Joss Whedon Reveals Why Certain Scenes Were Cut From MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS

Earlier this week, Marvel released a sneak peek at a gloomy alternative opening for Marvel's The Avengers, leading many fans to question why it didn't make the final cut. Even more confusing was why exactly the scene in which Steve Rogers discovers that the Howling Commandos are all dead and Peggy Carter is still alive was removed, especially as it showed exactly how out of place he is in the present day. Well, in a recent interview with Vulture, writer and director Joss Whedon shed some light on his decision to take these seemingly pivotal scenes out of the critically acclaimed superhero ensemble. To read what the director had to say about The Avengers sequel, his Marvel Studios deal, and the recently announced S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series, click HERE.

"One: The movie was three hours long. Two: Audiences didn't respond to it as well in the movie as I think they would as a DVD extra. Most of them didn't know who this character was or what the context was, and they were like, Uhhh, I don't know why I'm supposed to be personally involved in this character I don't know. The rollout to the Avengers getting to Loki was so gradual that people were getting restless. I thought Cobie nailed it, and the reason I thought it was necessary is because I was trying to make a war movie and I wanted to give context that something bad had happened in the past. In a war movie, you don't know who's going to live or die, but you do know that this war happened and that [the characters] are going to be in a dire circumstance, and I wanted to create that atmosphere."

"I was able to get what I needed without doing that. It was tough. I hated cutting it. I hated cutting the Captain America stuff with the waitress. At least I was able to call Ashley Johnson [who plays the waitress] and tell her that all her stuff was still in Much Ado About Nothing, since she had been cut out of Dollhouse, she had been cut out of The Avengers: "I swear you're still in the Shakespeare movie!" You know, those bits had seemed very personal to me, and part of doing Much Ado was that I could go back to The Avengers and say, "Oh, it's not about me. Even though its my film, it's about the Avengers. I am less important than the needs of the film."