Avengers Director Joss Whedon to Make a "Clean Break" from the Marvel Universe

Of all the directors involved with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Joss Whedon is by far the most successful. The Avengers and its sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron are the most successful films in the universe to date, and his role overseeing the other movies in its Phase Two have helped create a hugely popular series of superhero movies. However, Whedon has now confirmed that he will not be involved with any further Marvel films.

During an Q&A at the Oxford University Union, Whedon was asked about whether he would continue to play a creative role in the development of the MCU. "I sort of had my finger in all of the films in the second phase, but then I just had to concentrate only on Ultron, and sort of knew when it was done I was just going to stop," he said, via Uproxx. "So I made a completely clean break, not because we had a falling out, just because I was like, 'I can't.'

"If I was still there going, 'Well, here are my thoughts on this film,' I'd be there every day. I wouldn't do anything else because there are a lot of films, and it is a lot of fun. It's very seductive. When you can put your little fairy dust on things and just improve them slightly, and they actually listen to you."

Whedon has previously spoken about the difficulties he experienced while making Age of Ultron, and the creative battles he had with Marvel executives over certain sequences in the film. "The dreams, the farmhouse, these were not the things [the executives liked]," he told the Empire podcast last year. "These are things I fought to keep.

"With the cave, they pointed a gun at the farm's head and said, 'Give us the cave or we'll take out the farm'. You know, in a civilized way. And I respect these guys, they're artists, but that's when it got really, really unpleasant. I was so beaten down at that point I was like, 'Sure, okay. What movie is this?'"

Nevertheless, last year's Avengers: Age of Ultron went on to make $459 million at the worldwide box office. The first Avengers made $623 million in 2012, and currently stands as the fourth most successful film of all time.