By this stage in the game, Marvel fans the world over have one eye trained on May 1, 2015 in anticipation of Avengers: Age of Ultron, but for a brief period in the early stages of development the sequel — or, rather, Joss Whedon’s involvement in it — wasn’t such a sure thing.
During a set visit over the summer months, the director spoke candidly with Collider and revealed that while he soon found ideas spewing out of him for the superhero follow-up, he initially had his doubts about picking up the megaphone and baseball cap once more.
I didn’t actually want to make the film necessarily. I was ragged from the first one, and so I just turned off my brain. I was like, do not think of cool ideas for the next one. Just get through this. But after a few months when they talked about, um… This is now something that makes sense in my life; do I have anything to say? And so my agent calls, I was in London, and he called me and said there’s a deal that’s worth talking about- time to start to think about whether there’s a movie.
And I’m going, all right. I went to a pub and sat down with my notebook, and about forty-five minutes later, my notebook was filled. And I texted my agent “yup” and I have so many things to say and I was kind of surprised. It took me unaware. It was very beautiful.
Ultimately, it seems as though the fan favourite filmmaker just needed some time off before delving back into the well-oiled studio machine that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And given the colossal scope and indeed success of The Avengers back in 2012, can you really blame him?
Avengers: Age of Ultron will soar into theaters on May 1, 2015.
