Today in Avengers news: Joss Whedon confirms no Skrulls or Kree, AMC announces Marvel movie marathon
Joss Whedon has also been at SXSW, trying to talk about his long-delayed, genre-twisting horror movie with Drew Goddard, The Cabin In The Woods, despite everyone wanting to talk about The Avengers and/or Buffy and Firefly. (I talked to him about all of those things for an interview we’re running later, and for what it’s worth, he was very gracious about the latter.) One of those moments came during Whedon’s panel hosted by Entertainment Weekly, and it produced—to Whedon’s instant chagrin—the most rapidly circulated and dissected Avengers revelation since the last one: “It is not the Kree or the Skrulls,” Whedon said of the film’s main villains, thus deflating all the speculation from fans who studied the most recent trailer and concluded confidently that a briefly glimpsed spaceship confirmed their appearance.
Though immediately regretting the decision to talk about it (“It’s weird to get fired this late,” he joked), Whedon went on to explain, “Those two aliens are Marvel mainstays and have enormous backstories. They have a big life of their own that just could not be contained in a film where I already had seven movie stars… The Skrulls—they can shape change. That’s a whole thing. I’ve already got Loki. He’s got magic. Once you got magic along with your Iron Man and your Black Widow—it’s a real juggling act.” So, there you have it: Adjust your assertions about a film you won’t see for a couple more months accordingly.
And for those of you who have no idea who any of these people are or why any of this would matter to anyone—or for fans who just want a refresher—AMC Theaters has announced the all-day Ultimate Marvel Marathon on May 3, screening all five previous Marvel movies in order of release (from Iron Man to Captain America), then culminating in a midnight screening of The Avengers. Tickets are $40 and a preliminary list of participating theaters confirmed so far can be found here. None of those movies have the Skrulls or the Kree either, by the way, so caveat emptor.