Although it is still two years away, Marvel’s The Avengers movie is one of the most anticipated movies coming out anytime soon. So much so, that many of the announcements made at ComicCon regarding the film were actually confirmations of news and rumors that had been floating around for months, rather than surprising reveals.
On the semi-surprising side, Marvek confirmed that actor Marc Ruffalo (Shutter Island, The Brothers Bloom) will take over the role of the Hulk, following Ed Norton and Marvel splitting ways via a series of odd e-mails. Ruffalo has been the name most recently topping the rumor list of potential replacements, that included Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, and David Tennant.
Another long overdue confirmation: Joss Whedon is now officially the director of The Avengers. This simply confirms something that everyone has known for months. Marvel reps have frequently referred to Whedon when discussing the movie, and confirmed reports had Whedon discussing the movie with others, including Norton, who supposedly had a positive meeting with Whedon. But it needed to be officially confirmed.
Along with Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker, 28 Weeks Later) was officially announced as Hawkeye, also known as Clint Barton. This confirms a rumor from nearly two months ago that generally became accepted as fact. Also acknowledging things that we long suspected, Scarlet Johansson will reprise her Iron Man 2 role as Black Widow.
In an interview with io9, Whedon shot down one set of rumors that had Nathan Fillion playing Ant-Man, confirming that the character won’t even be in The Avengers. Whedon also described the Avengers as a “broken” family, and briefly discussed the relationship between Captain America and Iron Man.
“They are two very different definitions of a person. One is a self-made man, a modern man, a rockstar. The other is a World War 2 grunt, just trying to do his part. They couldn’t have more different views of the world,” Whedon said. “That will just end up in fun. It ended up in Civil War in the comics, in my movie it will be witty banter.”
The movie will also star Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Captain America, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, and Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man.
