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Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.: How Did Agent Coulson Survive?
How was Clarke Gregg’s fan-favorite doomed character Agent Coulson resurrected for ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?
Well, you won’t learn the answer to that burning question in the show’s first episode. You getsome of the answer. But not everything right away.
“I thought they were pranking me a little bit because there was so much blood on the set ofThe Avengers,” said Gregg while on the carpet of EW and ABC’s party in New York City on Tuesday. “I kept waiting to see, are we going to shoot a version where [Loki] misses? And they didn’t, so I was really surprised to get that call and I wanted to make sure it didn’t do anything to undermine what we achieved there and when [writer-director Joss Whedon] explained the mystery and how they planned to deal with it, with Agent Coulson being around, I was very sold.”
Asked specifically how Coulson comes back, Gregg said: “He’s back. He’s thinks he knows how he’s back. We’ll have to see.”
But even brought back from the dead once to star in S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t have Gregg feeling too cocky — Whedon could always kill him again. “I have a feeling if they killed me off again it would be for good so I’m very careful to read the end of the script every time I get one. It’s like getting struck by lightning. I kind of hope it hits somebody else first before it comes back to me.”
Gregg added: “Agent Coulson represents the people who don’t have superpowers, the guys who actually can be killed — or at least seem to be and yet come back sometimes … Marvel has such a lock on how to do really incredibly visual affects and stunts that we’ve got stuff on our show that I just don’t think we’ve seen on TV before.”
Added co-star Chloe Bennet about the appeal of the show: “If you love The Avengers, if you love any of Joss Whedon’s work, you’re going to absolutely love the show. It’s about these people living in a super world dealing with being human. You see these superhero movies and you see the superheroes struggle but you don’t see how humans do in a world like that. That’s what will draw people in. It’s so human. And it’s so super and awesome still.”
The Press About Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.
[ABC President Paul] Lee will kick off his Tuesday with the closest thing to slam-dunk as he can get with Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. from The Avengers director JossWhedon. You don’t need to spend much time listening to Lee to know that he and his team are banking on the franchise’s built-in awareness as well as its broad (or, yes, “four-quadrant”) appeal to lift the network. — Hollywood Reporter
“Last spring, Bob Iger sent us some bonus footage from The Avengers, with a simple question, ‘Is there a show here?’” said ABC Entertainment Group chief Paul Lee at the network’s upfront presentation today. Obviously the answer was yes, and next fall the ABC series Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. takes the Tuesday 8 PM slot previously given to Dancing With The Stars which moves to Monday night for a 2-hour block. Joss Whedon was nervous and rambling as he faced TV media buyers and advertisers right before the end of the presentation. He appeared on stage with the entire cast of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge. Whedon at first tried to be funny. “I’ll be brief. I was born…” But then he grew serious. “I wasn’t born. I was grown in a lab… and fed on Marvel Comics — and that turned out OK for me.” As to why Avengers was so successful, Whedon said, “It worked because everyone felt included” and predicted the TV show would have the same effect on viewers. He praised S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s unorthodox leading man Clark Gregg as “an actor so talented even I couldn’t kill him” so Whedon said he “built S.H.I.E.L.D. around him” because he “had a story to tell [how] to be an ordinary person in an increasingly extraordinary world. We wanted to say that everybody could be a part of this – men, women, children and “grownups who love comic books”. Earlier in the day Paul Lee told reporters that SH.I.E.L.D. “tested so well in all four quadrants”. –Deadline
“Last spring, Bob Iger sent us some bonus footage from The Avengers, with a simple question, ‘Is there a show here?’” said ABC Entertainment Group chief Paul Lee at the network’s upfront presentation today. Obviously the answer was yes, and next fall the ABC series Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. takes the Tuesday 8 PM slot previously given to Dancing With The Stars which moves to Monday night for a 2-hour block. Joss Whedon was nervous and rambling as he faced TV media buyers and advertisers right before the end of the presentation. He appeared on stage with the entire cast of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Iain De Caestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge. Whedon at first tried to be funny. “I’ll be brief. I was born…” But then he grew serious. “I wasn’t born. I was grown in a lab… and fed on Marvel Comics — and that turned out OK for me.” As to why Avengers was so successful, Whedon said, “It worked because everyone felt included” and predicted the TV show would have the same effect on viewers. He praised S.H.I.E.L.D.‘s unorthodox leading man Clark Gregg as “an actor so talented even I couldn’t kill him” so Whedon said he “built S.H.I.E.L.D. around him” because he “had a story to tell [how] to be an ordinary person in an increasingly extraordinary world. We wanted to say that everybody could be a part of this – men, women, children and “grownups who love comic books”. Earlier in the day Paul Lee told reporters that SH.I.E.L.D. “tested so well in all four quadrants”. –Deadline
On the plus side, the centerpiece of the network’s presentation, “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” looked big, cinematic and enticing, and ABC (like Marvel, now part of Disney) has a lot riding on this “Avengers” brand extension — not the least being that the network is rather inexplicably using the show not just to lead off its Tuesday lineup, but as the launching pad for three more new series that will also air that night.
In the history of TV, the number of primetime nights that failed to feature a single returning program are almost as rare as the times that strategy has worked; still, ABC doubtless thinks a TV show related to a movie that made more than $600 million in the U.S. isn’t a completely unproven commodity. We’ll see.
Incidentally, ABC still hasn’t explained how Clark Gregg — who was conspicuously killed in the movie — returns as Agent Coulson, but given the geek-cool and humor he brings to the role, it’s hard to blame them for trying. (Just please don’t be his twin brother.) But the basic notion of having S.H.I.E.L.D. as a vanguard against super threats does fit the procedural mode and offer the possibility of bringing a broader audience to the set, which was clearly the Alphabet network’s strategy in putting its Wonderland-based “Once Upon a Time” spinoff on Thursdays at 8. — Variety
Arguably the most highly anticipated broadcast network pilot of the season is “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Despite the clunky title, it appears to have lived up to every expectation — and the expectations were astronomical, considering Joss Whedon’s involvement. “You nerds are gonna love it,” teased Lee at the upfront, and for once, we actually believe him. In the show, Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg), who has been resurrected from the feature films, assembles a team of non-superhero agents to “protect the ordinary from the extraordinary.” (“Clark Gregg is an actor so talented, even I couldn’t kill him!” teased Whedon at the Upfront.) The trailer has a touch of humor, a whole lot of action, and just enough emotional pull for it to make sense for ABC. We hate to be nay-sayers, because the new agents look interesting enough, but we do have a few doubts about some of the acting featured in the trailer. Since we want to love this one so badly, we’ll hope it’s just a result of the trailer editing, and not a harbinger of clunky work in future episodes — Zap2It
ABC Entertainment President Paul Lee said he hopes the “Avengers” connection, in an age when many of the biggest movies are comic book adaptations, “will bring in a whole new audience.”
The show will be executive-produced by Joss Whedon, who did the “Avengers” on film, and Lee said the potential of the new show was one reason the network will consolidate all of “Dancing With the Stars” into one Monday show, 8-10 p.m. — NYDailyNews
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Trailer Analysed
Take a look at IGN's analysis of the first long Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. trailer.
Quicksilver And The Scarlet Witch Will Be In The Avengers 2
Joss Whedon is certainly keeping busy with Marvel. Having written and directed the mega-blockbuster, The Avengers, he is now launching Marvel’s first live-action TV show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., while also preparing Marvel's The Avengers 2.
I spoke to Whedon this week at ABC’s Upfront, where S.H.I.E.L.D. was being announced and asked him a couple of questions about Avengers 2 and some of the characters in it.
Whedon had previously alluded to a brother/sister duo being in the film, which EW later said was indeed Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. When I brought up Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch to Whedon, he confirmed they were the characters in question, explaining, “You know, they had a rough beginning. They’re interesting to me because they sort of represent the part of the world that wouldn’t necessarily agree with The Avengers. So they’re not there to make things easier. I’m not putting any characters in the movie that will make things easier.”
We also know Tony Stark/Iron Man plays another large role in the sequel, but the end of Iron Man 3 saw Tony destroying all the Iron Man suits we knew about, while seemingly stepping back from his time in the armor.
When I asked Whedon if that made it a challenge putting Iron Man in Avengers 2, he remarked, “Well, I feel like in Iron Man 3, even though he said, ‘I’ve changed' -- he blew up his remote suits, but I don’t think anybody thinks he doesn’t have one anymore. The question is, if The Avengers are called, does he show up? And the answer is, ‘Yes!’”
Source: IGN
I spoke to Whedon this week at ABC’s Upfront, where S.H.I.E.L.D. was being announced and asked him a couple of questions about Avengers 2 and some of the characters in it.
Whedon had previously alluded to a brother/sister duo being in the film, which EW later said was indeed Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. When I brought up Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch to Whedon, he confirmed they were the characters in question, explaining, “You know, they had a rough beginning. They’re interesting to me because they sort of represent the part of the world that wouldn’t necessarily agree with The Avengers. So they’re not there to make things easier. I’m not putting any characters in the movie that will make things easier.”
When I asked Whedon if that made it a challenge putting Iron Man in Avengers 2, he remarked, “Well, I feel like in Iron Man 3, even though he said, ‘I’ve changed' -- he blew up his remote suits, but I don’t think anybody thinks he doesn’t have one anymore. The question is, if The Avengers are called, does he show up? And the answer is, ‘Yes!’”
Source: IGN
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