Joss Whedon took some time to talk about some of his earlier drafts for The Avengers, which included the likes of the Wasp and Ezekiel Stane.
“We went through a lot of insane iterations of what might be,” he said in an interview with the website Thrillist. “At the very beginning, I wrote entire drafts that had no bearing on what I would eventually film.”
He notes that at one point, it looked as if Scarlet Johansson wouldn’t be able to be in the movie, so he wrote in the Wasp, another female superhero, to replace her. “That was not useful,” Whedon quipped.
While adding a new hero would have been a bit strange, there is a bit of logic to Whedon’s idea: Wasp (the Janet van Dyne version) was a founding member of the Avengers in the comic book, along with her husband, Ant-Man (Hank Pym). Apparently, this plan went pretty far, too: animatics of the Wasp can be found online and rumors say that Demi Lovato and/or Eva Longoria were being considered for the part.
Incidentally, fans know that we are about meet Janet, and see her daughter Hope suit up as a hero, in the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Stane is a bit of a stranger idea. In the comics, he is the son of Obadiah Stane, who was the villain of the original Iron Man movie. Whedon explained that he worried “that one British character actor was not enough to take on Earth’s mightiest heroes,” he said, in reference to Tom Hiddleston’s Loki.
Kevin Feige immediately vetoed the idea, though apparently his co-president, Louis D’Esposito, thought that, despite being wrong for the film, it was well-written. “That was a nice boost,” Whedon said.
In the end, The Avengers turned out great, using Loki as the main villain (as was the case in the original comic) and the Chitauri (alien creatures from Marvel’s Ultimate continuity) as his minions, fixing any concerns that he would not be able to fight the whole team on his own.
In a way, it is comforting to know that, as carefully constructed as the MCU looks, its writers have had a hard time figuring out how to get it just right. It was always an ambitious project, and it takes both skill and a lot of thought to devise.
