The Avengers has been one of the biggest fan-favorite and most successful films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date. Bringing about a team of superheroes who were willing to risk it all to save the world, the movie earned worldwide acclamation and did a spectacular job at the box office as well.
Yet, as surprising as it may sound, Marvel wasn’t always very confident in the project despite trusting Joss Whedon’s outstanding movie-making skills. In fact, the studios had the ‘least confidence’ in the director until the filmmaker proved everyone wrong by grossing a whopping $1.5 billion during The Avengers‘ box office run.
Marvel Was Unsure About Joss Whedon’s The Avengers
Back when The Avengers was yet to go into production, Marvel wanted the film to have a 3D release since it was the latest trend in the industry. But Joss Whedon hadn’t worked in 3D before and the camera rig he used for a test run for the same worked at a very slow pace.
Thus, he decided to shoot the non-action scenes in a straightforward fashion, favoring depth over camera movement, for the film to be converted to 3D in postproduction. This had Marvel worried that the film might not be able to provide the same visual spectacle as previous films from the franchise. As per MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios:
“Marvel sent a steady stream of producers to New Mexico set to monitor Whedon’s work, which irked him. He felt that the constant oversight reflected a lack of confidence, and he was correct. While the executives trusted Whedon’s storytelling sense and gift for dialogue, they were much less confident in his visual acumen.”
Furthermore, whenever the filmmaker wasn’t working from detailed animated storyboards, the producers ‘applied an extra level of scrutiny’ by carefully choreographing almost every shot. As shared by Whedon in the book:
“It happened to be the worst time of filming. The most problematic, [was] when the producers really had the least confidence in what I was doing. For the most part that was not a problem, but it became a bit of a thing during that production time. There was some worry that my work was not kinetic enough. It was in the middle of the shoot, we were all at ebb, and I would come to work and everything would be flames and sulfur. And I was like, ‘Could hell not be so literal?'”
Yet, despite all this scrutiny and focusing on the minor details that had the performers exhausted and ‘a bit shellshocked’ after enduring multiple takes, Joss Whedon still managed to surpass everyone’s expectations of The Avengers with the final result.
Joss Whedon’s The Avengers Surpassed Even Marvel’s Wildest Imaginations
In order to get past the Marvel sent producers’ scrutiny and extraordinarily careful choreography, almost all the people on the sets of the film had to go through extremes just to get the perfect shot for the movie. MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios shared about the same:
“All of the actors, including those in gray motion-capture suits standing in for the CGI Chitauri, endured multiple takes, often getting pummeled by dust and debris from explosions. The Avengers’ costumes ended up with realistic battle wear, and the performers found themselves exhausted and a bit shellshocked.”
But all of their hard work wasn’t in vain: despite Marvel having the ‘least confidence’ on the filmmaker’s visual acumen, Joss Whedon made sure to prove everyone wrong by producing one of the best movies by MCU to date.
Not only did The Avengers manage to gross a whopping $207.4 million at the box office for its opening, but it also made a striking $1.5 billion at the box offices worldwide during its entire run-time in the theatres despite being created on the budget of approximately $220 million. Truly epic!
