The director explains why Loki was missing in the second 'Avengers' movie and opens up about an unused scene featuring Hulk, while Jeremy Renner discusses Hawkeye's backstory reveal.
- May 2, 2015
AceShowbiz - Tom Hiddleston's Loki who became the main baddie in the first installment of "The Avengers" was almost brought back for "Avengers: Age of Ultron". In an interview with MTV News, director Joss Whedon admits he did have a plan for the Trickster God in the second movie and explains why he eventually backed down.
"We did shoot something and it didn't play or it didn't - the movie has so much, is so filled and we didn't want it to feel overstuffed. I really wanted to have Loki in it but I understood the decision that it was just like, 'Okay now there are too many voices in the chorus.' At some point the embarrassment of riches is actually embarrassing," he said.
Speculation about Loki's involvement in "Age of Ultron" arose after Idris Elba who plays Asgardian gate keeper Heimdall said he had filmed a scene with Hiddleston for the movie. "Idris misspoke...twice," Whedon commented. In a separate chat with Vulture, the helmer said, "Should he receive an email from me, there might be an attitude of scold."
Another scene that didn't work involved Mark Ruffalo's Hulk. "It's a great gag, but I couldn't justify it," Whedon told Badass Digest. "We were building a lot of the final battle around it, and it was killing us. Even when we were shooting. We had to stutter-step everything else, and eventually in post I convinced them we need to jettison this concept. I knew I could write a conclusion for Bruce and Natasha that I thought would be much better storytelling, and would be a real moment."
Jeremy Renner agreed that "Avengers" was so crowded that they had to stall the background story of his character Hawkeye. "We did speak together about some of his stories and secrets, and they just couldn't be implemented into the first one," the actor told Zap2It. "It just didn't have room for it."
They eventually managed to squeeze it into the second one, but "even the backstory stuff and secrets revealed in this one weren't quite the ones we talked about," Renner opened up. When asked what the initial story was, he played it coy, "I still can't talk those because they can still happen, and they're just as cool -- even more so now."
"It felt like Hawkeye was almost introduced as a new character, because he's never really been explored prior with any sort of depth at all," he added. "I love the fallibility of a superhero who's really just a guy with a really high skill set, and Joss was able to come up with a really cool idea. [Hawkeye] can kind of be a really fantastic grounding rod for the group. These are all things we talked about as far as the reason why he's needed on the team, ultimately."
"I think we'd all get pretty bored if it was just a bunch of killing of robots and slinging of arrows and slinging of hammers. It comes back to Clint's story: Don't we all just want to go home and have a life and be happy? Captain America battles with that. If you don't know the plight of these flawed heroes, then what's the point of it all? I think the intimate moments and the character development is crucial to especially movies like this. What comes up next, ... It's going to be arguing and trying to destroy each other," he said with laugh.
Will Hawkeye's background be explored more in the next "Captain America: Civil War"? Renner only teased, "That's hard to say; it's beyond my pay grade, ultimately. I think just knowing that it's there is one thing, but we'll see. I have no idea what they want to do."
