“[…] we had Loki in the second part of the dream, but then they were like, ‘That doesn’t work, do we want to introduce Loki now, this late?’ […] The dreams were not an executive favourite”.

However, what’s left of it is a changed version. “The original scene was that Thor went to speak to the Norn and how it would work was that he’d go in the pool and the Norn possess him, basically, and Erik Selvig asks all the questions, and the Norn, speaking through Thor, give the answers”.

Joss Whedon confessed the initial version was not “visceral enough”: “Then I came up with what I felt was a huge win: it’s about Thor getting answers without having to answer the questions, and Chris gets to do something exciting as an actor and he’s got his fucking shirt off, so everybody wins!”.

Yeah, Hemsworth looking good does sell, I can tell you that!

4. On the ending

The Hulk’s exit was carefully devised. “I specifically put in the line, ‘Where in the world am I not a threat?‘ I wanted to leave people with the idea that if this is the last movie, that he may have left the world behind”.

And Joss Whedon adds: “Because I think there’s something enormously poetic about that, but there’s also something enormously misleading about that. We don’t plan to make Planet Hulk, as far as I know”.

Considerable thought was given to the last line of the movie. “I made sure that we never shot Chris Evans saying [the ‘assemble!’ of ‘Avengers assemble!’] I was positive that some executive was gonna go, ‘You forgot to put in the last word!’”.