Out to save THE WORLD
"Avengers" director Joss Whedon comes to the rescue, making sense of superheroes
HE MADE IT big in 2012 with the first “Avengers” movie and director Joss Whedon has just delighted the film’s millions of fans with the second instalment, “Avengers: Age of Ultron”, once again bringing together the world’s greatest superheroes for a battle of good versus evil.
“Avengers” was the first take on the Marvel Cinematic Universe for Whedon, who created the hit series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, “Firefly” and several other cult TV shows. An avid fan of Marvel comics, Whedon shed light on the Hulk, Ironman, Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye in a human and realistic way while retaining character-specific integrity and quality, making “The Avengers” the third highest-grossing film worldwide of all time.
We met with the director last week during a promotional event for the film in Seoul.
WHAT WAS YOUR FOCUS FOR “AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON”?
My main focus in making this second film was to do better than I did the first time, to spend more time with these characters. I wanted to get to know them better, build better and more exciting action sequences and, most importantly, find out more about the characters and let these guys have some fun being together, which they didn’t in the first film.
Everyone now knows that there are Avengers, superheroes and villains and all kinds of crazy stuff. For me that’s great because I wanted a different movie, a different dynamic. The first movie was definitely about putting the team together and the second movie is totally about pulling them apart.
WHICH SIDE OF THE CHARACTERS DO YOU TRY TO EXPLORE IN THIS FILM?
It is about finding darkness and their weaknesses. They are enormously strong and they are a team, so you have to dig the knife in where you can and sort of dismantle them a little bit at a time. It’s a far more personal film than the first. We have more opportunity, now that they have met and the audience has met them and understands their world, to dig into their psyches and not everything in there is pretty.
ULTRON IS TECHNICALLY TONY STARK’S INVENTION. HOW DID HE TURN BAD?
The idea is that the way to protect man is to control or even destroy man. At the same time, he has enormous issues about his father and about the team and the Avengers who are in a way responsible for him. He thinks he’s doing the logical robot thing but he’s full of rage and he doesn’t even know that. He’s not particularly sure what his plan is. He knows what he wants to do but at the same time, he doesn’t really know why he wants to do it. He doesn’t know he’s the biggest threat humanity’s ever faced.
SUPERHERO MOVIES HAVE PASSED THROUGH A PHASE WHERE, BESIDES THE THRILL, THEY SHOULD ALSO MAKE SENSE IN REALITY. HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO YOU TO MAINTAIN RELEVANCE TO THE REAL WORLD?
It’s really important for me that the film reflects the real world as much as it should. There comes a point where it would be offensive to be too specific and yet also too offensive to be blithe. You can’t make a movie where the whole city is destroyed at the end of an epic fight and all the heroes are like “Yeah! We won!” Because did they really? It’s a conflict for me as a filmmaker. I don’t want to make something that people are going to like; I want to make something that people will love.
IS THAT WHY YOU SHOT THE FILM IN SEVERAL LOCATIONS AROUND THE WORLD?
We were in Johannesburg and in Seoul as well as various parts of Europe. We had a tonne of locations in and around England as well.
It was important for me because in this story the Avengers are dealing with the world’s perception of them and of their intrusion into world politics. Obviously, they’re not addressing the UN; they’re fighting bad guys.
But there is this thing where they have to deal with the issue of their being a global entity, so we wanted to expand locations from the first one; this time we really want to say that they are far from home.
We don’t spend a lot of time in New York. We spend a decent amount but they really get booted into the real world in ways that they hadn’t expected. It’s very much a part of them to learn how much they’re connected to it or aren’t.
WHAT WERE THE DYNAMICS LIKE ON THE SET WITH ALL THE BIG NAME STARS?
I didn’t get superstars on the set, just 10 or 11 actors who wanted to help each other. They just wanted to make a scene work. People asked me a lot “how do you deal with the ego of superstars?” Ego didn’t really exist on the set, except for mine [laughs]. It’s about the story, we’re all at the service of the story we want to tell. It’s a really happy, joyful, fun and safe set. These guys make me laugh a lot.
WILL YOU CONTINUE TO WORK WITH MARVEL?
This is my last “Avengers” film. I don’t know if I’ll be continuing to work for any of Marvel’s series but I’ll obviously be part of the family. I love these guys, I love these stories. I’ve been reading these since I was a kid.
