'Avengers 2' Will Go 'Deeper,' Not 'Bigger,' Joss Whedon Says

Marvel filmmaker gives MTV News an update on the upcoming 'Avengers' sequel, his work on 'S.H.I.E.L.D.' and much more.

How do you top the combined size and scale that Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and their friends brought to the table with "Marvel's The Avengers"? According to Joss Whedon, you can't — so rather than trying to make a "bigger" film with his upcoming "Avengers" sequel, he's digging "deeper."

'Avengers 2' Script Should Be Done In A 'Couple Of Months' Says Joss Whedon

"Don't go bigger; go deeper," Whedon told MTV News at the Critic's Choice Awards, talking about how he plans to follow up the first "Avengers" film. "All of these people have met, so you have that out of the way. Now you can spend your time just digging in — and by digging in, I mean with a scalpel, to cause pain."

Pain might be the name of the game for Earth's mightiest heroes' next reunion, but certainly not for audiences around the world, who helped make "Avengers" the third highest-grossing film in history. Though Disney and Marvel executives breathed a huge sigh of relief when "Avengers" rocked the box office in its debut weekend, it wasn't until the second weekend's returns that Whedon shared their feeling.

"Something I always say to executives is, 'the first weekend is your job and the second weekend is mine,'" said Whedon. "If it had done an amazing job on the first weekend and then disappeared from the screens, then that would be my fault. That was the one I was sort of counting on."

Now, with "Avengers" already a monstrously successful franchise, Whedon is all in on Marvel: he's "a couple of months" away from finishing his "Avengers 2" script, he's about to start directing ABC's "S.H.I.E.L.D." pilot, and he's a creative consultant on the other Marvel Studios films currently in development — a very loose job that he greatly enjoys.

"I read all the scripts and I give notes on everything," Whedon said of his work on Marvel's Phase Two movies. "I'll look at cuts when they're ready to show me. I'll talk to directors if they want to. I try to make myself useful without being intrusive. I've gotten to be a part of all of them. That's a dream job for a kid like me."

What do you want to see in the "Avengers" sequel? Tell us in the comments section below!