Joss Whedon Says AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON Was a "Nightmare"
Joss Whedon took on one of the hardest filmmaking challenges ever by taking on the Avengers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There were so many characters he had to work into the story in the first film, and in Avengers: Age of Ultron he had to add even more! This was not an easy task for the writer/director, but it looks like he actually managed to pull it off.
In a recent interview with the magazine SFX (via THR), he talked about the challenges of making the movie, discusses why this sequel was such a nightmare to work on, and how he approached the Hulk this time around.
"Shoot me in the face! It is a nightmare. I long for the simple movies like Serenity! This is the hardest juggling act I have ever, ever tried to pull off."
He goes on to explain how the characters in the film made developing the story challenging:
"They’re very disparate characters. The joy of the Avengers is they really don’t belong in the same room. It’s not like the X-Men who are all tortured by the same thing and have similar costumes. These guys are just all over the place. And so it’s tough. Honestly, this is as tough as anything I’ve ever done, and I haven’t worked this hard since I had three shows on the air."
The director mentions that one of the things he tried to do with the film was shoot it like a little like a documentary:
"There is more Hulk in this movie than there was in the last first [sic]. But what I’m excited about is we shot this movie very differently. I was running a lot of cameras, I was shooting long lenses, which I don’t usually do."
Whedon also offers up a little more info on how he handled the Hulk in the movie, saying:
"What I love is we have the opportunity, because we went in with this mission statement, to shoot the Hulk like a character in a movie, and not like a ‘Look what we’ve got!’ We have ‘overs’ – blurry ‘Hulk’s over there! Bits, very quick shots. Everything isn’t ‘We built the Hulk so for god’s sake you’re going to watch him in this long take, full frame, the whole time!’ We really got to make him one of the characters in the movie. And that was a gift."
Even though the movie was a nightmare for him to make, it sounds like it was a rewarding experience for him. I know the fans will appreciate all of the hard work that he and the rest of the crew put into developing this movie. It hits theaters on May 1st!