Joss Whedon

Let’s be honest. In the decades they’ve existed, superheroes have been done to death. Ideas have been recycled countless times. We’ve seen heroes “die” and return over and over again (I’m looking at you, Captain America), identities change, and on and on. It’s starting to seem a bit like a cheesy daytime soap opera—and that’s without scratching the surface of the new wave of superhero cinema in the last decade, this generation’s the Good (The Dark Knight), the Bad (Daredevil), and the Ugly (The Fantastic Four).

And so we come to The Avengers. Of course it was bound to happen. They are Marvel’s most famous team of superheroes, headlined by Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor. Their rich history in comics dates back to their debut in 1963, and now they are entering a new medium: that of the blockbuster summer movie. By the time The Avengers is released, we will have seen Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, and two chapters of the Iron Man franchise hit the silver screen. All three of these films will contain elements steering us toward the debut of The Avengers.

The challenge of The Avengers film is threefold. First, the film will need to put a fresh face on our heroes, updating them for a new generation. This while still being faithful to the Marvel Universe, its rich history, and its legions of fans. Lastly, there’s the Hollywood connection: on top of pleasing longtime fans of the comic books, Marvel Studios needs at the same time to appeal to a mass moviegoing audience. And that’s just the public relations side—we haven’t even touched the multimillion dollar budget and the star-studded cast that has to be contended with.

Since the project was announced back in 2005, names rumored for the job of directing The Avengers have included Iron Man director Jon Favreau, Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk), Kenneth Branagh (Thor), Joe Johnston (Captain America: The First Avenger), and Zak Penn (initial scribe forThe Avengers).

And then came San Diego Comic-Con 2010, and the announcement that rocked the comic book movie universe. The director of The Avengers would be Joss Whedon.

Reaction was swift and varied, ranging from the unabashedly thrilled: “I’m on the floor, choking on happiness, while my brain is simultaneously imploding and exploding with disbelief and rapture” (EW.com’s Darren Franich); to the less optimistic, like that of Iann Robinson, Craveonline.com: “The Avengers is a film where even a seasoned veteran of a mammoth production could be taxed to his limits. So far Whedon has done nothing that proves he can handle that kind of pressure.”

So the question is, what drove Marvel Studios to entrust what is possibly their largest moneymaking tentpole of the decade to Joss Whedon, of all people? And even more importantly, could it possibly have been the right decision?

Whedon’s movie credentials are admittedly thin. He’s only made a few feature films, none of them blockbusters, and most of his writing and directing experience comes from television, where his recent series have an unfortunate habit of being prematurely cancelled.

So why Whedon?

I would contend that there are six reasons why he’s the perfect man for the job.

1) Serenity

To understand the importance of Joss Whedon’s Hollywood directing debut, you’ve first got to understand how it came about.

Following the successes of both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff series Angel, Whedon’s space-western series Firefly found a home on the Fox Television Network, premiering in September 2002, with a cast featuring Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Monica Baccarin, Alan Tudyk, Summer Glau, and Adam Baldwin. Less than four months later, after airing only 11 of the 14 produced episodes (many out of their original order), Fox cancelled the series due to low ratings and flagging viewership.

By the next year, the film rights had been purchased by Universal Pictures. Scripted by Whedon as a continuation of the TV series and featuring the return of all nine major cast members, the film was in front of cameras by mid-2004. The film was Whedon’s first foray into feature film directing. It opened to a $10 million weekend at the box office, with an eventual total of $38.8 million earned. Strong DVD sales also boosted the reputation of the film.

From a technical filmmaking standpoint, Serenity is quite an achievement. The typical budget for a film on par with Serenity is $100 million, and the usual length of a shoot is 80 days. Whedon arranged to shoot his film with a budget of $40 million and a shooting schedule of 50 days. In those 50 days, he produced what was arguably a tentpole caliber science fiction film with half the usual budget and 60% of the typical time allotted to such a project.

From a storytelling point of view, Serenity is a masterstroke. It’s hard enough to produce a quality Hollywood film, but to produce one with the unique constraint of being born from a TV series—and thus one that had to satisfy fans of the original series and while appealing to an audience unfamiliar with the film’s origins—upped the ante considerably. According to critical reaction to the film, Whedon managed to do just that. The film has an 81% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while Ebert and Roeper gave it two thumbs up.

The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis wrote:

“It probably isn’t fair to Joss Whedon’s ‘Serenity’ to say that this unassuming science-fiction adventure is superior in almost every respect to George Lucas’s aggressively more ambitious Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith... Mr. Whedon isn’t aiming to conquer the pop culture universe with a branded mythology; he just wants us to hitch a ride to a galaxy far, far away and have a good time. The journey is the message, not him.”

What’s important to realize here is that making Serenity gave Whedon an experience he’ll very likely be drawing from as he molds a vision of The Avengers world. He now understands what it takes to move from one entertainment medium to another (an experience that he’s also had with Buffy Season 8), and that knowledge will be key as he bringsThe Avengers from the page to the screen. Creative control (to a degree) matters, and forThe Avengers, the question was how much actual control Whedon would have. In an interview given a few months after his involvement was announced, he spoke on this very same issue. “There are definitely stipulations and restrictions, but Kevin Feige is very active as a producer and worked with me a lot on the story, but they are absolutely honoring the fact that this is my film.” Whedon Has Cracked the Comics Code

2) He’s Cracked the Comics Code

One of the great challenges of translating comic books to the big screen is finding people who understand the source material that is being drawn from. The characters of The Avengers do not belong simply to the filmmaking universe, to be done with as Hollywood wills. There’s a history that exists independent of the silver screen, a history of stories and incarnations, artists and writers and characters that must be respected. If it’s not, things tend to go south quickly. Luckily, Whedon has substantial experience in the comic book field to bring to the making of this film. Perhaps more important, however, is his experience translating his stories between the screen and the panel.

His first foray into comics came with Fray, a future-set spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which hit shelves for an eight-issue run in 2001. Soon after this, he (like many of the series’ writers) contributed stories to the Tales of the Slayers anthology. At this time, he was also scripting the storyline for the Tales of the Vampires five-issue miniseries.

Whedon returned to comics in 2005, writing the inaugural six-issue arc of Astonishing X-Men. Interestingly enough, a key story element in the first arc, Gifted—the invention of a mutant cure—was reused as a major plot point in the film X-Men 3: The Last Stand. He would continue to write the X-Men series through issue 24, after which Warren Ellis took over.

During this time, he was also handpicked by Runaways scribe Brian K. Vaughan (who left the series after four years and 42 issues) to secede him in writing duties on the series. Whedon picked up Runaways in Volume 8, entitled Dead End Kids, writing issues #25-30.

Whedon has also continued three of his television series in comic book form: Serenity (Better Days and Those Left Behind), Buffy (Season 8), and Angel (After the Fall).

What does all this tell us about Joss Whedon and the world of comics? Quite a bit. First off, Whedon clearly has a healthy respect for other creators and writers. His work on both Runaways and Astonishing X-Men makes that clear. He took the time to understand and respect the work of those who came before him, while still developing his own concurrent vision for the series he worked on. That’s bound to come in handy when you’ve got almost 50 years of Avengers history to build your film on.

3) He Stays Grounded

Vampires. Slayers. Space cowboys. Superheroes. Demons. “Dolls”. The stories and characters of Joss Whedon have never really restricted themselves to what we might consider the “real world.” Not that that’s a bad thing, but the question that arises is this: if his stories are about such outlandish things, how does a writer like Whedon produce shows that resonate so much with so many people? It’s a bit of a paradox, really. One only has to cast a quick look around inside (and outside) the pop culture bubble to see the truth of that. There are thousands of unauthorized books, essays, and academic papers concerning Whedon’s work, with titles like Faith and Choice in the Works of Joss Whedon, Blood Relations: Chosen Families in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and Sex and the Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan. Within the last few years, even colleges have gotten on board, offering courses that study everything from morality to feminism in the Buffyverse.

But that still doesn’t fully answer the question why? Why do these stories of vampires and werewolves, spaceships and demons, work so well? In truth, it comes back to a deceptively simple starting point: group dynamism. Each of Joss Whedon’s television series centers around a group of people and the dynamics within said group. Everything else grows out of it. From Buffy and Angel to Firefly and Dollhouse, the central conceit of Whedon’s shows has always been the characters and their interactions, which is why they work.

Think about it. Buffy was, at its core, a show about the “horrors” of high school. People get it, identify with it, not because Buffy is a Slayer, but because she’s a realistic person. She has real friends in her life, and real enemies. Betrayal, lust, hatred, love, friendship…these are all real things, espoused in the relationships of Buffy and her friends. In the Season Six finale, when Dark Willow is on the verge of destroying Sunnydale and the world out of rage and heartbreak, what is it that stops her? Not Buffy brandishing a stake or a blade. Instead, it was Xander, her oldest friend, telling her a story about the day they met and a yellow crayon. It was about love between two best friends holding the very world together.

Similarly, you don’t buy into Angel because he’s a 240 year-old vampire living in a corrupt city, surrounded by demons. You buy into it because he’s a man on a mission of redemption—a man for whom things don’t always work out.

Similarly, you won’t buy into The Avengers because they dress up in cool costumes, or fly… or because one of them is the Norse god of thunder. It will only work if the characters and their interactions with one another seem genuine to the audience. In a group like The Avengers, it’s no secret that everything is most definitely not coming up roses on a regular basis. Whedon himself is no stranger to the fact that the world he’s entering is far from idyllic—and that’s a good thing. In an interview with i09 at Comic Con 2010, he had this to say about the central conceit of Avengers:

“It makes no sense, it’s ridiculous. There’s a thunder god, there’s a green “Id” giant rage monster, there’s Captain America from the ‘40s, there’s Tony Stark who definitely doesn’t get along with anybody. Ultimately these people don’t belong together and the whole movie is about finding yourself from community. And finding that you not only belong together but you need each other, very much. Obviously this will be expressed through punching but it will be the heart of the film.” Whedon Is a Team Player

4) He’s a Team Player

Television is not a game that can be played solo, anyone can tell you that. A series’ success or failure depends on the men and women that work alongside the creator/director in the writers’ room and elsewhere. Time and again, Whedon has proven his mettle as a master team-builder, and as a man who recognizes talent and isn’t afraid to utilize it. He has a reputation for working with the same people over and over again, but it seems logical—if it’s not broken, why fix it? David Fury (Buffy, Angel, Lost, 24) and Marti Noxon (Buffy, Private Practice, Point Pleasant, Mad Men) are two of the best-known Whedon collaborators. This time around, he will be sharing writing duties with Zak Penn (X2, X-Men: The Last Stand) As the film has only started filming as of the date of this article’s publication, it’s still somewhat unknown who else Whedon will be working with behind the scenes. Still, based on his track record, we can rest assured that the choices he makes will only add to the strength of the overall production.

On a similar note, Whedon is known for building his shows around ensemble casts. From the beginning of his television career, each of his shows has been constructed not as star vehicles, but as ensemble efforts. This mentality is key in approaching The Avengers, as there’s no room to play favorites here. The Avengers is by its very definition an ensemble piece, and anyone ignorant of or opposed to that fact wouldn’t be able to make the film great. Whedon, on the other hand, understands this perfectly, and so is in his element here.

5) He Plays by the Rules

Any good writer understands that his or her audience is not stupid. In connection with this comes the knowledge that regardless of what kind of world you create, that world has rules that need to be followed. A surefire way to alienate any audience is to bend or break the reality you’re showing them in service of convoluted plot or anything else. We’ve seen this across the sci-fi/fantasy genre: TV’s Heroes and their constant resurrection of once-dead characters; the comic book “death” of Captain America (which lasted less than a year), the faux death of Batman. Toying with your chosen reality this way is a surefire method to leave the audience feeling cheated and disconnected from the story you’re trying to tell. Why? Because it breaks the rules previously set down in your universe (by yourself or others) and the story becomes insincere and hollow. Whedon is a writer who understands this trap, and saves himself from it by not having overwhelming reverence for his characters. They’re real people. Real people change. Real people die. Real things happen to them—and real things don’t just disappear because they’re not convenient. In the Whedonverse, as in the real world, actions have consequences.

Billy Wilder said that “In the first act of the story you put your character up in a tree and the second act you set the tree on fire and then in the third you get him down.” Whedon certainly seems to appreciate this mentality—half the time, not all his characters make it down from the tree alive, and that’s a good thing. Today’s writers and filmmakers often try to play it safe, exempting their leads from any semblance of real danger. Trouble is, if we can rest comfortably, certain that the outcome of the story will be all peaches and cream, who cares what happens along the way? So what if our heroes are in danger? They’ll be fine in the end, right? There’s no such thing as that kind of assurance when the story comes from the pen of Joss Whedon. As exemplified throughout his tales, he’s got no qualms about doing whatever needs to be done in order to keep the story genuine. This isn’t to say that we’re going to see an Avengers film where all our heroes end up in body bags, but it’s doubtful the film will be a by-the-numbers superhero flick, and that’s a good thing, too.

6) He’s Got Style

Joss Whedon is no Michael Bay. Thank goodness for that. An Avengers film made with a “bigger is better” mentality is the last thing we need.

Whedon knows that if you can’t help the audience understand your characters, then nothing that happens to them will matter at all. You can have as many CGI explosions as you want, but if nobody cares who makes it out alive at the end, they’re nothing more than pretty lights and sounds.

When Serenity hit the screens, several critics commented on what they saw as the “simplistic” style of Whedon’s directing work. After he was named director of The Avengers, some have raised the similar objection that Whedon won’t be able to handle such a large scale project, because the majority of his experience comes from the world of relatively low-budget television. On the contrary, it can be argued that his background in television will help the production substantially. The mentality of television—less is more, because it has to be—will keep Whedon from getting power-drunk and using the budget he has just because he has it.

“Right now I’m working on a movie that’s got enormous stipulations and is going to be changing and fluid every second. I’ve come up with dozens of scenes and lines and exchanges and monologues that I adore that are not going to be in it. But while I’m writing them they feed me, excite me and they ultimately inform the character. It all goes in.” says Whedon of the script.

We’ve got to remember that even though he’s never done a film quite on this scale before, he’s no novice writer or director. He knows what makes a good story, and he knows how to show it to his audience.

While on the set of Serenity, Whedon was asked a question about the differences between television and movies, and his answer was quite telling.

“In TV the attitude is: ‘Tell me what we have and we’ll build around that,’” says Whedon. “Feature filmmaking seems more like, ‘Give me everything and then I’ll choose.’” So what might his choices be?

Come May 2012,we’ll know for sure.