Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige has spoken about the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in an interview with SFX Magazine.
Of all the subjects Feige discussed, mammoth 2015 sequel 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' was chief among them - in particular the issue of potentially having too many characters and the reason for them reuniting becoming convoluted.
"It's always a balance with any movie, not to overwhelm it with too many story elements," says Feige. "Certainly when it comes to comic book movies, you can fall into the trap of having too many villains and in the case of team-based movies, having too many heroes. But what Joss has in mind to bring those characters into the story happens in a very natural fashion over the course of the story.
"It's also the tradition of the Avengers to switch up the roster every now and again and to have new characters coming in. It's just part of the fun, but we wouldn't have included them if it had just been a case of 'Oh, we want two new figures, two new costumes.' It very much flows with the story that Joss is creating."
Those two new figures are Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who are rumoured to be joining The Avengers from a modern version of the HYDRA organisationpreviously led by Red Skull but now in control of Baron von Strucker.
Feige also addressed the title villain Ultron, and how director Joss Whedon came to choose him as the villain who brings The Avengers back together.
"Joss Whedon had a great idea for the character and how to use him to unify the Avengers again and acquire their services once more," says Feige "He was a favourite. Joss and I were on the production of the first Avengers movie and we started having conversations about Ultron, and how he could come about and how we could adapt his origin to the continuity of the cinematic universe.
"It literally was just little discussions between takes but thankfully Joss files all that kind of stuff away in his brain. Then when the time arrived, he started outing it, so he went back to that and built a very good story."
