New featurette for 'Avengers' offers more on Whedon's take on the characters
We're getting close to release now, so how much more should we see?
Captain America (Chris Evans), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) walk reeeeeeeeeeeal hard in a scene from 'The Avengers'
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We're at that point in the publicity campaign for "The Avengers" where they kick into high gear, and we start to see footage in all sorts of strange places.
The recent trailers offered up some big moments, and when I was speaking to writer/director Joss Whedon after the live-chat we did at SXSW for "The Cabin In The Woods," we discussed the decision to put that amazing shot of The Hulk catching Iron Man into the trailer.
"That comes late in the film," Whedon said, admitting that he wasn't sure about including the image at first. "But Marvel tested it and they told me that whenever they included that shot in the trailer, the scores went crazy." Based on the reaction online, I'd believe it. In my own house, I can tell you that the focus group consisting of my wife and my two sons were 100% enthusiastic about that image and the trailer as a whole.
Here's the featurette:
It cracks me up to see Norton's brand all over that. I'm guessing there's a scene in the movie where Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) make sure they've got the latest update of Norton installed on the Helicarrier's mainframe to keep the alien invaders from messing around with the ship's software.
What makes me happy about this featurette is listening to the way Whedon talks about the dynamics between these characters. There's a line in the new trailer in which Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) says "This isn't a team… it's a time bomb." That perfectly captures what I hope the film focuses on, the insane idea of putting this many giant personalities in the same place and asking them to somehow come together as a cohesive unit. If Whedon gets that right, it's more important than all the special effects or the action scenes in the world.
"The Avengers" arrives in theaters May 4, 2012.
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March 26, 2012 at 7:32PM EST Reply to CommentWhoa, that's crazy... my wife had the exact same reaction to the Hulk catch. She went from "eh" to "when are we seeing that?"
Playhouse
March 26, 2012 at 7:48PM EST Reply to CommentIn the 'Marvel: Avengers Alliance' game on Facebook, based on the comics but obviously tied into promotion for the movie, there is a Norton Shield that is one of the items used for defense in the game.
Latauro
March 26, 2012 at 7:55PM EST Reply to CommentOf all the Nortons I was hoping they'd have in The Avengers, this one wasn't near the top of the list.
Megalodon Yeah, same here. Ruffalo is just so... I don't know. With Ed Norton, you really saw someone totally different from the Hulk, a Bruce Banner who would never be a star on his own. Ruffalo seems like an actor that they could spit polish, you know, give him a haircut and a sharp suit and he could be a leading man. Plus, Ed Norton had that intensity, that sharpness in his gaze of a smart man who's trying to hide and survive. From what I've seen, Ruffalo looks like he's going for mild-mannered/unassuming, but he just comes across as laid back.
March 26, 2012 at 11:52PM ESTnick_r
March 26, 2012 at 7:58PM EST Reply to Comment"I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF THESE MOTHERFUCKING VIAGRA ADS IN MY MOTHERFUCKING EMAIL!"
Shaun
March 26, 2012 at 8:11PM EST Reply to CommentNow if only the film could've focused on giving Cap a less ridiculous looking costume and mask. Hell, the costume in that 1990 direct-to-video debacle of a movie looked far, far better than the one they've stuck Chris Evans in.
mmcb105 No. No it didn't.
March 27, 2012 at 3:52PM ESTThe 1990's costume and its rubber ears are completely ridiculous.
Joshua
March 27, 2012 at 5:09AM EST Reply to CommentI'm still concerned about the fact that "S.H.I.E.L.D." seems to be a U.S. military faction (All of its members I've seen have AMERICAN accents) ...commanding around superhero's to do THEIR bidding.
Superman CHOSE to serve and protect Earth, no one forced him to. From what I've seen from the trailers, and parts from the other movies, S.H.I.E.L.D. is MAKING these superhero's help them. In the trailer, Black Widow basically threatens Banner's life if he doesn't cooperate ...and we're supposed to think its funny.
If this movie is about how a U.S. military faction controls a super-soldier, a man in a state-of-the-art iron suit, a giant and a GOD to do what they want, then this will be bigger propaganda than ACT OF VALOR.
mmcb105 I think its a little bit of a stretch to say that Black Widow threatened Banner's life. Her delivery of the line "I'll persuade you," is playful, sexy even.
March 27, 2012 at 3:49PM ESTI think joining the team is sold as more of an obligation to one's country than forced servitude.
Also, showing more aggressive ways of coercing the members into helping SHIELD would probably come off more as a critique of the US's attitudes toward soldier recruitment than anything else.
Toastpup Well, this setup wasn't invented for the movie - they're basically adapting the version of the Avengers comics that started about 10 years ago. In the original version from the '60s, the superheroes just sort of happened to meet up in the course of some world-saving and decided to hang out together, with Tony Stark providing the headquarters and the gadgets. I think it would've been a lot harder to make that plausible (if plausible is even a word we can use here) in the context of the Marvel movies, where the characters haven't had a lot of individual adventures yet.
March 28, 2012 at 12:12AM ESTAnyway-- I'd be really, really surprised if the movie's premise was "the U.S. military can make superheroes do anything". That'd be even more ridiculous than the idea of superheroes already is, and just about every superhero comic that involves any army/spy agency shenanigans has the exact opposite premise-- the government is just hoping that these creatures will want to be helpful, but can't control them (except for occasional mad-army-scientist guys like in X-Men 2, who are invariably villains).
And if it were meant as propaganda, that'd be a weird way to go about it. People join the army out of various combinations of patriotism, thrill-seeking, and needing money-- not because they think they'll get to boss the Hulk around.
CapnCone I don't think you're very familiar with Whedon if you're afraid of this.
April 2, 2012 at 4:42PM EST