"It is true that the movie is only going to have one female avenger. But she will not be the only female character".

The Avengers Female Character and Plot Details
August 23rd, 2010

Director Joss Whedon was recently in Australia and spoke with The Herald Sun (via Moviehole), where he revealed more on his upcoming superhero epic The Avengers. While he said that Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow would be the only female Avenger in this first film, there will be other female characters important to the storyline, which could possibly mean that Gwyneth Paltrow will reprise her role of Pepper Potts from Iron Man and Iron Man 2. Whedon stated:
"It is true that the movie is only going to have one female avenger. But she will not be the only female character".

Moviehole goes onto mentions the possibility that some of the superheroes' other love interests, such as Betty Ross, could be the other female characters in the film as well. Whedon also talked briefly about the film's storyline:

"It will be a new story that has many things from different arcs of the comics in it. There is no one Avengers story that you can just do the way that you can do the origin of Spider-Man. You really have to cull from the original and The Ultimates, which is one of The Avengers titles."

We'll be sure to keep you posted with any further news regarding The Avengers as soon as we have more information.

The Avengers comes to theaters May 4th, 2012 and stars Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Clark Gregg, Tom Hiddleston. The film is directed by Joss Whedon.