May 1, 2015 may seem like a long ways away from now, but it’s the date that’s already been set in stone for Avengers 2.
There’s no need to worry about the audience forgetting about The Avengers, the fans will certainly be there in force on opening day, and to fill the two year gap before Avengers 2 hits theaters, there’s also going to be the S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show on ABC. (This is an infinitely smarter idea than the Star Wars Holiday special, which was supposed to fill the gap between the first film and Empire).
At last report, Whedon had an outline done for the script in December, and now he tells Collider that a full-blown screenplay should be completed “in a couple of months.”
He also told MTV that his goal for the next Avengers film is, “Don’t go bigger; go deeper. All of these people have met, so you have that out of the way. Now you can spend your time just digging in – and by digging in, I mean with a scalpel, to cause pain.”
This sounds a big like what happened with Lord of the Rings, where the introduction of all the characters took place in the first (half) of part one, then the next went right into the action, which we’re presuming the next Avengers will do as well. Regarding S.H.I.E.L.D., Whedon said, “It’s got to be bigger than your average cop show. But at the end of the day, it’s about the peripheral people…The whole point of the show is that even with all these big things, the little things matter.”
Collider reports that the series takes place after the New York battle from the Avengers movie, and as Whedon further elaborated, “It’s about people who don’t have super powers. There will be some people with powers, there will be FX, and there will be the spectacle of science-fiction storytelling – but all played on a very human, small level.”
The pilot is going forward without a guarantee of a full series order, but as ABC president Paul Lee told the Hollywood Reporter, “We’re very hopeful that it’s going to go to series. It’s a great script.” He also added that the pilot is “very Joss. He’s able to be intense and epic and suddenly funny and silly. He’s got that ability to be super-entertaining and yet super-educated.”
Definitely sounds like pure Whedon to us, and it should be pure fun as well. Stay tuned for a S.H.I.E.L.D. air date, and ABC’s Lee also promises, “I know we’re going to have fun at Comic-Con.”
