Director Joss Whedon has unveiled that the highly anticipated "Avengers 2" movie will start filming in early 2014.
"We should start shooting I think in February," he revealed in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. "I didn't think I was gonna do the second one, but I had an idea for it before I had figured out the first one."
"You go into a movie not assuming that there's going to be [a sequel]. I did sort of know, well... if they were to come back, I know what's going to happen and it's going to be awful!" he elaborated.
Little has been known about the follow-up to the box office hit but rumors have circulated for months.
Whedon told Time Out London a few months ago that "I've got the next story, and it's a corker. I haven't even been thinking in terms of superhero movies. The films I've been thinking about are 'The Godfather Part II' and 'The Empire Strikes Back'. Those are the stars by which I chart my course."
Back in February, Latinos Review speculated on where the plot might go for the next installment in Marvel's superhero franchise. The publication stated that the Hulk would be shipped away from Earth by the Marvel cinematic version of the Illuminati and that the sequence will either occur at the end of "The Avengers 2" or in the post-credits sequence of the film. The report indicates that this will lead to a standalone movie on Planet Hulk and that the hero would return to Earth in "Avengers 3" in a story based on World War Hulk. Whedon did deny the Planet Hulk storyline in "Avengers 2" and "3" in an interview with IGN.
"The Avengers" made a whopping $623 million in its theatrical release. The film grossed a record breaking $207.4 million its opening weekend and followed it up with an equally historic $103 million in its second weekend.