A friend of mine on Facebook, Rick Kinkade, was able to visit the Albuquerque offices of The Avengers and meet with director Joss Whedon. He had participated in a charity benefiting the Gulf Coast and had won an audience with “The Whedon”.
Initially, Whedon had planned to use the Wasp in the film and said, “I tried to write her in, but I could not make it work.” He laughed and said, “I need more chicks in this movie!” It’s possible that Whedon could not use the Wasp due to Edgar Wright’s impending
Ant-Man film. At the time, the thing Whedon was most worried about was the lack of rehearsal time with the cast and a table read was pretty much out of the question. Regarding the CG elements, the only two purely CG characters would be the Hulk and Iron Man. He had worked on Ang Lee’s
Hulk script and tried to salvage the last third of the film (which in my opinion sucks, but I don’t blame Whedon).
Here’s where the really previously unknown stuff kicks in:
Rick and Joss discovered they were both fans of actress Joan Leslie (who was in films like
Sergeant York and
Yankee Doodle Dandy; coincidentally, she was also on an episode of “The Incredible Hulk” – “My Favorite Magician”).
Whedon is planning to digitally recreate her image (Whedon described this as “Gumping” in reference to using CG in a historical significance ala Forrest Gump) in a newsreel, similar to Citizen Kane as a way to start the film back in the 40s. He used a film Leslie was in called This is the Army and will lift footage out of that. The newsreel supposedly would feature Leslie as Cap’s girlfriend, which of course, would not be canon with
Captain America: The First Avenger, but I have a theory. In the days of the 40s, tabloid journalism was a lot different. News hounds basically had to make up their own information and hope that their guesses were right. My idea is that Leslie is coupled with Cap as a kind of “celebrity couple” akin to Katherine Hepburn and Howard Hughes’ relationship (coincidentally, Hughes was the inspiration for Tony Stark and his father).
Outside of
The Avengers, Joss talked about how he thought
The Matrix was a perfect film but they had lost the originality of it when the sequels came around. He also expressed his dislike of
Superman Returns. It seems to me, however, that Whedon would be utilizing similar technology that brought Marlon Brando back to life for
Returns to bring Joan Leslie into
The Avengers.
I have to thank Mr. Rick Kinkade for allowing me to use this information. I fully appreciate his willingness to help us anticipate Walt Disney Pictures’
The Avengers. To me, May 4th 2012 can’t come soon enough!