During the Critic’s Choice Awards, MTV caught up with Avengers director Joss Whedon and he brought up how far along he was on The Avengers sequel and when he’ll be shooting the pilot for the S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show.

When MTV news asked Whedon what he had in mind for The Avengers sequel, he said: “Don’t go bigger; go deeper,” He went on to explain that a lot of the hard work was done in first film: “All of these people have met, so you have that out of the way. Now you can spend your time just digging in — and by digging in, I mean with a scalpel, to cause pain. Something I always say to executives is, ‘the first weekend is your job and the second weekend is mine,’” said Joss. Check out the full interview below:

When asked when he breathed his sigh of relief, he stated that it was the second weekend, which he considered “his weekend,” saying: “If it had done an amazing job on the first weekend and then disappeared from the screens, then that would be my fault. That was the one I was sort of counting on.” He stated that he’s finished the outline for The Avengers 2 and that he should be done with the script in the next couple months.

Whedon also managed to squeeze in a few words concerning his involvement with the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe leading into Avengers 2, which is something we’ve speculated on as recently as yesterday. “I read all the scripts and I give notes on everything. I’ll look at cuts when they’re ready to show me. I’ll talk to directors if they want to. I try to make myself useful without being intrusive. I’ve gotten to be a part of all of them. That’s a dream job for a kid like me.”

As for filming S.H.I.E.L.D., he said that they should start filming “A week from Tuesday. You have to bring a bit of spectacle to [S.H.I.E.L.D.]; it’s got to be bigger than your average cop show.” When asked how he would scale down the TV show from the film he said, “The whole point of the show is that even with all these big things, the little things matter. It’s about people who don’t have super powers. There will be some people with powers, there will be FX, and there will be the spectacle of science-fiction storytelling — but all played on a very human, small level. That’s the appeal of the thing.”

The Avengers sequel is slated to hit theaters May 1, 2015.