20 facts you might not know about 'The Avengers'

Plans for The Avengers started early. Like, before Iron Man even came out early. In fact, Zak Penn was hired to write a screenplay back in 2006. In 2010, Whedon was brought on to direct and to rewrite the script. He gets sole screenwriting credit but shares a “story by” credit with Penn.

When he was writing the script, Whedon wasn’t sure if Scarlett Johansson would be available, so a version of The Wasp was included in the script, played by Zooey Deschanel in Whedon’s mind. He also considered Obidiah Stane’s son Ezekiel as a secondary villain, worrying Loki wouldn’t be enough.

Norton played the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk, the forgotten MCU movie. The reason for that is Norton was booted from the role as Bruce Banner/Hulk, being replaced with Mark Ruffalo for The Avengers. Norton has said he never wanted to play Hulk again. Marvel’s Kevin Feige put out a statement at the time explaining they chose not to have Norton back because of "the need for an actor who embodies the creativity and collaborative spirit of our other talented cast members." Norton has a reputation for basically trying to shadow direct every movie he’s in, so that’s not surprising to hear.

Ruffalo got to actually play both Banner and Hulk thanks to digital effects, but he didn’t provide Hulk’s voice solo. Apparently, the sounds and grunts and noises Hulk make were a combination of Ruffalo, Lou Ferrigno, and a few others.

Smulders was cast as Maria Hill, who would go on to pop up frequently in the MCU. Whedon had been interested in casting Smulders before. Back when he was working on a live-action Wonder Woman movie that didn’t come to fruition, he was considering Smulders for the role.

For the first time in the MCU, we are introduced to the eventual primary villain of the Avengers storyline: Thanos. Although, he’s not mentioned by name in the movie. Also, he’s not played by Josh Brolin, who hadn’t been cast yet. Instead, Thanos is portrayed by Damion Poitier for the one and only time.

Thanos ended up the big bad of the MCU, but that wasn’t put into place by the higher ups. It was actually Whedon’s idea to include Thanos in a post-credits scene. Although, Whedon didn’t control the direction Thanos took as a character. When he talked about it after the movie, he mentioned Thanos being in love with Death, which isn’t part of the MCU storyline.

At the end of The Avengers, there is a funny, short scene of the whole Avengers crew eating shawarma. This is based off a line from Tony Stark in the movie, and it also was a late addition. How late? That scene was filmed on April 12, 2012, one day after The Avengers had premiered in Los Angeles.

In the time between finishing shooting the movie and shooting the shawarma scene, Evans had grown a beard for a role. Obviously, he couldn’t have a beard in that scene, so they had Evans put a prosthetic chin over his facial hair. Evans also put his hand over his face to try and help hide the prosthetic .

The Avengers began shooting in 2011 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the first of a handful of shooting locations. When it began shooting, in order to hide what was filming, they used the working title of “Group Hug.”

In the United States, the 1998 movie The Avengers was a flop, so a similar title wasn’t a concern. However, in the United Kingdom, there wasn’t just that movie but the popular TV show it was based on. There were 161 episodes of The Avengers in the U.K., so there was worry that the Marvel movie would cause confusion. Thus, it was given the official title of Marvel Avengers Assemble in Britain.

Downey Jr. was ad-libbing and improvising on set, and that included the line where he says that one guy at S.H.I.E.L.D. is playing Galaga. Whedon liked the line, but in order to keep it, he then had to put an image of Galaga on the man’s screen, since it obviously wasn’t there at the time of the ad-lib.

At one point in the movie, Tony Stark wears a Black Sabbath T-shirt. Black Sabbath is, of course, known for the song “Iron Man” amongst others.

We get to see a photo of Jane Foster in The Avengers, but it was originally supposed to be more than that. Portman was going to have a cameo as Jane, but she was pregnant, and that wouldn’t really work for the character.

Stark Tower is a big part of the New York skyline in the movie, but obviously, it isn’t there in real life. So where does Stark Tower fit in? Based on what we see in the film, we can glean that Stark Tower stands where the MetLife Building is in real life.

We mentioned that Whedon wasn’t sure that Johansson would be in The Avengers. That’s in part because she wasn’t under contract like some other actors, but also because she had the opportunity to costar in the Total Recall remake. With hindsight, it was definitely a wise decision for her to turn that movie down to make Total Recall.

Enver Gjokaj has a small role as a police officer in New York in this movie. Later, he would have a larger role in a Marvel project. He costarred in Agent Carter as Agent Sousa.

The idea of The Avengers being R-rated seems surprising, given that it’s not super violent and is obviously not sexually explicit or even all that vulgar. However, there was one scene that threatened it with an R rating. That’s when Loki kills Agent Coulsen. Originally, you could see Loki’s staff burst through Coulsen’s chest, which was considered too violent and gory.

Renner did a lot of his own stunts as Hawkeye, and they largely went well. However, one fight scene did not turn out well for Renner. The actor tore a muscle in his back, and shooting had to be held up for a few days so he could recover.

When the Avengers assembled, so did moviegoers. The movie made $207.4 million in North America over its opening weekend, a new record. Overall, it made $1.52 billion worldwide, which made it the third-highest-grossing movie of all-time. It was the highest-grossing movie of 2012, of course, beating The Dark Knight Rises in the process.