If you haven’t heard, a little movie called Avengers: Infinity War came out last month. Thrillist published a big interview with major players at Marvel who worked on the first two movies, and one of those people was Justice League writer/director Joss Whedon — who also wrote and directed The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Remember the Russian family in Justice League? We see them sheltered in their home before trying to escape the parademon invasion by truck. That plot line seemed a little out of place, almost kind of random, but this new interview with Whedon makes it crystal clear as to why he added civilians during the Justice League reshoots. Here’s what he had to say about wanting to do the same thing on his Avengers movies:

Joss Whedon: The only stuff we shot that really wasn’t useful was stuff I shot. I shot probably three days in both films tracking civilians, because I was like, “These guys have superpowers, then they’re the Avengers. Nobody’s going to worry about them.” The audience is going to want to know these civilians better. And the answer was always like, “No they don’t. No they fucking don’t.”

His next comment was about superheroes helping civilians on the ground level, which again, mirrors some of his scenes from Justice League. We see The Flash and Superman break away from the Steppenwolf fight to help the people in Russia.

Joss Whedon: But what it’s like for the people on the ground… that’s always gonna be important to me. Like there’s Hawkeye helping people off the bus. You have to have somebody who works at ground level who’s taking care of the smaller stuff. We probably had half an hours worth of fight of the Avengers versus Chitauri. We had so much more than we could use. But pulling the kid out of the bus it was in and then it was out, then it was in, then it was out, and then my daughter was like, “We should have that.” I’m like, “Yeah, actually. OK, it’s in.”

I actually don’t think Whedon’s idea of tracking civilians is a bad one, it just wasn’t able to be that meaningful in Justice League. The two hour mandate from Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara probably didn’t help with that.

What do you make of Whedon comments or the Russian family sub-plot in Justice League? Let me know in the comments below.

SOURCE: Thrillist