'Avengers 2' Director Will Be Joss Whedon

After a smash hit this year with "The Avengers," Disney has announced that Joss Whedon will return to the helm as the director of "The Avengers 2."

Whedon has also been signed on to write the script for the sequel. He previously rewrote Zak Penn's script for the first Avengers film and was also editor for parts of "Captain America: The First Avenger."

With an opening weekend of over $200 million and a total gross that supersedes $1.6 billion worldwide, Whedon directed "The Avengers" to the highest opening gross ever and the third highest gross of all time. But his track record made him a surprise pick for the role of director as previous films like "Serenity" were flops at the box office.

Now he is set to helm the sequel to one of the most successful films of all time and there might be implications that "The Avengers 2" is only one of several Marvel films on slate for Whedon. He is rumored for a live-action TV series for ABC that ties into the cinematic universe of the Avengers.

Other Avengers films including "Thor: The Dark World," "Iron Man 3," and "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and "Guardians of the Galaxy" have already been scheduled as sequels to "The Avengers" in what is known as "Phase 2" of the universe" and there are thoughts that he may be playing a major role in a few if not all of those films. These films will be released throughout 2013 and 2014 with "Iron Man 3" launching first on May 3, 2013 and "Guardians of the Galaxy" ending that cycle on August 1, 2014. In between "Thor" gets a November 8, 2013 debut and "Captain America" gets a April 4, 2014 release. "The Avenger 2" is estimated to arrive in the summer of 2015.