Marvel’s movies are made to appeal to a wide audience, but if you’re a hardcore comic book fan, you’ll always get something extra recognizing Easter Eggs. From a name drop to a colorful prop in the background, the Marvel Cinematic Universe includes these as fun references to their other movies (past and future), or Marvel Comics’ long history. Unfortunately, if you pride yourself on being able to spot these, don’t expect to see many of them in Avengers: Age of Ultron. And now Joss Whedon has explained why.
The filmmaker recently told Collider that during the filming of Avengers: Age of Ultron, he was so focused on making sure the film itself turned out okay that he didn’t pay as much attention to including minor things for the fans to discover. Said Whedon:
Yeah, there aren’t a ton of Easter eggs. It’s so hard for me to make a movie, especially this movie, I don’t spend a lot of time going, ‘You know what else would be hilarious?!’ I’m more like, ‘Was the gun in the frame? Oh my God, I’m so tired.’ I mean, I would leave set every day and go home and write because it wasn’t quite right; it wasn’t quite finished. It needed to be better. So not a ton.
As you can see, Whedon didn’t say there wouldn’t be any Easter Eggs, but for the sequel it wasn’t a priority for him to insert them in every other scene. He was more attentive to the actual story, which is already packed with plenty to absorb with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes fighting the genocidal Ultron, and the addition of new players like Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Vision. Whedon also recently mentioned Avengers: Age of Ultron won’t feature a post-credits scene because nothing would have topped the shawarma moment from The Avengers - although there will still be a tag scene midway through the credits.
Ever since Iron Man dropped a copy of Captain America’s shield in Tony Stark’s workshop, Marvel has prided itself inserting Easter Eggs that only the fans will catch right away. The Avengers had its fair share of fun references, from direct ones like Thanos appearing midway during the credits to subtle ones like Tony Stark claiming to be a Life Model Decoy. There was even a reference to The Incredible Hulk’s deleted opening scene when Bruce Banner mentioned how he nearly committed suicide.
While we may catch something here and there during Avengers: Age of Ultron, it sounds like the Easter Egg count will be significantly lower than Marvel’s past projects. So if you’re a fan that likes to obsessively rewatch scenes to catch these small teases, save some time and don’t bother going through each individual frame when you get a home copy of the film. Just enjoy the final product uninterrupted.
Avengers: Age of Ultron will be released in theaters on May 1st.
