Before The Avengers was released in 2012, no one thought it would work. After all, how could you take superheroes from such vastly different franchises and bring them together for a team-up movie? It seemed impossible and was a huge gamble for Marvel Studios.
With Joss Whedon, a largely untested blockbuster filmmaker, at the helm, The Avengers—titled Avengers Assemble in the UK—could have killed the MCU as we know it. Instead, it received glowing reviews and grossed $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office, putting Marvel Studios on an unforgettable streak of success.
Talking in a new career retrospective, Scarlett Johansson admitted that she and the rest of the cast also had their doubts about assembling Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
"When we made the first ‘Avengers’ none of us knew what the potential would be," the actor said. "'Iron Man' was massively successful. It was huge. It built the studio of Marvel. 'Iron Man 2' was also successful. There was 'Thor,' but that character felt like it was from a completely different universe. It was such a different tone from the 'Iron Man' movies. The 'Captain America' movie had its own identity as well."
"When you added the characters all together, plus Hulk and Hawkeye, it just felt like a big mess to be honest. Even on the set it felt crazy. We all looked insane. What are we doing?" Johansson recalled. "I don’t think anybody knew if it was going to work or not besides Kevin Feige and Joss Whedon. The cast had blind faith in them."
However, when the cast gathered to film that iconic shot of The Avengers standing side-by-side in New York, it sounds like everyone realised they had something special on their hands.
"I remember the scene where we all are in that 360 of the characters together," she continued. "That was the moment where we all thought this maybe could work. It felt powerful. When we watched the playback it looked really cool, but so much of it didn’t feel cool when we were shooting it. We were young. We were having such a great time. We became such great friends. It was a blast."
The Avengers spawned a sequel with Avengers: Age of Ultron, with the Russo Brothers later picking up where Whedon left off by helming Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame.
Johansson bid farewell to Natasha Romanoff with 2021's Black Widow movie and recently dismissed the possibility of returning to the MCU.
You can hear more from the actor in the player below.