JOSS WHEDON DISHES ON “THE AVENGERS”

With The Avengers release date only five short months away, Joss Whedon is feeling the pressure to produce one hell of a flick.

Riki Lindhome of Nerdist Industries fame had a chance to talk to the famed director, writer, and much adored X-men scribe about the humongous superhero team-up. I’ve provided some of the best bits below, but for more, make sure you check out her podcast here.

His Origins with Marvel Studios:

“Kevin Feige I’d known for some time because I was dancing around with Marvel because I love superheroes and I love comic books. I’d seen him at lunch. I took a meeting and looked at the script and I was like, ‘The script has to go but here are my thoughts on what you should do’. And I’ve done that a bunch. As favours. I’ve done a lot of stuff as a favour because I’ve wanted to maybe meet a director. I did a little bit of work on the Hulk because Ang Lee has such sensibility.”

On Zack Penn’s Script:

“I wrote the script for Avengers. I said, ‘We need to start again’ and they agreed. That was a difficult and fairly torturous project because and they had a release date. Which for me, was great. I had no desire to even try to make big movies any more because they get lost in development…it’s exhausting. What if someone just said, ‘We want you to do this thing and it’s going right away and it’s exactly what you want?’ And then it happened.”

On the Shooting Schedule:

“You know, at the end of the day, the first thing I was saying for the first two weeks was this was more like making an internet musical than anything I’ve ever done. It’s that same high end/low end thing where the schedules are crazy, the sets aren’t ready, you’re constantly changing your schedule and working it out, writing it as you go. The script took me along time and there was a point at which I was shooting it, writing it and editing all at the same time because I had to get sequences out early because they had special effects and they take a long time. I would film all night and go to Starbucks to write for the next week.”

“I can’t do ‘no sleep’ but as soon as I took Avengers I stopped sleeping. The whole time we were filming I was getting between four and six hours and that’s not enough for me. I was a crabby mother [frick]er. I was in a bad mood for seven months. It was a 93 day shoot. I made a lot of movie.”

On the Special Effects:

“There’s a lot of practical stuff that you shoot elements for it. It’s super boring. It’s incredibly boring. Because of how long all of that stuff takes on The Avengers, it would be again just like making any other movie. I would have at least four pages to shoot of a day if it was dialogue. If I really wanted to work with the actors, most of whom I had never rehearsed with as they weren’t available. It was very odd, but it had that run and gun feel. Because Marvel is actually a wonderful place to work and Kevin is great and Jeremy Latcham, who was the producer on the movie, is extraordinary and tireless and enthusiastic. There was nobody going, ‘Well, this movie cost a lot of money so you better not [frick] it up.’ We were just telling a story.”

As much as I doubt the man, it seems like Whedon poured all of his heart and soul into this project. I just hope it pays off…for his sake and ours.

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