Jon Favreau Reveals "The Avengers" Characters

Director Jon Favreau has previously mentioned that he might return to helm "Iron Man 2" and he would love to tackle "The Avengers" as well. Unfortunately, with release dates being one year apart, he feels that there is no way that can be done. At this point, he is not even sure that he will have time to finish "Iron Man 2." That's if Marvel decided to bring him back in the first place.

Now, USA Today had the chance to speak to Favreau about the characters that he believes will appear in "The Avengers." What he had to say comes as no surprise.

"The plan is to team up the heroes for The Avengers, which is made up of all of the Marvel heroes they have the rights to," said the director. "The ones Marvel is talking about now are Captain America, Hulk, Thor, Ant-Man and Iron Man. I would love to see that."

It seems the characters mentioned are also the characters that the studio is planning to introduce on the big screen. We have already seen "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk" ... "Thor" (written by Mark Protosevich) is scheduled for June 4th, 2010, "Ant Man" (directed by Edgar Wright) is announced by not scheduled, and "The First Avenger: Captain America" is set for May 6th, 2011."

Hints of Captain America have already popped up in both "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk," and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) has already informed Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) of the Avengers initiative. Fury is not likely to get his own movie, but will show up in "The Avengers" in a small role.

At this point, "The Avengers" is scheduled to hit theaters on July 2011.