Joss Whedon discusses his many influences on Avengers: Age of Ultron, grounding the villain's powers...and Spider-Man 3?
NewsThis weekend is Oscar’s big night, but for many movie fans, eyes are already looking toward summer 2015 and the many blockbuster extravaganzas hidden within. And few are bigger or enjoying more anticipation than Avengers: Age of Ultron, the sequel to the third highest grossing film of all time. For his encore, Joss Whedon appears not to be resting on his laurels. Indeed, in his latest interview with Empire, The Avengers director certainly made it clear his ambitions were fairly high, even purely in terms of influence.
“I know I reference Godfather Part II a lot,” the Avengers: Age of Ultron director said. “‘Don’t reference the greatest movie ever made because that’s Icarus, you moron!’ But at the same time, it is a huge touchstone for me, because you get everything you got from the first Godfather movie in a very different movie, in a movie that structurally couldn’t be more different, and thematically and in intent and in mood, and yet nobody ever goes, ‘It wasn’t Godfather-y enough.’ I need to give people an exciting ride about heroic people, and that’s certainly part of why I signed on, but at the same time, a richer, deeper, darker movie is not a bad thing.”
In that vein, Whedon also revealed that he has a new kind of villain that he is grounding to be the megalomaniacal foil to his superheroes.
“The powers in the comic books – they’re always like, ‘And then I can reverse the polarity of your ions’ – well, we have to ground things a lot more. With Ultron, we have to make him slightly less omnipotent, because he’d win. Bottom line. Also, having weaknesses and needs, and foibles, and alliances, and actually caring what people think of him, all these things, are what make him a character and not just a tidal wave. A movie about a tidal wave can be great, but it’s different than a conflict between one side and the other...[so] the powers he has are slightly different – he can control certain things, he’s not just firing repulsors.”
Finally, while the entire interview is worth a read, we have to include Whedon's surprising half-defense of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3.
When discussing Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, “They’re already good to go by the time we’re up and running. You don’t want to fall into Spider-Man 3 territory – and I say that as a guy who actually thinks pretty well of that movie; there’s some great stuff in that movie – but there comes a point where you’re overloaded with front-story, back-story, origin story, and it becomes very hard to juggle.”
Avengers: Age of Ultron opens on May 1, 2015, but in the meantime check out everything to know about the movie, as well as the complete Marvel Movies Release Calendar.
