Why Joss Whedon Is The Man For 'The Avengers'

With little more than a month to go until "The Avengers" finally hits theaters, it seems safe to say that we're about as hyped for the film as we're going to get (that is to say, we're pretty hyped). The Marvel ensemble action film is set to be one of the most star-studded superhero movies of the summer, and director Joss Whedon said in a new interview that he spent a lot of time making sure the flick didn't get too big for its own good.

"With this film it was always a question of if the audience was going to go through this, making sure the Avengers went through it as well: really testing them, not just watching them punch people for two hours," Whedon told GQ UK. "It is big because it is by necessity big - it's not spectacle for its own sake and I'm not good at that."

Turns out that the element of the film that Whedon found most difficult is the one we've seen the least amount in its promotion: the Hulk. The "Buffy" creator teased that he and Mark Ruffalo "fought a great deal" -- as in, fought on the mats -- while they were training the actor for the fight scenes, even though Whedon called Ruffalo "the sweetest man that I may ever have met." It was discovering what made the Hulk character angry that was the truly difficult part.

"Once he gets angry you have to keep asking 'well what's making him angry now...' and go moment-to-moment. That's been the hardest thing in this movie," Whedon said. "Mark is tremendous, I think he's going to blow people away - again - and we've gone where nobody has. We've got the Hulk in the house and everything pisses him off."

Whedon went on to emphasize that Marvel felt he was the right person to direct "The Avengers" because of his ability to tell a big story on a smaller scale. If Marvel would have wanted a big movie, he said, they would have hired someone else.

"They'd get somebody whose specialty was carnage. It's partly the reason that Drew [Goddard] was the right person for ['Cabin in the Woods']: he will wade in gore with the glee of a 12-year-old. Whereas I will wade in 'Glee'," he said with a laugh. "I don't think people will watch 'Avengers' and say 'Oh, it's entered into the baroque stage and it's too much.' I believe in the story and the people that I work with. I'm just excited for everybody to see all the fun I've had."

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