True to the spirit of collaboration, fan-friendliness and slightly cultish adherence to the Grand Plan which has characterised the entire Marvel universe, the director of Thor: The Dark World has revealed that he had to call in the big guns when disaster struck onset. The big, ginger, Buffy-writing guns.

Yep, it turns out Avengers Assemble director Joss Whedon has driven his fingers squarely into the subsidiary rack of pies that is the Marvel stand-alone movie series. (God, what an incredibly badly written sentence; Joss could probably have just fixed it by having a beautiful-yet-capable woman raise her eyebrow.)

Alan Taylor, whose CV includes stints directing Sex and the City, The Sopranos and Game of Thrones, is stepping into Kenneth Branagh’s exquisitely tailored shoes to direct Thor: The Dark World. In an interview with SFX, Taylor revealed that:

“We had a major scene that was not working on the page at all in London, and he basically got airlifted in, like a SWAT team or something. He came down, rewrote the scene, and before he got back to his plane I sort of grabbed him and said, ‘And this scene and this scene?’ And he rewrote two other scenes that I thought had problems. Then finally we let go of him, he took off again, and we shot the scenes; and they were just much better and much lighter on their feet. Much more fun, much more surprising than what we had been trying to do.”

That’s why they call him the Seventh Avenger, Al! (Nobody calls him that, but they SHOULD. In fact, they should call him the Zeroth Avenger.)

Whedon’s influence probably won’t be super-visible in the finished product, but at Best For Film we’re just reassured to know that he’s still watching over the Marvel universe. And with any luck, Taylor will pick up the Whe-phone again on his next project – the dreaded Terminator reboot. You KNOW Sarah Connor could use some of that Whedon sass.

Are you excited for Thor: The Dark World? How about now you know Joss is on the case? Let us know below!