie looks so perfeccctt. I mean, I'm not exactly an expert on The Avengers so I dunno how faithful they're being (X-Men girl over here!) but bloody hell it looks brilliant. I might have watched it a few too many times already! Also, Thor. Yes. Please.

 

[VisionGirl]

Seriously people, May 4th cannot come soon enough for me! I am so psyched about this. Either this movie is going to really rock, or they're doing an awfully good job making these trailers.

Still, my favorite line so far was from the 2nd trailer: "I have an army." "Really? We have a Hulk."

I decided I wanted to buy one of those cool 3D posters linked a few months ago, but I think they must've sold out, I'm having a hard time finding it now. 🙁

 

[VisionGirl]

Newest Avengers trailer. Yes, the narration is in Japanese, but the dialogue isn't. There are some new scenes in here. And it appears that Pepper Potts is going to make an appearance!
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrCDmxER-vs"]Avengers Japanese Trailer # 2 - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Xin Rong]

OMG I cannot wait... I cannot remember the last time I have been this exicted to see a film!

 

[white avenger]

The first time that I had seen the previews other than on the net was when we went to see "John Carter," and I have to say, impressive, awesome, and amazing don't begin to do it justice. If the movie can live up to the trailer, this could be Joss' ticket into the super spectacular arena. Great for movies like this, but I can't help but feel a little trepidation for Buffy and the gang. The man can only spread himself so far.

 

[IHeartSpike]

I'm not a comic book fan, but this film looks amazing! I really can't wait. If the film is as good as the trailers make it out to be, I may give the actual comics a go!

 

[VisionGirl]

Newest video is a TV ad (I haven't seen it on TV yet):
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49UL9GamHhc"]The Avengers TV Spot #3 - Head Count - Marvel Movie (2012) HD. - YouTube[/ame]

And the official website has been updated a bit: http://marvel.com/avengers_movie/

Also, in some US cities AMC theaters is hosting an Ultimate Marvel Marathon. This includes back to back showings of Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, and the premiere of The Avengers. Check it out: http://go.amctheatres.com/marvel

I sooo wish it was happening in my city, I would totally play hooky from school (& maybe even pull my kids out too!). But alas, it's not. Probably just as well, sitting watching those movies on a big screen all day would certain trigger a migraine, then I wouldn't enjoy The Avengers. And I don't plan on seeing it in 3D anyway (see aforementioned migraines 😀).

---------- Post added at 10:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:56 PM ----------

And look at all this marketing they're doing! I usually hate that kind of stuff, but I actually don't mind it for this movie LOL. If the Diet Dr Pepper cans have the images on them too, I will definitely be buying them & collecting them!

'Avengers' wields big brand blitz
Marvel, Disney secure estimated $100 mil in marketing support
By Marc Graser


When Marvel Studios started recruiting promotional partners around its Iron Man, Thor and Captain America franchises, the company wanted to build long-term relationships with brands the way it's locked down multipicture pacts with the thesps who play its superheroes.
"The Avengers" is signaling just what that looks like.

With the Joss Whedon-helmed film assembling, for the first time, characters from previous pics, Marvel and parent Disney have secured an estimated $100 million in worldwide marketing support -- Marvel's largest such effort to date -- from Acura, Dr. Pepper, Visa, Wyndham hotels, Harley-Davidson, Land O'Frost lunchmeats, Farmers Insurance, Hershey, Symantec, Oracle, bracelet-maker Colantotte and Red Baron pizza.

For example, Acura is returning as the official wheels of the secret S.H.I.E.L.D organization (as seen in "Thor" and "Captain America: The First Avenger"), Captain America again rides a Harley motorcycle, Oracle (which was integrated into "Iron Man 2") powers Tony Stark's computers and Dr. Pepper is back after helping to promote "Iron Man 2," "Thor" and "Captain America," while Land O'Frost did the same for the "Iron Man" and "Captain America" films.

"It's really a strong core of partners that have been partners for many of these pictures," said Bob Sabouni, exec VP, worldwide marketing partnerships, Marvel Entertainment. "We're building a thematic universe (with these films), and (the returning brand partners) are very much part of that." In regards to the newcomers, "There are certain core partners that we are going to always work with, but this movie's appeal is so broad that we have a wider target of partners we can go to and create programs with," Sabouni added.

Although some of the campaigns have already bowed online, most launch April 1, with some set to continue through September or up to the film's homevid push, many weeks after its release April 26 in the U.K. and May 4 in the U.S. Most campaigns for tentpoles run several weeks up to a film's premiere. But Colantotte's campaign will run seven months after the pic bows in each individual territory around the globe.

"We're not all about week one," Sabouni said. "We think our movie has legs, and our campaigns have legs beyond the first week."

Marketing plans will include TV spots; radio, print, online and in-store ads; in-theater promos; art on packaging; plus sweepstakes, social media, games and comicbooks.

One incentive for the longer push is the type of placement each company gets in the film. Colantotte's magnetic polarity bracelets are worn by Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark; a Colantotte storefront also appears during New York street scenes, while the company's CEO makes a cameo. Replicas of the bracelet will be sold at retail, in addition to a kids version with lights and sounds.

Acura's microsite for the film will serve as the hub of a plot-based campaign, which includes a 30-second TV spot, and enables users to learn more about S.H.I.E.L.D and its agents and test Avengers technology mounted on S.H.I.E.L.D.-edition Acuras.

Naturally, the companies are tapping into Marvel's comicbook roots, with Colantotte offering an interactive custom comic available for download to Apple and Android devices that tells the backstory of Iron Man's armor. Harley will be written into a separate custom comic, while Symantec will be involved in Marvel's new Facebook game "Avengers Alliance."

"The campaigns are about creating something cool outside of the movie" that don't revolve around one single character but the group of heroes, Sabouni said. "This is an ensemble cast," he said. "This is about the Avengers and how there's a threat so big that not one single hero can defend the Earth on their own. Every Avenger has their own piece of the program and it was fun to see how our partners took that to heart."

Studios often rely on partners to target various demographics. In the case of "The Avengers," Acura will help Marvel and Disney reach adults 25-44, while Oracle and Symantec are going after tech savvy males 18-49, Dr. Pepper will target teens and adults 19-24, and Land O'Frost reaches families.

Red Baron enables Marvel to target kids age 6-17 and moms 35-54 with "Avengers"-themed packaging on 13 million of its pizzas and in-store marketing programs at Walmart, Target, Kroger, Safeway, Meijer and Food Lion stores. Company is spending $5 million on its tie-in, which will also have it prominently featured at the April 11 premiere, alongside Harley-Davidson, in Hollywood.

Hershey will target a similar audience as Red Baron with film tie-ins for its Hershey Kisses and other Hershey branded chocolate products, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, York Peppermint Patties.Wyndham will promote the film to guests at the company's 14 hotel brands that include Ramada, Days Inn, Super 8 and Howard Johnson and members of its Wyndham Rewards loyalty program.

Although some of the campaigns will roll out worldwide, including those from Acura and Oracle, most will target consumers in North America -- especially marketing efforts from Farmers Insurance, Land O'Frost, Harley-Davidson, Hershey, Visa Signature, Red Baron and Symantec. Dr. Pepper also will focus most of its efforts in North America, releasing six character cans and hosting a Marvel-created game on an "Avengers" microsite.

"The Avengers" doesn't have a traditional fast food partner, primarily because such companies typically shy away from non-PG-rated releases. "The Avengers" is rated PG-13. At the same time, Disney has long strayed away from pairing up with fast feeders because it doesn't want to be seen promoting junk food to kids.Burger King had backed the "Iron Man" films and "Thor" in the past, while "Captain America" had Baskin-Robbins and Dunkin Donuts as partners, when those films were distributed by Paramount.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118052078?refCatId=13

---------- Post added at 10:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:00 PM ----------

Newest movie stills from the movie. Some of these are also on the official website: http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/the-...2012-paramount-scarlett-johnansson-63755.html

This picture gets me all emotional: this is Joss, our Joss, and he's directing Samuel L. Jackson for cripessakes!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/stephs9/GH-17709-R-jpg_150519.jpg

I was just going to ask everybody: (1) Which main character will Joss kill off? and (2)Which 2 characters will get involved in a doomed love relationship? I think this photo may answer the 2nd question:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/stephs9/GH-07562-R-jpg_233758.jpg

---------- Post added at 10:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:21 PM ----------

Sample of Soundgarden tune from the soundtrack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lVWjZ6Hk9Jg
Here's the lineup for the entire album. It doesn't appear that all of these songs will actually be in the movie since it says "music from and inspired by":
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/stephs9/546980_336637263060953_126757470715601_914705_966413037_n.jpg
And squee! an Evanescence song! You guys know I'm a big fan. 😉


Movie poster in Lego's! Oh my kids are gonna love this. 🙂
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v323/stephs9/558506_338854662839213_126757470715601_921158_2114420457_n.jpg

---------- Post added at 10:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:37 PM ----------

And be sure to "Like" the Facebook page. I could go on and on linking all kinds of stuff on there, and I already have! 🙂 But I'll stop.
http://www.facebook.com/avengers

---------- Post added at 10:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:43 PM ----------

I know I said I was done, but... Stan Lee!!

Stan Lee Talks About His Cameos in THE AVENGERS, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and IRON MAN 3
by Christina Radish Posted:March 20th, 2012 at 5:02 pm


At 89 years young, Marvel icon Stan Lee is as much of a rock star as ever. Known to millions worldwide for his hand in co-creating many of Marvel’s most recognized characters, including Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, X-Men, The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Daredevil, The Avengers, Silver Surfer and Dr. Strange, among others, Lee is still as enthusiastic and passionate about comics and the characters that inhabit their worlds as he ever was. Now, he is serving as co-executive producer and recurring guest star on Ultimate Spider-Man for Marvel Universe on Disney XD, for which he provides the voice of Stan the Janitor.

While we will post the portion of the interview where he discusses the new animated series closer to its April 1st premiere, we did want to run what he had to say about his cameos in the upcoming movies for The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man, which he says are two of his funniest, waiting to get the call for his Iron Man 3 cameo, and how he learns what he’ll be doing in each film. Check out what he had to say after the jump.
Collider: How much fan did you have with your cameos in The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man?

Stan Lee: The Avengers cameo that you will see, when that movie opens up, is possibly one of my best. And you know good mine have been, but it is so funny. I can’t tell you what it is ‘cause they’d kill me, but it is funny. So is the Spider-Man one, by the way. They’re deciding to make my cameos a little funnier. They know that’s what brings the audiences in, of course, so they’ve gotta play them up.

Are you already preparing for your cameo for Iron Man 3?

Lee: I haven’t done that cameo yet. It’s almost scary ‘cause they just give me a date. They’ll say, “Stan, come over next Thursday for your cameo,” but they don’t tell me what it is. So, I show up and they say, “Go to wardrobe.” In wardrobe, they say, “We want to get you a white shirt and a green sweater and a black zippered jacket,” and I’ll say, “Don’t bother, I’m wearing one.” And then, they say, “But, you can’t wear yours!,” and they look around and get me the exact same thing, but I’m not allowed to wear my own. And I still don’t know what my role will be. I go on the set and one minute before we’re gonna shoot, the director says, “Okay, Stan, this is what I want you to do.” So, I don’t know what is expected of me, until I get there, but of course, I do it magnificently.
http://collider.com/stan-lee-cameo-the-avengers-iron-man-3/153907/

 

[Firefly]

My reaction.

 

[Fusions2]

So http://blog.whedonesque.com/post/20458214269/the-first-clip-from-the-avengerswhedonesqued posted a small clip of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) kicking some major arse in a quick scene. I have to say the clip itself is awesome and the fight choreography is bloody amazing for under a minute.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCqfncpIjJM"]Marvel's The Avengers - Clip 1 - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Enemies]

I saw the trailer at the cinema last night and it looks AWESOME!!! Cannot wait for it to come out. I'm just currently watching all the clips and bits online and will be taking my boyfriend to see it as it comes out on his birthday 🙂

 

[VisionGirl]

Another new TV spot:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-cztiy0FyE&feature=relmfu"]Marvel's The Avengers TV Spot - Team - YouTube[/ame]

It says at the end "this film is not yet rated". I'm assuming they're going to rate it PG-13, like most of the other Marvel movies right?

And that Scarlett Widow one is awesome! Weren't there some short Coulson clips as part of some DVD/Blu-Ray? (Thor? Capt America?) Can we see those online somewhere?

Oh, and Get Glue has exclusive Avengers stickers. So if you're on Get Glue, make sure to check-in. (We need to have a Get Glue thread, so we can all follow other BBers).

 

[Firefly]

New TV Spot. More awesome Hulk!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FswvtkJX4js"]TheAvengers_TVSpot_FightNR - YouTube[/ame]

---------- Post added at 03:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:46 PM ----------

HULK....SMILE!!!!

 

[VisionGirl]

That was cool! Wow, we're going to see the whole movie before it even airs lol. And I just realized that I called her Scarlet Widow, duh. The actress' name is Scarlett, but the character is BLACK Widow. And im totally stealing that GIF, Max. 😀


Really great interview with Joss. I'm sorry I can't C&P text right now, I'm on my iPhone. Someone else feel free! http://m.ign.com/articles/1222266

---------- Post added at 10:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:29 PM ----------

Ah, lookie here, I did it! 🙂

Continuing our coverage of IGN's visit to the set of The Avengers, today we've got the full transcript of the interview we participated in with writer-director Joss Whedon. The visiting press happened to be on set on Whedon's birthday, so as he entered the trailer for our chat we all sang happy birthday to him...

We Have Stood on the Bridge of Nick Fury's Helicarrier!


Joss Whedon: [Looking at the array of voice recorders on the table in front of him.] All of these for me? That's weird that you all got me the same thing for my birthday.

[Everyone laughs and begins singing "Happy Birthday."]

JW: Thank you one and all.

Q: So everyone that we have spoken with has been talking about how great the script is.

JW: And now it's my turn.

Q: Even Downey has said [he's] not tinkering, or maybe not tinkering much.

JW: There's not tinkering and then there's "not tinkering."

[Everyone laughs.]


JW: He'll have to say he had an inflection. Yeah, no, everybody seems to be on board. I'm still working on it. I hope to finish it sometime before the DVD release. [Laughs.] It's been very fluid, but it always is with a movie anyway and especially a movie where the perspective changes nine times every scene. I swore I would never make Serenity again and here I am.

Q: I was going to ask about that actually, because a lot of writers, comic writers, are afraid of The Avengers, because there are so many characters in the books in general … Did you know you could do it from doing Serenity?

JW: You know Serenity had been very hard and I literally said, "I'm never doing this again, a bunch of characters who already know each other and are established, but have to be introduced to new people," and all of that… But I didn't fear it at all; I just regret it very much.

[Everyone laughs.]

JW: You know, I walked in and I was like, "I get why they should be a team. This is exciting!" But then you have to explain it to the audience, too; apparently they matter. It's Vulcan chess -- there's just so many things. There's a ripple effect on everything you do, but as long as you're respectful of everybody's perspective and everybody has a moment where they shine, or hopefully several, and everybody is speaking from who they are, you're not going to fall too hard.

Q: Is there one sequence… You know we saw a lot of [production] art before, but is there one sequence that you're really proud of or really excited to work on?

JW: I'm not sure there's any one particular sequence that I would say, "Well, yeah, nailed that!" For me, honestly my favorite moments are the scenes where I have two of the characters, where I get to pair up two characters you might not expect to see together and see them go at each other whether they are getting along or not. There's always friction and those scenes are probably not why everybody might rush to the theater, but they are the most fun when you really get to explore it with the actors and the space. That's the stuff that I feel the proudest of. The action is not small and some of the gags we've come up with are enormous and delightful and I'm proud of them and excited by them, because I like to live in that world too, but when you are in those quieter moments, that's just when I am in heaven.



Q: Was there a particular scene that you started with? Was there a moment where you said, "I have to write this before I write anything else to show that I can do this."

JW: You know it started out basically with producers Kevin [Feige] and Jeremy [Latcham] telling me, "We know the basic structure of how they come together, what works, what doesn't work, and how we see the climax," which was nice, because [they] gave me a basic skeleton of three acts that I knew I had to hang on and then it was just a question of, "How do I get there? How do I earn that? What moments would cause these people to be in that situation?" I'm very fierce about making sure that everything is motivated, that nothing is by chance or misunderstanding or coincidence or something -- like if people are going to fight or face a conflict or an enemy, it has to be internal, it has to be because of something they believe and something they've done as opposed to, "And now we clock this fight. And now check that box." The whole thing was to avoid that and I had the luxury of having taken the job and then spending two weeks off in Australia just thinking of moments, just thinking of that moment, that scene, "Oh, this is what this person would say." I wrote more Saint Crispin's Day speeches for Captain [America] than you can shake a rattle at, none of which I think are in the film. I wrote monologues for all the characters and long scenes for all of them, bits of which wormed their way back in and many of which fell by the wayside, but all of which informed the characters. I just got to live in that free-floating space for a while. In fact I lived in the free-floating space for so long that I'm still writing the script, so next time I'll think that one through, but yeah, it all comes from, "Wouldn't it be beautiful to hear this from Hawkeye or to hear this from the Black Widow?"

Q: We talked to Scarlett and Jeremy before. She said that you had given them a very early draft and then they were able to come back with some notes that they had and they each spoke with you to adjust some things. … Can you talk to some of the things that they brought to the table that you thought were important to kind of go back to when you were writing your final [script]?

JW: You know this is such a perfect time to make fun of actors, but the fact is going into this project knowing that it had been cast largely before I came onboard with the exception of Jeremy [Renner] and Mark [Ruffalo] and some of the supporting roles, I knew that I had a contract with these people to respect what they had already done and because this is all part of a grander plan and I did have for example those structural elements set, I had this cast set, I knew who these characters were, because I had been reading about them since I was 11… So usually I'll just go and write things and say, "Why don't you say this? I'll hire you to say this." But in this case having a dialogue with them was enormously useful, because they all had their own back stories or questions about their back stories and I could literally sit someone down and say, "What are you looking for in this?" At the beginning [I said,] "I'm an open book, so tell me what it is that you don't want to repeat or you feel like you didn't explore." I would lay out my basic ideas about how I saw their characters. I think my favorite response was Sam Jackson's. I was like, "Is there anything you're particularly looking for?" I told him how I saw Nick Fury and his role in the movie and was like, "Is there anything you're looking for or anything you particularly want to avoid?" He was like, "Hell no. Thank you for asking. I don't want to run."

[Everyone laughs.]



JW: "Don't make me run a lot." Then on set he pointed to the page, like, "It says, 'Fury runs.'" "I know, it's just this one time…"

Q: What's the most iconic moment for you personally in The Avengers comics? Were you able to incorporate that? How were you able to incorporate that into the script?

JW: The truly iconic stuff from the comics isn't really in the film. It's part of the grand Marvel tradition to steal from all of the comics and all of the eras and Ultimates and for me The Avengers exist mostly in my heart because of the Jim Starlin Avengers Annual with Thanos and Warlock and The Thing Two-in-One that followed it. That defined why I love The Avengers more than anything. Obviously that was a long time ago and Moon Dragon is not in the film.

[Everyone laughs.]

JW: But since then I think the most important stuff, Civil War, Ultimates… They've amped up the undercurrent of tension between The Avengers and that makes it really interesting to write, but when it comes to the iconic moments you sort of have to take all of those things and distill them the same way the costumers do and everybody… Distill them and then find your own. I mean, ultimately for me the most iconic moment in the movie is, "assuming they do," when they assemble.
Q: I would think Bruce Banner and the Hulk is the toughest part, because we have seen two other movies with two other actors playing him. Chris [Hemsworth], Chris [Evans], and Robert [Downey, Jr.] have already been playing the characters. … How have you been working on that and trying to develop your own Bruce Banner with Mark?

JW: Well, I had a very clear conception of what I wanted Bruce Banner to be and part of that was Mark Ruffalo. I was like, "I want somebody who just opens himself to an audience who can't help it and who just takes you along everywhere he goes." The other was Bill Bixby and that's something that Mark and I both talked about. It's like I felt that the performances in the other movies were very internal and the movies themselves lead to that, because they were all about Bruce Banner and all about this and… you know the TV show was, "I have a problem and I help other people and I live with that problem," and so that's sort of the way I wanted to approach it and the way… Mark and I spent a lot of time in the very beginning talking about rage, how it feels, how it manifests, what causes it, what it feels like afterwards, just the nuts and bolts of the emotion itself. But in terms of the character it was very clear that we wanted to just have somebody who had gotten past where he was in those movies, so that when you meet him he is somebody who has internalized what went on in those movies to the extent that he's someone you like and are interested in. If you've seen those movies, this would be a natural next step. If you haven't, you'll get the guy and you'll get why he's a good guy.


Q: We were on the second unit set today and I'm curious. There's a lot of second unit on this. How involved have you been in storyboarding exactly what they are shooting or how much is [second unit director] John Mahaffie bringing to the table? How obsessive are you with everything?

JW: I'm pretty obsessive. It's a weird system; because they had a release date before they had a script, so the moment I came on I'm like, "You know, I think we could open with this…" "Great. It's storyboarded with animatics. Here it is!" Or, "Great!" Which is necessary when you are moving at this pace and also can be very frustrating, because you're basically having shots called out by other people, which is not how I usually operate, but when they are good it's like, "That will be fine. I'll take that, thank you! I'll take credit for that." [Laughs.] There are a couple of sequences… There's at least one sequence in this where the second unit director gets there before I do, before [cinematographer] Seamus [McGarvey] does, which is delicate, but everything that they do is very heavily storyboarded, animatic-ed, pre-vized, or you know, called out, and John is really inventive, really precise, and really caring. He and I will spend a lot of time talking about how I'm shooting a scene and what I'm looking for and so his stuff comes in really excitingly and really seamlessly. I've never had a second unit. I shot my own second unit on Serenity. I shot second unit on Cabin in the Woods, so it's new for me to hand that [over], but when it's this big you're going to have to, you're just going to have to, and I have enormous confidence in my crew.

Q: You're shooting with the Arri Alexa, which [famed cinematographer] Roger Deakins has fallen in love with. Can you talk about why you chose that camera? Why not film?

JW: Because Roger Deakins felt… [Laughs.] No, we were going to shoot with the Red, because we were going to shoot in 3D and everybody said, "No, the new rigs move fast and they are small. It's all going to be great," and I shot the tag for Thor in 3D with that setup and after we lost three and a half hours to lens changes and unknowable camera weirdness we decided to not do that and I think this is the camera… We always knew we were going to shoot HD and I have no allegiance to film as film. If the story is in front of me, I'm fine. Seamus had mostly shot film, but he really loved the Alexa and that was sort of what he wanted to do and once we were out of the constrictor of 3D for shooting, he said, "Let's go with that." He loves it too. He also loves Roger Deakins, so say we all.



Q: Is it true that you pitched in on Captain America the film in terms of some of the dialogue?

JW: Yeah, I did. I did a dialogue polish which was really, really fun, because I got to write '40s dialogue. You know, Captain America was a movie that just worked for me. The script was great, the structure… it's gorgeous, but they said, "We think we can push it in certain places." I was like, "Sign me up." "What? I have to make The Avengers? No, it'll be fine."

Q: How much of your polish was you kind of prepping for The Avengers and specifically the Steve Rogers character? Were you building something in there that was going to lead into this?

JW: I didn't like sneak any particular Avengers Easter eggs in, but I did spend a lot of time with the character which for me was important, because Steve's perspective in this world is very much, as much as anybody's if not more, the audience's. He is looking at this world with fresh eyes and he is not impressed. His feeling of disconnection is something that's going to be laced throughout the film. It's a film about lonely people, because I'm making it and my pony only does one trick. [Laughs.] But he is sort of like… He's a classic man out of time in the very literal sense and so to have worked on his '40s incarnation, even a little bit, was a nice introduction and kept me grounded in his perspective.

Q: Now in this movie you've got all of these characters who Marvel needs for future sequels and future franchises, so it's not like you can kill off Iron Man. It's not like you can kill off most of these people…

JW: "Awkward moment…"

[Everyone laughs.]

Q: So: A) We know you like to kill people off for drama in your movies and TV shows, but B) just for stakes on a thing like this how do you make stakes when the audience knows that the seven main characters aren't going anywhere?

JW: You know it is a struggle. How do you make stakes when they are all really strong and really tall and handsome? Ultimately the answer is always what's at stake has to be more than their lives. It has to be something bigger externally and smaller internally like they have to be going through an internal struggle that matches what they are facing on the outside, so that even if they survive, they may be compromised to a point where they can't recover and if you have that and you really push them towards that, you push them towards something that is frightening and unlikable and a real choice that they can't necessarily deal with, then you have some stakes, you have emotional stakes that go beyond the hitty and the punchy.

Q: So it's the risk of characters losing themselves more than characters losing their lives?

JW: Yeah.



Q: But there is some loss of life. We saw that scene before that seems to indicate that somebody didn't make it that seems [to have] particularly shaken up Tony.

JW: Yeah, it's a sad little film really.

Q: I've got the impression it's a very big movie, like a huge movie compared to any of the other movies so far. What's the danger of making movies so big that Marvel cannot release another movie, because they will just seem minor? Like if they do Iron Man 3, it's going to be like, "Oh, it's not The Avengers…"

JW: That's a good question. The fact is one of the things that I was very adamant about, and I don't think people were really fighting me on it, but don't have the support systems of all of these movies, because these movies have their own internal workings and have the supporting characters, they have their own feel. I'm like, "First of all this can't feel like any of those movies and second of all you have to take them away from their support systems." First of all that's a good way to make a team; it's like they all go to camp. And second of all they said, "Do we want to put Jane Foster in the movie?" I'm like, "Yeah, that'd be great. Then the writer of Thor 2 will come and kill me with a trowel, because their first meeting will be, 'I haven't seen you, except that one time.'" There are iconic things going on in their own stories that I'm not going to touch. They have to step out of their worlds into The Avengers world and hopefully this things works on a big scale, but because there are so many of them everybody gets so much juice and then they have to step aside. The other movies have a much easier through line… It's never easy, but a simpler through line of that one person's journey where they really get to explore that person on a level that in this movie I'm just never going to get to.
Q: This will have to affect those movies. Obviously Jane hasn't seen Thor, but he's here busy fighting whatever he is fighting. She must be seeing him on TV like, "How come you haven't said hi to me?"

JW: Right, "You never call!"


Q: It's got to affect them, because of the things going on.

JW: Yeah, you can't walk away completely, but I try to do as little collateral damage as possible. And as far as I was concerned I'm in a semi-stable relationship with Pepper [Potts] whenever I was like, "That's collateral damage. I mean, are you kidding? What am I supposed to do with that?" But in general, yeah, you do have to take them to a place they haven't been and they have to have come back from there in their next movie, but it's a fine line. It's the same thing when you're writing a comic and you know there's that comic, there's the team they are on, there's the big event… There are all sorts of different masters that you're serving. I guess first "do no harm" is now the screenwriters' creed and the second is "f#@k s#!t up."

Q: With Iron Man 2, Favreau talked about how Marvel came in and wanted him to put certain elements in there for Avengers to set that up. Are there elements that you have to, or not "have to," but are planting in Avengers to maybe set something up later on?

JW: Not really. I mean, there's a couple of things that I'm like, "This could maybe point to what would happen later, long after I've retired and live in a tree…" But we are getting it here and I think it can be the death of a movie if you're just smelling "franchise" and all of a sudden you're making Jumper or Eragon or The Seeker and you really have to just concentrate… This is the culmination of a grand plan that's gone on for years. Beyond that there may be seeds planted, but we don't know what will grow.

Q: You are a big comic book guy and a big comic book fan. You must have a few maybe minor Marvel characters that you're fond of. While you are maybe not planting seeds for sequels, maybe there's a way of putting little Easter eggs to other characters like on a street corner or whatever. Are you doing any sort of Easter eggs like that?

JW: Not really. You know, it's so hard for me just to get this job done that I really don't have time to get cute. If they tell me, "We need…" At some point I believe young Stanley Lieber will appear in the film, and that's about as tricksy as I'm getting. There are so many and it would be so easy, but it's also a way to paint yourself into a corner if you make reference to somebody and then suddenly you're like, "I want to use that guy, but he knows that guy… Oh Christ, what have I done? I had a cute little Easter egg that's boned a screenplay." They are dangerous waters.



Q: Well then, what about the Stan Lee cameo? How much fun did you have writing that?

JW: That was fun actually. I think you're going to see a side of Stan Lee you haven't seen before, a dark side… [Laughs.]

Q: Can you talk about the other villains in this film … and where you went to in the Marvel Universe and kind of what you were looking for with…

JW: Well they handed me Tom Hiddleston and I didn't really carp after that, because I had seen rough cuts of Thor. I had actually seen Tom at the Donmar Warehouse playing Cassio in Othello a few years ago and so I knew him from that and I was really excited when they said… Because Loki was the grand sort of beginning of The Avengers back in the day and so to have him, [to] watch the beautiful performance he gave in Thor, and then to know, "Now I get to take him to some serious-ass evil and build him up," was really exciting. We talked about different secondary villains and I'm not really going to talk about where we landed on that, because Loki really is the prime mover and Tom was primally moving.

Q: Can you talk about the first day of shooting? Did the enormity of this hit you or did you try to keep it out of your head when you realized you were making what people have wanted to see for 40 years?

JW: On the first day of shooting. There was a time, there was a moment a couple weeks after I had taken the job when I suddenly went, "Agh," and my wife just turned to me and said, "Honey, it's just the next story." I went, "Okay thanks. I'm back." That was it, because ultimately it is. The financial burden is not on me. As I have said many times, "The first weekend is your job, the second weekend is mine. If the story is compelling, if I got it right, if people want to come back to it, yay!" I can't really concern myself with the numbers or I would just go "banoonoos." They are large, but … It is that scene in Hoosiers where he measures the backboard. It's always just a story. It's like, "Do you care? If so, we scored. If not, it doesn't matter to me if it succeeds or not." And I found in production, in the first couple of weeks of production, that it was more like making an Internet musical than anything I've ever done. I was completely at the mercy of everybody's schedules and you know, we were constantly having to adjust what we were doing based on what we could get when, and it was very bizarre. It was sort of both ends of the spectrum are exactly the same. There's a ton of circumstance that you have to dance around and you just adapt.



Q: We were talking about musical tastes and Iron Man and Favreau's musical tastes… What are your musical tastes for this and what do you feel? Is it going to be a big bombastic score? Are there going to be some metal tunes in it?

JW: I don't see metal working in this a lot unless Tony is playing it. Everybody has got their own source, their own vibe. For me I do think of this as a classical movie, not bombastic. I don't want to hit people over the head, but I do look to the John Williams School with not necessarily the giant march so much as the really soulful, rueful thing that is character specific, is specific to the moment and isn't just a sort of room tone of emotion, but at the same time… Again, it comes from Cap and that feeling of what we had and what we've lost and how these people are going to try to regain it.


Be sure to check back at IGN Movies over the next week as we'll have the full interviews from our set visit with Robert Downey, Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans and more!


Movies Editor Scott Collura hopes Doctor Druid will cameo in The Avengers. Follow IGN on Twitter and check out Scott on Twitter at [MENTION=10544]Scott[/MENTION]IGN, on IGN, and subscribe to his Facebook updates.

 

[Goby]

Interesting. I'm not hyped at all by it because I don't have TV. So I have no idea what it's going to look like. I haven't seen any trailers. But I will see it when it comes to town. 🙂

But I won't be buying the cologne. 😡

 

[VisionGirl]

Interesting. I'm not hyped at all by it because I don't have TV. So I have no idea what it's going to look like. I haven't seen any trailers. But I will see it when it comes to town. 🙂

But I won't be buying the cologne. 😡

Aww, c'mon now! 😉

Of the TV spots, I've only actually seen the SuperBowl one on-air, the rest I've seen online. Are you going to watch the ones posted here, Goby, or are you going to go into the movie spoiler-free?