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" Joss Whedon has thanked his loyal fans for the success of The Avengers. He acknowledged the ongoing support of his &amp;quot;peeps&amp;quot; in a post on Whedonesque.   &amp;quot;What doesn&amp;#039;t change is that I&amp;#039;ve had the smartest, most loyal, most passionate, most articulate group of - I&amp;#039;m not even gonna say fans. I&amp;#039;m going with &amp;#039;peeps&amp;#039; - that any cult oddity such as my bad self could have dreamt of,&amp;quot; Whedon wrote. &amp;quot;When almost no one was watching, when people probably should have stopped watching, I&amp;#039;ve had three constants: my family and friends, my collaborators (often the same), and y&amp;#039;all. A lot of stories have come out about my &amp;#039;dark years&amp;#039;, and how I&amp;#039;m &amp;#039;unrecognised&amp;#039;... &amp;quot;I love these stories, because they make me seem super-important, but I have never felt the darkness (and I&amp;#039;m ALL about my darkness) that they described.&amp;quot; Whedon continued: &amp;quot;I have so much. I have people, in my life, on this site, in places I&amp;#039;ve yet to discover, that always made me feel the truth of success: an artist and an audience communicating.&amp;quot;  Whedon also admitted that he would &amp;quot;feel sad&amp;quot; if Christopher Nolan&amp;#039;s The Dark Knight Rises exceeds The Avengers&amp;#039; unprecedented box office success, but went on to say that the success of superhero films is a &amp;quot;boon&amp;quot; to everyone involved in the genre. &amp;quot;The Avengers is notably imperfect, which makes its success mean so much more to me - because it&amp;#039;s striking a chord that matters more than its obvious flaws,&amp;quot; he continued. &amp;quot;Like the team, it appears to be more than the sum of its parts. Boo-yah!&amp;quot; The Avengers opened to a record-breaking $200 million in the US box office on its first weekend. A sequel is already in development. Watch a clip from The Avengers below:      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/the-avengers/news/a380878/joss-whedon-thanks-fans-for-avengers-success/>