Joss Whedon Says Home Video Release of The Avengers Will Include 30 Minutes of Deleted Scenes
Posted 04.16.12 by BrentJS
Even though The Avengers has already had its worldwide premiere and it's set to open nationwide in less than three weeks, writer-director Joss Whedon's work is far from done. No, we're not talking about the rumor — started by Robert Downey, Jr. and confirmed by Mark Ruffalo, but denied by Whedon and Marvel Studios President of Production Kevin Feige — that Whedon was planning on shooting one more scene for the movie after its premiere, but the work that Whedon will be putting into the home video version of The Avengers.
In a recent interview with Collider, Whedon revealed that his "first assembly" of the movie "was three hours long," and had to be trimmed down considerably for the theatrical release. Much of that material will never see the light of day, but Whedon promised that "at least 30" minutes of deleted scenes will be included on the DVD/Blu-ray release of the movie.
It’s some character stuff but it was more ancillary. Marvel never wanted to take the texture out of the movie, the little moments between people. We wanted, obviously, to streamline it and make it not so long that it became self-indulgent, which at that length it was, and they wanted to focus on The Avengers more than anything else, but the thing I loved was there were so many little moments that I thought, "They’re going to make me squeeze this out," and they never did. Once we had the structure down, they really wanted it to breathe and for these things to be as textured as they could be.
Whedon recently told The New York Times that one of the scenes that had to be deleted was a scene between Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and his love interest from Captain America: The First Avenger, Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), that took place in the present. In the interview with Collider, Whedon revealed that another one of the deleted scenes also featured Captain America.
I had quite a little sequence built of Cap not relating to the world and feeling his isolation and as we got closer and closer, we realized, when he’s punching that bag, he’s pretty much telling us everything we need to know. He’s in a gym by himself at night beating things up. And then you sort of go, "Actually, that story’s being told by that."
The Avengers opens May 4th.