The Avengers/Trivia

A list of trivia related to The Avengers.
 * Joe Carnahan was in talks to direct the film before Joss Whedon got the job.
 * Edward Norton was originally set to reprise his role from The Incredible Hulk (2008) but negotiations between him and Marvel Studios broke down. Norton was replaced with Mark Ruffalo.
 * Jeremy Renner was said to be taking archery lessons for his role as Hawkeye.
 * The film is the first Marvel film to be distributed by Walt Disney Pictures.
 * Before Mark Ruffalo was cast as The Hulk, Joaquin Phoenix was rumored for the part.
 * Morena Baccarin, Jessica Lucas, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Cobie Smulders screen tested for the role of Agent Maria Hill. Smulders was eventually cast.
 * Lou Ferrigno returns as the voice of the CGI-made Incredible Hulk. His voice was blended with Mark Ruffalo's in the Hulk's screams, while Mark Ruffalo spoke alone in the Hulk's only line "Puny God". Lou Ferrigno, in turn, played the Hulk in the classic televison series and voiced the role in various incarnations, incuding a number of animated versions and 2003's Hulk, which has no connection to The Avengers.
 * Chris Hemsworth had to increase and expand his dietary/food intake in order to maintain the physique he built up for Thor.
 * Mark Ruffalo describes Bruce Banner's role in The Avengers as "a guy struggling with two sides of himself, the dark and the light; everything he does in his life is filtered through issues of control." He furthermore describes Banner's alter ego, the Hulk, as "a loose cannon - he's the teammate none of them are sure they want, it's like throwing a grenade into the middle of the group and hoping it turns out well!"
 * Mark Ruffalo himself portrayed the Hulk through virtual-camera motion-capture, which allows him to actually portray the Hulk. Previous live-action versions have had Bruce Banner and the Hulk be played by separate people (Bill Bixby and bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno ), or had the Hulk rendered into the film in computer-generated imagery.
 * Director Joss Whedon had earlier been considered to direct X-Men in the 1990s. A big fan of the X-Men, he even wrote a script, from which only two lines made it into the film.
 * Producer Kevin Feige compares the film to Transformers: Dark of the Moon: "It set a standard for that level of ZOMG-awesomeness and scale. We're working to try to outdo that."
 * Mark Ruffalo states it was an honor to take over as Bruce Banner from his friend Edward Norton: "Ed has bequeathed this part to me, I look at it as my generation's Hamlet."
 * The Science and Entertainment Exchange provided a science consultation for the film.
 * According to Joss Whedon, the film is strongly influenced by the early 1960s Avengers comics, which he was a fan of while growing up: "In those comics these people shouldn't be in the same room let alone on the same team - and that is the definition of family." The film also has many connections to the more adult-themed contempory-Avengers-adaptation The Ultimates by Mark Millar.
 * Tom Hiddleston spoke of his role as Loki in an interview by saying, "I can tell you that it's all of them against me. I am the super villain. So it's Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Nick Fury forming a team because I've got so bad ass."
 * In the preview, Robert Downey Jr.'s character of Tony Stark can be seen wearing a Black Sabbath T-Shirt. Black Sabbath performed the unrelated single "Iron Man" which is on the soundtrack from the first Iron Man film.
 * Has an unusually high number of Academy Award nominees in the cast for any movie which includes the folowing: Robert Downey Jr.; Samuel L. Jackson; Jeremy Renner; and Mark Ruffalo. However, it still falls short of the five in Iron Man 2: Downey Jr.; Jackson; Gwyneth Paltrow; Mickey Rourke; and Don Cheadle.
 * The cast became good friends while filming so if all the actors happened to be filming scenes together in the same place, they would go out together after. Chris Evans once sent a text message to Clark Gregg simply saying "Assemble", which is the tagline for the movie. Gregg stated that this was his favorite text message ever sent to him.
 * Tom Hiddleston describes Loki in this film as having evolved since Thor: "How pleasant an experience is it to disappear into a wormhole that was created by some super-nuclear explosion of his own making? I think by the time Loki shows up he's seen a few things and has bigger things in mind than just his brother and Asgard ..."
 * Actors Mark Ruffalo and Scarlett Johansson share the birthday November 22.
 * Despite the fact that the studio had no involvement in producing the film, neither in marketing or distributing, the Paramount Pictures logo still appears in advertising. Despite Disney buying the distribution of Marvel films from Paramount (as Marvel is a Disney company), the latter studio will still receive partial box-office royalties for these projects.
 * The film was converted to 3D during post-production for the theatrical release.
 * Two founding members, Henry Pym (Antman/Giantman) and his wife Janet (Wasp), of the avengers are not included in this movie.
 * Tony Stark describes his group as "Earth's mightiest heroes, that kind of thing." This refers to the bold label that has appeared on "The Avengers" comic books since its 1963 publication. The phrase has also been used as the subtitle for The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the most recently popular animated series before the live-action Avengers film.
 * This is the second time that Bruce Banner/Hulk and Thor have appeared together in a movie. They previously appeared together in The Incredible Hulk Returns.
 * Legal rights issues prevented a number of "Avengers" characters from their inclusion in this film. Most notably, these include Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch (the twin children of X-Men), villain Magneto, and frequent adversaries Doctor Doom (nemesis of the Fantastic Four) and Norman Osborne/Green Goblin (the primary antagonist of Spider-Man). Though all characters are owned by Marvel/Disney, the "X-Men" and "Fantastic Four" characters had all been licensed to Fox Studios, and those of "Spider-Man" to Sony before work began on an "Avengers" film. Marvel has said that in the future they hope to regain the rights to all licensed properties, that the aforementioned characters might have a role in subsequent "Avengers" films.
 * This movie marks the third time Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson have appeared in the same film. The previous two were Avengers prequel Iron Man 2 and The Spirit. On further coincidence, both have previously worked with actor Ewan McGregor, with Johansson being his co-star in The Island and Jackson playing a fellow Jedi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy in which Ewan McGregor starred as Obi-Wan Kenobi.
 * According to Director Joss Whedon, the original cut of the movie was over 3 hours long. There will be about 30 minutes of the excised footage included in the DVD Release, most of which revolves around Steve Rogers (Captain America). Whedon revealed that one of these scenes involved Rogers struggling to adjust to the modern world in his Brooklyn apartment and another revealed Steve Rogers' reunion with Peggy Carter, his love interest from Captain America: The First Avenger.
 * Both Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson have work together in The Perfect Score and The Nanny Diaries.
 * With Samuel L. Jackson's role as Nick Fury in this film, he is now the third actor after Christopher Reeve (in the DC Comics-based Superman films) and Hugh Jackman (who has appeared in all X-Men movies) to play the same comic book superhero in five different movies.
 * Tom Hiddleston revealed in an interview with the Guardian that the code name for the film early in its production was 'Group Hug'.