Marvel’s Joss Whedon Exclusive #AvengersEvent Interview

Joss Whedon the man behind the story for Avengers: Age of Ultron created an amazing story and made a fantastic movie full of action and humor.

Whedon, who has been working on all of the Marvel films following Marvel’s “The Avengers,” explains his approach to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “Being the Marvel consigliore for the last few years has been really fun,” says Whedon. “In doing so it’s important to keep that sort of Marvel ethos of ‘Yeah, we’re lovable and yes we’re messed up; we’re funny when you don’t expect us to be and we’re serious when you don’t expect us to be.’ But at the same  me always make sure that each film and in particular ‘The Avengers’ films has its own stamp.”

Continuing, Whedon says, “The first thing you have to do if you’re looking at an Avengers sequel is figure out what you’re going to do with all of these characters. In this film, I’ve got a lot more characters! The Avengers are a really dysfunctional team, and I liked the idea of seeing them actually act as a team and how it shows how much they shouldn’t be a team.”

He talked about how it as very difficult giving everyone enough screen time but the plot helped. Of course Ultron, The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver needed the time for plot development, everyone else it had to make sense and it was good that they are all able to play off of each other so well.

WHEDON: The, the good thing they worked so well against each other, so when you’re giving somebody their moment, it’s usually with somebody else. It’s usually playing against somebody else, either arguing with or having fun with or teaming up with and so, um, they do sort of, you know, it, it creates its own little web, so it’s difficult, but it’s not like you’re telling, it’s not Magnolia where you’re telling all these separate stories that are just vaguely intertwined. It’s, you know, they’re, they’re doing some of that job for me. BY the way, if it was Magnolia, it would be the best movie ever made, but I can’t reach for the stars, people. I’m just a man.

During the interview with Joss someone asked him about the iconic shot of the Avengers jumping in slow motion, which was pretty kick a$$ if you ask me.

WHEDON: We just caught it by accident, you know. I hadn’t even said action yet. They were just clowning around and somebody had a phone, so that was great. That shot, that was the last shot we got finished, ‘cause it’s, it’s over a minute long and, you know, I wanted to create some frames that were just unabashedly comic book frames that were, that would speak to our love of, of the thing and um, uh, and that one took, you know, longer to create than anything else.

And to dial in and, but it was important to me to have that right away, like first up in the movie. Um, to say, not to say, and now we’ve got to get everybody back together and let’s go find them, now we find Captain America and he’s digging in a trench and now we find, and uh, instead just go boom, we’re back. This is what you love. Are you having fun? Good. Now we’re going to tear it apart.

What was the hardest scene to shoot? Do you have one that sticks out?

WHEDON: Um, there, uh, I would say probably after the first attack by Ultron. Um, everybody’s in the lab kind of trying to figure out what’s going on. Uh, we referred to that as the WTF scene and um, uh, and uh, it was just very difficult for me to uh, put, to put together. It’s hard to explain why. I, there’s something about the way the light in the room, I just, I could not find the focus of where everybody should be and how they should move and Robert had to do something really difficult which was start laughing in the middle of this

What was the hardest scene to shoot? Do you have one that sticks out?

WHEDON: Um, there, uh, I would say probably after the first attack by Ultron. Um, everybody’s in the lab kind of trying to figure out what’s going on. Uh, we referred to that as the WTF scene and um, uh, and uh, it was just very difficult for me to uh, put, to put together. It’s hard to explain why. I, there’s something about the way the light in the room, I just, I could not find the focus of where everybody should be and how they should move and Robert had to do something really difficult which was start laughing in the middle of this scene, as sincerely like, become a little unhinged.

And getting there and sort of making that work, that was one that I, that I, I struggled with. I struggled every much with the party scene. The after party scene, um, which is uh, I, I actually, we shut down during shooting uh, early one day because I was just, I started shooting it and I hated everything I was doing and then I, I was like what, what, what should I do? What’s wrong? And then I realized, wait a minute. Didn’t I just make an entire movie where people sit around and drink? Wasn’t that Much Ado About Nothing? Ohhh, and then I called. I was like give me some, I need cards, I need beers.

Anyway, I get all these things and we’ll do it all handheld and we’ll just let them go and as soon as I remembered how to shoot a party, um, it became a party.

Age of Ultron is a fantastic movie and will be in theaters this Friday May 1st.