Between last night’s feature on Entertainment Tonight and Robert Downey, Jr.’s promise to take a lucky fan to the premiere, the press machine for Avengers: Age of Ultron is turning it up to 11. Then there’s the latest round of interviews whose embargoes were recently lifted by Marvel Studios, including one with returning director Joss Whedon.
When asked about the film’s biggest challenges, Whedon immediately pinpointed the sequel’s ginormous ensemble. The first Avengers film’s cast was a veritable roster of Hollywood A-listers and now-famous faces, but Age of Ultron features several new additions:
“Shoot me in the face! It is a nightmare. I long for the simple movies like Serenity!” he told U.K. magazine SFX. “This is the hardest juggling act I have ever, ever tried to pull off.” (Via THR)
Of course, Whedon’s mostly joking. Mostly. He wouldn’t have agreed to write and direct the movie if he didn’t think he could handle it. Besides, the ever-increasing roster of Marvel Studios’s tentpole franchise requires more and more additions (and a few subtractions) for it to work:
“They’re very disparate characters. The joy of the Avengers is they really don’t belong in the same room. It’s not like the X-Men who are all tortured by the same thing and have similar costumes,” he explained. “These guys are just all over the place. And so it’s tough. Honestly, this is as though as anything I’ve ever done, and I haven’t worked this hard since I had three shows on the air.” (Via THR)
I suspect Whedon doesn’t actually “long for the simple movies like Serenity” as much as he lets on, obviously because he’s joking. Humor aside, I’m sure he’s glad not to be manning three television shows simultaneously. Why? Because unlike Fox, Marvel isn’t about to cancel anything he’s doing.
