Why Is Whedon Rewriting Cap and Avengers?

It was good news the day I saw on iFanboy that Joss Whedon was supposedly in talks to direct and polish the script for the Avengers movie. I was even happier when I saw the rumours that Whedon would be rewriting the Captain America script. Whedon has a history of polishing movie scripts that go on to be very impressive films.

But is there a connection?

I think there is, and I think it might give us a clue as to Marvel’s intentions for the two films, as well as future films.

Captain America is really the key here.

The Captain America movie is set to be released a year before the Avengers movie. That makes sense. Add him into the plethora of individual character movies being released before the big team up. But he’s not like the others, and I don’t mean simply that he’s the most important character to the Avengers. He’s a man out of time. His origin isn’t some acid spill or technological genius brain. He’s a super-soldier from the 40’s who wants to smack Hitler right in the face.

So how does he end up fighting with the Avengers?

Well there’s a bomb and a fall and an iceberg and some sketchy science, but let’s just say that he makes it safe and sound to the present – whenever that may be – and helps create the Avengers.

You can’t do Captain America without doing a WWII story. You simply can’t do a Cap story without his origin. Without Bucky and the super-soldier serum and Hitler bashing. It just can’t be done. Or shouldn’t.

And Marvel have been doing pretty well with their movies. No weird Uma Thurman-Poison Ivy’s happening here, thank you very much. Marvel know just what they’re doing, and that’s to please the fans.

So assuming that the Captain America movie does take place in WWII then it would also make sense that the Avengers movie will be their origin, and that can’t be done without Captain America being found in an iceberg, or something maybe a little more realistic for the 21st century. Find him in a cryogenic chamber or something like that.

We’ve got Joss Whedon given script control over two movies that, in reality, really are a pair. The original then its sequel. The First Avenger: Captain America and the Avengers. It’s even in the title: “First Avenger” anyone? It makes sense that Whedon’s control is because there needs to be a seamless transition between the two movies.

Marvel, as I’ve said, have been doing a great job of adapting their comic-book superheroes and doing it right. Stepping away from the original origins of these two – Cap and the Avengers – would be unlike every step Marvel has taken so far. Especially considering that the movies they are going with are more in line with the original Avengers line up than any of the more modern day ones. In other words, no Hawkeye, no Scarlet Witch, no Black Panther, no Luke Cage.

I must admit that part of this is hope, but I think it’s relatively well reasoned hope and something that I can put some faith in.