Joss Whedon has gone on record saying that he will not be returning to write or direct Avengers: Infinity War due to fatigue settling in, but there may be more to it than that.
It is now coming out that Whedon had to argue with Marvel executives on Avengers: Age of Ultron to keep some scenes in, most notably the hallucinations sequences and all of the character development for Hawkeye. He said that the only way he was allowed to use those scenes was if he put in the cave scene with Thor, which is obviously to set up the plot for Thor: Ragnarok. While watching Age of Ultron it does feel that that scene is disjointed from the rest of the narrative, and Whedon even seems to agree.
“The dreams were not an executive favorite either — the dreams, the farmhouse, these were things I fought to keep,” Whedon said. “With the cave, it really turned into: they pointed a gun at the farm’s head and said, ‘Give us the cave, or we’ll take out the farm,’ — in a civilized way. I respect these guys, they’re artists, but that’s when it got really, really unpleasant.”
It turns out that there was more footage to the cave scene, but most of it was left on the cutting room floor because audiences didn’t respond to the subplot positively during test screenings.
“I was so beaten down at that point that I was like, ‘Sure, OK — what movie is this?’ And the editors were like, ‘No. You have to show the [events in the cave]. You can’t just say it.’ “
Perhaps the most interesting tidbit here is that Whedon also wanted to introduce both Captain Marvel and Spider-Man into the mix towards the end of the film, but couldn’t due to all of the licensing controversy that wasn’t resolved until earlier this year.
“I would have put both of them [in Ultron], but neither of the deals were made,”
Avengers: Age of Ultron is out now and sees Joss Whedon directing a cast that includes Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Mark Ruffalo (The Incredible Hulk), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Don Cheadle (War Machine), Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Paul Bettany (JARVIS / The Vision), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Quicksilver), Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch), Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter), Idris Elba (Heimdall), Anthony Mackie (Falcon), James Spader (Ultron), Stellen Skarsgard (Erik Selvig), Thomas Kretschmann (Baron Strucker), Josh Brolin (Thanos), Claudia Kim (Dr. Cho), Andy Serkis (Uylsses Klaw), Henry Goodman (Dr. List), Julie Delpy (Madame B) and Linda Cardellini (Laura Barton).
https://youtu.be/pnc360pUDRI?list=PL18yMRIfoszFLSgML6ddazw180SXMvMz5
Originally published May 5, 2015. Updated April 13, 2018.
