Report: How Joss Whedon Assembled "Avengers" - East Idaho News
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Report: How Joss Whedon Assembled “Avengers”

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051112 TheAvengersDisneyPhoto?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1406127001824The Walt Disney Company/Marvel Comics(NEW YORK) — While the screenplay credits to Marvel’s The Avengers feature the names of Zak Penn and director Joss Whedon, an upcoming book about the quintessential geek filmmaker details just what Whedon thought of the original script.

“I don’t think you have anything,” Whedon reportedly told Marvel President Kevin Feige, according to the upcoming Joss Whedon: The Biography, which hits stores Aug. 1. “You need to pretend this draft never happened.”

In an interview with GQ, Whedon said as much, telling the magazine, “There was a script…There just wasn’t a script I was going to film a word of.”

Instead, Whedon re-wrote the script completely, adapting the Marvel comics story lines he knew so well into the blockbuster the movie became.

According to the book, which was excerpted in Business Insider, Whedon’s blueprint was five pages of material centering on the tagline: “The Avengers: Some Assembly Required” — a take on the comics’ well-known “Avengers Assemble” slogan. Penn, meanwhile, lamented not being more involved, telling GQ, “We could have collaborated more, but that was not his choice. He wanted to do it his way, and I respect that. I mean, it’s not like on the Hulk, where I got replaced [as a writer] by…lead actor [Edward Norton]. That was a weird one.”

Whedon’s outline also detailed the infighting between the disparate heroes like Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and The Hulk, and how they had to put aside their differences in order to defeat Loki, Thor’s trickster adopted brother — the inclusion of which was also a Whedon “must have.”

Joss’ take on Loki — and actor Tom Hiddleston’s delivery of Whedon’s words — became a fan favorite. After Whedon’s movie became a global blockbuster, Marvel reportedly retained him to consult on other movies,  and he did rewrites of another hit, Thor: The Dark World.

Whedon is currently filming the 2015 sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron, which opens next May.  

Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio

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