After venturing to the Toronto International Film Festival to do some press for his upcoming low budget adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Joss Whedon sat down with Vancouver.24HRS and chatted about the story of The Avengers 2 and overseeing Marvel’s “Phase 2” plans.
It’s been an exciting time since Whedon confirmed he would not only return for The Avengers 2, not only godfather the next slate of Marvel fare which includes Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but even executive produce (and direct the pilot for) the S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show.
Now busy up to 2015, Whedon has this to say about his role in the Marvel world and his upcoming superhero sequel:
“Very talented people are writing and directing these movies, and what I don’t want to be is the guy they dread, who’s going to come in and say – ‘here oh, well I have the power to say change this.’ I’m not that.
The creation of the team is not the happy ending. It is the beginning of something that is complex and difficult, and now I get to dig a little deeper. And maybe, while I’m digging, just twist that knife. And that’s exciting for me.
It’s still in the story stage. But I’ve been working on it pretty much from about an hour before I said, ‘Let’s make a deal.’ It just caught fire with me. We’re hard at work. We would like to be not as rushed as we were with the first one.”
It’s pretty indicative at Whedon’s considerable abilities that even though The Avengers was “rushed”, it still turned out as spectacular as it did. Now with all this talk of the filmmaker “twisting the knife” into this universe and characters, I can’t help but to become even more jazzed for The Avengers 2.
Whedon is no stranger to going dark places, with his properties having offed (at least temporarily) fan-favourite Agent Phil Coulson as well as a prominent series regular in his big screen spin-off of Firefly, Serenity.
One thing we can always count on with Whedon is a blend of smarts, thrills and dramatic potency amalgamated in a palatable whole.
The Avengers 2 is set for a release on May 1, 2015.