Throughout the nearly 50-year history of the comic book series “The Avengers,” dozens of heroes have been part of the crime-fighting team. There was one who dressed as a stingray and another so obscure he’s actually called the Forgotten One. That’s a lot of heroes.
And so when it came time to firm up the roster for Friday’s “The Avengers,” one problem Marvel Studios definitely didn’t have was a lack of costumed bodies.
“Too few is not a problem,” writer-director Joss Whedon says dryly before adding, “Too many is rough.”
“The Avengers” is the culmination of Marvel Studios’ grand, seven-year plan to join franchise heroes Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Hulk, as well as Black Widow, Hawkeye and Nick Fury, into one mega-team. A host of other heroes were available from the comic-book stories — the Wasp, Ant-Man, Scarlet Witch, the Vision, She-Hulk and Black Panther — but they failed to make the cut.
“We were very conscious of not making it too many characters,” says producer and president of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige. “There were lots of other characters that we discussed adding to the mix, but we said, ‘Let’s exercise some discipline, and let’s work with the unbelievable and overwhelming resources we have with these characters and not add anything new to the mix.’ ”
Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) were a given in the lineup, as each has been the subject of at least one solo film leading up to “The Avengers.” (Ruffalo is the only new actor in the bunch, taking over the Hulk role after lackluster attempts by Eric Bana and Ed Norton.)
Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), a former Russian spy who had a role in “Iron Man 2,” and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), an archer/black-ops agent who had a cameo in “Thor,” were added, Feige says, because they were “purely human characters who could counter-balance the extraordinary abilities of the other characters.”
Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the eye-patched head of covert agency S.H.I.E.L.D. would play a major role in assembling the heroes, after making limited appearances in previous Marvel films.
And then there is the villain. As in the first issue of the comic book, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is the chief bad guy in the movie. The trickster god and brother of Thor, who was introduced onscreen in last year’s “Thor,” strikes a deal with an alien race called the Chitauri to invade and conquer Earth so he can rule.
Initially, Whedon was concerned that having a single villain, and one as cerebral as Loki, would not be threatening enough to warrant the Avengers assembling. The director lobbied to add more baddies, but Marvel Studios refused. In the end, Whedon worked hard to make Loki legitimately dangerous, instead of just some accented Shakespearean cast-off in a horned helmet.
“My feeling about superhero movies, even the ones that I enjoyed, is that they’re always clean,” he says. “It always comes down to the hero versus his nemesis and you know who’s going to win and there’s really no toll. I said if these guys are going to invade, it’s got to be more than a battle, it’s got to be the thing where we really could lose, where the audience says, ‘Oh, this is why we need the Avengers.’ ”
Even with a single villain and a pared-down roster of seven superheroes, creating a coherent story that would fit into two-and-a-half hours seemed a nearly impossible task.
Says Hemsworth, “On one hand, it was a relief to share the load and the responsibility, but we all had that underlying conflict or nervous energy about how, in the time and space where you provide a story for one person usually, do you spread that across six or seven.”
Anxiety was highest in the first shot that gathered six of the seven heroes in the same room, the bridge of their flying battleship, the Helicarrier.
“That was one of the first scenes they had scheduled for us, and I think that was done on purpose because it felt intimidating to walk onto that set,” Hemsworth says. “It was pretty uncomfortable to me personally, but I think that’s how it should have felt for the characters. That’s how that scene played out, it was meant to be full of tension and egos flying around the place.”
Whedon admits he had some concerns about pleasing the star-studded cast.
“I’m not exactly Mr. A-List, and I’m not sure how much cred they would afford me,” he says. “I had the privilege of sitting down with everyone before I even started writing, and hearing their input, and that was so everybody came to play with a very comfortable sense of their character being understood.”
Downey Jr. voiced concerns about repeating himself by playing the same callow jerk from the first two “Iron Man” movies. Johansson was interested in exploring her character’s dark past. Hemsworth says he didn’t want to be a “set piece” and wanted to build on the maturity the thunder god had shown by the end of “Thor.” Renner equated Hawkeye with a military sniper and thought he should be a loner. Jackson, 63, just didn’t want to have to run in any scenes.
Marvel helped Whedon further tame the beast by providing a loose outline containing the major story beats, such as when the characters are introduced and the idea that the movie would end with a grand battle. Tonally, “The Avengers” would aspire to be like the first self-financed (and most critically successful) Marvel Studios movie, “Iron Man,” which had a pleasing mix of action and wry humor. It was the writer-director’s job to figure out exactly how to do that and how to give each character enough screen time and those big moments that would have fanboys cheering.
“You want enough room for everyone, especially when you have actors of this caliber,” Whedon says. “No one can get the bum’s rush, no one can carry a spear. They’ve all got to get in there and really matter.”
“I’m sure it’d make for juicier type if it was a diva fest and there was a lot of bitchslapping,” says Clark Gregg, who has played low-key S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Coulson in every film since the first “Iron Man.” “But in reality, a really good script makes for a happy set. There was something really special and people seemed to be psyched to be there.”
Gregg also noted that the sheer scale of “The Avengers” dwarfed the previous productions.
“When I was doing ‘Iron Man’ or ‘Thor,’ they all seemed like the biggest one,” says Gregg. “They all feel like Sundance movies compared to this one, not just in terms of all the characters but the size and scope. This was not like anything else I’ve seen.”
But then, “The Avengers” was always going to have to be bigger. Much bigger. The movie is arguably one of the most ambitious, most anticipated films ever.
Prior to 2008’s “Iron Man,” films featuring Marvel superheroes, such as “X-Men” and “Spider-Man,” were produced by other studios who had licensed the characters from Marvel back in the ’90s for a relative pittance. One analyst estimated Marvel earned just $62 million from the first two “Spider-Man” movies. Other studios still control those characters, but in 2007, Marvel raised money and started producing movies of its own with heroes from its catalog. Those individual movies, featuring characters who all live in one shared universe, have finally collided in “The Avengers.”
“Everything we’ve done up to this point is my attempt to emulate the experience of being a comic-book nerd,” Feige says. “You follow your favorite characters month after month, and every few years they team up into a big crossover event that has global ramifications, and then they return and go back to their own adventures.”
“The Avengers” will be followed by “Iron Man 3,” “Thor 2” and “Captain America 2,” as well as — perhaps — an “Ant-Man” feature directed by Edgar Wright of “Shaun of the Dead.” Then we’re back with “Avengers 2,” which appears to be set up with an intriguing post-credits sequence following “The Avengers.” Wash, rinse, repeat.
But the fact that we’ve even arrived at the first “Avengers” is no small miracle, considering how chancy the modern movie market is. So much had to go right over so many years for “The Avengers” to get made.
“Any number of things could have derailed the master plan, starting with the success or failure of ‘Iron Man.’ That was the biggest hurdle to clear,” Feige says. “The truth is, even if ‘Thor’ had not worked or ‘Captain America’ had not worked, we were already filming ‘The Avengers’ by that point. So maybe there would have been marketing changes or last-minute script rewrites. ‘People don’t like this character or they like this one more.’ We would have scrambled.”
But everything did work out along the way, and if industry tracking numbers are to be believed, it’s going to work out even better for “The Avengers.” The film is on course to open with more than $150 million next weekend, likely making it one of the biggest superhero films of all time. The reviews have also been positive, which must be a gigantic relief to Marvel after so many years of hand-wringing, second-guessing and drooling anticipation by very invested fans online, at conventions and elsewhere.
Whedon says he doesn’t worry about any of that noise.
“It doesn’t really affect me,” he says. “The pressure comes from me and it’s constant and unrelenting, and it’s, ‘Do we care? Was that funny, was that sad, was that exciting?’ And if it was, then nothing else matters. And if it wasn’t, then nothing else matters.”
reed.tucker@nypost.com