Popverse's top stories

• Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige teases there's more to that Thunderbolts* post-credit scene than you thought
• MEMBERS ONLY: Before The Life of Chuck, Stand By Me, The Running Man, and The Shawshank Redemption showed another side to Stephen King [For Your Consideration]
• Batman: Dark Patterns feels both impossible and impressive

Success is never a given, and although it seems like Marvel Studios' 2012 film The Avengers was a guaranteed hit, it was anything but until the box office receipts came in. Scarlett Johansson can attest to that. Although Johannson made her debut in the MCU two years prior with the well-received Iron Man 2, the former child actor had been on set in her share of blockbuster failures such as 2005's The Island and 2008's The Spirit, and as she reveals now 14 years after filming of the first Avengers movie - the confidence on set of the film as they saw it being made wasn't high.  

“When we made the first Avengers, none of us knew what the potential would be," Johannsen recently admitted to Vanity Fair. "Iron Man was massively successful. It was huge. It built the studio of Marvel. Iron Man 2 was also successful. There was Thor, but that character felt like it was from a completely different universe. It was such a different tone from the Iron Man movies. The ‘Captain America’ movie had its own identity as well. When you added the characters all together, plus Hulk and Hawkeye, it just felt like a big mess to be honest."

Let me pause here to call that out - "... it just felt like a big mess to be honest."

While it seems like a given now, you have to remember that 2012's The Avengers was helmed by Joss Whedon who, at the time had only filmed one movie before, 2005's Serenity - which killed Fox's budding sci-fi franchise Firefly to the point that its international distributor cancelled its theatrical release in at least seven countries for fear of a financial bloodbath, opting instead to send it straight to DVD.

"Even on the set, it felt crazy," Johannsen continues. "We all looked insane. What are we doing? I don’t think anybody knew if it was going to work or not besides Kevin Feige and Joss Whedon. The cast had blind faith in them."

It wasn't until the filming for what's now known as the Battle of New York took place that it all crystallized for the Avengers cast - and specifically the arc shot of the Avengers back-to-back against the Chitauri.

“I remember the scene where we all are in that 360 of the characters together. That was the moment where we all thought this maybe could work," says Johannsen. "It felt powerful. When we watched the playback it looked really cool, but so much of it didn’t feel cool when we were shooting it. We were young. We were having such a great time. We became such great friends. It was a blast."

And the movie ended up being a blast as well.

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters