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Avengers: Everything We Know

1. It has been in the pipeline for ages…

Plans to make an Avengers movie have been simmering away since 2005, when Marvel Studios announced their intention to create a crossover movie using the raft of characters involved in their deal with Paramount. With $700 million of the studio’s money to play with, Marvel announced a series of solo films for heroes such as Thor, Iron Man and Captain America before revealing that all three, and more, would be part of super-team movie The Avengers.

The plan was to introduce these characters to non comic-book fans, thus maximising their potential audience for an eventual crossover movie. So as Iron Man, Thor and Captain America were divvied out to directors John Favreau, Kenneth Branagh and Joe Johnston over the coming years, The Incredible Hulk writer Zak Penn was charged with knocking up a script that would bring them all together.

No small task then, but one that comic-book aficionado Penn was more than ready to take on…