Which hero scored the most screen time in The Avengers?

Now that The Avengers has been released in theaters, the big question of "Which Avenger got the spotlight?" can be answered. Vulture took it upon themselves to tackle this question head on. Armed with the stopwatch function on an iPhone and a notepad, they clocked exactly when characters were on and off screen and came up with some very interesting results.

"Hawkeye: 12:44. It’s no surprise that Jeremy Renner’s assassin was the recipient of the least screen time. His talent involves being a really good archer with a really awesome collapsible bow and really explosive arrows. His longest scene (2:40) is a conversation with Black Widow following a brawl between the two of them.

Thor: 25:52. Chris Hemsworth gets more than his share of hitting people moments, yet is limited to only one extended dialogue scene — a 2:13-long conversation with brother Loki atop a mountain at night. (Though his perfectly timed “He’s adopted” line got maybe the third or fourth biggest laugh of the film.)

Bruce Banner: 28:03 ... if you're combining the double-duty Mark Ruffalo pulls as both Banner and the Hulk (and you really ought to, since the actor donned a motion-capture suit to play the latter). Still, Ruffalo's unchanged mug gets 20:29 minutes of screen time, which is more than is afforded Renner.

Black Widow: 33:35. The most surprising thing to emerge from our little experiment was the fact that Scarlett Johansson’s three-point landing super-assassin got the third-most screen time of all the superheroes. In fact, she got the most unbroken dialogue scenes of any of the six: her introductory interrogation scene (3:14); recruiting Banner in the slums (2:49); a face-off on the Helicarrier with Loki (3:30); and a conversation with Hawkeye following their fight (2:40). Looks like Whedon realized he needed to give one of the film’s two strong female characters lots of talk time.

Iron Man: 37:01. Not surprising, given the manner in which the Downey Jr. one-liner has become the most reliable part of a Marvel movie. His Tony Stark also gets several extended dialogue scenes: particularly one with Pepper Potts and Agent Coulson (4:48), and another with Loki right before the film’s third-act battle scene (3:52).

Captain America: 37:42. He squeaks by Iron Man, which makes sense, since much of the film’s internal debate about selfishness versus selflessness occurs between Chris Evans’s Cap and Downey’s Stark. He shares substantial scenes with almost every character and is one of the last faces we see on screen, as he rides off on his motorcycle."

The results are about what I figured they would be but the big surprise for me was Black Widow. I didn't think that she would get the amount of screen time as she did but being the only female hero I guess it makes sense that Whedon wanted to represent the female heroes with a strong one in this movie. The Hulk only having 8 minutes of screen time (as opposed to the combined Banner/Hulk time) was a very big surprise since in those 8 minutes, the Hulk makes such a huge presence in the film. That right there is how you know a character was done successfully!

What do you think of the results? Do you think that director Joss Whedon did a good job giving the heroes their appropriate screen time? Are you surprised about who wound up on top?

Source: Vulture