Joss Whedon on potentially killing off major characters in The Avengers: Age of Ultron

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Joss Whedon teased that there will be, "Death, death and more death!" in THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, but was he talking about Thanos or possibly taking out a member of the superhero team? In the newest issue of Entertainment Weekly, the director was asked if he might kill off one of the Marvel characters in the upcoming film. His response is classic Whedon:

I’m always joking about that. Um…maybe?

Whedon goes on to say that if he was going to kill off a major character it would have to be approved by Marvel, who may not be too keen on cutting a leg off of their cash cow:

But I’d have to have a really good reason, a really great sequence for [Marvel executives] to go, ‘We’ll cut off a potential franchise, that’s fine!’ They know as any good studio does, that without some stakes, some real danger, how involved can we get? We don’t just rule it out across the board, but neither is the mission statement ‘Who can we kill?’ We try to build the story organically and go, ‘How hard can we make it on these people?’ You go to the movies to see people you love suffer-that’s why you go to the movies.

Based on Whedon's comments, Captain America, Thor and Hulk are probably safe, but there's a chance Hawkeye, Black Widow or one of the new additions could be dead by the end of THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON. And although Iron Man is obviously the biggest money maker with his solo films, there's already been three movies with that character. Would Marvel have the balls to kill off Iron Man? Only time will tell, but even if they do it's not like superheroes haven't come back from the dead before in comics, so any that do die could very easily rise from the dead. Just like Jesus, the original superhero.

THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON is scheduled to be released on May 1st, 2015.