When Joss Whedon crushed it with Avengers, it seemed natural homeboy would take the reins for the second one. Not so! Not so at all. There was consternation a-plenty from geeks like me when he wavered, and wobbled. Oh glorious being! Please guide us into a second flick! Think more Dark Knight, and less Bruce Wayne Climbs. The Whedon answered our clarion cry, and now he is explaining why he almost didn’t.

/Film:

It’s great to be Joss Whedon right now — after years of being a cult sensation he has turned into one of the most powerful guys in Hollywood, thanks to the fact that The Avengers sits in third place on the all-time box-office earners list. But that also means that he’s under the sort of scrutiny that he’s never quite faced before, and that means there’s a lot to think about when it comes to making decisions going forward.

So I like the way Whedon describes his decision process for making The Avengers 2,which entailed a little more than telling a driver how to get to his garage to dump a metric ton of cash. In addition, there’s a bit of info about the supposed confirmation of a character for Guardians of the Galaxy and The Avengers 2.

Speaking with Steve Ramos of Co.Create, Whedon explained the process of saying “yes” to make The Avengers 2:

There’s a business aspect to it and I would be disingenuous not to say that, but the question for me is, Do I have another story to tell about these people? So we worked on the business side of it and I didn’t think it was going to happen–I was like ‘I’m never going to do this again.’ But once they worked on the business aspect of it I thought that seems fair and cool, so, the question was, Do I have another thing to say? I was in London and I went to a pub and had some fish & chips & a pint and started writing in my notebook. I’m writing if I was going to do this what would I say & 40 minutes later I filled the notebook. So I text my agent & said to make the deal. I’m so in love with that universe & the characters & the way they were played & I have so much more I want to do with them. I know I can’t match the success of the first one but I can try to make a better film & that’s what I’m excited about, that’s the new room of fear I’m entering now.