CHAPTER 5:
THE GREATEST CBM EVER TOLD
Crossovers. Crossovers have been around since the dawn of time. And of all the great crossovers, by far the most amazing, most astounding, and most groundbreaking crossover is...
WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT
SCREW BvS! TO HELL WITH AVENGERS! Do those films have Bugs & Mickey together in one scene?
No? Then they ain't got s**t on Roger Rabbit!
But I digress. WB had been planning on making a JLA film for so long, but no one could get the script right. What was the problem? Well it took Marvel figuring it out for DC to figure it out. And that is... Don't throw all your characters in one film. Introduce them first.
A year after the distribution deal was made, Marvel revealed to Wall Street that they were going to individually introduce each Avengers before throwing them all in one film. And they were right. The main four all had their films. Black Widow was introduced in Iron Man 2. And Hawkeye made a small cameo in Thor.
As I said, Iron Man was Marvel's biggest risk, as if it bombed and sucked, there would be no MCU, just an Iron Man film, and Hulk film. This was proven when Marvel didn't actually set release dates for Thor, Cap, and Avengers until AFTER it was realeasedand Avengers was set for July 2011, with Robert Downey Jr. set to return. Edward Norton was also supposed to return as Bruce Banner, but he left the role because he wanted to prove he was more diverse as an actor. So contrary to popular belief, there were no negotion problems nor were there creative fueds.
Zak Penn, a writer on The Incredible Hulk, was hired to write Avengers.Jon Favreau was rumoured to direct, but that was false. He ended up not directing this OR IronMan3 because he wanted to direct... Cowboys & Aliens. Sure, why not?
In March of 2010, Penn had finished the script. However, a month later, Joss Whedon was announced as director and writer of this movie. His script originally included Ant-Man and Wasp, but they got cut. To prepare for writing, he was given the scripts for Thor and The First Avenger, to help him connect all these heroes together.
There were also plenty of references to past Marvel films, included deleted stuff from those films. For example, when Tony talks about Phil Coulsen, he says "His first name is Agent". This is a reference to how that character was only supposed to be in Iron Man for two minutes and was simply called Agent. Also, the scene where Bruce is talking about how he tried to commit suicide until he turned into the Hulk is a reference to the alternate opening of The Incredible Hulk, where Bruce is in the Arctic, he tries to put a bullet in his mouth, and then hulks out and causes an avalanche.
When Scarlett Johansonn was cast in Iron Man 2, it was all part of a deal where she would play the part in Avengers. Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, and Tom Hiddleston were quickly announced to appear in Avengers shortly after they were cast in their films. When casting Hulk, they wanted to get Joaquin Pheonix for the role. But they got Mark Ruffalo, who was considered for the role in The Incredible Hulk. Whedon was against bringing back the side characters from the previous films. However,he finally ended up bringing in Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Bettany, and Stellan Skarsgard. Natalie Portman was meant to cameo, but than she got pregnant.
Many scenes were either added at the last minute were improvised. The Shawrama line and the Shakesphere line were improvised by Downey Jr. Because of this, the Shawrama credits scene was born. The Thanos scene was added by Joss Whedon because he needed someone to have given Loki his power and he wanted it to be Thanos because how powerful he is.
How powerful is Thanos?
Well, he's doing all this so he can get laid...
...and he got defeated by agirl with the powers of a squirrel.
On May 2012, the movie was finally released. The film was praised from critics to casual veiwers to Marvel fans alike. What was it praised for?
As for the box-office it was amazing. It became the third highest grossing film behind Avatar & Titanic. It had the highest opening of all time. It had the highest 2nd weekend of all tie. It was the first movie to make $200,000,000 in it's first three days. The list goes on.
Anyway, Phase One was over and it was time to move on with Phase Two.
TO BE CONTINUED...