On that kind of note, were there any scenes that you shot that you ended up having to cut due to story and pacing, but really wanted to keep in?
Yeah, the first cut was quite long. And you’ll see in the DVD extras there was times when I really wanted to spend time with some of the ancillary characters, who are more human to sort of give context to everything that’s happening. But, ultimately, fans were like, “Yeah, what we’d like to see is THE AVENGERS, SO WHY DON’T YOU JUST SHOW THAT INSTEAD?” [laughs] And so there’s a lot of good work on the floor, but there isn’t anything on the floor that I feel we gutted the movie.
So this is the director’s cut.
Yes. You know what, and someday this may bite me and I may not be able to accomplish it, but it is always my intent to put the director’s cut in theaters. I don’t like to have different versions of a story, it kind of tweaks me. I like to know this is the story, this is it.