Joss Whedon has never been backward about coming forward, and the director of the Avengers movies has got some pretty strong opinions on female superheroes.

The 50-year-old filmmaker famously had his own Wonder Woman project sidelined by Warner Brothers after several years of development - and doesn't mince his words when discussing the reluctance of studios to put their money on female leads.

Speaking to Digital Spy, he said: "It's a phenomenon in the industry that we call 'stupid people'.

"There is genuine, recalcitrant, intractable sexism, and old-fashioned quiet misogyny that goes on.

"You hear 'Oh, (female superheroes) don't work because of these two bad ones that were made eight years ago', there's always an excuse."

The interview was given last year, before Marvel Studios and Warner Brothers announced their standalone Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman movies - but has only just been published.

He went on to praise The Hunger Games for its strong female lead and suggest that Marvel Studios could lead by example.

"Hunger Games is a different structure and aesthetic to a certain extent, but these narratives where people are bigger than life and they're in these terrible, heightened circumstances, it's all part of the same genre.

"Marvel is in a position of making a statement simply by making a movie, which I think would be a good thing to do.

"But it has to be a good movie, it has to be a good character, and most of the best characters in Marvel are owned by Fox, let's face it!"

Whedon has also given a new interview to Empire magazine in which he cements the rumours that he won't be doing the third and fourth Avengers movies - which are set to be a two-part spectacular.

"I couldn't imagine doing this again," he admitted. "It's enormously hard, and it'll be... a good five years since I created anything that was completely my own.

"So it’s very doubtful that I would take on the two-part Infinity War movie that would eat up the next four years of my life.

"I obviously still want to be a part of the Marvel Universe – I love these guys – but it ain’t easy.

"This year has been more like running three shows than any year of my life. It is bonkers."

Joe and Anthony Russo have previously been mooted as successors on the Avengers franchise.