Straight from Marvel comics comes one of the newest soon-to-be Blockbuster hits, The Avengers.
The director, Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cabin in the Woods), had a vision to bring the several different Marvel heroes together into one movie, despite each hero already having an established movie of their own.
“There’s no way you could make a movie that looked like a Jon Favreau, Kenneth Brown, Joe Johnston, and Louie Lettieri movies. You have to take from each of them the thing that is useful and will jive with the rest of them. I tend to be a tiny bit florid with my camera work and dialog, but hopefully in a way that feels like a realistic version of a comic book universe,” said Whedon.
The film consists of an all-star cast, and familiar faces and backgrounds from the prior movies.
The Avengers is based around Nick Fury, portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson, who is trying to round up the Avengers group in order to stop the evil Loki, who is played by Tom Hiddleston.
Among the rest of the group, Robert Downey Jr. returns as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, and Chris Hemsworth as Thor.
Incredible Hulk fans will notice that the voice of the beast is still played by Lou Ferrigno, who has voiced the character since The Incredible Hulk in 1978.
A few new members have joined the cast as well. Scarlett Johansson, who starred in Iron Man 2, plays Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow. Mark Ruffalo plays Bruce Banner, and How I Met Your Mother star, Cobie Smulders. plays Maria Hill.
On combining all the actors into a team concept, Whedon had this to say, “I felt very much like Nick Fury. He’s the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., and that puts him at a remove from everybody, even if he likes them…. I’m not nearly as intelligent or manipulative as Nick, and I didn’t have as many problems because my actors actually wanted to be together. They enjoyed each other.”
Whedon teamed up with the writers of Marvel comics Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, ensuring that the Marvel universe is as detailed and accurate as possible.
Whether you’re a Marvel fanatic or a laidback movie viewer, Whedon promises it’s worth the watch.
“The Avengers is the kind of movie that I grew up wanting to make and thought they had stopped making. All my life, I wanted to do something like that, something like the first Indiana Jones, something that was steeped in character. They (Marvel) care about the people. This is an old-fashioned movie. It’s a bit bigger than life, but it’s very human.”
E! News has already commented, “As the first of this summer’s three superhero blockbusters, (the others are The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man), The Avengers sets the bar impressively high.”
Watch the superhero universe come alive in a theater near you on May 4, available in both 2D and 3D.
