Joss Whedon To Direct The Avengers

olyar noted that Joss Whedon has been tapped to direct The Avengers. This should make a lot of nerds very excited, and begin rampant speculation on Buffy/Firefly/Horrible universe actor cameos. Hope the script doesn't suck.

Comments

This is good.

[cthulu_mt]

I just pooped myself a little. It is awkward at work.

First post!

[Anonymous Coward]

Avenge me, Joss!

The [real] Avengers had...

[Peter Simpson]

...Mrs Peel. 'nuf said.

Re:The [real] Avengers had...

[Rogerborg]

I like to think of Buffy as the love child of Emma Peel and Thor, so you see how it all ties together.

Re:The [real] Avengers had...

[Anonymous Coward]

How fitting, the last Avengers movie could be used to peel of the paint from the walls...

Re:The [real] Avengers had...

[wvmarle]

I was also deeply disappointed after reading the first lines of TFA... plus there is a movie of The Avengers already, and it's pretty good even.

Re:The [real] Avengers had...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I prefer to think of Buffy as the love child of Emma Peel and Charisma Carpenter. Over and over again I think of this.

Re:The [real] Avengers had...

[Anonymous Coward]

"plus there is a movie of The Avengers already, and it's pretty good even..."

  - Are you in some alternative universe?

Re:The [real] Avengers had...

[rkhalloran]

The NYT review at the time had it right: "Sorry Uma, there's only ONE Emma..."

Re:The [real] Avengers had...

[Rogerborg]

That's disgusting and perverted. You just mixed a character and an actress. You broke the fourth wall and ruined the fantasy for all of us, heathen!

Re:The [real] Avengers had...

[wiredog]

I though you were more of a willow devotee.

Re:The [real] Avengers had...

[wvmarle]

I have to agree with that. Uma was pretty good as Emma Peel but no match to the original.

Re:The [real] Avengers had...

[H0p313ss]

I though you were more of a willow devotee.

The world is divided into two groups, the Willow devotees and those who cannot admit to themselves that they are Willow devotees.

Re:The [real] Avengers had...

[keith_nt4]

I don't know if this is consistent with the conversation but I always preferred Faith. The one place the acting ability (or lack there of) of that actress really worked. Also, she's hot.

Re:The [real] Avengers had...

[osgeek]

I'll be in my bunk.

Re:The [real] Avengers had...

[martin-boundary]

I though you were more of a willow devotee.

That's just crazy. If he was that much into her, he'd probably write some kind of spank fiction on the intarwebs.

Cameos

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that Buffy or Firefly cameos would be horrible.

Re:Cameos

[bFusion]

DOCTOR horrible?

Re:Cameos

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to google cameos but hoped it ment "horrible acting and sucky ininspired plots". I really never could get into Buffy and don't consider it geeky, maybe for "vampire geeks", or whatever.

Now Tron, my geeknipples get hard and tense because I fear it'll shatter my geeknostalgia but might give me a simular geekgasm.

Re:Cameos

[Anonymous Coward]

ACTOR horrible?

Re:Cameos

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had to google "cameos", you can't be all that bright.

Re:Cameos

[Anonymous Coward]

"vampire geeks", aka fat chicks.

maybe nerds pretended to like that show just to get into some pair of size XXXL pants.

Re:Cameos

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had to google "cameos", you can't be all that bright.

Or 4.75-langual.

Re:Cameos

[ZeroExistenZ]

maybe nerds pretended to like that show just to get into some pair of size XXXL pants.

And yet again, they have to rework their strategy as this one, too, failed.

Re:Cameos

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had to google "cameos", you can't be all that bright.

Or 4.75-langual.

That's 4.75-lingual, and it's not surprising that you don't appreciate Whedon's work.

Doubt it will ever get made

[elrous0]

I personally don't think this movie will ever get made. The first clue that this is not a serious project is the fact that the studio is talking about Robert Downey, Jr. playing Iron Man. There is no way that a) Downey is going to agree to doing an ensemble picture as a bit player after headlining 2+ Iron Man movies, or b) That the studio is going to spring for the big money it would take to hire him, just for an ensemble role in a risky new franchise.

As far as Whedon goes, he's one of these guys that studios often bring in to write/rewrite scripts just to test the waters on early projects. His name generates some buzz, and the studio may or may not get an interesting script out of him. He also works cheap (an important consideration these days in an era of "tentpole" movies with exploding FX budgets, and multitudes of comic book franchises in the works). Though geeks think of him as an A-lister, Hollywood doesn't. If you look at the guy's financial track record, you'll see he's very small-time by Hollywood standards and has had WAY more failures than successes. At the risk of committing geek blashemy, I personally he's overrated, though he did do excellent work with the characters and dialogue in "Alien Resurrection" and "Firefly" (essentially the same set of characters, but well played with depth and wit on both counts).

I suspect the studio is just looking for a little PR. The "Robert Downey is going to play Iron Man in the Avengers" thing is probably just to get some PR for "Iron Man 2." They know that's not going to happen. Hiring Joss Whedon may be a good way to get some geek buzz, but it doesn't indicate in any way that the studio is serious about actually making this movie. Until the real money starts to flow (i.e. when they actually start filming with the A-list talent), it's just another "Superman Lives"/"Green Lantern"/"Captain America" project that could spend decades in limbo and go through many directors/writers before it actually amounts to anything (if ever).

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Notquitecajun]

I've always had similar opinions of Whedon - how often has he had series (Firefly, Dollhouse) that should have gone straight to SciFi for 3-5-7 seasons and instead floundered on networks for 1-2? He's had his run with Buffy/Angel to be sure, but needs to make sure of his venues better.

That being said, I applaud this pick. Whedon tends to actually care about Geek-genre characters.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[elrous0]

No, I'm unrated, with bonus footage not seen in the theatrical release.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

He paced Dollhouse too slow in the beginning, but if you think he did anything wrong with Firefly, you just weren't paying attention. That was FOX's mistake in handling it badly.

So to answer your question: once. He had one show that should have gone straight to SciFi. Another that was handled badly by FOX, and two that were quite successful. Not bad in my book.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Altus]

Im not sure that is a good example.

SciFi these days tends to have better series than Fox.

Still I think Whedon is a bit over rated and I worry about what he might do with Avengers. His dialog is often good but his plots are all over the place. I'm not sure what he will be like if he is just directing.

Whatever, I'm going to end up seeing the movie anyway.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

Robert Downey Jr. is working a franchise; that means he will most likely agree to do the movie since he is an established character. He did a cameo in The Incredible Hulk, helping to set up the Avenger initiative storyline. Besides; you don't know what his Iron Man contract has him obligated into.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Rogerborg]

Bingo. Hollywood Chatterati like to think they've got the inside scoop, but the real decisions are made by a cabal of dead-eyed accountants and lawyers who regard comic books, movies, and their own consumers [*] with - at best - a detached contempt.

They don't get excited, or swayed by passion, they just decide how much money they're going to make from the rubes, and add up the 'value' of their 'talent' until it meets the required number.

Whedon's last movie was 5 years ago, and bombed. His TV work since then has been small beer. Nobody wants to make a movie that 'only' grosses twenty five or even fifty million; I don't see this panning out any time soon.

[*] Plus their 'creative partners', from which I draw my knowledge of their charming ways.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[someone1234]

I don't think he is responsible for Firefly's failure. Whoever killed Firefly, should rot in hell or an equivalent place.
Dollhouse isn't that great, i don't mourn it.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

The Dollhouse pilot actually covered most of the events in Season 1. Fox rejected that in favor of the inane "imprint of the week" formula.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I'm sure that it will get made....and with a few A and B+ listers just like the X-Men. Robert D. and Sam Jackson will both be in it. Marvel and it's new owner has a lot of clout these days. It's nice when you can pinpoint a list of movies that have several who's grossed more than 300 million, and a lot them of 150 mill.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[whisper_jeff]

There is no way that a) Downey is going to agree to doing an ensemble picture as a bit player after headlining 2+ Iron Man movies, or b) That the studio is going to spring for the big money it would take to hire him, just for an ensemble role in a risky new franchise.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0942385/

Hmmmmm. Maybe you don't know what you're talking about, in the least. I suspect he's more than willing to do an ensemble piece.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[AnonymousClown]

here is no way that a) Downey is going to agree to doing an ensemble picture as a bit player after headlining 2+ Iron Man movies, or b) That the studio is going to spring for the big money it would take to hire him, just for an ensemble role in a risky new franchise.

Don't be too sure about that.

We don't know what kind of deal he has going with the studios. Nor do we know what his intentions are. I've seen big name actors take bit parts due to: favors, desire to work, or wanting to work with someone that they've always wanted to work with.

Eddie Murphy did Bowfinger because he is a fan of Steve Martin. Tom Cruise worked for scale on Rainman to work with Hoffman. Sean Bean shows up in weird places with different sized parts all the time. And Downey did do a cameo in Hulk - granted it was part of a grander plan for some future super hero movies, but never the less, he did it.

There are countless times where you see a big name in credited and uncredited appearances in movies doing small parts.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Talderas]

I disagree. I do not blame Fox for the early demise of Firefly. I blame Joss or whoever decided to pitch it to one of the big networks. The show would have failed on ABC, NBC, FOX, etc. While the geek crowd rants and raves about it, it lacked the ability to interest the population at large for any length of time. Had Firefly started on a pay-to-view channel or Sci-Fi it would have ran much longer.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[digitalhermit]

I dunno, I like a lot of the Jos Whedon characters and shows. Firefly was one of my favorites, as was BtVS and Angel. I enjoy the dialogue more than anything, and certainly don't equate revenues with "success". I rarely feel any empathy towards any characters, but the characters in Firefly and BtVS resonated with me.

Oh crud.

Actually I just watched for Bad Willow and Bad Fred and Saffron. And Eve. Oh Eve.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think he is responsible for Firefly's failure. Whoever killed Firefly, should rot in hell or an equivalent place. Dollhouse isn't that great, i don't mourn it.

Dollhouse would have been better had it not been done with Fox. Those fuckers know how to kill a show.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Chardish]

And killing off Arrested Development, Futurama, and back-when-it-was-funny-Family-Guy aren't further proofs of Fox's incompetence as a network? Cancelling Firefly may be their biggest sin, but it's far from their only one.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[wvmarle]

Buffy started off with a "monster of the week" formula as well, the first season at least, I don't remember exactly how long they kept that up but many many episodes had a "monster of the week". Similar concept. Worked out very well for that show.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Culture20]

There is no way that a) Downey is going to agree to doing an ensemble picture as a bit player after headlining 2+ Iron Man movies, or b) That the studio is going to spring for the big money it would take to hire him, just for an ensemble role in a risky new franchise.

No way? a) Iron Man is the Leader of the Avengers. Downey gets to boss around the other stars, and stare down Jackson, who will only have one eye to stare with. b) Maybe it's part of his contract that he'll play Iron Man in three movies, like McGuire got stuck for Six Spiderman movies.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[tweak13]

I have introduced many people to firefly over the years, and everyone I've shown it to has liked it.

Every. Single. One.

Hell, even my parents liked it so much that they showed it to their friends, many of whom went on to buy the DVDs. If that show has appeal from college students to boomers, I'd say it would have been pretty damn successful had anybody actually been able to watch it when it was on FOX.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Creepy]

Well I don't think it helped that Fox airs all of his shows on Friday night, which is generally considered the "death" night for shows. The only reason I saw Dollhouse at all was because of a DVR, and that show was underwhelming - a nice idea, but poorly named (IMO, "dollhouse" is a turn off for boys) and executed. I didn't see Firefly in its initial run (caught it on scifi later) or Buffy at all due to the Friday time slot.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[spookymonster]

Except the studio has already factored in RDj's inevitable self-destruction after Iron Man 2. By the time The Avenger's starts shooting, they'll have him down to a box of crackers and a prepaid Starbucks card.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Nadaka]

It was generally monster of the week with 5 minutes each episode dedicated to monster of the season. Monster of the season got 2 to 4 dedicated episodes, usually one at the beginning, two at the end and one in the middle where it demonstrates that Buffy is to weak to defeat him/her/it. But with the power of (heart/friendship/hot lesbian witches) they defeat the big bad after all.

Even so, it was entertaining.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Talderas]

Thank you for your anecdotal evidence.

However a LOT of shows perform much better in DVD sales than they do while aired and that's simply a fact of the method by which you watch it. Some shows just do better when you can watch multiple episodes at once rather than waiting a week between. Firefly is no exception to this.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Spad]

Actually, I think that Dollhouse *was* great (outside of the first 3 episodes), mostly because it was only two seasons long; short, sharp, to the point, wrapped everything up and didn't drag on past its time.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> Besides; you don't know what his Iron Man contract has him obligated into.

Didn't the LotR people sign up for all 3 movies? Same for Matrix 2 & 3, or Empire and RotJ, IIRC.

More difficult would be DC's Justice League, with Batman and Superman as big, independent stars. Ok, the Superman guy would probably sign on in a heartbeat, let's be honest.

For this, more difficult than Iron Man would be producing a Thor that wasn't completely idiotic. He'd have to be a real person, and even some 7' football lineman won't measure up much to the CGI Hulk. And that's the greatly reduced Hulk from Hulk 2.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[sjanich]

It is my understanding that as they have signed actors to do the standalone movies (e.g. Iron Man, Captain America, etc...) that the contracts included 2 Avengers movies.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[cthulu_mt]

It should have been on FX (cable) where they could have done more risque story lines rather than being held to the standard of broadcast television.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

It's interesting that Emma Peel Avengers would have been in perfect alignment with Whedon-style, much moreso than Marvel Avengers.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Sancho]

A big difference is that there were still constants. With Buffy, the constants were the good guys--her friends and family. With Dollhouse, the constants were a two-dimensional FBI agent whose motives we don't really know and an evil corporation who seems more neutral than evil. You might count the chlid-like dolls as constants, but they weren't compelling when they weren't imprinted, and the imprints went away every episode.

There was no one to identify with whatsoever. No one to really care about in a meaningful way. You cared about the dolls in the same way you care about starving children in another country (it feels bad and you might send over a dollar a day, but you don't connect with them.)

I'm not sure such a premise could ever really work on TV these days.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[squiggleslash]

Just because some cancellations were due to Fox's incompetence doesn't mean all of them are.

Fox did enough wrong with Firefly to obscure the real problems with the show, which was that it was a space-opera-cum-western with pro-Confederacy overtones with little appeal outside of a small cadre of "science fiction nerds who like that kind of thing."

Fox didn't commission Firefly because they were enthusiastic about the concept, but because they needed to kill the absurdly expensive and rapidly tanking Dark Angel, but do so without angering James Cameron. Commissioning a replacement science fiction show from a rising star (as Whedon was at the time) was a move that would look good enough on paper that it wouldn't appear to be a slap in the face to Cameron.

Firefly was commissioned for all the wrong reasons, it was a flop, subsequent events, such as the disastrous box office figures for Serenity (a low to medium budget film whose box office receipts - half of which are kept by the cinemas - was lower than its budget), show that the concept had virtually no appeal, and it's really only a combination of Fox's screwing with the schedule - understandable given they realized early on they had a lemon on their hands - and decent DVD sales - that's created the myth it was somehow a superb, popular, series that would have been as popular as Buffy had it just had the same level of support.

Fox also put pressure on Whedon to do things to early episodes of Dollhouse that also caused a run of barely watchable episodes until Episode 6. However, the show getting back on track, losing the abysmal Terminator ball and chain, and being nurtured by Fox did nothing to improve ratings, despite switching from barely watchable to arguably the smartest show on television. Sometimes concepts just don't work. Had Dollhouse been canceled by, say, episode 11, there'd have been enough people who had become fans of the concept for it to develop a similar cult following, who'd have likewise assumed that the problem was with Fox rather than the show itself.

But we know that isn't the case. Despite becoming good, the ratings continued to drop. Sometimes shows just don't have appeal. Sometimes the concept just isn't strong enough to attract viewers. Dollhouse was a great show that fits that description. And, alas, Firefly was a somewhat poorer show (not a bad show, don't get me wrong, but I've never understood the obsession with it as "the greatest science fiction show ever!" It's not even science fiction, it's a space opera damn it!) that also fits the description.

People have the cause and effect backward. Firefly didn't fail because Fox messed around with it. Fox messed around with it, and in the end stopped caring about it, because it was a failure.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Spad]

It's a common "trick" for new shows so that people who start watching 3 or 4 episodes in to the first season don't feel like they've already missed huge chunks of vital plot development and stop watching.

Unfortunately, as with all these things, networks tend to want to apply them to all shows regardless of suitability.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Bieeanda]

If the characters and writing in Firefly were as bad as they were in Resurrection, I'm glad that I never bothered with that show. Seriously, Resurrection was a Saturday night D&D game brought to the big screen, complete with hilariously crippled dwarf, sociopathic and poorly portrayed 'heroes', and Sigourney Weaver playing the DM's oversexed Mary Sue.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Umm, Cap's leader of the Avengers, in spite of the recent aberration. And we know he'll be in it thanks to the shield cameo in ice in Hulk.

And I wouldn't cry for Downey being "stuck". "You sign up for X Iron Man movies and Y Avengers/group movies for Z dollars, Z >>>> X or Y."

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that when they signed Robert Downey, Jr. for Iron Man, it was a three picture deal with the intention that the third movie would be an Avengers movie. As for weather or not it actually happens, I think it will depend on the performance of the Thor and Captain America movies. Chances are that Iron Man 2 is going to do quite well. If at the same time Thor and Captain America bomb, then Marvel will have to decide if they want to go for the sure thing in Iron Man 3, or if they want to gamble with an Avengers movie. Now, they could still try to do both, but if they only have RDJ optioned for 3 movies, then doing both an Iron Man 3 and an Avengers movie would involve them having to renegotiate with him for a fourth picture.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[elrous0]

Interesting approach. Just hire a heroin dealer to offer him free samples at his next premiere. Won't be long before he's having to slum it again in the indie world.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

Whedon's last movie was 5 years ago, and bombed.

Not sure where you got your info from... According to Wikipedia "It received generally positive reviews and opened at number two, taking in $10.1 million its first weekend, spending two weeks in the top ten, and totaling a domestic box office gross of $25.5 million and a foreign box office gross of $13.3 million. However, it did not make back its budget until its release on DVD. Serenity won film of the year awards from Film 2005[2] and FilmFocus. It also won IGN Film's Best Sci-Fi, Best Story and Best Trailer awards and was runner up for the Overall Best Movie. It also won the Nebula Award for Best Script for 2005, the 7th annual 'User Tomato Awards' for best Sci-Fi movie of 2005 at Rotten Tomatoes, the 2006 viewers choice Spacey Award for favorite movie, the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form and the 2006 Prometheus Special Award."

Although it did not make back its budget immediately, it did after DVD release, plus winning all those awards...I would not call that a movie that "bombed"

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Shakrai]

Fox did enough wrong with Firefly to obscure the real problems with the show, which was that it was a space-opera-cum-western with pro-Confederacy overtones with little appeal outside of a small cadre of "science fiction nerds who like that kind of thing."

Pro-Confederacy overtones? Did you watch the same show that I did? I know it was based on the experiences of Confederate veterans but the underlying theme seemed to be one of individualism and mistrust of Government. That could just as easily have applied to any number of independence movements in human history.

with little appeal outside of a small cadre of "science fiction nerds who like that kind of thing."

Hard to argue with that. I love Firefly but if you look at the Nielsen ratings there was no way it was going to survive on network television. More's the pity.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Shakrai]

Whoever killed Firefly, should rot in hell or an equivalent place.

The Nielsen ratings killed Firefly. You think Fox would have canceled it if it was popular and making them money? Not bloody likely.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

Fox aired Firefly severely out of order. Care to explain that?

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[elrous0]

He filmed Tropic Thunder before he hit it big again with the first Iron Man. If you look at everything he's made since then, it's all been big-budget stuff. He only did the lower-budget/indie stuff when his career was on the skids. Downey isn't a conscientious actor like a Matt Damon, who will take on a lower-budget project just for the acting challenge. He wants the big paycheck. It's just a question of whether his career is in the right place to get him that big paycheck. And right now, it definitely is.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget that 'bomb' in Hollywood speak means didn't make back its budget in the first weekend. It has nothing to do with how good the movie is.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Tuidjy]

Hey, if we are going to go for anecdotal difference, here's mine.

My best friend is a fan, he has been making us watch it every time he has a chance, and on Saturday he said 'Everyone to whom I've shown it loves it'... despite the fact that there are groans every time he pulls out the DVD case.

I don't like cowboys, I hate the casual disregard for realism, and the commanding officer is a reckless, incompetent egotist who would get a bullet in the back of the head the second time he pulls the crew endangering crap he's so fond of. It's especially jarring because there are at least two crew members who have the motive, means and oportunity to do something like that.

Dr.Horrible, on the other hand, I enjoyed. A lot.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Bemopolis]

Fox aired Firefly severely out of order.

On FRIDAYS. If you treat a foster child like that you go to jail.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[__aasqbs9791]

Way to harsh the buzz, man!

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[elrous0]

Fox's list of sins is WAY longer than that. Back in the late-80's/early-90's they were the network that took chances with geeky, outrageous, and genre shows that the big three wouldn't touch. But by the turn of the century they were the network you went to when you wanted your show canceled as quickly as possible, and they only really stuck with reality shows and bland stuff just like the big three. In a period of about 15 years, they went from a willingness to indulge oddball shows like "Get a Life" for several seasons...to indulging shows for two seasons...to indulging them for one season...to canceling them after a few episodes. "Strange Luck," "TV Nation," "Wonderfalls," "Firefly," those are just a few of the interesting shows that never really got a chance. There for a while, Friday nights on Fox were listed in TV Guide as "8pm: doomed show, 9pm: X-files"

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally don't think this movie will ever get made. The first clue that this is not a serious project is the fact that the studio is talking about Robert Downey, Jr. playing Iron Man. There is no way that a) Downey is going to agree to doing an ensemble picture as a bit player after headlining 2+ Iron Man movies, or b) That the studio is going to spring for the big money it would take to hire him, just for an ensemble role in a risky new franchise.

You obviously haven't been paying attention. "The Avengers" is a culmination of the separate movies in the franchise ("The Incredible Hulk", "Iron Man" 1 and 2, "Thor", "Captain America"). Those characters have had or will have their big screen debut/reboot in the separate films but then team up in "The Avengers". This was planned from the beginning. Most of the big name actors (Downey, Don Cheadle, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Scarlett Johansson, etc.) have already signed on. The only unclear one is Edward Norton as the Hulk because it's unknown at this point whether the Hulk will be in "The Avengers" movie, though Norton has expressed interest in playing the part if asked.

As far as Whedon goes, he's one of these guys that studios often bring in to write/rewrite scripts just to test the waters on early projects. His name generates some buzz, and the studio may or may not get an interesting script out of him.

He's directing, not writing.

I suspect the studio is just looking for a little PR. The "Robert Downey is going to play Iron Man in the Avengers" thing is probably just to get some PR for "Iron Man 2." They know that's not going to happen. Hiring Joss Whedon may be a good way to get some geek buzz, but it doesn't indicate in any way that the studio is serious about actually making this movie. Until the real money starts to flow (i.e. when they actually start filming with the A-list talent), it's just another "Superman Lives"/"Green Lantern"/"Captain America" project that could spend decades in limbo and go through many directors/writers before it actually amounts to anything (if ever).

"Thor" is currently in production and with a release date of next year. "Captain America" is in pre-production and slated for release next year. "The Avengers" is slated for release in 2012. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Studios#The_Marvel_Cinematic_Universe

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Culture20]

However a LOT of shows perform much better in DVD sales than they do while aired and that's simply a fact of the method by which you watch it. Some shows just do better when you can watch multiple episodes at once rather than waiting a week between. Firefly is no exception to this.

Or in proper order. Or at the time you expected them to be on without ads notifying about a time/day change. Fox decided to kill the show long before the first episode (which wasn't the first episode) aired.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[BlackSnake112]

You are aware that NBC owns Sci-Fi (or Sy-fy I hate the rename) channel right? Actually NBC also owns the USA channel. Which is odd. The USA channel has better shows then NBC does and it is a non main network.

And I am not so sure about pay-per view. How do unknown shows do on pay-per-view? Firefly is know now but is wasn't always the case.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[greg1104]

You don't seem to be aware that Downey's contract already requires him to be in the Avengers.

That still doesn't make me optimistic about this movie getting made by him. Your comments about Whedon getting played by the movie executives seem quite familiar, given how he was assigned to Wonder Woman, got all worked up over it, and here we are five years later with no sign of a movie.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

The big question is will he be involved in the script. I do think the Avengers movie is a bad idea. You take Iron Man which did well the first time and will probably do well for a sequel and combine that with 2 guys with movies on the way plus the Hulk which may or may not be Norton. I just see it as a cheeseball fest with lots of FX compared to a good team movie.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[elrous0]

I feel the same way about a lot of the Trek series. With the original series, I kept wondering what fool would put Kirk in charge of a ship, since he gets several crewmembers killed every week with some reckless or cocky move that doesn't even usually serve any purpose. And on The Next Generation, I always pegged the Federation as an alliance of psychotics for allowing CHILDREN on a ship that gets threatened with destruction/invaded by hostile aliens on a weekly basis.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that one of the draws (and turnoffs, for those that didn't get it) of dollhouse was the lack of a good guy. Buffy was good. Mal was good. Angel was dark, but ultimately good. Dollhouse was so realistic in the fact that there were no good guys.

Was it the people who "cared" for the dolls so much that they treated them like pets at best and slaves at worst? Was it the horny FBI agent who wanted to save and then fuck Caroline?

This made the show very interesting to me, but some people needed to see a good guy, and then were offended when they pinned the tail on the donkey. How dare Joss say that mindwashing rapists are good? Well he didn't. He didn't say anyone was.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Orgasmatron]

I think Downey would be happy to do an Avengers movie, even if it weren't already required by his Iron Man contract.

And why do I think this? Fuck D.C. Comics.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[TOGSolid]

The plan all along was to bring in the actors from the individual movie franchises together for the big Avengers flick. I'm not sure why you'd think otherwise.
Joss Whedon would be a HORRIBLE pick for a movie like this, and I really have to wonder why in the hell they just don't have Jon Favreau direct the damn thing. He's proving to be quite adept at the superhero movie gig.
Joss Whedon on the other hand wouldn't know what to do with an action oriented movie. Characters that, yanno, have to do things besides just talk and talk and talk. Now, dialogue isn't a bad thing at all, lord knows I loves me some well written dialogue, but this is a superhero movie, and superheroes are expected to get out their and beat some ass, and that is definitely not Whedon's bag. Plus, I doubt he's got the force of personality required as a director to wrangle actors like Robert Downey Jr.

He's a bad pick through and through for a project like this.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree it's highly unlikely that he'll direct the movie but saying there's no way in hell Downey will do it is not accurate. If you look at the end of both Ironman 1 and Hulk there's a set up for The Avengers. It's likely there's been a deal in place since Ironman 1. Also Downey has made it clear how much he loves playing the character and it's been one of his most successful characters to date. He's not known for doing sequels yet he already shot an Ironman sequel. You are also forgetting the hard battle he had to get back on top. I remember when he first hit it big he was the boy wonder and no one expected him to fall. His career collapsed and at one point everyone considered him a total right off. He shocked everyone by getting clean and coming back to do some of his best roles. He likes to work and wants to work and the studio will make sure he has a good pay day. They even did a parody of his fall from graces in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. The ex star collapsing in a neighbors bed was him in real life. The guy got chewed out by Jodie Foster. I think that was a career first for her as a director. He got as low as you can get in Hollywood. He was working for a few hundred grand a film when he could get the work and that was after hitting the "A" list. Trust me if they do the film, and after the Ironman 2 totals come out it'll be a sure thing, he will be part of the cast. I'm sure he still has ego issues but remember playing the richest most powerful man in the world is a massive ego stroke. He couldn't deal with some one else playing the character he made his own. Joss on the other hand hasn't the box office to back it up and he's not known for doing effects heavy films. I'm talking lots of explosions and action. Serenity was mostly spaceships flying around. I'm talking on the ground hardcore action. He'd be a risk and they don't like to rick the golden goose. The film would likely be a 500 mill domestic guarantee so they could blow 250 mill on it and still make a bundle with foreign and video deals. They brought him in a script doctor and dangled the directing job to get him to write, period.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[BlackSnake112]

Buffy was on Friday nights? It started on Monday nights. Then it moved but It wasn't on Friday nights on the WB if I remember right. I thought is was Tuesday or Thursday for some reason.

Friday nights are the dead night for the younger TV audience.

I wonder if DVRs count as a show being 'watched' when it airs.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[elrous0]

"Dollhouse" made me think of one of those prime-time soaps from the 90's about pretty people (i.e. "Models, Inc." "Melrose Place"). It probably didn't help that Whedon used the show to once again to overindulge his most annoying and silly personal fetish (90-lb. waif girls who kick ass, in defiance of all laws of common sense or physics). "Firefly" was probably his best because it was the one series he's done where the characters were reasonable adults in a somewhat realistic setting, with the 90-lb waif removed from ass-kicking duties. Broke my heart to watch that awful "Serenity" movie and see that Tim Minear apparently was unable to stop him from indulging in his ass-kicking waif sexual fantasies in the movie version.

Seriously Joss, seek help.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

So the essence of your argument is that he doesn't do low budget or ensemble films, except when he does?

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Nothing Special]

Regardless of whether Whedon will direct it, i disagree that the studio would not make the film based on Robert Downey, Jr. + his potential salary requirements

a) Obviously, the Avengers movie had been given some thought before, as they included the Nick Fury cameo in the first picture - and have laid out a timeline for the Hulk, Thor and Captain America pictures - i've seen it on imdb since - well since iron Man was released. Furthermore, with potential franchise pictures like Iron Man, the contract will usually include holding the actor for sequels, in this case, the Avengers movie may have been included.

b) Downey was making yet-another-comeback when he got hired for Iron Man. It may not have cost the studio too much (relatively speaking) to tie him down to a multi-picture deal.

c) I disagree that the franchise is risky. Even if the Hulk underperformed, Iron Man has HUGE buzz. I think it would take Thor and Captain America to tank for the movie to be pulled, otherwise, the script will be written to emphasize the money makers and scale-back the bombs.

d) as for hanging in limbo. the thing to remember here is that Marvel was a major producer for the Iron Man film, and they moved into film production over licensing as a way to gain greater control over the brand. Marvel has an entire Universe of characters, but when Spiderman is a property at Sony and Daredevil (quality-aside) isn't, then it becomes nigh impossible to even acknowledge the other superhero, even though they both live in the Marvel Universe "New York". Marvel is going to want to homogenize their universe, there are too many potential franchise tie-ins to let loose. The aren't a traditional studio in that they are looking for the next English Patient or Benjamin Button. They have 60 yrs of IP to bring to film, and it behooves them to work it, both because superheroes still bring in the money and because it helps (re)expose people to comic books, still their main line of work.

My pet theory is that the Avengers movie was the starting board and then someone said, "Hey wait, let's do an origin pic about each of the heros and we'll make 5 times the money" Plus that streamlines the Avengers. The audience will be familiar with the heroes, and they can get straight into the story.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Sancho]

Buffy wasn't on Fox at all. It started on the WB and then moved to UPN.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, they should rot in a special level in hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk in theaters.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[elrous0]

Except when his career is in a state where he has to.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[elrous0]

A $10 million opening weekend for a major science FX-driven movie these days is a *megaton* bomb. A typical major movie these days has about $25 million spent on promotion alone.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[RiddleofSteel]

You are missing the point. I remember seeing the promos Fox ran for it and thinking what the hell is this crap, even though I love Sci-Fi. It wasn't till it was cancelled I watched it and fell in love with it. They put it on Friday nights, where alot of the younger crowd that would have been into it are out. What's worse is from what I heard they showed it out of order, and the order they showed it in made no sense. No wonder it didn't catch on. It's the same shit they did with Futurama, putting it on at 7:30 on Sunday and then premepting it because of football games or whatever constantly.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Rysc]

Fox did enough wrong with Firefly to obscure the real problems with the show, which was that it was a space-opera-cum-western with pro-Confederacy overtones with little appeal outside of a small cadre of "science fiction nerds who like that kind of thing."

Firefly is generally known to have broader appeal than more "successful" Whedon shows, like Buffy. Its ratings were never extremely high but were not low enough to indicate the small amount of appeal you describe. As for pro-Confederacy--I don't know where this comes from, really. You could certainly draw a parallel between the events of the war between the states and the back story of the Firefly universe, but these things are just some of the paint on the canvas showing a picture describing something else. They do not describe the message of the show.

Firefly was commissioned for all the wrong reasons, it was a flop, subsequent events, such as the disastrous box office figures for Serenity (a low to medium budget film whose box office receipts - half of which are kept by the cinemas - was lower than its budget), show that the concept had virtually no appeal

IMO many circumstances prevented the movie from being profitable, but to call it a "disaster" is a gross exaggeration. There are many movies every year which fare far worse in the budget to profit ratio.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[elrous0]

That doesn't mean it will every materialize. Nicholas Cage signed a $20 million contract to play Superman in "Superman Lives" (and that was a generous single-picture "pay or play" contract too). It all comes down to how far the studio is willing to stick its neck out before it cuts its losses and says "This is just too risky."

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from being boring and pointless and appealing to almost no one, Firefly was perfect. Damn you Fox for not subsidizing geekgasm crap shows.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Rysc]

Citation needed. Who decided this was the definition of "bombed"? As I understand it, a movie that bombs

  - does not make a profit over the course of its initial domestic theater run
  - is critically panned
  - is reviled by the people who did see it

ALL of these must be true!

I'll pit my definition up against yours any day.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[squiggleslash]

I just did. You just didn't like the answer.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[mcgrew]

I'm going to have to RTFA, from the comments I don't like the idea one bit. Why would a Marvel Comix superhero be in the Avengers? That's like putting Superman in a Man from U.N.C.L.E. movie. Is all of hollywood on crack?

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[squiggleslash]

As I said above, Firefly was intended as a replacement for Dark Angel. Why would they show the replacement on a different day?

Interestingly, Friday is considered a good day by the Sci-fi/Syfy channel, whose ratings are normally fairly good on that day. Supposedly Friday being considered a "Death Slot" by the networks is a recent phenomenon, and is probably self-fulfilling.

An additional point: even taken as read, a network has certain expectations of Friday shows which take into account supposedly fewer viewers. If it didn't, it wouldn't commission them.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[UnxMully]

I got into Firefly late in the UK but as I understand it, the series opening two-parter which allowed all the characters to be introduced was not shown first. The first episode aired was "The Train Job" which is a good episode but gives no backstory and hence left a lot of potential viewers with a WFT? confusion level that was hard to recover from.

Fox then moved the show times around pitching it against a lot of other high-audience draw shows (I'm not sure what, it was a long time ago but football springs to mind) and making it hard for people to know when to sit down and watch it. That and it was less about the action and more about the people and the interactions which made it less appealing to a certain audience.

And that was it, no audience figures to speak of so cancelled before it got started. Personally I think the average quality of the shows they did make is exceptional and that Serenity could have benefited from an actual advertising campaign but didn't get one and that's all history.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

Iron Man is the Leader of the Avengers. Downey gets to boss around the other stars, and stare down Jackson, who will only have one eye to stare with.

Not true. In the main Marvel continuity, Captain America is the leader. In the Ultimate line (from which the universe of these movies seems to be taking a lot of cues), Fury is in charge, although Cap seems to have sort of a field-commander role.

Mind you, that doesn't necessarily mean that Iron Man won't be the central figure of the movie. Wolverine isn't the leader of the X-Men after all, and those movies were pretty much all about him.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[DeadDecoy]

Meh, how can you use the Nielsen ratings as a metric when the show was intentionally sabotaged? The first episode wasn't shown first, the time slot was shuffled around a lot, and it was often canceled or delayed in place of football games. This was in season 1, where it's critical to have time to actually build a fanbase. All the Nielsen ratings show are that their tactics were effective for destroying the show.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[coolsnowmen]

While it makes me sad to hear your boil down one of my favorite shows, it makes me wonder if I would like it as much now than I did then. I always thought the best part of the show was the witty dialogue and how much the show made your care about the core characters. I was about the same age as buffy when they were released so I also related to the, perhaps, childish problems she was facing at the time.

That being said, for some reason, the first season sucked. I don't know how it got picked up for more, but the next couple were amazing.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[silverglade00]

I'm assuming bloopers are included, but I'm really interested to see if you come with an alternate ending.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Neoprofin]

The TGIF block did fine on fridays.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[oatworm]

I'll note that having an actual, competent, comparatively risk-averse commander in charge of a sci-fi ship gets boring really fast. Heck, that's why many people don't like ST:TNG - Picard was just too competent. He didn't try to screw every female in the quadrant. He actually cared about the lives of his crew. He consistently followed the spirit and letter of the rules that the Federation imposed upon him, instead of "creatively interpreting" them as Kirk was prone to do whenever it was more convenient to do so. He also expected and demanded the same level of boring professionalism from the rest of his crew. The result was a ton of "We could fix this, but that would break the Prime Directive" episodes, which got boring fast.

Dramatic tension should occur between characters, not between a character and a law book (or law PADD, for that matter). Heck, a lot of the reason people prefer DS9 over TNG is because people actually started to break the rules and got away with it. The Federation's legal system was no longer inviolate - you had Starfleet officers staging military coups, numerous "we're at war so the ethics are getting murky" moments, Dr. Khan Noonian Bashir, the Defiant (a warship employed by a nominally peace-oriented organization - imagine NOAA having a battleship), Quark's semi-legal activities, fallen-from-grace Cardassian spies... heck, Sisko was considered a religious figure by the Bajorans and the Federation was tacitly okay with that. Was any of it realistic? I don't know, but it was certainly much more interesting.

This is why Mal and Kirk are loved so much by so many. Yes, in the real world, they'd be the first against the wall when the revolution comes. Thing is, TV isn't supposed to be realistic - it's supposed to be aspirational. All things being equal, would you prefer to live in a world where you have to thoughtfully weigh your actions against the consequences, where you have to consider the feelings and lives of others, where you're bound by the rules imposed upon you by society and the rule of law? Or, would you prefer to live in a world where your rules and ethics are the only ones that are inviolate and everyone else just has to deal with that because you're just that awesome?

Personally, I know I'm not that awesome, but, man, wouldn't it be sweet if I was?

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

It also did not help that FOX aired the episodes in wrong order. They also kept changing the schedule due to sport events.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[AtlantaSteve]

As far as Whedon goes, he's one of these guys that studios often bring in to write/rewrite scripts just to test the waters on early projects. His name generates some buzz, and the studio may or may not get an interesting script out of him. ... Hiring Joss Whedon may be a good way to get some geek buzz, but it doesn't indicate in any way that the studio is serious about actually making this movie.

Bingo. After five or ten years of "development" for Wonder Woman with Joss at the helm, I'm a bit surprised to see so many people freak out at any of his comic film announcements. Somebody ping me when actors are actually cast... I'm still waiting to hear whether Charisma Carpenter or Summer Glau will star in the LAST vaporware.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Culture20]

What Marvel Universe do you read? Iron Man started as leader of the Avengers until he transfered the reins to Captain America (Remember, Cap was found in the ice in the Avengers comics). He did this during the whole "Oops, I purposefully killed criminals who stole my tech" phase of his career.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Lorem_Ipsum]

There is no way that a) Downey is going to agree to doing an ensemble picture as a bit player after headlining 2+ Iron Man movies, or b) That the studio is going to spring for the big money it would take to hire him, just for an ensemble role in a risky new franchise.

When you say Downey would not do a bit-player role, you make an unwarranted assumption that there will be an Iron Man 3. Don't be so sure of that. Judging by the trailers for Iron Man 2, it is going to suck ass, big time. If so, IM 3 will be shit-canned and the studio will be more than happy to throw Downey into an ensemble role to recoup some of the outlay.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Lorem_Ipsum]

...I would not call that a movie that "bombed"

Then you don't know what constitutes a bomb in the eyes of the studio execs.

If it doesn't make at least double the budget in the US release alone, then it is a bomb.

The only exceptions from their standpoint are the small-gross, tailor-made, Oscar-bait films.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you missed the ending of the latest Hulk movie, the one with Edward Norton.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously Joss, seek help.

At least he doesn't fantasize about taking advantage of defenseless little girls.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[VGPowerlord]

Interestingly, Friday is considered a good day by the Sci-fi/Syfy channel, whose ratings are normally fairly good on that day. Supposedly Friday being considered a "Death Slot" by the networks is a recent phenomenon, and is probably self-fulfilling.

I thought the Friday night death slot was a FOX thing, not for all networks. Thus, people learned not to watch FOX on Friday nights.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

Mrs. Peel would beat Iron Man any say, so it's not really an issue :D

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[VGPowerlord]

Buffy was on Friday nights? It started on Monday nights. Then it moved but It wasn't on Friday nights on the WB if I remember right. I thought is was Tuesday or Thursday for some reason.

"Dawn's in trouble again, must be Tuesday." -- Buffy, Once More With Feeling, after the move to UPN

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't sweat it. Pick a hero, any hero, and then read this: http://www.mythichero.com/what_is_mythology.htm. At least 85% of it will apply.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[elrous0]

Agreed. DS9 was definitely the best of the Trek series. It was about the only one where characters regularly criticized and mocked the self-righteousness of the Federation. One of my favorite moments was a conversation between Quark and Garek over root beer. I'm paraphrasing, but it went something like Quark having Garek try a root beer, Garek complaining that it was too syrupy sweet and bubbly "just like the Federation," Quark replying "Yeah, doesn't it just make you sick?" and Garek finishing with "...just like the Federation." A pretty reasonable view of what real people would probably think of the Federation as it was fictionally presented, I thought.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[mcgrew]

No, I'm unrated, with bonus footage not seen in the theatrical release.

From your journal page: This user's page contains no entries.

Where's the bonus footage? ;)
Of course, your comment isn't unrated, it's standing at a 3. If you want a PG-13 journal, don't visit mine; you'll have to hunt for one that's less than an "R".

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[oatworm]

I remember that episode! Yes, that was a fantastic line right there. I also loved the Roswell episode where Quark said (having to paraphrase) something to the effect of, "Take away their replicators and their toys and you'll find Humans are as fierce and primitive as any Klingon."

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Macrat]

I disagree. I do not blame Fox for the early demise of Firefly.

Even when Fox decided not to air the pilot episode first that set up the series?

And then Fox demanded Joss pull an episode out of ass to be the replacement first episode?

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[ravenshrike]

Whereas I doubt Serenity had more than 2 million spent on promotion for both the theater and DVD release combined. I saw a single commercial for that movie after it opened on Comedy Central at 10 o'clock.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[zzsmirkzz]

Um, I'd buy that expect for all the posturing they've been doing to lead up to this film in small bits at the end of newer movies. I know Robert Downy Jr. shows up to recruit one of the avengers at the end of their movie (I forget which one it was) just as they had Samuel L Jackson recruit him at the end of Iron Man 1. They have the new Captain America signed up to do a series of movies including the avengers. So it seems to me that they are very serious about making this movie.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know who you are. But I hate you

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[ConceptJunkie]

Your definition is irrelevant. My definition is irrelevant. The only definition that matters in this conversation is that of the people in charge of green-lighting these projects. If they think "Serenity" bombed, then that means it is more likely their hiring of Whedon to write "The Avengers" is, as someone stated above, a ploy to attract attention without making a huge financial commitment, and less likely because they think Whedon's writing will make it a successful movie.

Having said that, I think your definition is reasonable and the folks who actually _made_ the movie, as opposed to those who financed it, would probably agree with you.

Hollywood is first and foremost a business. If creativity happens, if someone creates art, if people are inspired or awed by their product, it is simply a lucky side-effect. Almost every movie exec will be much happier to finance a movie that makes tens of millions of people slightly less bored for 90 minutes rather than a million people (or a hundred thousand, or ten thousand...) deeply moved.

We comic books fans have been lucky in that a lot of movies based on the genre in the 15 years or so have been quite good, but Hollywood is lazy and doesn't like to take risks and the moment they think comic book adaptations are less than on fire, we fans will be back out in the weeds like we were through most of the 70s and 80s (minus a few obvious exceptions).

Personally, I think Whedon would be a mixed bag as far as this movie is concerned. There are a lot of good things he could do for the movie, but also a lot of bad things. I actually stopped reading comics in the dark days of the early 90s and have had little or no interest in going back, so I can't comment on his comic book gig, but I am still very interested in the movies, and several the recent Marvel movies have been really excellent, and even some of the less-than-excellent ones (like the Fantastic 4 movies or Spider-man 3 were still a lot of fun).

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[PRMan]

The TGIF block was aimed at families with Elementary age children. They are typically at home on Friday nights.

Firefly is aimed at the 15-30 crowd, who are generally going to HS football games and/or dating on Friday nights.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[PRMan]

And Samuel L. Jackson did a cameo in Iron Man. All these movies were planned long ago. And to my knowledge the actors are all signed.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

Contract from IM1 had a clause for Avengers. so yeah, it's happening.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[squiggleslash]

Pro-Confederacy overtones? Did you watch the same show that I did? I know it was based on the experiences of Confederate veterans but the underlying theme seemed to be one of individualism and mistrust of Government. That could just as easily have applied to any number of independence movements in human history.

Well, obviously I did watch the same one as you because we agree that the sympathetic characters are based on Confederate veterans. You underplay the theme, seeing it as potentially generic and therefore generic. What I suggest though is to think about how the show comes across to an ordinary viewer. Mal is a veteran from a war based on the American Civil War... and Mal was on the losing side (ding!) and shares the same mistrust of the government of the winners that those in the South did (ding ding!)

Forget the idea that it's just a starting point, that a story about Confederate veterans is inherently interesting, and think more about the general feeling it'll give a large number of people who want to watch it.

I'm a huge fan of Dollhouse. I loved the fact Whedon didn't wimp out in his portrayal of the Dollhouse's local management as sympathetic people who follow a recognizable moral code, one that leads "good" people to facilitate a system that tore the souls from living people. I thought that was absolutely fantastic. Moreover, unlike Firefly, where it's "all OK" because it's not really the Confederacy, that's just an analogy but it's the future so all the bad stuff that's associated with the confederacy can't have happened and it must really have been a war of Alliance Aggression or whatever, Whedon throws the darkness in your face, no excuses, no apologies, that's what happened.

The show was fantastic. And a flop. And given that my praising it for "Dramatizing the Milgram Experiment" lead me to be flamed as a supporter of rapists (no, I'm serious, and the forums I read were full of people talking about it as "that rape show"), I think a major factor was that people just didn't get over the fact that the sympathetic people were responsible for terrible things, and allied with terrible causes.

Forget whether Firefly was genuinely about veterans of the Confederacy. It doesn't matter. The important thing is that it went out of its way to ensure people made those associations. And in doing so, it gave people reasons to feel uncomfortable watching it.

(Cue the "It was a war of Northern Aggression! It was never about slavery, it was about State's rights! Slaves were very well treated! The Confederacy was great!" revisionists here...)

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Danse]

First two seasons weren't that great. It got better after that.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry mate, but my wife and I gave up twice; after the third episode we found it just too silly, and then we were convinced to try again and we stopped after the fifth.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Anonymous Coward]

Please Dollhouse was terrible.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Mike Van Pelt]

Movies are generally considered "a director's medium". The director has a lot more leeway to get scripts re-written, etc. Directors are even known to throw the script away and start over.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Chuk]

There is no way that a) Downey is going to agree to doing an ensemble picture as a bit player after headlining 2+ Iron Man movies, or b) That the studio is going to spring for the big money it would take to hire him, just for an ensemble role in a risky new franchise.

Yeah, if Downey wouldn't play Stark in The Hulk, then why would he do it in The Avengers?

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[owlnation]

Whedon fans often blame Fox Network execs for almost everything. This is wholly unfair. They have a job to do, and that's ensure that shows have enough of a broad appeal to attract enough eyes to commercials.

The mistake that Fox execs have made is letting Whedon produce shows. He's a terrible, terrible producer. He's a great writer, and a competent director, but he absolutely sucks at producing. He regularly casts average or poor actors. (Sorry folks, I know Summer Glau appeals to many, and she moves well -- but she cannot deliver a line to save her life. Nor can most of his other cast.) He hires mediocre crew who do not try new things. His art directors are awful -- most of his sets look like sets (especially Dollhouse). The camerwork and editing on his shows is late-nineties style at best. There's zero innovation, and no beauty nor truth in the camerwork. He also hires bad writers -- whomever wrote the "Beer Bad" episode of Buffy should be taken outside the WGA building and shot. It's one of the worst scripts in the history of TV.

Every single show Whedon has done has been canceled before the end of its intended run. All of them. He understands his fans well -- he has absolutely no idea how to write and produce a show for a wider audience -- something like "Lost" is far beyond his capabilities as a producer.

He is probably fine producing a show on Sci-Fi -- the audience there will forgive his poor production skills in return for mythology they can buy into. However, if he wants to succeed on network TV or Hollywood he needs to learn how to produce a show that suspends disbelief and looks truthful -- that means real actors, and a much higher standard of production values.

It is extremely unlikely this movie will get made with Whedon as director. He has zero track record of success. The "Wonder Woman" debacle will no doubt make studio heads nervous. At this point I would think he's pretty hard to insure too. He may work on the development of the feature, but I'm pretty certain he'll get replaced by someone with a proven track record before production starts.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Gilmoure]

The main problem with Firefly was that Fox showed them out of order, with The Train Robbery as the first episode on tv. I watched about 1/2 hour of it and turned it off. Wasn't until Serenity movie hit cheap DVD's at Costco that I watched it and then picked up the entire series. Watching it in the order Whedon filmed them, it was a lot better.

'Course, I've heard that Fox has a revolving door with upper management and it's usually a new manager coming in who kills off shows of his predecessor, sorta' like a dog pissing on another dog's spot.

Bummer.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[jschrod]

Well, you forgot to tell the real content: Monsters are irrelevant and can be handled. The real hell is high school and the folks around you. And that struck a chord with many people in that age and made Buffy a hit show; but obviously you forgot such issues and did not recognize it.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[deek]

Wow, you really do dislike Joss Whedon. I'm impressed.

I personally think he does a great job with producing. You regularly point out his failings, but fail to mention his successes. That's a one-sided view, my friend.

You really thought that Dollhouse looked like a set? You must have a keener eye than me. Everything looked very real, as far as I could tell.

Tell me, what did you think of casting Enver Gjokaj as Victor? The point in the second episode where he was imprinted with Topher's mind was brilliant! He replicated every nuance of the character. I was stunned by how good it was. Dichen Lachman also put in a terrific performance.

But you are right, Joss Whedon's strength is his dialogue. He always manages to hint at cliché, and then stabs it in the back with a viscous twist. I enjoy that tremendously.

Anyway, I've enjoyed every show that Joss Whedon has created. He has a masterful control of situation and twist. Can't believe you're comparing him to JJ Abrams and "Lost". Do you want me to flashback to Michael screaming out "Walt!" once more? I enjoy watching the show, but I laugh more than what is possibly intended.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[mjwx]

Except the studio has already factored in RDj's inevitable self-destruction after Iron Man 2. By the time The Avenger's starts shooting, they'll have him down to a box of crackers and a prepaid Starbucks card.

And a can of fortified wine.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[HereIAmJH]

I love Firefly but if you look at the Nielsen ratings there was no way it was going to survive on network television.

Maybe a lot of people where like me and found the commercials for Firefly completely unappealing. It wasn't until several episodes into the season that I happened to stumble onto the show while channel surfing that I started watching it. Then, being in my pre-Tivo days, I had trouble finding it to continue watching. I bought the dvd so I could see all the episodes in the correct order.

And on that general rant, what is it with networks and their ADHD scheduling these days. Either it's a year break between seasons, or they split seasons with two or three multi-week breaks. That, along with the 1:01 and 0:59 scheduling I'd just quit watching entirely if it wasn't for Tivo. I never watch anything 'live' anymore.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[HereIAmJH]

He regularly casts average or poor actors.

Seriously? That must be why those actors have such a hard time getting work after working for Joss..

David Boreanaz (Angel - Buffy/Angel) has done pretty well with Bones.

Summer Glau (River Tam - Firefly) I never really liked the River character until Serenity. I did like the Sarah Connor Chronicles, and her part in Dollhouse was one of the few refreshing tangents in the Dollhouse let's prostitute Eliza theme. And according to IMDB she stays pretty busy working.

Nathan Fillion (Mal - Firefly) Castle, nuff said.

Adam Baldwin (Jayne - Firefly) Chuck.

Morena Baccarin (Inara - Firefly) V. And although I don't expect it to survive, the problem is the writing and not the acting.

Jewel Staite (Kaylee - Firefly) Did well in Stargate Atlantis, unfortunately didn't get brought in until the series was winding down.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[HereIAmJH]

SciFi movie bomb - see Battlefield Earth

I think that one meets all of your criteria...
If I had to choose, I'd take a Whedon movie over a Hubbard movie any day.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[AK Marc]

Fox decided to kill the show long before the first episode (which wasn't the first episode) aired.

The conspiracy theorists claim that they wanted to cancel Dark Angel, and that they wanted to get a sci-fi to go in its spot so that those working on Dark Angel could consider it a hand-off to a new show, rather than canceling it to run infomercials. They didn't care whether the new show actually worked, and didn't mind letting it die or may have purposefully killed it because they didn't want to be another Dark Angel. The great think about animation is that the costs are nearly fixed. Live action can get more popular, and thus "grow" in cost, scope and such.

Re:Doubt it will ever get made

[Neoprofin]

The X-Files debuted on Friday, had a core audience of 18-49 year olds, and was one of Fox's highest rated shows of the era.

Abandon all Hope ye who enter here...

[Anonymous Coward]

It will suck because of Joss Whedon and the script there is no hope.

Hooray for Ziodberg!

[NetNinja]

I love seeing my comic book heroes come to life!

The last Batman was phenomenal!

The Watchman was quintessential comic book deliciousness!

More comic book goodness!

"in final negotiations"

[Rogerborg]

Read: his agent's secretary has pencilled in a possible lunch with the studio's deputy assistant producer's cousin's personal shopper.

Pants: unmoistened. Wait for the Tweet before the nerdgasm.

I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Pojut]

...but am I the only nerd that can't stand Firefly?

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Troy Baer]

Yes, yes you are. Go and sin no more.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Spad]

I doubt it, just like I'm not the only one who can't stand BSG.

We nerdy types are not a homogenous mass of identical drones, we just have a common set of interests.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Yes, you are. I didn't like Firefly until I actually watched several of the episodes.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[DikSeaCup]

Well, I loved Firefly, but I really don't see the appeal of Buffy. Just didn't grab me. Dr. Horrible was cool for a web thing, but, as much as I admire Wheadon's creativity, I sometimes feel like telling the fanatics, "Okay, back off, he's pretty good but he has yet to walk on water or write four out of five seasons of a show. All I said was 'I liked "Firefly".' I don't want to join your Buffy discussion group."

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Pojut]

My situation was the opposite. I thought I would like it...until I watched a couple of episodes.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[CelticWhisper]

No, you're not. I don't know when this geek law went into effect that says we must all love Firefly, but I've been breaking it all along and frankly, I'm not sorry. I watched it beginning to end, and the movie as well, and I don't think there was a single idea in it that hadn't been done better somewhere else. Ship of outlaws on the run from an overwhelmingly powerful government? Farscape. Space western? Cowboy Bebop. Telepaths/psychics trying to elude capture and subsequent scientific experimentation? Babylon 5. Badguy who will do anything to get what he wants, ethics be damned? Farscape again. Strong, capable, confident female characters? Farscape trifecta, and present in a lot of other series as well - take your pick from BSG's female cast, and there's Ivanova in B5, Caroline in ReGenesis, Scully in the X Files, the list goes on and on. Whedon hardly has a monopoly on sci-fi female empowerment, and what he does offer isn't even that good.

And yet even now, 8 years after its demise, I still hear people clamoring to have Firefly brought back. Makes no sense to me either.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Canar]

I don't really like anything Joss Whedon has had significant creative input into. You're not the only one.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Culture20]

We nerdy types are not a homogenous mass of identical drones, we just have a common set of interests.

Unit 470073 has become removed from the collective. Schedule for immediate reintroduction or termination.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Monkeedude1212]

Well then you gotta give us reason to believe you are in fact a nerd. You can't just say "I don't like Firefly" and "I'm a nerd" in the same sentence and Expect us to believe you.

And no, an account on Slashdot does not get you any closer.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Pojut]

Does the fact that I have a website whose name is Living With a Nerd work for you? :-)

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Anonymous Coward]

I found both Firefly and Buffy to be bland and childish. To this day I don't understand the fan following these shows have.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Sancho]

Strong, capable, confident female characters? take your pick from BSG's female cast

Wait, really? Those are your ideas of strong, capable, confident female characters? Most of them ran to their men any time the chips were down, and one of them took the "easy" way out by shooting herself in the head (and prior to that scene, was pretty two-dimensional). They gave the appearance of being strong while really being pretty lame.

The closest thing to a strong female character in that show was Head Six, and that's only because Baltar was a submissive masochist who thought he needed punishing (well, right up until the Deus Ex moment when it turns out that she was just a force of God, the Universe, or whatever.)

I'll grant you the others, but BSG is a farce in this respect.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Monkeedude1212]

Maaaaaaaybe...

NO WAIT!

try counting to 1025 with just your fingers.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[ProppaT]

Nope. I thought it was drivel myself. I personally dislike space westerns, so that might have something to do with it...but I couldn't find anything to really pull out of it story or character wise to draw my attention. I thought it was well acted and generally well filmed, but it was just....boring. I consider myself a fairly big sci fi fan as well.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Pojut]

Ah, the ol' "there are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don't" trick. I see what you did there.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[kentrel]

No you're not. Whedon's work is predictable and dull IMHO.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[mbourgon]

Nice Phineas & Ferb reference, by the way.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[greg1104]

Unless you have more than 10 fingers, you can only count to 1023 with them, not 1025. It's 2^10 - 1, not +1. Since the person you were mocking didn't catch this error either, I hope the both of you will be vacating my lawn now.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Monkeedude1212]

I know that. The trick is that someone could exclude zero and use no fingers as 1, should they desire, and no hands up as zero.

The trick was that you have to know binary up to 1024, and then be clever enough to use a new method for a third state of finger type, ultimately making it 3 ^ 10

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Creepy]

the new one or the old one or both?

The old one was somewhat campy, but for the time period it aired, quite good as far as story and special effects go - it also cost about 1 million dollars per episode, which was just silly talk back then, which is why BSG 1980 was so bad - the studios wanted to cut costs significantly and that ruined the show.

As for the new BSG, nearly every episode had me groaning about something, but I do like the prequel Caprica so far. The smoking doctor, pre-20th century medicine, female Starbuck (Katie, I'm sorry, but no), terrorism (c'mon - you're running for your life), demands for democracy (again, you're running for your life), anti-medicine cults (who cares? - just let 'em die), etc. all bugged me. Virtual worlds where people behave hedonistically in some spots but more civil in others? That I can buy - sounds a lot like Second Life.

Firefly I'm more mixed about - I really disliked it at first but it grew on me, kinda like Babylon 5. Once I got past the "western in space" aspect, the acting was decent, the characters well developed and the plots were generally good.

As for Katie Sackhoff, I actually liked the remake of Bionic Woman a couple of years ago except her character... but, that show probably would have done better with a different name and less of an action and more of a suspense focus (I think Michelle Ryan would rock in an Alias-like role). Katie's decent on "24," at least the one episode I saw her in (to tell the truth, my interest in that show waned about year 2, but I still catch an episode now and then... and am completely lost).

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Sancho]

Use trinary.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Rysc]

I watched BSG and liked it, but I can understand people who don't. BSG had a lot of flaws and left something to be desired.

Firefly... now that I don't understand. There have been better shows, but few shows that were as good in such a short timespan. It's so-so sci-fi, great space opera and fun for all.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why no one like nerds or Firefly. Just so you know.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Rysc]

JMS? Is that you?

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll see your Firefly and raise you an Avengers as well. No, you aren't. Not in the least.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally dislike space westerns, so that might have something to do with it.

Well, now, you may not like Firefly or Cowboy Bebop, but that's no reason to generalize the entire genre of space westerns.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Anonymous Coward]

I waded through the whole series, hoping that I would begin to enjoy it. I didn't.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[greg1104]

Counting on your fingers/toes presumes a binary state for each and starting at zero. If you're going to allow cheating, why stop at three? You can theoretically add an infinite number of finger positions that each represent a different value, based on what angle you hold them at. I count about six angles I could easily distinguish among given enough muscle control and patience, mainly limited by the range of motion of my thumb, which makes for counting up to 60 million. But who has that kind of time?

As for saying you don't have to represent zero, you can presume whatever offset you like if you're allowing that trick. Why not say counting starts at 10 and you can count to 1032? And representing a value with "no hands up" isn't counting with your just your fingers anymore. Allow counting using any part of your body and then...well let's just say there's a YouPorn video you don't want to watch covering that.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[ProppaT]

Well, in addition to what you listed I also couldn't stand: Time Enough For Love by Heinlein, Trigun, any Wild Arms games past the first one, the Mass Effect series...I could go on. At least I readily admit that I don't like the genre at all instead of trying to argue that it's bad even for it's genre. It's not bad, the genres just dumb and it suffers from the source material.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not everyone can have good taste. Sorry it had to be you.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[DikSeaCup]

No, sorry. I'm Jesus. The one the other savior doesn't believe in.

j/k. You did get the reference though. ;)

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[DarksideDaveOR]

Ah, Ivanova.

I must spend a few hours repeating the B5 mantra now.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[PCM2]

I watched Serenity and thought it was a bunch of total fanboy garbage that would barely play as a comic book, and that reaction led me to skip the whole series.

Did I do it wrong?

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[PCM2]

But since when are hot girls who wear tight pants and kick ass considered "strong, capable, confident female characters"?

You know who plays a strong, capable, confident female character? Helen Mirren on Prime Suspect. Compared to that, Whedon's females are just adolescent wank material.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[mcgrew]

If you get modded to oblivion it's because you didn't mention Star Trek once!!!

Space western? Roddenberry pitched TOS as "wagon train to the stars" and a Star Trek book by that name was written by Dianne Carey.
Bad guy who will do anything to get what he wants, ethics be damned? The Most Toys (Bad guy was Saul Rubinek, see the movie "Unforgiven")
Strong, capable, confident female characters? Doctor Crusher, Captain Janeaway, Uhura, etc etc??

Turn in your nerd card, heretic!

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Z34107]

Strong, capable, confident female characters? Doctor Crusher, Captain Janeaway, Uhura, etc etc??

You forgot Wesley Crusher.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're not. I don't know when this geek law went into effect that says we must all love Firefly, but I've been breaking it all along and frankly, I'm not sorry. I watched it beginning to end, and the movie as well, and I don't think there was a single idea in it that hadn't been done better somewhere else. Ship of outlaws on the run from an overwhelmingly powerful government? Farscape. Space western? Cowboy Bebop. Telepaths/psychics trying to elude capture and subsequent scientific experimentation? Babylon 5. Badguy who will do anything to get what he wants, ethics be damned? Farscape again. Strong, capable, confident female characters? Farscape trifecta, and present in a lot of other series as well - take your pick from BSG's female cast, and there's Ivanova in B5, Caroline in ReGenesis, Scully in the X Files, the list goes on and on. Whedon hardly has a monopoly on sci-fi female empowerment, and what he does offer isn't even that good.

And yet even now, 8 years after its demise, I still hear people clamoring to have Firefly brought back. Makes no sense to me either.

Haha that's awesome, you know he's said flat out Firefly is a knockoff of Blake's 7 right? Hopefully that simplifies your knock off chart.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Rysc]

If we're talking Sci Fi TV series I usually rank them like this

1. B5
2. Firefly
3. Dr. Who
4. Star Trek (cumulative)
5. Farscape

And then it gets muddy because I have to try to decide how to compare Lexx with Star Gate and whether you can count Quantum Leap.

So yeah, there's no way I'm missing even a subtle JMS reference.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Anonymous Coward]

And Whedon brought *all* of those points together in one production, Firefly.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Rallion]

Honestly, I can't imagine a person enjoying Serenity without already having seen the series. Primarily existing to serve fans of the series, it assumes you already know who all of these people are.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[Dalroth]

Yeah, probably. Serenity kinda sucked. The show was better than the movie.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[supssa]

Its awful pulp sci-fi. You have to be pretty nerdy to enjoy it I think. I generally like sci-fi but Firefly is rubbish. Joss Whedon is a hack.

Re:I'll probably got modded into oblivion...

[CelticWhisper]

And the end result was terrible. What's your point?

James Marsters?

[ReneeJade]

If we can have a Spike cameo, nothing else matters. I don't care if it makes no sense.

Re:James Marsters?

[Anonymous Coward]

He could get in a fight with Steed i suppose. Umbrellas at dawn!

Re:James Marsters?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why wouldn't it make sense? He is a superhero after all. Isn't the joy of this movie supposed to come from seeing a lot of super heroes who are all quite different working together?

Re:James Marsters?

[ReneeJade]

I don't know anything about The Avengers,sadly. I just know that Spike makes everything better. But yeah, I can't see why Spike vs. The Avengers wouldn't be made of awesome.

Re:James Marsters?

[elrous0]

Well, he's on Caprica now if you still really want to see him. But if you're still harboring fantasies, you should know that he's pushing 50 now and not really pulling off the "I'm much younger-looking than I actually am" thing very well anymore.

MTV.com... seriously?

[celticryan]

Is no one else extremely annoyed that the link was to an MTV site? Slashdot linking to MTV... my whole day is going to be all out of whack now. Was there really no other news agency carrying this information?

Re:MTV.com... seriously?

[Pojut]

You do realize that MTV owns GameTrailers and SpikeTV, amongst a number of other things...right?

Re:MTV.com... seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

...so? What's your point? If Slashdot linked to one of those I'd be surprised too.

Re:MTV.com... seriously?

[Plastic Pencil]

I didn't. If I take your word for it, it kinda explains why Spike had that God of War fanboy commercial that was thinly veiled as a 'competition'.

Re:MTV.com... seriously?

[Pojut]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV

Scroll down to the very bottom of the page, and in the lavender-ish box that says "MTV Networks", click show, then scroll down and you will see everything they own.

Keep in mind, MTV is owned by Viacom...so even though there is a LOT that MTV directly owns, Viacom owns MTV

Re:MTV.com... seriously?

[Plastic Pencil]

Ah. I was aware they were owned by Viacom and they practically own everything.

Conglomeration has ruined or is ruining, well, practically everything in the media nowadays.

Doesn't mean this movie will suck, but does explain the disintegration of any validity of 'popular' music, and how Michael Bay is still allowed to 'direct' movies.

Re:MTV.com... seriously?

[mcgrew]

Is no one else extremely annoyed that the link was to an MTV site?

You kids and your text messaging... it's "Empty-V". Spell it out, dammit!

I wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps Joss will resurrect the Ms. Marvel Date Rape story line (Issue 200 of the Avengers) and make it more feminist friendly.

Nathan Fillion in Castle

[Darth Sdlavrot]

Wearing Mal Reynolds's costume was a bit silly IMO.

Re:Nathan Fillion in Castle

[Danse]

Wearing Mal Reynolds's costume was a bit silly IMO.

I think it was supposed to be. It's not exactly a serious show.

Re:Nathan Fillion in Castle

[Spad]

As opposed to the deadly serious tone it usually takes...

Re:Nathan Fillion in Castle

[Culture20]

The Faceman doing a double take of the Cylon in The A Team was awesome. The regular viewers of Castle aren't going to get the joke as quickly.

Sarah Michelle Gellar as the Wasp

[GPLDAN]

...maybe David Boreanz as Henry Pym, her husband, Ant-Man....

Re:So there will be musical numbers?

[plsander]

I was sooo hoping this was about a revival of the Avengers...

Now I have the theme song stuck in my head.

Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[NormAtHome]

While I thought that Robert Downey Jr. did a really great job as Iron Man (in the first movie) the thing that made the movie was that the script was reasonably good. The second Fantastic Four movie was a total disaster because the script was absolutely the worst I think I've ever seen filmed and I was thinking all the way through the movie "Did the writer's ever actually read the original Jack Kirby, Stan Lee comic that this was based on?". The problem with the Avengers, besides needing a really good script is that the casting has to be good. To my mind the hardest problem here is trying to find someone to play Thor. You need a six foot two plus guy built like Hulk Hogan in his younger days that can do a credible Nordic accent and I think that is next to impossible.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

they could find an actual 6'2 nordic guy.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[GuruBuckaroo]

You're thinking much too locally. Go rent "The 13th Warrior" and check out the guy who plays Bulywif, Vladimir Kulich. Would make an *excellent* Thor.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't you get an actor like that from say ... Norway? Maybe Sweden?

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[ShadowRangerRIT]

You're saying there are no Nordic bodybuilders out there that can act with any credibility?

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[clickety6]

Dolph Lundgren? :)

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[Zumbs]

According to TFA they found a Chris Hemsworth, who played George Kirk in the recent Star Trek movie. According to IMDB he is currently filming the Thor movie.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[MoonBuggy]

So far the movies actually made by Marvel studios rather than just co-produced by them do seem to be better than what they were initially licensing their characters to (the Fantastic Four sequel being a perfect example of the latter).

They still fall squarely in the 'high budget Hollywood superhero movie' category, and they're not exactly highbrow, but I found both Iron Man and Ed Norton's version of The Incredible Hulk to be good entertainment. I'm interested to see how they do with Iron Man 2, and I still hold out fairly high hopes for The Avengers.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[Culture20]

"Did the writer's ever actually read the original Jack Kirby, Stan Lee comic that this was based on?"

Of course they did. They also read the Ultimate (FF,Galactus) series of comics, and introduced some of those ideas because their superiors at Marvel forced them to. The result was the mess you watched in the theater.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[NormAtHome]

I've never seen that but I'll take your word for it. I suppose they could have an open casting call in Norway and Germany to see what they can come up with. But really what good is someone who physically fits the part but can't act to save their life and whose English may be nonexistent. I remember seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan The Barbarian and thinking, he really fits the role physically but wow he's a terrible actor. That's not to say that he didn't improve over time as I think that he was terrific in True Lies, but whoever they pick has to be able to act and speak English reasonably well or do the correct accent. My friends and I have this conversation frequently about actors who take parts that require an accent and they just can't do it. Kevin Costner in Robin Hood is one of my favorite examples where he just flat out doesn't even try to do an English accent and it's just laughable.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[spookymonster]

If you're going to go with someone in their 50s as Thor, why not Dolph Lundgren? IMHO, it was poor scripting that did the man in, not his acting. Check out "I Come in Peace" some time...

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[Guspaz]

Funny you should say that, since Iron Man didn't have a script; they had an outline, and improvised most of it (or came up with it right before the scene): http://incontention.com/?p=18384

Jeff Bridges described it as a $200 million student film.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[Sancho]

You don't need a big guy to play Thor if you have Lord of the Rings special effects.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[NormAtHome]

I really wasn't suggesting anyone in their 50's just that in the past actors have been cast in parts that they were right for in one way but totally wrong for in another (who could really believe olive skinned Jessica Alba who has black hair naturally as a total blond?) and that a good actor can sometimes overcome a bad script or visa versa. If this turns into a franchise with multiple movies then whoever they select has to be young enough to stay in good shape through a six or eight year stretch so that probably lets out anyone over 40.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[Lectoid]

I nominate the Techno Viking.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[NormAtHome]

I'm sure that there's plenty of undiscovered talent running around in different parts of the world, the question is: Will Marvel / Disney go to the trouble of finding the correct person, possibly someone who's totally unknown for the part.

I mean really, you never know who you're going to find until you look. For example, in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", Will Sampson was working as a park ranger and someone from the production saw him and said "You! You're who we need for this role" and he turned out to be the perfect person.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[NormAtHome]

Actually, you make a really good point and I think that could really work.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[spitzig]

Well, to go by most of the comics I've read, you need a guy who speaks in Shakespearean English...

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[Anonymous Coward]

You need a six foot two plus guy built like Hulk Hogan in his younger days that can do a credible Nordic accent and I think that is next to impossible.

They need... TECHNOVIKING!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwsntHcWiy4

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[Tetsujin]

they could find an actual 6'2 Nordic guy.

No, that would never work. The audience would never be able to relate to someone from one of those foreign countries... Obviously it's much more productive to take someone who doesn't have that accent and make them fake it. :)

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[Tetsujin]

If you're going to go with someone in their 50s as Thor, why not Dolph Lundgren? IMHO, it was poor scripting that did the man in, not his acting. Check out "I Come in Peace" some time...

That movie inspired me to do a mod for Doom in which bullets, upon hitting a wall or target, would spawn an explosion instead of a bullethole effect... ...But I can't say the film impressed me otherwise...

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[Syberz]

How about Dolph Lundgren with hair extensions? He's Swedish and with a little make-up and a few months of working out I bet he could fit the bill rather well.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[Creepy]

True enough - Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, for that matter, are horrifically bad big budget movies. Note that I said "big budget" - they are not in the same category as stuff like Vampires vs Zombies or Troll 2 (the challenge there is to get through the movie without throwing yourself through a plate glass window to end the pain, and usually that means significant amounts of alcohol and/or drugs).

I don't think finding a 6'2" muscled crazy blond guy would be all that hard - just recruit in the midwest, or if that fails, Austria (we're due for another Ahr nold).

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[zdzichu]

Google for ,,techno viking''. This guy would rock as Thor.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[Archangel Michael]

If you go outside of acting, you could find one of the great Strongman Power lifters to do Thor. My vote, would be Arild "Hulk" Haugen of Norway ...

http://www.ironmind.com/ironmind/export/sites/default/ironmind/arildlat_lg.jpg

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[NormAtHome]

As someone else mentioned, I also believe that Dolph Lungren's acting career has suffered from being in some seriously bad movies (Masters Of The Universe etc) but that he is a good actor. I enjoyed "I Come In Peace" and whatever that movie was that he was in with Branden Lee. But the truth is that having been born in 1957 he's now pushing 53 years old and if he were in his thirty's he'd be perfect for the part but sad to say he's just too old.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[oatworm]

Well, the audience would either fail to relate to the guy or they'd try to elect him as Governor of their state. Either way, there's not much in-between.

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[oatworm]

It's true - the current one is about to get term limited out of office. /ducks

Re:Seriously, this is a casting nightmare

[Lunzo]

All kids in Germany and Norway learn English for many years at school. They don't all end up fluent but all kids will end up competent enough to be cast as a generic foreign dude in an action movie.

He's rewriting it too...

[aitikin]

Apparently, from another article on the same site, Whedon is rewriting it too.

"According to Variety, Whedon will also rewrite the script for "The Avengers"

Yeah...No.

[geekoid]

His movie's aren't very good. He is great at long arches, great at TV plots. Not so good at getting all he does great into a movie. IT's not...tight.

Serenity is a great example of that. Without the series as a primer, if you will, the movie doesn't really make that much sense.

Plus marvel will never let him kill one of the Avengers. That means he needs to add a character to kill. This will distract from the movie.

I hope I am wrong.

Re:Yeah...No.

[DragonTHC]

HAHAHA You simple mortal! He will kill off Captain Hammer!

Of course, it will be in an epic fight between The good captain and Thor!

Re:Yeah...No.

[Danse]

Without the series as a primer, if you will, the movie doesn't really make that much sense.

I don't think the movie was truly intended to stand alone. It was more of a payback to fans for buying Firefly DVDs and a way to wrap up the series after Fox fucked everyone over so badly.

Re:Yeah...No.

[Sancho]

His movie's aren't very good.

Serenity is a great example of that.

Serenity is one of the 5 movies he's written that actually made it to the screen, and it's the only movie he has directed. You might as easily say that he was too constrained by the TV show to really make it work--that he was too close to the original material.

As far as the rest of his feature film writing credits, he had success with Toy Story as writer. Titan AE and Alien Resurrection weren't bad, they just weren't great. Buffy...well it wasn't the story he wanted, but I'm not sure who's to blame for that.

There's a great body of work for the Avengers, too, but whoever ends up writing the final script also has a large precedent to muck around in the universe. Just about every comic book-turned-movie that was in any way successful has deviated significantly from the canon of the books. With Serenity, I could very easily see Whedon being unwilling to retcon anything.

One last thing to note is that The Avengers will be drawing heavily from the other movies in that universe. That means that creative control is likely to be pretty restricted. It's likely that we won't see any of Joss come through with the script or direction, if he ends up being selected.

Sucker

[geekoid]

Who ever makes a cameo will die. He can't kill any Avengers, so he has got to be looking for a red shirt.

Re:Sucker

[DarksideDaveOR]

Tony Stark appeared in Hulk without dying or killing anyone. There's nothing that says a few characters can't float through Avengers without changing anything, and it's a long-time precedent in comic books.

And yes, James Marsters can appear as anyone, even himself.

Re:death penalty

[Geoffrey.landis]

OOps, should have read the article, and not just posted before reading. This is Avengers, the Marvel Comic series, not The Avengers, the 1961-1969 British TV series.

Never mind. Joss, you're pardoned.

Re:death penalty

[tagno25]

This is Marvel's Avengers not the UK Avengers.

or...NOT

[geekoid]

http://splashpage.mtv.com/2010/04/14/joss-whedon-to-rewrite-avengers-script/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848228/

Tell me, does it suck to be as wrong as you~

Re:or...NOT

[elrous0]

I don't think I understand what you're saying. Are you saying that a movie is going to get made for sure because it has an IMDB entry? If so, you really need to lay off the glass pipe.

Let me predict the Whedon deaths...

[Kirin Fenrir]

- At some point, a beloved character will have a "perfect moment" where he saves the day...then suddenly die in the next scene.

- At another point, two romantically-interested characters will finally divulge their feelings, be happy for all of ten minutes, then one will meet a horrible and sudden end.

There will also be at least implied lesbianism at some point. Whedon has his moments, but his bags of tricks is fairly small.

Re:Let me predict the Whedon deaths...

[Nidi62]

So, is that last point a complaint, or......? I mean come on, who didnt love all that Willow and dark-haired Slayer trainee action?

Re:Let me predict the Whedon deaths...

[fahrbot-bot]

Those are pretty well-used devices in stories. See "City of Angels", or the original "Wings of Desire" for good examples of the second one you listed.

Re:Let me predict the Whedon deaths...

[meta-monkey]

- There will also be at least implied lesbianism at some point.

This is unacceptable! I demand express lesbianism in my feature films!

Re:Let me predict the Whedon deaths...

[Anonymous Coward]

when he wants to, he can write dialog that is brilliant.

his bag of tricks then are just icing.

for other directors, maybe their bag of tricks is the only thing that will save them...

Confirmed.

[geekoid]

http://splashpage.mtv.com/2010/04/14/joss-whedon-to-rewrite-avengers-script/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848228/

In Defense of Buffy Geekdom

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to feel the same way, and with newer things like Twilight around the entire "vampire" theme has a pretty negative image now. But Joss Whedon makes it all okay.

My Whedon experience started with Firefly, which was spectacular. I got into it because it was space cowboys, and I can't actually think of a cooler genre. Note here that Cowboy Bebop was my introduction to Anime.

Then I was tricked into watching Dr Horrible. That was good stuff. Really good. So I decided to give Buffy a chance.

And it wasn't great. It was hackneyed and corny and then my wife said: so is Star Trek. My wife rags on Star Trek and Star Wars all the time, and I say bad things about Buffy and Angel? This is a double standard we're playing on each other. So I got over it.

The writing is wonderful. The way they play with language, the way they play with humanity and inhumanity. This is what made Kirk better than Picard. The stories are mediocre, and the special effects are... well, on par with TOS. And it's really, really good stuff.

So, don't discount Whedon, and don't discount Buffy, just because you have preconceptions about what the medium should be. Seriously, let the work stand on its own merit.

Am I expecting a great classic film out of this? Well, no. I'm expecting something on par with a better Alan Moore adaptation: an enjoyable movie, but probably completely missing the point. And let's be honest, we're not starting with Alan Moore level base material here.

Now I only need to convince my wife to give Star Trek a chance...

Re:In Defense of Buffy Geekdom

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people were clever enough to notice that the show wasn't about magic and monsters, and instead was about the characters, people.

Vampires weren't undead monsters. They were innocent people who were victimized, and as a result of the trauma became cruel themselves. This happens a lot in real life, consider rapists who were sexually abused in their past.

Werewolves were people who were normally decent, but on occasion lost their cool. Is someone who loses their cool a bad person? This was an interesting question with real life implications, much like he vampire thing. Buffy didn't kill werewolves.

That is really the tip of the Buffy iceberg. The things he did with the stories was amazing.

Most people seem to watch it and say "these special effects suck" and move on. If someone was simply looking for a cool story about people with super powers kicking asses, they may not have liked it. To me, the super powers and magic made the story of the characters possible, not the other way around.

Re:In Defense of Buffy Geekdom

[hairyfeet]

While I enjoyed Buffy/Angel, the problem with Whedon of that period is he simply bit off more than he could chew work wise. Pretty much all of season six and seven of Buffy (with the exception of the musical and one down) were phoned in because he was busy with Firefly. The same thing happened with season four and five of Angel (with the exception of the puppet show) with Whedon having gotten too busy and phoning it in. If you compare season six/seven and four/five to the rest of the series you can see the writing went WAAAY downhill. Now that he isn't swamped seasons eight and six of Buffy/ Angel respectively in comic form actually have good writing again.

So I would say whether The Avengers will be good or not depends on how much work Whedon has at that moment, since the guy can't seem to stand turning down a job even when he has a full plate. If he doesn't have much to do it will probably be great, if he is swamped it will probably be shit. it just all depends on his workload at the time.

Re:In Defense of Buffy Geekdom

[penguin_dance]

Vampires weren't undead monsters. They were innocent people who were victimized, and as a result of the trauma became cruel themselves. This happens a lot in real life, consider rapists who were sexually abused in their past.

Well, technically, they also lost their soul upon becoming a vampire, that might have had something to do with it.

But hey, during Buffy, Whedon made a frickin' MUSICAL episode and made it WORK!

I loved the Avengers...if anyone can take this and both make it fresh and keep it campy...Whedon can! I know of no other H-wood writer/director who's projects I specifically follow with the same intent on seeing whatever they produce.

Re:In Defense of Buffy Geekdom

[Tetsujin]

But hey, during Buffy, Whedon made a frickin' MUSICAL episode and made it WORK!

Well, yes - except Alyson Hannigan had absolutely no business being in that episode... Though I suppose no Alyson Hannigan would have meant no Amber Benson...

Re:In Defense of Buffy Geekdom

[Sancho]

She had one of my favorite lines, though, in Walk Through The Fire.

Re:In Defense of Buffy Geekdom

[Tetsujin]

She had one of my favorite lines, though, in Walk Through The Fire.

The "I think this line is mostly filler" one? Yeah, that was fun...

Silent episode was better, though. :)

Re:In Defense of Buffy Geekdom

[Sancho]

I'm always torn between Hush and Once More With Feeling as my favorite, with The Body coming in third. I think that between the three, there's such a huge amount of creativity and versatility demonstrated in the entire staff and cast.

Re:In Defense of Buffy Geekdom

[VGPowerlord]

I remember reading somewhere (or maybe it was in a commentary thing) that Alyson Hannigan didn't think she had a good singing voice and asked to have as few singing lines as possible.

And that she later regretted that request.

Re:In Defense of Buffy Geekdom

[Hurricane78]

And some people even are clever enought, to know that all you’re doing, is backwards rationalizing why you spent weeks in front of the TV, waiting for that one scene where one of the girls shows a bit of skis. ^^

Is it gonna be about "feelings?"

[Plastic Pencil]

Will we find out that Thor harbors a deep man love for Captain America, that will never be accepted?

Will there be lots of slow montages with 'chick' bands playing in the background?

I'm just kidding. Hope you knock this one out of the park Joss!

Especially for your sake, or you'll be doomed to a future of angry fanboys at convention forums asking you stupid questions.

Can someone explain

[Anonymous Coward]

How does "Buffy" appeal to nerds, supposedly clever people? Seriously...

Re:Can someone explain

[Dr. Zim]

Dude... what's un-clever about finding Sarah Michelle Gellar attractive? Did you think we watched it for the plot?

Re:Can someone explain

[Plastic Pencil]

I actually kinda did, well prior to Season 6. And of course, Charisma Carpenter.

Re:Can someone explain

[BlackSnake112]

When willow dressed up as a ghost. Then she took off the sheet.

Who knew she looked like that.

Re:Can someone explain

[Plastic Pencil]

At this point Allison Hannigan > SMG, hands down in my book.

A punne, or a play on words...

[biryokumaru]

So that's why that show is so retarded...

Re:death penalty

[itsdapead]

Never mind. Joss, you're pardoned.

Actually, I think Joss would have been an ideal candidate for remaking the UK Avengers. Summer Glau for the female sidekick? (More of a Purdy than a Mrs Peel, I think, but she can do a good bad English accent and beat people up, so what's not to like).

Could have been more fun than more fricking Marvel superheroes. Ho hum, I wonder if they'll deconstruct the superhero mythos (again).

Not much to ruin...

[MaWeiTao]

You know, of all the things to base a movie on superhero comics bother me the least. From a standpoint of Hollywood sucking the life out of everything I might have a problem, but beyond that I'm not really bothered by whatever ends up being produced.

And the reason for this is that comic book superheros are ridiculous to begin with. Their characters are often goofy and their plots corny. I mean, they were really grasping at straws with a lot of those superheros and villains. I was a fairly avid reader of comic books growing up, but even as a kid I thought a lot of what I was reading was lame. Entertaining, but lame. Comics also have had countless interpretations by different artists and writers and canon is constantly being so many more liberties can be taken with the material. And then when you consider that Marvel, DC and the rest were nothing but machines churning out disposable entertainment, much like Hollywood, then there's not much to get upset about.

It's a bit different when you're looking at movie adaptations of novels. The quality of writing in novels is often, but not always, better than what you'll find in most movies and comics. And I believe that because a book requires more imagination on the part of the reader there's a stronger personal attachment. Then there's the added burden of trying to condense a novel into a 2 hour movie. So there's a lot more to get wrong and a greater likelihood people will be disappointed.

Well at least...

[itsdapead]

Well, at least that's three more tricks than the usual Hollywood blockbuster paint-by-numbers script.

...and he tends to cast actors he knows already: is there any member of the female cast from Buffy/Angel/Firefly/Dollhouse that you don't want to see involved in some implied lesbianism?

Re:Well at least...

[SpaceCadets]

Kristine Sutherland.

No way

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll believe this when it actually happens. They have a release date of May 2012. They'll "tap" at least two more directors before filming.

Say what?

[Spunkemeyer]

Haven't you ever seen the footage shown after the credits of the Iron Man movie? It introduces Nick Fury to Tony Stark! I have no doubt Robert Downey Jr. was under contract for it when he signed up for Iron Man... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o2lJ19qML0

Not looking forward to it

[BlackHawk-666]

Of all the work that Joss Weadon has churned out the only thing I can honestly say I enjoy is Firefly, and a lot of that is down to Jayne. Joss Weadon is a hack, a hack with a following, but a hack none the less. His ideas are tired and constantly recycled, his dialogue is weak, and his characters generic. e.g. a vampire that won't suck blood, a teenage girl with kick ass powers. None of his work is so bad I won't watch it, it's just not so good I'd switch channels to view it.

Re:Not looking forward to it

[gbjbaanb]

of course, those things are generic *now*. They weren't when he made the original series.

I remember when Buffy was first suggested as a TV series, no-one thought "oh no, another teen girl who kicks ass" as apart from the movie there hadn't been any.

Re:Not looking forward to it

[BlackHawk-666]

Unless of course you watch Anime or read Manga or study history. Joan of Arc was the very essence of a teen girl who kicked ass. Battle Angel Alita is one of many from the Japanese culture, and it's a pretty safe bet Weadon was heavily influenced by this culture.

From western culture you have Ripley, the very definition as ass kicking - just not a teen. If you check out comics they are crammed with ass kicking female characters.

So perhaps I guess the best you can say is that he drew upon all these other pioneers and influences and managed to get management to take a small risk on casting a hot teen girl as a lead role.

Re:death penalty

[Shakrai]

Actually, I think Joss would have been an ideal candidate for remaking the UK Avengers. Summer Glau for the female sidekick? (More of a Purdy than a Mrs Peel, I think, but she can do a good bad English accent and beat people up, so what's not to like).

I have no idea what the Avengers are but you had me at Summer Glau ;)

The big question is...

[abigsmurf]

Will we see what happens when a Wasp is struck by lightning?

Re:The big question is...

[Meneth]

We already know. Same thing that happens to everything else. ;)

Ensemble film would need more planning

[jollyreaper]

While Marvel has certainly been trying to mobilize their properties, the movies for the most part have not been very good. I'm still puzzled as to how Iron Man turned out so awesome. In comparison you have the Fantastic Four failures, the Hulks, Spider-Man and sequels, X-Men and sequels, Wolverine, etc. Well, I suppose those movies may have made some money but they weren't very good. As far as fun popcorn flicks, they were too saturated with stupid to succeed. The only enjoyable comic movies of the last few years have been the two Nolan Batmans and Iron Man. Hopefully Iron Man 2 will also be good.

Anyway, the way they would really have to work a crossover movie is to actually make a few good stand-alone movies. Make them as good as Iron Man. Then the crossover movie would mean something. You have a good Hulk movie, a good Iron Man movie, a good Spider-Man movie, and then you have all three of those guys in one movie? Then you have something.

In the mess that is Heroes, it's easy to overlook how good the first season was. Television provides more space for storytelling and the budgets are allowing some very interesting work. You typically need a movie's budget to get the city-smashing fights but you'd need a television series' length to do complicated storylines. With the popularity of DVD's and the rise of online distribution, not to mention the lowered cost of digital effects, I wonder if it might not be possible to put out movie-quality work on a serial basis.

Done

[geekoid]

http://splashpage.mtv.com/2010/04/14/joss-whedon-to-rewrite-avengers-script/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848228/

Re:Done

[Rogerborg]

Waaaaiting for the Tweet. Pull up a chair, and we'll share a pouch of tobaccy.

What, not Uwe Boll?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the love for Uwe Boll? They should have got him to direct it, so it could be as good as all his other movies!

Had enough of Joss already

[Karna99]

Well if Joss does it I can tell the focus will be on the Wasp as she struggles in a man's superhero world. Expect some drama about love/sex with the villain and eventually she will discover after being abused that she has small sun inside her that will go nova and she will destroy/kill everything.

Bastard ruined Aliens for me with all the Motherhood/Feminist bullshit he laid on Ripley's character. Those themes were in Alien 2 also, but not quite the sled hammer Joss likes to employ.

All his stories are the same: about some abused woman/girl who discovers she has superpowers and then proceeds to eviscerate everything in site. The guy is a hack, not the worst, but certainly doesn't not deserve the credit geekdom seems to give him.

Re:Had enough of Joss already

[CelticWhisper]

The difference was that in Aliens, the point of the Ripley/Newt relationship was Ripley finding a daughter in Newt after her biological daughter had lived a full life and died while Ripley was away in suspended animation. It was about her dealing with the loss and getting her life back, so there was significant character development in it. It was about second chances. There were second-chance themes in other places as well, if you look for them - Androids get to repair their reputation in Ripley's eyes with Bishop's heroics, the LV-426 mission is Gorman's 2nd drop and Ripley's 2nd run-in with the titular aliens in which she faces and conquers her fears, probably some others I'm not thinking of too.

In Res, on the other hand, it was just "let's play with themes of motherhood, because...well, just because. And I'm Joss fucking Whedon and I say so." The alien-womb/birthing scene was at least made appropriately creepy by Jean-Pierre Jeunet's direction, but the premise was absurd, to say the least. Half the scare factor of the aliens was their bizarre and invasive reproductive process and the horror of having some murderous creature rip its way out of you. The only reason the "gift of a human reproductive system" concept was even remotely scary was that the xenomorphs had already been established as strange, alien, and terrifying creatures and the humanizing of them felt invasive in its own way. Note that I'm referring to the concept that something like the aliens could adopt human characteristics (and the graphic display of exactly how), not that lame human-alien hybrid creature. Jeunet made an admirable effort to turn the half-assed script of Res into a decent product, but it's telling that he swore off Hollywood after that. Whedon's thousand-times-rehashed ideas can only be salvaged so far.

Incidentally, I remember reading that Whedon had the gall to blame Jeunet for the final product being subpar.

Re:Had enough of Joss already

[Karna99]

I agree with your comments whole heartily. I have no issues with Aliens and the themes inherit with Ripley the Warrior and Ripley the mother. In fact I really enjoyed her casting as the figure of Artemis in the movies. Good story telling is being able to spin the classic tales for a new generation.

Not to be confused with the fanboy worship Whedon seems to have for anime style story telling for all his projects.

And I agree that he needs to be beaten for blaming Jeunet for his shity script.

Re:Had enough of Joss already

[Anonymous Coward]

Bastard ruined Aliens for me with all the Motherhood/Feminist bullshit he laid on Ripley's character.

I take it you have suppressed all memories of Alien 3?

All his stories are the same: about some abused woman/girl who discovers she has superpowers and then proceeds to eviscerate everything in site.

Like that bitch, Angel. Or that total badass played by Felicia Day in Dr Horrible.

Re:death penalty

[Captain Spam]

Actually, I think Joss would have been an ideal candidate for remaking the UK Avengers.

To be honest, while I'm not at all a Whedonite... Whedonistic? While I'm not at all that, I would have to agree, he would be perfect for directing a movie based on John Steed and whoever he had with him at the time (they'd probably choose Mrs. Peel, as she sort of became iconic with the show). Pity shame that someone else DID try a big-screen Avengers not-too-long-ago, and if I'm not mistaken, that left a bad enough taste in everyone's mouths that I doubt they'd ever try it again...

So yeah, welcome to Marvel 2010! It's the same movie, just with an updated roster!

Why?

[DesScorp]

I just pooped myself a little. It is awkward at work.

Why? What has Whedon done to make you think he'll get this movie right?

His first few Buffy seasons were legendary, but the quality dropped off soon afterwards. Same thing for Angel... interesting concept that quickly became stale. Firefly? Very overhyped. Same for Dollhouse. Did you read his run on X-Men? Another Buffy-Angel-Spike love triangle, only with uniforms this time.

His artistic raison d'etre... the strong dominating female character... isn't going to work very well with the male-dominated Avengers, unless suddenly the Scarlett Witch becomes the central character. And it wouldn't be the Avengers, then. In the X-Men, the White Queen took front and center as the most dominating character, with the strongest personality.

Re:Why?

[BobMcD]

His artistic raison d'etre... the strong dominating female character...

...and the horribly weak and/or flawed male characters they contrast against...

Mr Whedon doesn't know how to do psychologically normal male characters. Their strengths are always offset by deep flaws. Not so much when they're female.

And as you put it, there aren't a lot of females, so I'd expect to see depressingly dark and flawed versions of Captain America, Thor, etc.

Not super exciting.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The grandparent you agree with:

His artistic raison d'etre... the strong dominating female character...

Oh, like Angel? Yeah he wouldnt have got anything done without the help of strong female characters... Clearly he had help from female characters, as well as male ones. He was the boss though, and often did the most important things on his own.

Mr Whedon doesn't know how to do psychologically normal male characters. Their strengths are always offset by deep flaws. Not so much when they're female.

Oh, like River Tam? She was psychologically normal and was not offset by any deep flaws! Seriously, have you even watched anything of his? What about Buffy season 6? Hell one of the season 6 episodes left the viewer wondering if Buffy really was sane, or just a mental patient who thought she was a slayer.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget delicate little flower Malcom Reynolds. He's completely helpless.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

His first few Buffy seasons were legendary, but the quality dropped off soon afterwards. Same thing for Angel...

Huh? What? I think you have that backwards. Buffy took a few seasons to actually get good. Angel did too.

Re:Why?

[cthulu_mt]

Make's me wish he had been the writer for Star Trek:Voyager. God that thing was a steaming pile.

Re:Why?

[BobMcD]

Angel is tragically flawed. He cannot ever be human nor a vampire. He'll never, ever, ever have a healthy psychology. Spike, too. Wants Buffy deeply, though he's technically incapable of love, but what's a little retcon when it applies a flaw to a male character?

River Tam is super-human. Practically a goddess, surrounded by non-supers throughout the rest of the setting. Her flaws are a point of empathy and they serve to make her infinitely stronger. It is endearing and intrinsic to her. Pretty much the entire plot of the movie centered around this element, as well as several of the episodes. I'm surprised you missed it. So yes, River had flaws. But her flaws actually made her SUPERIOR. You won't find that in a male character under Mr Whedon.

Malcom Reynolds is so deeply scarred that he cannot form normal attachments to humans. War gave him severe Aspergers, basically, alongside damaging the logic part of his brain, making him roughly an idiot. Occasionally he tears up about it. His strength is carried to a fault, even when his being weak would make a better story.

[Jayne, Wash, Book, Simon] vs [any of the women] - its better to be a girl.

In Doctor Horrible the doctor is predictably weak and fails repeatedly, and fails to get the girl. His only success comes through a deep tragedy. The strong male character, Hammer, is a total slimeball. The girl in the story sits squarely in the middle, without any flaws of any kind. It could also be noted that the greatest villain in the series is a horse.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Angel is tragically flawed. He cannot ever be human nor a vampire. He'll never, ever, ever have a healthy psychology.

I didn't argue that he wasn't flawed for a reason. Most of Joss's characters are, male or female. I only argued that he was strong on his own and didn't rely on women.

River Tam is super-human. Practically a goddess, surrounded by non-supers throughout the rest of the setting. Her flaws are a point of empathy and they serve to make her infinitely stronger. It is endearing and intrinsic to her. Pretty much the entire plot of the movie centered around this element, as well as several of the episodes. I'm surprised you missed it. So yes, River had flaws. But her flaws actually made her SUPERIOR. You won't find that in a male character under Mr Whedon.

That happened some of the time, but for the rest of it she was having nervous breakdowns and relied on her brother for just about everything but wiping her ass, and who knows, maybe even that!

I never made any arguments about Mal. Keep in mind that I don't disagree that the things you said are sometimes true, I only disagree that they apply all/most of the time and only to the specific genders that you say they apply to. I could argue that all nickels are dirty and all dimes are clean, and then show you a mound of clean nickels and dirty dimes. It wouldn't make it any more true :)

In Doctor Horrible the doctor is predictably weak and fails repeatedly, and fails to get the girl. His only success comes through a deep tragedy. The strong male character, Hammer, is a total slimeball. The girl in the story sits squarely in the middle, without any flaws of any kind.

She fell for a total loser, and then after that total loser indirectly mortally wounded her, she believed that he would save her, as he ran away! Both males were severely flawed, but I wouldn't say that Penny was without flaws. In fact she would be best described as a damsel in distress, which is very un-girl-power.

Yes, Joss likes feminist themes, but face it, he isn't a one trick pony. Trying to shoehorn him into that role just doesn't work.

Re:Why?

[sammy baby]

Malcom Reynolds is so deeply scarred that he cannot form normal attachments to humans. War gave him severe Aspergers, basically, alongside damaging the logic part of his brain, making him roughly an idiot. Occasionally he tears up about it. His strength is carried to a fault, even when his being weak would make a better story.

Okay, what?

That is easily the weirdest take on that character I've ever read.

Re:Why?

[BobMcD]

Yes, Joss likes feminist themes, but face it, he isn't a one trick pony. Trying to shoehorn him into that role just doesn't work.

I never said he was a one trick pony. I said his interpretation of the genders, and his inherent bias against males - wouldn't make a good Avengers film.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I never said he was a one trick pony. I said his interpretation of the genders, and his inherent bias against males - wouldn't make a good Avengers film.

I see. So you never said he was a one trick pony, you just said that he has two tricks, and is a human. Thanks for clarifying that.

Re:Why?

[BobMcD]

He has many tricks. I love the way he mashed up SciFi and Westerns to make the backdrop for Firefly, for example. Reconstruction-era in space? That's pretty sweet.

But he's not been asked to write Avengers, only to direct it.

Don't be so defensive.

Re:Why?

[Darinbob]

Whatdya mean no strong female characters? Ok, pause a moment while I read the fine article... ...

Wait, the comic book Avengers? Bah. I was expecting John Steed and Emma Peel. Now I'm disappointed.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to butt in to this conversation. I liked Dr Horrible but I dont know much about Josh Whedon's other movies and tv shows. I just wanted to say that I don't think I can remember a time when the word "defensive" was used correctly.

If I say "Damn, I had a candy bar on my desk 5 minutes ago, I wonder what happened to it" and you say "It wasn't me, I didn't eat it! The chocolate smell on my breath is from chocolate milk. Yeah I was drinking chocolate milk, but with people you don't know, seriosly I would take a lie detector test if you had one" then I could claim you were being defensive.

If we were both defending different sides of an argument and you ran out of arguments and then complained that I was being "defensive" like what appears to have happened here, I would just start laughing.

Both sides are equally "defensive" in any argument. Why not stop posting if there is nothing left to say for your side of it?

Re:Why?

[BobMcD]

I see. So you never said he was a one trick pony, you just said that he has two tricks, and is a human. Thanks for clarifying that.

1) 'I see.' was used sarcastically.

2) 'One trick pony' is a pejorative.

3) 'Two tricks' is a slightly more lenient pejorative.

4) Joss Whedon is known to be human, and thus doesn't really justify as clarification.

Therein lies my assessment of the position as overly emotional given the topic, e.g. defensive. Could be other things I suppose. I'm not that interested in dialing down to that level of accuracy. I could have easily said, 'dont be such an asshole', but I opted for the civil selection instead.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Seriously? So you run out of arguments and start with the name calling. Real mature.

A one trick pony is someone who tends to do the same or similar things all of the time. You claimed that his stories always have the same type of characters, which are incompatible with this movie. Summing that up as "one trick pony" is pretty standard. Why not argue in defense of your claims instead of side tracking and nit-picking?

And no, saying something along the lines of "I could have called you an asshole but I didn't" isn't civil. It is saying that someone is an asshole in a roundabout way.

Just give up. You are making yourself look bad. While logged in.

Re:Why?

[BobMcD]

I never post AC. Only cowards do that. And I don't really care how you think it makes me look. I never called anyone a name, as far as I recall. I wasn't aware this even was a 'maturity contest', but if it were, I'm merely rebutting your accusations that I have 'run out of arguments'.

The last on-topic statement made was mine, so I fail to see how the ball is in my court at all. You're projecting, sir, whether you realize it or not.

Re:Why?

[retchdog]

Not really; he puts the crew's lives at stake several times by blithely ignoring the reality of his "strategies". He repeatedly refuses his genius mechanic's requests to buy a "nothing part" and a few months later, the ship explodes, dooming everyone (except for two very convenient dei ex machinae). He unquestioningly takes a job for a murderous mob boss; betrays him based on pure emotional response (and apparently learns nothing from the experience, one adds); and on top of this gratuitously kills one of his defenseless henchmen (we note, that in War Stories the supposedly-dimwitted Jayne is the only one on the crew to make this connection...). Risks the lives of his crew playing mercenary for a backwater settlement in exchange for trinkets. Risks the lives of his crew defending a whorehouse for no practical reason, mostly because he's emotionally confused about Inara.

Yes, Mal is, in practical terms, a complete failure as an effective leader, but the point is that his naive charm keeps the crew hanging on his word (which inhibits his redemption). This is intentional; as River points out in a rare lucid moment, "Mal. Bad. From the Latin." He's a short-sighted psychopath who kills whimsically and with no consistent regard for even his own safety. (and keep in mind, this is after Joss "lightened up" the character at the network's behest)

It's a testament to Nathan Fillion I guess that Mal is such an admirable character, which only reinforces the point: that his naive charisma more-or-less completely masks his deep flaws as correctly observed here...

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

We were having a discussion that was on topic until we got to my post that rebutted the things you had said, and ended with "Yes, Joss likes feminist themes, but face it, he isn't a one trick pony. Trying to shoehorn him into that role just doesn't work."

You ignored the entire post except for that, and are now claiming that it is only on topic to talk about the one trick pony thing when you do it.

Why not argue with me about things like the fact that many if not most of Joss's characters are in one way or another damaged, regardless of gender. You say it happens to males but the females are perfect and then can't back it up.

Spike was pussy whipped, Xander had no super powers, and Oz needed Willow to sedate him for his own good more than once. Is that a pattern?

What about Nina the werewolf, the girlfriend Angel kept in a cage similar to the Willow/Oz thing. Or Xander, you know, saving the world (from a crazy girl). Angel saved Faith from herself when she wanted to die. Angel defeated Jasmine. Giles beats Glory when Buffy can't. Xander saves everyone including Buffy/Willow in "the zeppo". Giles defeats Anyanka (a girl demon) after Cordelia (a girl) summons her on accident and makes a wish. Is this a bigger pattern? No, I just happened to think of more examples. I'm not even going to start counting all of the girls Angel saved on his show in the average episode. Or the boys Buffy saved in an average episode. I think the point is pretty clear.

Before you try to outnumber my "tough males" example with "tough females" examples, keep in mind that I didn't say he doesn't have tough females in his stories, only that he has good representation of both males and females being tough (and being saved).

Joss has shows with dominant male characters, like Angel and Firefly, and he has shows with dominant female characters like Buffy and Dollhouse. Joss is a feminist, so he is about equality. He does not consistently make wimpy male and strong female characters. He makes diverse characters who are all flawed (read: interesting), and his patterns tend to not relate to gender as much as you think. Here is one of his actual patterns: he likes killing off beloved characters.

Why not argue that Penny was heroic? Because she wasn't. She was a damsel in distress. "Thank you sir for saving me" is the only thing that pops in to my mind when I think of her meeting Captain Hammer for the first time.

Watching you flounder was funny at first, but this is just getting boring.

By the way, calling me a coward is name calling (again!) I just don't like taking credit. I posted this (below), but won't get credit for it. I don't care. http://entertainment.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1618210&cid=31844996

Re:Why?

[osgeek]

Unfortunately, I'd have to agree with a lot of that sentiment.

The first few seasons of Buffy were spectacular. After a while, though... meh... I just watched it because I liked the characters and there were some moments of greatness every once in a while... well that plus Charisma Carpenter wow.

Firefly and Angel were good enough to keep me tuning in, but nothing I was telling friends about. I didn't watch Dollhouse past the first half dozen episodes. The show is decent, but it's just not my thing.

On the plus side, nothing he's done is particularly bad. I think that he does competent work at worst, and we all hope for those flashes of brilliance.

Re:Why?

[Thuktun]

He puts the crew's lives at stake several times by blithely ignoring the reality of his "strategies". He repeatedly refuses his genius mechanic's requests to buy a "nothing part" and a few months later, the ship explodes, dooming everyone [...] He unquestioningly takes a job for a murderous mob boss; betrays him based on pure emotional response [...] Risks the lives of his crew playing mercenary for a backwater settlement in exchange for trinkets. Risks the lives of his crew defending a whorehouse for no practical reason, [...]

Except of course for the obvious, continuing trope in the series that they were constantly dead broke and had to take whatever jobs they could get. A person often make poor choices when they don't have the leeway to make better ones; this does not make the person an idiot.

and on top of this gratuitously kills one of his defenseless henchmen

Who were only defenseless because they had just been disabled and disarmed after trying to kill the crew. The one who was killed had just threatened to continue the killing at the first opportunity and for as long as it took; killing him could be argued to be self-defense, though somewhat pre-emptive and heavy-handed. Observe that the other defenseless henchmen took the returned money and walked away unscathed.

Re:Why?

[martin-boundary]

Don't be. The only thing worse than an American remake of a quintessentially British show is an American remake of a quintessentially British show with Whedonesque/californian speech patterns.

Re:Why?

[retchdog]

Except of course for the obvious, continuing trope in the series that they were constantly dead broke and had to take whatever jobs they could get. A person often make poor choices when they don't have the leeway to make better ones; this does not make the person an idiot.

However, given what we see and the fact that he makes stupid decisions even when money isn't at stake, it is a perfectly consistent explanation that Mal is why they're poor. And I certainly don't get the idea that they couldn't find a cheap compression coil; Kaylee literally finds one in the trash in Ariel.

Who were only defenseless because they had just been disabled and disarmed after trying to kill the crew.

Yes, true. However, morality aside, and no matter what the circumstances, outright executing a defenseless person in view of his compatriots will cause the aggrieved party to take revenge on you. Right or wrong, and no matter what came before, it's just a suicidally stupid move to (further) tick off someone like Adelai Niska for no material gain.

Re:Why?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Let's see...

Angel is tragically flawed. He cannot ever be human nor a vampire.

Actually, he can be a vampire just fine.

He'll never, ever, ever have a healthy psychology.

He seemed relatively stable to me. Granted, not happy, but stable.

Spike, too. Wants Buffy deeply, though he's technically incapable of love,

Well, actually, vampires are capable of relationships -- Angel and Darla, for example. And he's certainly capable of it once he gets his soul back.

River Tam is super-human. Practically a goddess... Her flaws are a point of empathy and they serve to make her infinitely stronger. It is endearing and intrinsic to her... So yes, River had flaws. But her flaws actually made her SUPERIOR. You won't find that in a male character under Mr Whedon.

Well, let's see:

Angel is super-human. Practically a god... His flaws are a point of empathy and they serve to make him infinitely stronger. It is endearing and intrinsic to him... So yes, Angel had flaws. But his flaws actually made him SUPERIOR.

The only two points missing are that Angel is not always surrounded by non-supers, and Angel didn't have a movie.

Malcom Reynolds is so deeply scarred that he cannot form normal attachments to humans.

Well, define "normal". The bonds he forms seem to be much stronger.

War gave him severe Aspergers,

Where's your evidence for that? Do you understand what Aspergers is?

Mal understands social norms perfectly well, he just doesn't give a fuck most of the time. There's a difference.

alongside damaging the logic part of his brain,

Aspergers would tend to reinforce that, not damage it.

Occasionally he tears up about it.

Duh. He's a war survivor. Zoe does too.

His strength is carried to a fault, even when his being weak would make a better story.

Being weak... like, oh, in Our Mrs. Reynolds?

[Jayne, Wash, Book, Simon] vs [any of the women] - its better to be a girl.

Yes, it would be so much better to be traumatized to the point of severe mood swings, paranoia, hallucination, delusions of grandeur... you know, actual insanity, caused by people cutting open your brain, rather than, say, a little bitterness about losing a war.

In Doctor Horrible... The girl in the story sits squarely in the middle, without any flaws of any kind.

She fell for Hammer, despite obvious flaws. And no, it's not just because we had Dr. Horrible's perspective. Hammer threw her in the trash and she fell for him. Hammer had absolutely no concept of intimacy ("We totally had sex!"), and this is blatantly obvious, yet she thinks he's special.

So, severe naivete -- not a serious problem? It's even a stereotypically female problem.

Your views are interesting, but also very wrong.

Re:Why?

[SanityInAnarchy]

His first few Buffy seasons were legendary, but the quality dropped off soon afterwards.

If you say so -- but keep in mind that Once More With Feeling was in season six. Out of seven.

Same thing for Angel... interesting concept that quickly became stale.

Destroying-the-world was also fairly late in the series. I will agree that it got stale, but I wouldn't say "quickly", and certainly not beyond recovery.

Firefly? Very overhyped.

I'd say it lives up to the hype, but would you actually call it bad?

Same for Dollhouse.

I don't know if this is typical, but I definitely got very mixed "hype" -- plenty of people saying dollhouse just isn't that good.

Contrast to Firefly -- very, very occasionally, I see someone say it's overhyped. There's a total of one person I can remember ever saying they didn't like it.

His artistic raison d'etre... the strong dominating female character... isn't going to work very well with the male-dominated Avengers,

Why not?

Scarlett Witch becomes the central character.

Oh, I see what you did there. Strong dominating female character.

No, what he does is strong female characters. Sometimes they're dominating (Buffy), sometimes it's male-dominated (Angel), sometimes it goes from one to the other (Firefly is male-dominated till the end of Serenity)...

I see no particular reason he couldn't do a decent job, unless you're hoping the Scarlett Witch is a damsel in distress.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Doll House are for teenage girls. Wake me when Joss Whedon can make something that appeals to adults.

Re:Why?

[BobMcD]

Your views are interesting, but also very wrong.

I think you're being a tad apologetic. The line-by-line rebuttals are a bit telling, in my opinion. Take the paragraph about Mal, for example. I didn't write it as a bulleted list. On the Apsergers comparison, I distinctly weakened that with the word 'basically', and yet you omitted it from the quote, almost as if I never said it at all...

Interesting.

Anyway, the points are made in a way that you understood them. I'm not all that worried whether or not you agree.

Re:Why?

[SanityInAnarchy]

The line-by-line rebuttals are a bit telling, in my opinion.

If you say so. What, then, about the response to your claim that no male character could ever be River Tam?

Take the paragraph about Mal, for example. I didn't write it as a bulleted list.

I don't really see how it's relevant. Stringing together a bunch of false sentences doesn't make a true paragraph.

On the Apsergers comparison, I distinctly weakened that with the word 'basically', and yet you omitted it from the quote,

Ah, sorry, my bad.

I don't think it saves your argument, though. Mal "basically" has Aspergers in the same way that because I sometimes daydream about a better life, I "basically" have delusions of grandeur -- and that's even if I grant that he doesn't understand what's going on, which doesn't seem to be the case.

Honestly, the only evidence I can think of that's at all relevant is that he doesn't notice Inara's feelings for him, which is not all that hard to imagine -- he is a bit biased in that regard, and she is doing her Companion-trained best to hide them.

I'm not all that worried whether or not you agree.

It's not so much whether I agree, but whether some of your positions are defensible at all.

The Avengers

[Tetsujin]

I have no idea what the Avengers are but you had me at Summer Glau ;)

Think the 1960s Batman show on a good day, but slightly less goofy, and with spies instead of Batman and Robin.

I wasn't clear which Avengers he was remaking, either. I remember when the other Avengers movie came out and I was like, "Oh, gonna be some Marvel Super Heroes in here..." and it was British spies instead... And then this story comes up and I'm like, "What, they're doing The Avengers again??" and it turns out to be the Marvel one... Darn this ambiguity!

Re:The Avengers

[DarksideDaveOR]

Ah, right, the OTHER Avengers movie... one of the few movies that even the presence of Sean Connery couldn't redeem.

The TV series, on the other hand, is worth a look.

But he has a -soul-!

[Tetsujin]

Well, technically, they also lost their soul upon becoming a vampire

You know, this is one bit of Buffy that has really stuck with me: the fact that Angel had a soul was always this big distinguishing feature of his character, but I've come to apply it to any similar characters in other shows... The mysterious hard-edged "pretty-boy" who winds up as an on-again, off-again torrid romance with a leading character...

Dylan McKay? He has a soul.
Edward Cullen? He has a soul, too. I mean, maybe he doesn't, but he clearly fits the pattern.

The fact that these characters have souls means that they're subject to the usual relevant statements plucked from Buffy history...

"Don't you understand? He has a soul!"
Admittedly, these are more often interjected by myself rather than present in the shows themselves...

Re:death penalty

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, when I saw this headline, I was really hoping for a remake of the 60s TV show... oh well :(

Did somebody say "Matt Damon"?

[Tetsujin]

He filmed Tropic Thunder before he hit it big again with the first Iron Man. If you look at everything he's made since then, it's all been big-budget stuff. He only did the lower-budget/indie stuff when his career was on the skids. Downey isn't a conscientious actor like a Matt Damon

MAATT DAAAAAYYYYYMON!

Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me guess Ms. Marvel will be struggling with how difficult life is for her and at the end she has to save Thor, Cap, and Iron Man from some monster. Can't wait to see Thor, God of Thunder, cowering in the corner, because as we know men are not as cool as women to Joss.

Counting on fingers...

[Tetsujin]

Maaaaaaaybe...

NO WAIT!

try counting to 1025 with just your fingers.

That's easy!

I mean, it seems you're assuming we could only go up to 1023 (2 ^ 10 - 1) - but each finger has three knuckles. Even if you can't necessarily work them all independently, there's no reason you couldn't do at least base three on your fingers - so you should be able to go all the way up to 59048 (3 ^ 10 - 1)...

Re:Counting on fingers...

[Monkeedude1212]

You win!

Re:Counting on fingers...

[eviloverlordx]

but each finger has three knuckles

Really? Have you looked at your thumbs lately?

Re:Counting on fingers...

[Tetsujin]

but each finger has three knuckles

Really? Have you looked at your thumbs lately?

Thumb's still got enough knuckles for base 3. And it's not a finger, it's a thumb.

Re:death penalty

[UnxMully]

OOps, should have read the article, and not just posted before reading. This is Avengers, the Marvel Comic series, not The Avengers, the 1961-1969 British TV series.

Bugger, I already had a picture in my mind of a Joss Whedon Steed and sidekick so the fact that it it's not those Avengers comes as something of a disappointment. I think he does quirky humour well enough that he'd have mad a decent fist of it, unlike the abomination that is the 1998 version.

How about a "Justice Friends" movie?

[Tetsujin]

All this talk of who could play Thor has got me thinking of how Val Hallen, the Viking God of Rock, really needs some justice... Oh, and Monkey! Monkey kicked ass!

possibilities

[TRRosen]

Will this mean Felicia Day as the Scarlet Witch?!

Re:death penalty

[panda]

Ah, thanks for that.... I was worried for a minute.

done in 1998 and failed

[peter303]

How many TV-to-movie sequels can one make?

Joss isn't a movies guy.

[Fantastic Lad]

In a film, you re-tell the myth of the hero. Superman, (from the 70's) did this really well; the origin story for Superman is wonderful! Doing sequels at two-year intervals, however, are little hard to get into because it's really the same story; "Bad guys try, but Superman is unstoppable. And he's lonely. The end." The second Superman movie managed to be a lot of fun by side-stepping this limitation, but still, there's only a limited number of times you can run through the basic myth. Though, as a long-running set of episodic stories. . . Superman gets interesting when you start to explore his personal relationships over many episodes. I remember "Lois & Clark" was really quite solid. Joss Whedon could have a field day with that!

Batman is also a great myth we like to hear told over and over. Though the latest film turned me right off. It was just too violent; it made me feel sick. Either I'm growing more empathic in my old age, or Hollywood is regressing further into savagery. Some of both, I suspect.

I liked the first X-Men film, and even enjoyed the cinematic travesty which was the third one, probably because it felt exactly like reading a bunch of random comics about the X-Men. Jumbled, but contained somehow by the larger idea.

Joss Whedon's X-Men comic was pretty awesome, though it was written in movie-format rather than as a long-running story. It was even drawn like a story-boarded screen play, which I thought really hurt it. The artwork, while technically gorgeous, was far too static. It felt like I was looking at series of paintings rather than a comic book. I missed the awesome dynamism of the Chris Claremont/John Byrne days. But the writing was fantastic! What a story!

Though, it would have been a rotten read for anybody coming to the X-Men fresh. It's only when you are already immersed in the X-Men universe, when all the characters are already well-established in the reader's mind that Joss's writing on that book worked.

I think Joss Whedon is at his best in TV when he can develop characters over a long period. But then. . , I suppose, everybody knows who the characters are in the Avengers, so maybe he can pull it off. Still. . , I'd be much happier renting a DVD set with a season of Joss Whedon's Avengers.

Oh, and I thought Ironman was very well-produced and technically well-written formula crap. Which shouldn't bother me, because the whole idea with a comic-book movie is that we already know the story going in. Maybe it's because Robert Downey Jr. puts me to sleep. I don't know why that is, exactly. Maybe because he mumbles too much? Maybe because he looks kind of stoned on anti-depressants all the time? Whatever the case, I can't relate to that shell of a man at all.

Why does everybody like that guy so much? Maybe because half of America is on Paxol or some other lithium drug themselves and they CAN relate to him. Whatever.

-FL

Now all it needs is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Summer Glau.

Nathan Fillion/Felicia Day/Eliza Dushku/Summer Gla

[twoblink]

Basically, Joss is going to throw these 4 people in, and we are going to watch it, because, we are stupid nerds that:
1) Thinks anything with Nathan Fillion is going to be good.
2) WOW fans have wet dreams about Felicia Day. They think a girl that plays MMORPG's, and is a math major, and white as a vampire, is attractive.
3) non-WOW nerds have wet dreams about Eliza Dushku. (Go Toros!!!)
4) Summer Glau will clean up the rest of the pedophile-make-believe guys..

BTW.. if you hated Firefly, you probably overpaid in taxes.. Both are signs of stupidity..

Re:death penalty

[Fred_A]

I have no idea what the Avengers are but you had me at Summer Glau ;)

I don't have the faintest idea who Summer Glau is but The Avengers had Emma Peel (interpreted by Diana Riggs) and nothing more needs to be said.

*Whew* what a relief!

[DerekLyons]

When I read the summary, I thought they meant the real Avengers and all I could think was how bad he'd mangle it.

Re:death penalty

[bugs2squash]

Even Diana Rigg was no Honor Blackman. Talk about pussy galore.

Willow [Re:The [real] Avengers had...]

[Geoffrey.landis]

The world is divided into two groups, the Willow devotees and those who cannot admit to themselves that they are Willow devotees.

I suppose Willow was ok for a pre-LoTR fantasy movie, but I hardly imagine there are really a lot of devotees. Interesting for featuring Val Kilmer, I guess. Actually, I can barely remember it.

Re:Willow [Re:The [real] Avengers had...]

[H0p313ss]

The world is divided into two groups, the Willow devotees and those who cannot admit to themselves that they are Willow devotees.

I suppose Willow was ok for a pre-LoTR fantasy movie, but I hardly imagine there are really a lot of devotees. Interesting for featuring Val Kilmer, I guess. Actually, I can barely remember it.

Should I assume that you're in the denial group then?

Sumperman sucks

[TiggertheMad]

Doing sequels at two-year intervals, however, are little hard to get into because it's really the same story; "Bad guys try, but Superman" is unstoppable.

This is exactly why I hate Superman: He is an incredibly boring character. He is physical unstoppable, indestructible, and he has no real character flaws. The only thing that can hurt him is a incredibly rare element that everybody and their brother has access to, can make, or trips over while walking along a beach.

Of course any sequels to the origin myth are going to be problematic: The character itself is a mess, with no really development arc.

Re:death penalty

[mjwx]

I like Summer Glau on firefly but...

. Summer Glau for the female sidekick? (More of a Purdy than a Mrs Peel, I think, but she can do a good bad English accent and beat people up, so what's not to like).

If this was Victoria's day, your head would be put on a pike for suggesting that horrible, shrill accent she did in Firefly could be considered "English".

Good day to you sir.

which avengers?

[Nyder]

The question is, which Avengers? Old school 70's? Crappy 80's? Sucky 90's? Or the reboot they've since then?

I'm down with some original avengers. That would be cool.

And what would be even cooler? If they didn't put it in modern day, but set the time like back in the 70's.