Joss Whedon is downplaying any hopes that Agent Coulson may return for The Avengers: Age of Ultron, and he has a very understandable reason.

Speaking at San Diego Comic-Con over the weekend, the director said that bringing back Coulson after his death in The Avengers would require extra storytelling time he probably won’t have.

“Right now it’s not something I’m pursuing because I have so much going on in ‘Avengers 2.’ Finding out that Coulson is alive would be an entire B story,” he said. “And I already have too much movie. That’s better than the other thing.”

Agent Coulson played by Clark Gregg will star in ABC’s Agents of SHIELD this fall on ABC. Obviously he had been brought back from the dead following what happened to him in the runaway 2012 Avengers, so the question of his involvement with Age of Ultron was understandable.

Later in Whedon’s interview he explained that Avengers and SHIELD will not have much crossover. “We need to make sure there’s some crossover but not so much that people go, ‘Well, I don’t need to see that movie. I saw it on TV.’ If we do that (Marvel Studios President) Kevin Feige is going to come after me with a pitchfork.”

The Avengers 2 had a surprise appearance at Comic-Con at the very end of Marvel’s panel on Saturday when Whedon took the stage to reveal a teaser trailer and the film’s Age of Ultron title.

Who IS Ultron and how will he shake up The Avengers?