When you think about The Avengers now, it’s hard to imagine it ever being a gamble for Marvel Studios. But according to Scarlett Johansson, back when they were shooting the 2012 Marvel team-up, things didn’t feel as polished or promising as the final product turned out to be.
In a recent Vanity Fair interview reflecting on her acting career, Johansson revisited her time filming The Avengers, and she revealed that the cast had major doubts. While the movie went on to launch the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the stratosphere, during production, the vibe was… messy. The actress admitted:
“When we made the first Avengers, none of us knew what the potential of [the film] would be … when you added the characters all together, it felt like a big mess to be honest.
Even on the set it felt crazy because we all looked insane. It’s like, ‘What are we doing?’ I don’t think anybody really knew if it was gonna work or not.
“I’m sure Kevin Feige knew it was gonna work, Joss Whedon knew it was gonna work, but the cast … it was blind faith, basically, that we all had in Joss and in Kevin Feige.”
That feeling of uncertainty stuck with them throughout the production. The whole thing was unprecedented, after all. No one had attempted something like this before! Combining multiple standalone superhero films into one mega ensemble, it could have easily collapsed under its own weight.
Johansson pointed to one turning point, which was the iconic 360-degree shot of the full Avengers lineup in front of Grand Central Station. That moment, now etched into cinematic history, was the first time it felt like it might all work. Johansson said:
“I remember that scene where we’re all in front of Grand Central and you see the 360 of all the characters together. That was the moment where all of us were like, ‘I think this is maybe gonna work.’
“It felt powerful … when we watched the playback, it looked really cool, but so much of it didn’t feel very cool when we were shooting it.”
It’s wild to think about that kind of doubt, especially in hindsight. The Avengers smashed expectations, earning $1.5 billion worldwide and marking the end of Marvel’s Phase One with a genre-defining bang.
It proved that Feige’s shared universe gamble had legs, and it opened the door for Infinity War, Endgame, and the ever-expanding web of characters and stories we know today.
But that success wasn’t guaranteed. Back in 2012, outside of Iron Man, most of the characters weren’t mainstream icons yet. Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger had done modest business, and even the idea of combining multiple superheroes into one movie felt risky.
Now, of course, The Avengers is considered the blueprint for the modern comic book cinematic universe. Thankfully, it wasn’t just a big mess! Everything worked out and it was the beginning of something massive.
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