MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios

by JoAnna Robinson

In late April, the Avengers actors convened in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the same state where Thor had been shot for tax reasons. Evans and Johansson had become friendly when they costarred in the 2004 movie The Perfect Score (a dud about high-school seniors stealing advance copies of the SATs), and on location they would play Game Boy together or sometimes find an evening to go out dancing. Evans became the off-camera leader of the team. When he summoned the actors to meet at a local bar, he sent group texts with the message “Avengers Assemble.” Ruffalo and Samuel L. Jackson both showed up in Albuquerque one day early. Jackson wanted to file a complaint. When Whedon had consulted with Jackson before writing the screenplay, the then-sixty-two-year-old actor had made only one request about Nick Fury: he didn’t want to run. But now he pulled out his script and pointed to a stage direction where Fury ran onto the deck of the Helicarrier with a rocket launcher. “What’s this say here? It says I run!” “Just that once,” Whedon assured him. “You only run once.” Jackson called Whedon a “motherfucker,” which felt like an official benediction from the actor who used that four-syllable word better than anyone else on the planet.