The Avengers (2012 film)

"Samuel L. Jackson – Nick Fury"

"Scarlett Johansson – Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow"

"Jeremy Renner – Clint Barton / Hawkeye"

"Tom Hiddleston – Loki"

"Clark Gregg – Phil Coulson"

"Cobie Smulders – Maria Hill"

"So the Chitauri were Al-Qaeda? O.K., good to know. A suspicion I had during Iron Man 3 was confirmed during Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (by which we mean the movies starring Marvel comic-book characters that aren't distributed by Sony or 20th Century Fox) has decided to go back and reposition the big battle from Marvel’s The Avengers as its 9/11. On the one hand, this is a “no duh” observation—at the end of The Avengers, New York was blown to smithereens. But the tenor in which Joss Whedon shot and cut the lengthy third act sequence was so zippy and fun that it seemed as if Marvel was “taking back” the iconography of New York’s destruction, from both the terrorists and real life. The key image from Avengers is an adulatory 360-degree swoop of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes assembled in full flex before the sturdy columns of Grand Central. It is not “Falling Man.”"

"Much like the once wide-eyed Captain, I felt a little manipulated. Had I known those whiz-bang scenes from The Avengers were supposed to have more heft, I may have approached them differently as I was strapping that feed bag of popcorn to my face. I would have looked for more pathos in the Hulk flinging Loki around like a rag doll and muttering “puny God.” Perhaps it was less of a laugh line and more of a comment about fundamentalist religion’s unsuitability with liberty-loving New York. Which means I don't even want to think about that shawarma gag!"

"I don't like his other work; I think its shallow and badly written. I mean, I've got kids who like superheroes, and they think the Batman films are boring and pretentious. They like things like The Avengers and Iron Man because they're fun."

"Q: How did you pitch “Avengers” to them in that e-mail?"

"Q: On some level, you just want to see famous actors playing these characters you’ve so dearly for so long."

"Q: We saw a lot of art before, but is there one sequence that you’re really proud of or really excited to work on?"

"Q: I would think Bruce Banner and The Hulk is the toughest part, because we have scene two other movies with two other actors playing him. Chris [Hemsworth], Chris [Evans], and Robert [Downey Jr.] have already been playing the characters. We know their characters. How have you been working on that and trying to develop your own Bruce Banner with Mark?"

"A: Well I had a very clear conception of what I wanted Bruce Banner to be and part of that was Mark Ruffalo. I was like, “I want somebody who just opens himself to an audience, who can’t help it, and who just takes you along everywhere he goes.” The other was Bill Bixby. That’s something that Mark and I both talked about. I felt that the performances in the other movies were very internal. And the movies themselves led to that, because they were all about Bruce Banner. The TV show was, “I have a problem and I help other people and I live with that problem.” So that’s sort of the way I wanted to approach it and the way… Mark and I spent a lot of time at the very beginning talking about rage, how it feels, how it manifests, what causes it, what it feels like afterwards—the nuts and bolts of the emotion itself. But in terms of the character, it was very clear that we wanted to have somebody who had gotten past where he was in those movies, so that when you meet him he is somebody who has internalized what went on in those movies to the extent that he’s someone you like and are interested in. If you’ve seen those movies, this would be a natural next step. If you haven’t, you’ll get the guy. You’ll get why he’s a good guy."

"Q: How much of that polish was you prepping for The Avengers and specifically the Steve Rogers character? Were you building something in there that was going to lead into this?"

"Robert Downey, Jr. – Tony Stark / Iron Man"

"Chris Evans – Steve Rogers / Captain America"

"Mark Ruffalo – Dr. Bruce Banner / Hulk"

"Chris Hemsworth – Thor"

"Some assembly required."

"Every team needs a Captain."

"Throw down the hammer."

"The Avengers, which last week enjoyed the biggest North American opening in history, recasts 9/11 in the Bush years' dominant movie mode, namely the comic book superhero spectacular – albeit with a heavy dose of irony and added stereoscopic depth. But more fundamentally, The Avengers demonstrates how completely 9/11 has been superseded by another catastrophe, namely the financial meltdown of September 2008. To the extent that the movie has any sort of social content (or any content), it offers a flattering view of America's best as a group of eccentric individualists bamboozled into saving the world (economy) by the unflappable Samuel L Jackson's black dude of mystery. But even this Obama-iste reading is a bit of a stretch. The medium is the message. Hollywood felt threatened by 9/11 in 2001 but impervious to financial disaster in 2008. Three days after Lehman Brothers went bust, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg assured investors that movies were "recession-proof". Of course, the industry did not allow for the simultaneous erosion of the DVD market and the public's discretionary income. The Avengers has less to do with the terror of falling buildings than falling grosses. The palliative for that goes by the name 3D. Bombs away: The Avengers is 9/11 as you've never seen it!"

"Avengers Assemble!"