ILM would like you to think so. A recent post to their YouTube channel shows just how little of the final sequence of ‘The Avengers’ was actually shot in New York City (where the action actually takes place).
The use of virtual sets has been common for more than a decade now, yet in all that time it’s proven extremely difficult to imbine green screen sets with a true sense of reality. Despite having vast resources at his disposal, even George Lucas wasn’t able to fully sell the illusion in the prequel trilogy, where many of the sets felt more like something from 1960s scifi TV.
ILM seems to have made some decent progress since then and this from behind the scenes on Joss Whedon’s ‘The Avengers’ shows just how far they’ve come:
