The Avengers (2012): Marvel Dictated Terms Of Avengers Movie To Joss Whedon

[[wysiwyg_imageupload:847:]]I found this little tidbit on The Avengers movie rather interesting.

Den of Geek spoke with The Avengers director Joss Whedon while he was promoting his other film Cabin In The Woods.

Whedon offers up that he was essentially allowed to do what he wanted, but had to do the following:

They said, ”˜here are the things we need; here is the villain, we want this to happen; we need the conflict here; here’s the third act, it will involve the following’.

And Whedon goes on to say he is okay with that.

Which I’m fine with. That’s great, give me the parameters, because then I know where I’m going, and it does some of the legwork for me. And I know what their agenda is in terms of style, and what we’re delivering, in terms of thrills and the adherence to the Marvel universe, with which I’m very familiar.

He then goes on to compare creating the movie to writing comic books, as Whedon has written comics for Marvel before.

But it was like comics, because they didn’t interfere. I told them ”˜this is the kind of movie I want to make’, and they said ”˜all right, make that movie’. And that is what happened. And they were as unmeddlesome as any studio I’ve ever worked with, even though they had the very strict touchstones that had to happen. So it was a weirdly free experience.

Why I find it interesting is that while Whedon does state how “unmeddlesome” Marvel has been (yet, only if he included this, this and this), I believe Marvel’s “input” was the problem with the previous Iron Man film, which Mickey Rourke has not been afraid to speak out about, as well as is the rumored reason as to Jon Favreau’s departure. Furthermore, it is thought this is the reason why Marvel Studios is going for lesser known directors.

Of course, none of this means the movie will end up being all that bad.

The Avengers assembles May 4th, 2012 and is directed by Joss Whedon, starring Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Captain America, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye.

Head on over to the Cosmic Book News The Avengers Movie Hub for more news, images and trailers.