At the Directors Guild of America, which was host to a recent screening of MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS, featured a flurry of questions Joss Whedon’s way. He got to talking about what might have been in AVENGERS, and what we can expect for AVENGERS 2.
Wasp? ”There was a little bit of time where we thought we might not actually get Scarlett [Johansson]…There was a very Waspy draft that I wrote. But it was way too Waspy. I was like, ‘She’s adorable! I’m just going to watch her!’“
A second villain to add alongside Loki? “I’m not going to tell you [who it is]…because that person might crop up another time. But I definitely felt like, ‘I’ve got Earth’s mightiest heroes. I’ve got four of the biggest, baddest, toughest guys out there and I’ve got one effete British character actor.’ They believed very strongly that they didn’t want to add any more mythology, I think was the thing.“
He was mum on details for AVENGERS 2, but he made the comment that the constantly shuffling of Avengers members was an important part of the comic book. He’d be right. Could this mean Stingray will get his shot in AVENGERS 2? Unfortunately, probably not.
“I used to read ‘The Avengers’ and part of the ethos of the team was that it changed their lineup every month…Their 150th issue was just a bunch of faces. ‘Who will be in the team now?!’ We had the first issue as a poster in the offices. Now that I’m working on the sequel I said, ‘Let’s put the second issue up there! Let’s change it up a little bit!’ The second issue is ‘Introducing… Giant-Man! And this character! They were already changing it up after one issue. That’s what they always do.“
What could this mean? It’s hard to fathom them getting rid of any characters from the original ensemble, but it definitely points to at least a few additions. It seems like the obvious choices would be Wasp and Giant Man/Ant-Man, but perhaps we’ll get a dose of Wakanda and Black Panther in there.
