Joss Whedon

Avengers: Age of Ultron is the eleventh film in Marvel Studios’ ongoing quest to dominate your disposable income for the rest of your moviegoing life, the biggest, loudest and most expensive chapter yet in what is quickly becoming a triumph of Hollywood marketing and corporate one-upmanship. But it is also, somehow, totally, the work of writer/director Joss Whedon, whose clear voice, honed over decades spent working in film and television, rings through all of the noise. While The Avengers was directed by Whedon, his messier, crazier sequel is truly, at its heart, a Joss Whedon Film.

Late last year, Idris Elba let slip that he and Tom Hiddleston filmed Avengers 2 cameos in a scene with Chris Hemsworth as Thor. But, if you've seen the movie, you've noticed that Tom Hiddleston and Loki are nowhere to be found. What gives? Director Joss Whedon says that the scene they filmed just “didn’t play.”

Though Joss Whedon recently said not to expect many Avengers 2 easter eggs, there are still some things in Age of Ultron that eagle-eyed Marvel fans will notice if they're paying attention. We've compiled a list of all the easter eggs we noticed after our second screening of the film. Is there anything you noticed that we missed? Drop it in the comments below and we'll add it!

Once Marvel acquired the rights to Daredevil, it was unclear just what the studio was planning on doing with the character, whose last on-screen iteration didn’t work out so great. The solution: a partnership with Netflix for a new series, which — along with a handful of others — will lead into the epic Defenders series. With the help of Drew Goddard and Steven DeKnight, Daredevil has been a big success for both Marvel and Netflix, but there was one person who would have rather seen the crime-fighting hero back on the big screen.

One of the main reasons so many people have taken to the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the interconnectedness of it all. At the same time, the attention to continuity and building a new superhero canon has wreaked no small amount of havoc on the creative end, where producers and writers and directors have all butted heads in various ways. The latest bit of weirdness comes via the increasingly honest Joss Whedon, who hasn’t been shy about his friction with Marvel Studios while he’s been promoting Avengers: Age of Ultron. According to Whedon, Marvel Studios wasn't very happy with the decision to make a TV show starring a character (Agent Coulson) they had just killed off in the movies.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has performed an impressive amount of legwork setting up The Avengers: Age of Ultron, but for many a Marvel fan, it always comes back to Coulson standing side-by-side with his fellow Avengers. That reunion may yet take awhile, as Joss Whedon apparently still considers Phil Coulson dead, as of the Age of Ultron.

There’s a lot to like about Avengers: Age of Ultron, but the coolest thing about it is the way it reclaims the comic book part of the phrase “comic-book movie.” Rather than using these characters to do something “edgy” or “adult” or “important,” or sanding down their quirkier edges to appeal to as broad and mainstream an audience as possible, Age of Ultron doubles down on its source material’s geeky origins.

It's futile to continue to talk about what could've been when it comes to Edgar Wright, Marvel and Ant-Man. For their own separate reasons, they parted ways, the film was rewritten by Adam McKay (Anchorman) and star Paul Rudd, and was eventually directed by Peyton Reed. And that may very well wind up being a great Ant-Man movie (the trailer certainly looked promising enough)! But, if we're to believe Avengers director Joss Whedon, Edgar Wright's Ant-Man could have been the best movie Marvel ever made.

In just a few weeks, Joss Whedon and Marvel are unleashing Whedon’s biggest film yet, Avengers: Age of Ultron. Unfortunately, while the director prepares to celebrate the release of what will undoubtedly be the biggest superhero film of the year, Whedon and longtime colleague Drew Goddard have just been hit with a copyright lawsuit over their 2012 horror hit The Cabin in the Woods.

For a long time, it was rumored that Captain Marvel would make an appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron. And then those rumors dried up, replaced by official word that Carol Danvers would not be making her big screen debut in the film. Now, we have confirmation that those early rumors were on point at the very least. Captain Marvel was this close to showing up in the Avengers sequel, so much so that special effects footage was shot for her appearance.