Looking at how his reputation now lies in tatters after a string of former collaborators came forward to make numerous and very serious allegations against him, it’s incredible to think that Joss Whedon was once the single most influential filmmaker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the success of The Avengers positioning him as the driving force behind the franchise’s Phase Two.
Kevin Feige always has a long term plan in place for the mythology, and a cameo from Captain Marvel in Age of Ultron ended up getting nixed when a solo movie for Carol Danvers was deemed as a much better introduction, even though the character’s debut was even shot with a stand-in actress.
In the buildup to the second outing for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, there were internal concerns that scheduling conflicts may have ended up robbing the production of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow. New book The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe via ComicBook reveals that Whedon rewrote Natasha Romanoff’s lines for Hope Van Dyne, and he wanted Zooey Deschanel for the part.
“It was all about The Wasp. He wanted to cast Zooey Deschanel. [Wasp] was the funniest character in the whole movie, and well-written.”
Ironically, Evangeline Lilly debuted as Hope in Ant-Man just a year after Age of Ultron hit theaters, but the trajectory of the MCU could have turned out very differently had Whedon ended up incorporating the character into the movie, whether it was with Deschanel or somebody else.
